These truths are not the visions of enthusiasm; neither are they the result of any process of reasoning, by which different men may arrive at different conclusions. They force themselves upon our conviction with a power which we cannot put away from us, when we turn our attention to the solemn inquiry, what we are, and what is God. In the sacred writings they are detailed and illustrated, in a connected and harmonious manner; and are impressed upon us with the force of a revelation from the Deity himself. But the principles there disclosed meet with an impression, in our moral constitution, which pleads with authority for their truth. It is the province of faith to keep these habitually before the mind, and to cause them to influence the feelings and the conduct, as if they were objects of sense,--as if the Deity, in all the purity of his character were actually disclosed to our view,--or as if we were present at that dread hour which shall witness his righteous retribution. The man who thus feels their power, and exhibits their influence upon his character, is he who lives by faith. When, under this mental exercise, a man brings himself into the immediate presence of the eternal One;--when he arraigns himself, as it were, before the bar of the omniscient Judge;--when he places before him that future state which stretches forth into endless existence,--a train of feelings must arise in his mind, to which he was a stranger, so long as he placidly resigned himself to the influence of sensible things. He views this being of infinite purity, as one who has been all his life the daily witness of his conduct; and feels that even the secrets of the heart have been at all times open to divine inspection. Each day, as it passed unheeded over him, was a portion gone by of his period of moral discipline; and each, as it glided amid the frivolities of life, or the active pursuit of temporal good, had its moral aspect assigned to it in the judgment of the eternal mind. Along with these impressions, which no reflecting man can put away from him, a voice within forces upon him the conviction, that, were his whole history disclosed to his fellow-men, he would, even in their estimation, be found wanting. How much more deeply must this be fixed upon his inmost soul, when he feels that the whole is, at one glance, exposed to the eye of omniscience; and that an hour is rapidly approaching, when a strict account must be rendered, and a righteous sentence pronounced, the result of which will extend into eternal existence. With these truths upon his mind, what reflecting man can view, without awe, the moment which is to close his state of moral discipline,--when, disencumbered from his earthly tenement, he shall find himself alone with God,--and there shall burst upon his astonished faculties the blaze of an endless day. These are not speculations of fancy, but eternal truth. The man who habitually acts under their influence, knows that his faith rests upon a