former dominion; but by each advantage that is achieved over them, their power will be broken, and finally destroyed. Now in all this contest towards the purity of the moral being, each step is no less a process of the mind itself than the downward course by which it was preceded. It consists in a surrender of the will to the suggestions of conscience, and a habitual direction of the attention to those truths which are calculated to act upon the moral volitions. In this course, the man feels that he is authorized to look for a might and an influence not his own. This is no imaginary or mysterious impression, which one may fancy that he feels, and then pass on contented with the vision; but a power which acts through the healthy operations of his own mind; it is in his own earnest exertions, as a rational being, to regulate these operations, that he is encouraged to expect its communication; and it is in feeling these assuming the characters of moral health, that he has the proof of its actual presence. And where is the improbability that the pure and holy One, who framed the wondrous moral being, may thus hold intercourse with it, and impart an influence in its hour of deepest need. According to the utmost of our conceptions, it is the highest of his works,--for he has endowed it with the power of rising to the contemplation of himself, and with the capacity of aspiring to the imitation of his own moral perfections. We cannot, for a moment, doubt, that his eye must reach its inmost movements, and that all its emotions, and desires, and volitions, are exposed to his view. We must believe that he looks with displeasure when he perceives them wandering from himself; and contemplates with approbation the contest, when the spirit strives to throw off its moral bondage, and to fight its way upwards to a conformity to his will. Upon every principle of sound philosophy, all this must be open to his inspection; and we can perceive nothing opposed to the soundest inductions of reason in the belief, that he should impart an influence to the feeble being in this high design, and conduct him to its accomplishment. In all this, in fact, there is so little improbability, that we find it impossible to suppose it could be otherwise. We find it impossible to believe, that such a mental process could go on without the knowledge of him whose presence is in every place,--or that, looking upon it, he should want either the power or the willingness to impart his effectual aid.