One of the most common-place charges which is brought against evangelical religion, is, that it has a tendency to make its possessor melancholy; and if we were to form our judgment of it from the appearance and manner of some who profess it, we should be disposed to admit its correctness. They not only abstain from all the pleasures and amusements of the social circle; but habitually wear a gloom on their countenance, which indicates a singular dejection and moroseness of spirit. But this dejection of spirit, which we may sometimes discover in a professor of evangelical religion, is not produced by his religious principles, but by his sense of personal guilt, and his want of that assurance of forgiveness, which the gospel of Jesus Christ is intended to convey. He may be permitted to remain for a season, by the Holy One of Israel, whose laws he has violated, and whom he has neglected to glorify, under the sentence of self-condemnation; but when he is enabled to rely on the atonement made by Jesus Christ, and to appropriate the promise of mercy, he enjoys the peace which passeth all understanding. If then, we wish to form a correct estimate of the real tendency of evangelical truth, we must not go to the penitent sinner while he is suffering under the deep convictions of guilt, as then he is more prone to put from him the words of consolation, than to embrace them; but we must go to the established believer, who, having received the truth in the love of it, is enjoying its sacred and blissful influence. He will repel the charge as a libel on his faith, and unblushingly avow, that he never knew solid and substantial happiness till he derived it from communion with God, through the mediation of Jesus Christ, and a hope of being presented faultless in his immediate presence. And though the spirit of scepticism, which is so prevalent in all ranks of society, may ridicule such an avowal, as a delusion attempted to be practised on human credulity, yet surely no one, on reflection, can presume to say that a Christian is not competent to bear testimony to a fact of his own experience. The religious principles which he has embraced, are represented by those who have never felt their influence, as having a tendency to make their possessor melancholy; and yet he declares that he has had more mental satisfaction since he embraced them than he ever had before. Whose testimony shall we admit to be most conclusive?--the testimony of those who are entirely ignorant of the subject, or of those whose knowledge qualifies them to speak? Suppose, for example, a question to arise respecting the excellencies or defects of a piece of music, we should not venture to place any dependence on the opinion of a man who has no taste for the science. If we did, we should expose ourselves to ridicule or contempt. On such a question we should require the opinion of a competent judge; and I appeal to the sound sense of my readers,