Nor have we yet reached the end of this course of salutary reform. The administration of justice may be still more simple; and though the rules of property and of civil rights must always be numerous and complicated in a civilized community, yet this necessity furnishes a further reason why the modes of investigating truth and the rules of evidence should possess all practicable simplicity. The spirit of philosophy has been actively at work here. In some instances, perhaps, it has been too far in advance of the age, and under the influence of the pride of discovery and reform, or provoked by opposition, it may have been urged farther than reason and propriety would warrant. It has, however, arraigned the whole system of judicial evidence, and endeavored to show that the rules for the examination of contested facts are so erroneous or defective, that the truth is commonly discovered better out of court than in it; and that questions about which all the world is satisfied, when technically examined by tribunals created purposely for their investigation, either receive no answer, or a wrong one. The official expounders of the law, partaking of the liberal spirit of the age, have of late years greatly narrowed the objections to the competency of witnesses; but it is only the legislature and public opinion which are adequate to a complete reform, and they will one day assuredly bring it. There is much seeming force in many of the other objections of the reformers to the present very artificial and complicated system of jurisprudence; but whether their views are satisfactory or otherwise, they equally serve to show the prevalent disposition of men to bring all human concerns to the bar of reason, and make them submit to her decrees. There is nothing in which the progress of reason and philosophy are more shown, than in the subject of religion. A large part, perhaps I may say, the best part of religion, as it is most productive of good results, is the religion of the heart; and consists in a profound and thorough sense of the wisdom and beneficence of the Creator--of thanksgiving for the blessings he has vouchsafed to frail and humble beings like ourselves--to vigorous self-examinations by our own conscience--to fervent aspirations after moral excellence in this life, and a purer and higher state of existence hereafter. But all of these are impulses of the feelings, rather than the cold dictates of the reasoning faculty; and being dependant on the laws of our emotions, which are as unchangeable as our forms, and probably as much the result of organization, are the same in character, if not in degree, in every stage of society.