removes the only effectual restraints upon those wicked and ferocious propensities which, if allowed to operate without control, would soon render individuals abandoned and wretched, and society a chaos of confusion and crime; there seems to be no exaggeration in the strong description of an American writer :-"Only let the unalloyed principles of common infidelity be generally diffused, and appetite would impart to men the resemblance of the swine, and passion of the tiger; the earth would become one vast den, one immeasurable sty, and the brutes themselves would be degraded by a comparison with its miserable inhabitants."

THE ONLY SAFEGUARD FROM TEMPTATION IS CHRISTIANITY;—an assertion which can be easily and triumphantly established.

Temptation would never be formidable, if there were not dispositions in the mind which admit its influence-traitors in the citadel of the heart, which secretly give entrance to the foe. Now that disposition of mind which beyond all others imparts facility and success to the operations of external temptation, is pride. This is the root of the evil—this is the very concentration of the danger within. Pride induces self-confidence -self-confidence, a false security-and false security, ruin. In humility alone, there is safety. But nothing teaches true humility, by which we mean a sense of absolute deficiency in the view of infinite greatness and excellence, but Christianity. One of the master-spirits of modern times has truly remarked, "That sense of inferiority which results from the comparison of men with each other, is often a disagreeable sentiment forced upon the mind, which may rather embitter the temper than soften it;" but that which Christianity impresses, in the manner we have described, is soothing and delightful, as well as permanent and real. In the august presence of the Creator, we see all distinctions lost, and all vanity annihilated; and that conviction of superiority, which by men of intellectual refinement and power must often be felt when they mix in common society, becomes a calm inference of the understanding, and is no longer a busy, importunate, self-inflating, and therefore dangerous passion of the heart.

It is beautifully as well as truly remarked by the greatest of our Scottish metaphysicians, that pride is the distinctive temper of sciolists, as well as the infallible indication of inevitable destruction. One of the best and most certain results of knowledge-of true (Christian) knowledge, he says, is to "demonstrate to us the deficiency of our faculties, and the limitation of our researches; and the further in knowledge we proceed, the nearer we feel ourselves to be approaching the line which bounds our boldest as well as our noblest investigations, and in advancing to which we hear a more than mortal voice exclaiming to us, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." As then Christianity is the only preservative against pride, constituting the sole agency by which the mind is brought into useful, delightful, and universal contact with the Deity, Christianity is the only safeguard against temptation.

If we take another, and a yet more important view of the subject, we shall be conducted with irresistible force to the same important conclu

habitual intemperance. Few of our readers, we opine, are like the Spartan children, who require to be deterred from such brutalities as these, by the antics of drunken and despicable Helots. We are not now writing for persons abandoned to hopeless depravity, and lost to the sense of shame. We refer to the temptations which are the most formidable, because they are not only the least revolting, but appear in the most alluring and treacherous forms-like the environs of the whirlpool displaying only the rippling of the wave which ruffles the placid surface of the sea, while the unwary navigator is unconsciously hurried to the vortex of ruin-or like the fabled apples said by the old crusaders to grow on the dismal shores of the sea of death, attractive by their colours of exquisite beauty, but inwardly full of putrescence and poison.

These are the temptations to which the young men of the present day are particularly exposed, and never were these temptations so elaborately formidable. To aid their effect, the embellishments of art, and sometimes the achievements of science, are infamously prostituted. The charms of poetry, the melodies of music, the fascinations of painting, the adornments of sculpture, the energy of eloquence, the brightest brilliance of genius, the highest faculties of intellect, are all actively employed to overwhelm the power of moral principle, to lull conscience to sleep, to dazzle and then to pervert the true perception of reason, to entice the unwary into the domain of the fell destroyer, and to render smooth, pleasant, unsuspected, and flowery, the path that conducts to remediless perdition and despair.

To deliver from the influence of such insidious temptations as these, what is called virtue, is inadequate, because virtue is the intended victim; it is the power or the principle (we stop not for the most appropriate term) which is to be seduced, to be subdued, and then to be destroyed: this unaided virtue, then, cannot be the safeguard. Mere reason is inadequate, because its voice is continually either stifled amidst the clamour of the passions, or won to the side of evil by treacherous and fatal error. Abstract morality is inadequate, because, irrespective of revealed religion, it has no fixed, definite principles. Philosophy is inadequate, because the very stretch to which its researches put the faculties, frequently induces a reaction which opens the widest avenues to the admission of evil; and thus it is often seen that those who are philosophically the wisest, are morally the worst. And, above all, infidelity, notwithstanding its arrogant pretensions and vociferous vauntings, is inadequate, because it lets loose the worst passions of the human heart, and because upon its principles, man is the subject of no moral government he is unsusceptible of moral obligation-he is endowed with attributes, which, like himself, are the offspring of either necessity or chance-and he is born only to eat, to drink, to sleep, to please himself by sensual indulgences, to sicken, to decay, and to die. And since infidelity, by denying the existence of a future state, explodes the only adequate sanctions which can enforce the regulations of any moral government whatever; since it thus renders it a mere matter of contingency whether there be any moral rectitude at all; since it thus

removes the only effectual restraints upon those wicked and ferocious propensities which, if allowed to operate without control, would soon render individuals abandoned and wretched, and society a chaos of confusion and crime; there seems to be no exaggeration in the strong description of an American writer:-"Only let the unalloyed principles of common infidelity be generally diffused, and appetite would impart to men the resemblance of the swine, and passion of the tiger; the earth would become one vast den, one immeasurable sty, and the brutes themselves would be degraded by a comparison with its miserable inhabitants."

THE ONLY SAFEGUARD FROM TEMPTATION IS CHRISTIANITY ;—an assertion which can be easily and triumphantly established.

Temptation would never be formidable, if there were not dispositions in the mind which admit its influence-traitors in the citadel of the heart, which secretly give entrance to the foe. Now that disposition of mind which beyond all others imparts facility and success to the operations of external temptation, is pride. This is the root of the evil-this is the very concentration of the danger within. Pride induces self-confidence -self-confidence, a false security-and false security, ruin. In humility alone, there is safety. But nothing teaches true humility, by which we mean a sense of absolute deficiency in the view of infinite greatness and excellence, but Christianity. One of the master-spirits of modern times has truly remarked, "That sense of inferiority which results from the comparison of men with each other, is often a disagreeable sentiment forced upon the mind, which may rather embitter the temper than soften it;" but that which Christianity impresses, in the manner we have described, is soothing and delightful, as well as permanent and real. In the august presence of the Creator, we see all distinctions lost, and all vanity annihilated; and that conviction of superiority, which by men of intellectual refinement and power must often be felt when they mix in common society, becomes a calm inference of the understanding, and is no longer a busy, importunate, self-inflating, and therefore dangerous passion of the heart.

It is beautifully as well as truly remarked by the greatest of our Scottish metaphysicians, that pride is the distinctive temper of sciolists, as well as the infallible indication of inevitable destruction. One of the best and most certain results of knowledge of true (Christian) knowledge, he says, is to "demonstrate to us the deficiency of our faculties, and the limitation of our researches; and the further in knowledge we proceed, the nearer we feel ourselves to be approaching the line which bounds our boldest as well as our noblest investigations, and in advancing to which we hear a more than mortal voice exclaiming to us, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." As then Christianity is the only preservative against pride, constituting the sole agency by which the mind is brought into useful, delightful, and universal contact with the Deity, Christianity is the only safeguard against temptation.

If we take another, and a yet more important view of the subject, we shall be conducted with irresistible force to the same important conclu

sion. Christianity alone exhibits the turpitude and guilt inseparable from moral transgressions. It is one of the peculiar characteristics of that system which is opposed to it—that vaunting would-be guardian of public and private virtue—that it attempts to throw a shade of complete extenuation over every species of moral delinquency. Thus Hobbes declared that it is lawful to do and to get whatever we can with impunity-thus Lord Herbert declared that the gratification of anger and lust is as allowable as the satisfaction of hunger and thirst—thus Hume declares that adultery is a slight offence when known, and that when it is secret, it is no crime at all. It is useless to proceed with similar quotations. But Christianity presents to us moral transgressions precisely as they are with respect to God, not only irrational and ungrateful rebellion, but fearful practical Atheism—and with respect to his creatures, the defacing of his image, the pollution of his temple, the desecration of his shrine, the withering of the high and ennobling talents which he has given, the degradation and often the blasting of the intellect he has inspired, the infliction of an unparalleled curse upon the society of man, and the diffusion of a deadly pestilence throughout the intelligent world. Nor is this all; Christianity displays moral evil in its tremendous connection with the decisions of a future state-so that with the endless and awful vista of eternity in view, along which the undying spirit is to move in an interminable progression of ever-increasing blessedness or ever-accumulating woe, the object of temptation is induced to attach appalling and invincible emphasis to the exclamation of the young man in Scripture, placed in circumstances similar to his own, when he cried, "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" Are we not right, then, when we speak of Christianity as the only safeguard against temptation?

The limits of a single paper will not permit us to proceed any further now, although, as our argument is necessarily cumulative, our most cogent representations are yet untouched- -representations derived from the moral and intellectual influences of Christianity-its precepts and motives as they refer to the world without, and the world within-the lovely, and cheerful, and really happy spirit by which it is pervaded, and which it communicates, —its adaptation to the condition of the masses, as well as the individuals of mankind,—and the sanctions by which its maxims and principles are enforced.

At present we must be content by declaring our heartfelt and indestructible attachment, upon the ground occupied in this brief paper, as well as for countless reasons besides, to the system of the Christian religion that system, which, in the words of one of the most eloquent and unprejudiced writers of the age, constitutes "the final centre of repose; the goal to which all things tend; which gives to time all its importance, to eternity all its glory; apart from which man is a shadow, his very existence a riddle, and the stupendous scenes which surround him, as incoherent and unmeaning as the leaves which the Sybil scattered in the wind."

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.—II.

PROPERTIES OF MATTER.

Ir is necessary to understand the properties of matter, and the states and conditions in which it exists, before entering upon the laws which govern that matter, and the beautiful arrangements and regulations upon which the harmony and order of the world depends. Heat, light, and electricity are only known by their effects; they are perfectly imponderable, and do not possess substance ;-every thing else in nature is matter, whether it be the limpid and beautiful air we breathe, or the solid ground upon which we tread-the most attenuated gas, hydrogen, is as essentially matter in the eye of the chemist as the most dense of all the metals, platinum. We are too apt to associate the term matter with those bodies which are only solid and tangible, and to look upon all gases and aëriform fluids as immaterial; but we shall see, presently, that all substances possessing certain properties, must of necessity be matter.

Matter exists in three states or conditions, the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous; and these states are solely dependent upon temperature. If we take a piece of ice and expose it either to the natural heat of the sun, or to the artificial warmth of the hand or fire, the ice leaves its first or solid state, and enters into its second or liquid condition; if a stronger heat is now applied, we have steam produced, which is matter in its gaseous form. This is a familiar though beautiful example of matter existing in three separate states, and not only this, but also that those conditions are entirely regulated by the excrements of heat entering to a greater or less extent among these individual parts. Thus we can easily conceive that the very rocks could be melted were a sufficient heat applied, and actually pass off in vapour; and, on the other hand, the very atmosphere would become first liquid, and then solid, could the temperature be depressed sufficiently.

Having thus glanced at the conditions in which matter exists, we must proceed to speak of its general properties, and, first, its indestructibility. Strange and paradoxical as it may appear, matter, as far as human agency is concerned, is perfectly indestructible. If we take a piece of paper and ignite it, and then hold a clean dry glass over the flame, the glass which a moment ago was clear and transparent, is now wet and opaque, and on examination we find that water in the form of dew has been deposited on its surface. Now proceeds the question, "whence did this water arise?" It must be from the burning paper in contact with the atmosphere. The hydrogen of the paper has united with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and produced water; while another portion of the oxygen has united with the carbon of the paper, and formed an invisible gas called carbonic acid. We see, then, that when we are apparently destroying matter, we are only raising up its constituents in new and different forms. The coals we burn, which are "the wreck of those forests whose branches waved over the surface of