authors of the burdens. This serves but to urge them on, and to awaken a feeling of sympathy on the part of others aggrieved. The feeling spreads with strange rapidity from heart to heart, until what was yesterday but the unexpressed and private sensation of individual minds, becomes acknowledged public sentiment. It runs from individual to individual; and each recognizes in the tale of hardship, that to which he has been painfully accustomed. A thousand and a thousand times has he felt the burden pressing upon him; and as often has he thought that if others felt as he did, the community would rise in its majesty and demand a change; or hurl from the seat of power those who should deny it. In the manner just hinted, this feeling of the many becomes known to the many; and then has arrived a crisis which bids defiance to the civil arm.

The simple, wonder at the result before them; and can see no cause adequate to it, either in the instrumentality which led to the embodying of the public sentiment, or in any new specific form of grievance. And, indeed, there are generally-may we not say universally?—no adequate producing causes of national convulsion and revolution, unless we look for them all along the pathway of the past, perhaps for centuries. In his infinite mercy, God has so constituted the laws which govern the public mind and bind the social compact, that no ambitious. spirit can "overturn and overturn" the nations at its pleasure. It is his revealed prerogative to do this. Were it otherwise, our world would be a vast theatre of change and confusion. A train of unobtrusive causes, extending beyond the precincts of a single generation,

must be at work before revolution can pass upon a nation. The tendencies to such a change must be nursed by ages. The crisis may be sudden and unlooked for ; but could we have seen the secret springs that moved the mass, we might have predicted the result with absolute certainty.

May we not, therefore, venture the hope, (is expectation too strong a term ?) that, although no striking evidences to that effect appear on the surface of heathenism, it is on the eve of an important change?

We are strongly inclined to this hope, from the proposition we assumed at the commencement of this chapter, namely, that the results of a given system of religion, are the standard by which it will be publicly judged. The correctness of this theory is much strengthened, by the confidence we have in human nature, degraded, downtrodden, and besotted as it is. We speak not of the affections, for in them we see no ray of encouragement. But amid all the degradations of fallen humanity, even of their lowest forms, we find some trace of manhood left. As the mouldering ruins of Palmyra tell of the glory of what she once was, so is there left in the human constitution that which tells of an alliance with the Divinity. Else why the restless longing of the deluded heathen to be absorbed into the divine essence after death? Why,unless there be an instinct of nobleness within,-will they forego all earthly joys, and undergo the tortures of the hook, the swing, the bed of sharpened spikes, and the burning pincers? Why,-unless there be a longing for posthumous fame, (that sad evidence of natural nobleness!) will they build the proud mausoleum, costing the wealth of a province? Why rear the proud pagoda, and

the battle-monument.

These and similar promptings

prove that there is manhood,-perverted it is true-yet left among the nations of idolatry.

sense.

We fully believe that human nature will there arise at no distant day, and assert her freedom from the bonds of delusion; simply on the ground that idolatry too grossly and obviously invades the province of common No presumption is stronger in our mind than this, that a warfare is constantly going on, in almost every heathen bosom, between common sense and idolatry. It is a libel upon humanity to suppose, that any course of education, or bias of example, can so utterly dethrone reason as that it shall not clamor loudly against the doctrines and practices of paganism. This hypothesis is founded upon fair premises, and it should not be discarded because we see no convulsive throes on the outside of pagan society. As we have already urged, great quietness may exist, to the notice of a superficial observer, while another hour may witness devastation the most awful. The great magazine of electricity in the heavens, imperceptibly passes through its process of being filled; until, becoming surcharged, it bursts in terror over our heads; and man and beast cower beneath the vivid flash and the tramping thunder.

Let private opinion among the heathen begin to speak out, and it may run with inconceivable rapidity. Our only fear is, that there is not left spirit enough to fire the train.

We rest, then, upon our original proposition, that by the fruits of a given religion it will invariably be judged.

This principle was the key-stone of the Saviour's sys

tem.

"Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?" was his interrogatory. He thus appealed in proof of the position under notice, to an obvious natural fact; one which was palpable to the dullest perception. "For the tree is known by his fruit"-he further affirmed. In accordance with this, he told the group that listened to him on the mountain-side ;-" Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your GOOD WORKS, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Here it is laid down as an axiom ;-intended to be of universal application, as is obvious from the absence of any qualifying or limiting contingency;-that by the exhibition of good works men would be led to glorify God, or in other words, to become Christians.

Practising upon this, the Saviour and his disciples made their appearance abroad, commencing the identical work now contemplated to be finished by the mission. cause. The public mind saw results and it was greatly affected. In proof of this we may, among the many records, notice a few.

"And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. Matt. 4: 23, 24, 25.

"And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, etc. Matt. 15: 30.

"And when they could not come unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay." Mark 2: 4.

It is unnecessary to quote further on this head. All who are familiar with the practice of Christ and his apostles, have been struck with the prominence given to good works as a means of spreading the true faith. We have attempted to show in another part of this volume, that the reason of such a course cannot be found simply in its attestation by miracle of the truth. As there stated, perhaps the primary object was, to show the benevolent nature of Christianity, as contrasted with false religions.

We now come, naturally, to modern facts; which show that the healing of the sick in heathen nations arrests attention, and calls forth gratitude and respect on the part of the persons benefited.

The facts we shall now present, admit of no very regular arrangement. Some of them may not appear immediately applicable to our main design. It is our object, incidentally, to give a passing view of the state of the healing art among some of the heathen nations. This explanation may make the appropriateness of some of our extracts, more evident than it otherwise would be,