truth, from understanding of truth, from zeal for truth. It is the personal embracing of truth, the pressing it to our bosom, the taking it into our heart, the inhaling it as the breath of a new and higher life which by it begins to play within the soul. It is a waking up of mind which can never be described in words, but can only be illustrated by reference to analogous experiences. Who knows not the difference between seeing objects and paying attention to them?-Nay, between attending to objects and being personally interested in them?Nay, between being interested in them as means, and absorbed in them as ends? It has even become proverbial to speak of seeing, and yet not seeing; hearing, and yet not hearing; because there may be perception without remarking and taking notice of;—that is, without a consciousness of the perceptive act accompanying the perception and associating it with other thoughts, and thereby giving to it relation and place in our memory. Such a noticing of religious truths is the first act of a real attention. And the second is, a personal interest in them; that is, not merely a noticing, and thereby acquaintance with them, but a noticing them with reference to, and in connexion with, ourselves— our state of mind, our previously existing wants and wishes, to which they are applicable, and to which therefore we apply them. You go into a repository

of various goods; you cast a vacant glance around upon the articles that it contains; but your attention is arrested by something which "strikes you," as the phrase is, that is, which falls in with some existing train of thought, or feeling, or desire, in your mind, which, therefore, you say, suits you, will do for you, "answers" to the secret inquiry within you. And so is it with Religion. We attend to truths as we find them suitable to some existing want of our soul, we welcome them because they answer to the cravings of the inner man. that we knew more of those wants! O that we felt more strongly those cravings! So would every thought and word of Scripture be all a-glow with interest to us- 66 more to be desired than gold, yea than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb." "It has happened to myself," says a Clergyman, "that a parishioner who suddenly became ill without hope of recovery, confessed I know no more of these things than a child.'-I answered Why, you have regularly come to church, and I have spoken plainly enough to you, and you seemed to listen.'- Yes, Sir; and if you were to speak the same words now I should understand them; but, it is one thing to listen and another to heed; I wish to understand you now." -God grant to us this wish!

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But this is not all which is included in our at

tending to the things of God. For our attention is then first complete when it is concentered in and absorbed by the objects themselves to which it may be turned; when we do not merely catch at them, in our progress towards some farther end, as means that may conduce to its attainment; but when we pause upon them for their own sake, as an end gained, a truth discovered, a treasure found, which fixes every thought, and satisfies every desire. Whence it results, that where there is the most intense Attention, there is often the least Recollection; because Recollection depends upon our linking-on the new conceptions which present themselves, to others by which they are surrounded, or by which they are preceded or followed; while Attention, in its fullness, sees only one object is occupied exclusively with one single mass of thought, into which the spirit passes and becomes absorbed. This is that rapt Attention which the Psalmist speaks of when he says "I opened my mouth and drew in my breath, for my delight was in thy commandments."

And this, then, is the Attention which Religion deserves and demands. Not mere assent to certain truths, but the moving of the spirit towards those truths as bearing on our everlasting welfare. Not an outward perception only, but an inward Awakening; not an approval only but a love; not

a contemplative judgment merely, but a stirring, energizing work within the soul, which rouses the conceptions into new activity, throws them into new associations, fuses them into new masses. Indifference passing onward into Earnestness. Cold presumption melting down into fervent anxiety. Unfounded expectation becoming dashed with reasonable fears. The general ideas of God, and Christ, and sinfulness, and danger, and pardon, and obedience, and heaven, and hell, brought into particular relation to our Self- our own individual being and assuming thus a magnitude, a reality, and a solemnity, they never had before. God, in a word, confronted with our soul; and therefore, our relation to Him, dependance upon Him, obligations, negligences, and rebellions, towards Him-our whole dissimilarity from His tremendous Majesty and Holiness-flashing on us in a light, bright as the Sun at noon-day, and revealing to us at the same time the imperative necessity of some personal transaction between us and him in order to our safety and our peace. And herewith, therefore, the springing up of thoughts we never knew before; the opening of a prospect into which we never hitherto had looked; the sinking of the present and the visible before the mighty forms of spiritual objects looming in the awful distance; the throwing forth the spirit out of one world into ano

ther; the passing onward into a new hemisphere lighted by new stars, and bright with fruits and flowers before unknown.

And how then shall such attention be awakened? Whence shall we derive this new impulse towards religious truth?-The Scripture answer is-This is the work of God. For the human heart is a great mystery: it is undergoing constantly innumerable changes which we cannot fathom, still less can, of ourselves alone, produce or control. We feel, in meditating on it, as we should in looking out upon the vast expanse and never-ceasing flow of ocean; whose winds, and tides, and currents, we know to be not entirely fortuitous, but subjected to law and rule; but yet to which our influence extends not, and of which we can avail ourselves only by a watchful dexterity. Much may be done by seizing on and improving occasions, but nothing to produce them. And, just similarly,—who has absolute power over the human mind? Who can discover the secret causes of its ever-changing tides of feeling? Who can trace the various currents of its thoughts? Who can "gather in his fists" the winds that sweep across its bosom? Who can say to its troubled billows, "Thus far shalt thou go but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?" Alas! it is deceitful above all things, — who can know it but the all-wise GOD? It is fluctuating and un