ignorant multitude, reform their barbarous and abominable superstitions, and teach them that they were immortal beings, why did she not, at least, instruct their philosophers in the great doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which they so earnestly labored in vain to discover?  They enjoyed the light of reason and natural religion, in its fullest extent, yet so far were they from ascertaining the nature of our future and eternal existence, that they—­could not determine whether we should exist at all Bevon the grave; nor could all their advantages preserve them from the grossest errors, and the most unnatural crimes.

* * * * *

=_Joseph S. Buckminster, 1784-1812._= (Manual, p. 480.)

From the “Sermons.”

=_28._= NECESSITY OF REGENERATION.

Look back, my hearers, upon your lives, and observe the numerous opinions that you have adopted and discarded, the numerous attachments you have formed and forgotten, and recollect how imperceptible were the revolutions of your sentiments, how quiet the changes of your affections.  Perhaps, even now, your minds may be passing through some interesting processes, your pursuits may be taking some new direction, and your character may soon exhibit to the world some unexpected transformation.  Compare with this the spiritual regeneration of the heart.  So is every one that is born of the Spirit.  Perhaps the following may not be an imperfect description of the process that takes place in a mind which is the subject of a radical conversion.  The motion of the wind is unseen, its effects are visible; the trees bend and fields are laid waste; though the altering sentiments and affections are unnoticed, the altered character obtrudes itself upon our observation.  Truths before contemplated without concern, now seize the mind with a grasp too firm to be shaken.  The world which is to succeed the present is no longer a subject of accidental thought, of wavering belief, or lifeless speculation; a region to which no tie binds us, and which no curiosity leads us to explore.  To the regenerated mind, the character and condition of man appears in a new, and interesting light.  To a being whose existence has but just commenced, death is only a boundary, a line, that marks off the first, the smallest portion of existence.  Earth with her retinue of allurements, her band of fascinating syrens, exclaims, “We have lost our hold on this man!  He is no longer ours!” Religion welcomes her new adherent; she beckons him to turn his steps into a new,—­a pleasanter path; and God himself looks down from heaven with complacency and love, illuminating his track by the light of his countenance, marking the first step he takes in religion, and supporting him by the staff of his grace,—­the aid of his Holy Spirit.