amid their speculative researches and wonderous revelations, to gain wisdom from her teachings and knowledge from her precepts.  Poetry has culled her fairest flowers and wreathed her softest, to bind her Author’s “bleeding brow.”  Music has strung her sweetest lyres and breathed her noblest strains to celebrate His fame; whilst Learning has bent from her lofty heights to bow at the lowly cross.  The constant friend of man, she has stood by him in his hour of greatest need.  She has cheered the prisoner in his cell, and strengthened the martyr at the stake.  She has nerved the frail and sinking heart of woman for high and holy deeds.  The worn and weary have rested their fainting heads upon her bosom, and gathered strength from her words and courage from her counsels.  She has been the staff of decrepit age, and the joy of manhood in its strength.  She has bent over the form of lovely childhood, and suffered it to have a place in the Redeemer’s arms.  She has stood by the bed of the dying, and unveiled the glories of eternal life; gilding the darkness of the tomb with the glory of the resurrection.

Christianity has changed the moral aspect of nations.  Idolatrous temples have crumbled at her touch, and guilt owned its deformity in her presence.  The darkest habitations of earth have been irradiated with heavenly light, and the death shriek of immolated victims changed for ascriptions of praise to God and the Lamb.  Envy and Malice have been rebuked by her contented look, and fretful Impatience by her gentle and resigned manner.

At her approach, fetters have been broken, and men have risen redeemed from dust, and freed from chains.  Manhood has learned its dignity and worth, its kindred with angels, and alliance to God.

To man, guilty, fallen and degraded man, she shows a fountain drawn from the Redeemer’s veins; there she bids him wash and be clean.  She points him to “Mount Zion, the city of the living God, to an innumerable company of angels, to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant,” and urges him to rise from the degradation of sin, renew his nature and join with them.  She shows a pattern so spotless and holy, so elevated and pure, that he might shrink from it discouraged, did she not bring with her a promise from the lips of Jehovah, that he would give power to the faint, and might to those who have no strength.  Learning may bring her ample pages and her ponderous records, rich with the spoils of every age, gathered from every land, and gleaned from every source.  Philosophy and science may bring their abstruse researches and wonderous revelations—­Literature her elegance, with the toils of the pen, and the labors of the pencil—­but they are idle tales compared to the truths of Christianity.  They may cultivate the intellect, enlighten the understanding, give scope to the imagination, and refine the sensibilities; but they open not, to our dim eyes and longing vision,