for that it is in reality a most satisfactory notion altogether, and one at which I need not shudder, as the preceding speaker would have me; for that the pleasant bearing of the thing is this,-That as there is no such thing as any right belonging to any one of us, and consequently no general rights for God to be the guardian of, the notion of his treating any one of us with a view to the welfare of the whole is idle; and that therefore, seeing no general interests of the universe demand to be conserved, God can, if he chooses, make us all happy, whatever we may be: and seeing he is good, we may be sure, since there is no general good to be consulted, that he will not use his arbitrary power to make us miserable, though he might do so, but will use it to secure the happiness of the entire universe; because there is no such thing as right, independently of his mere will; and in his thus resolving to make every creature happy, there could, therefore, be no impropriety.

These two men, then, wide as the whole earth asunder in all their habits, and denouncing each other in no measured terms, agree, I perceive, in one thing (as extremes do often meet,) viz. that God may do what he pleases with us all, independently of character: but the one uses the sentiment to maintain that, however virtuous we are, God may overwhelm us in misery; the other, that however wicked, God may, with perfect propriety at any moment forgive all, and make us everlastingly happy.

But a Third claims my attention. He tells me that he belongs to the school of the second speaker, but has another method of coming to the same pleasant conclusion, viz. That God is the universal Father; that he looks on all intelligent creatures as his children; that he is training them all up for abodes of blessedness, and though some of them are untoward in their dispositions, yet there are none that will not finally be virtuous and happy.

Now I find this a very pleasant sort of idea, and happy thoughts come into my mind, of an infinitely great and glorious parent, making all his numerous family happy, and himself exulting in the happiness he has made. If one wanted a pleasant vision, I say truly this is one: but resolved not to believe a thing merely because I wish to believe it, I ask for the evidence of the theory, and determine to see if it can be substantiated. Delighted with this

last speaker, I am about to depart, for the sake of uninterrupted thought and calm investigation, when a Fourth says he will not now exhibit his view, seeing I am so pleased; but he would venture to suggest that it would not be safe to trust to such a theory, unless it could be well sustained; he doubts whether it be more than a very partial view, and whether the portion of truth it contains be not exaggerated; also whether analogy, whether fact be not altogether against it, if it is intended as a complete theory ;-and urges me to enquire-not what I deem most fitting, nor what would most commend itself to my imagination, but simplyWhat is truth?'

Perhaps I ought not to prolong this imagined scene. Let me then proceed in the more usual way. Our question is as to the character which God sustains towards us. I have mentioned the Paternal: is this the real relation in which we stand to God, viz. as children to a Father? May every one of us, whatever we are, equally, and in the same sense, call him Father; carrying with us the idea we form concerning a kind and indulgent human parent? This is our present question; let us examine it fairly.

It is capable, we instantly feel, of being very interestingly and captivatingly presented. The idea is full of amiableness. We dwell in one of the chambers of our Father's house; we are individually dear to him; and seeing he is possessed of unlimited power, and can do all he pleases, none daring to call him to account, we may of course all of us expect uninterrupted felicity. For what father would he be, who should decline to use all the means in his power to secure the well-being of all his children? We picture then to our minds a kind and indulgent father, who can happily gratify all his parental inclinations, and whose chief delight consists in rendering each dear child perfectly happy and we remember that God is everywhere present, and that he is possessed of unbounded power. With this idea of a father, and with this knowledge of God's omnipresence and omnipotence, we go forth to observe the beautiful indications that of course will meet the eye, wherever it wanders, of God's fatherly care and affection for all his children indiscriminately.

We certainly observe with great delight the manifold proofs of goodness, the provision evidently made for enjoyment. Tis a pleasant earth that God has placed his

children on; a glorious sun lights them by day, and by night the fair moon with her shining sisters diffuses a softer radiance.' We mark the rich productions which he has provided for them; how there is enough, and more than enough, of the fruits of the earth poured forth as from a horn of plenty. We see the human frame constructed for enjoyment; the physical man made to derive pleasure from various sources; the mind so constituted, that a fahigher order of gratification, viz. the intellectual, is placed within his reach; while there are social propensities, which surround him with the objects of warm affection; and the various relationships of life afford some of the purest and intensest joy that man can experience. And while we watched the heightened expression in the countenance of youth, as a new world of happiness begins to open; or mark the bliss that waits on wedded love;' or gaze on the infant, that with so much of joyous repose draws the milk-stream from the mother's vein; or read the emotions that swell that mother's heart; and remember that 'love is of God,'-we respond to the assertion that 'God is love,' in the words that are employed, and we say emphatically, God is love.

It cannot be doubted that God is good. The happiness that exists proves it beyond a doubt. And therefore since God is one, and his character necessarily uniform and consistent, he is always good. Even if we should find less pleasant scenes than those adverted to; still this could not bring into question the already ascertained fact of God's goodness, and, by reason of his immutability, his unchangeable and undeviating goodness. Let this be settled, that as God cannot be both good and evil, and we see him good, he must be always good, though we may not be able to harmonize everything with this attribute, or may have .formed very inadequate and puerile conceits about goodness, and what it ought to accomplish.

But assuredly we have looked a very little way as yet. It would be very premature to pause in our examination, quite satisfied from what we have seen, that the true and sole relationship between God and us is that of father and children. Let us continue our investigation.

We obtain the confidence of numerous individuals, who each tell us a melting tale of sorrow; difficulties, embarrassments, heart-rending bereavements, painful afflictions,

a diseased frame, and a wounded spirit.—We sigh, and pass on. We enter an hospital; and walking from ward to ward, and marking the pale face, the hollow eye, the look of pain, the expression of anxiety, we sigh deeply, and wonder that the Father who has all power does not prevent this: but some one whispers something about discipline and chastening, and we try to feel satisfied. We next take our stand on an eminence commanding an extensive plain, where tens of thousands are shooting and cutting each other down, till one party has gained the victory and marches off in triumph, leaving thousands writhing in agony and weltering in their gore. Is the great Father aware of all this? we ask. And is he able to prevent it? Why then does he suffer his children thus to shoot and stab one another, filling we know not how many homes with anguish, as wives are made widows, and children orphans?

We enter the Inquisition; and in dungeons of terrible gloom we see men, and women too, and maidens, chained and fettered; we see them stretched upon the rack, till every limb is dislocated; we hear their deep, deep groans; and their piercing cries make us sick at heart. After months of various and ingenious torture we see them brought forth to be burned alive! We stand next, between the decks of a slave ship, and find hundreds of our fellow creatures manacled, and crammed into a space that is to be measured, as to height, by inches; the loathesomeness cannot be spoken, while the sufferings endured cannot be conceived. After numerous deaths we see the wretched survivors sold like beasts, and worked like them, and flogged and tortured at will, till they drop into the longed for grave. We take the history of one wretched slave, and find from the history of past years and ages that we could multiply it by hundreds of millions, till there is presented to the imagination a mass of wretchedness that is all but infinite. The sighs, the groans, the burning tears, defy the utmost power to realise them; and the mind breaks down in the attempt.

But every one's knowledge of what has been the state of the world for these six thousand years, renders it unnecessary to present the facts which show that the human family has from the beginning (no matter just now how it is to be accounted for) been in some way or other subjected to every form of ill. We have only to think of what our

own memory can supply as to the state of things in different countries, and through all ages; the public calamities that nave overwhelmed nations, and the private afflictions and wrongs that have filled to the brim a cup of bitterness for individuals; and then do we not feel that while there are abundant proofs of God's goodness, (and some reasonable account may perhaps be given why things seem allowed to take their own course,) our idea of the paternal character has to be somewhat or even greatly modified? Are we not compelled to acknowledge that if we still call God 'the universal Father,' there are evidently some other elements of character beside the paternal, and quite as marked, or even more so? For what father, having the right and power to interfere, would stand by and see his child racked, tortured, through long long months, and then burnt alive, and not indignantly snatch him from the grasp of brutal tormentors? What father, possessed of sufficient power to prevent it, would listen to the groans and cries and shrieks that have filled the air for ages, till every atom of the atmosphere we breathe seems to one who knows the case, impregnated with woe? That God sees all, and hears all, and could prevent all, if he deemed it wise to do so, none that believe in the being of a God can question.

Must we not then seek some other answer to our question; or else greatly modify our ideas of the import of the term, if we still retain it as the one title which, above all others and exclusively, we select to denote the relationship in which God stands to his creatures? For certainly when we think of a father, we instinctively picture to ourselves one who has a particular and equal affection for each member of his family. Nor would the amiableness of the best of sovereigns, who strove to show himself 'the father of his people,' nor the considerate benevolence of the most kind and generous of masters, who made the interests of his domestics his own, at all approach to our necessary idea of the love which fills a father's heart; which is not a vague and general benevolence towards all creatures indiscriminately, whether intelligent or irrational, but a special love for the individual, which can never no never decay, and which under all possible circumstances, and through all conceivable changes, will yearn over the child, and unceasingly exert itself at any cost for his individual happiness, which the father will even prefer to his own.