prevails more in warmer climates than it does in ours. What shows its great dependence on the imagination, is the remarkable attachment it has to poetry and music, which Shakspeare calls the food of love, and which may, with equal truth, be called the food of devotion. Music enters into the future paradise of the devout of every sect and of every country. The Deity, viewed by the eye of cool reason, may be said, with great propriety, to dwell in light inaccessible. The mind, struck with the immensity of his being, and with a sense of its own littleness and unworthiness, admires with that distant awe and veneration that almost excludes love. But viewed by a devout imagination, he may become an object of the warmest affection, and even passion.—The philosopher contemplates the Deity in all those marks of wisdom and benignity diffused through the various works of nature. The devout man confines his views rather to his own particular connection with the Deity, the many instances of his goodness he himself has experienced, and the many greater he stiil hopes for. This establishes a kind of intercourse, which often interests the heart and passions in the deepest manner.

The devotional taste, like all other tastes, has - had the hard fate to be condemned as a weakness, by all who are strangers to its joys and its influence. Too much and too frequent occasion has been given, to turn this subject into ridicule. -A heated and devout imagination, when not under the direction of a very sound understanding, is apt to run very wild, and is at the same time impatient to publish all its follies to the

world. The feelings of a devout heart should be mentioned with great reserve and delicacy, as they depend upon private experience, and certain circumstances of mind and situation, which the world can neither know nor judge of. But devotional writings, executed with judgment and taste, are not only highly useful, but to all who have a true sense of religion, peculiarly engaging. Gregory.

THE NATURE OF DEVOTION.

DEVOTION is the lively exercise of those affections, which we owe to the supreme Being. It comprehends several emotions of the heart, which all terminate on the same great object. The chief of them are veneration, gratitude, desire, and resignation.

It implies, first, profound veneration of God. By veneration, I understand an affection com-pounded of awe and love; the affection, which, of all others, it best becomes creatures to bear towards their infinitely perfect Creator. Awe is the first sentiment that rises in the soul, at the view of his greatness. But, in the heart of a devout man, it is a solemn and elevating, not a dejecting, emotion; for he glows, rather than trembles, in the Divine presence. It is not the superstitious dread of unknown power, but the homage yielded by the heart to him who is, at once, the greatest and the best of beings. Omnipotence, viewed alone, would be a formidable object. But, considered in conjunction with the moral perfections of the divine nature, it serves

to heighten to devotion. Goodness affects the heart with double energy, when residing in One so exalted. The goodness which we adore in him, is not like that which is common among men, a weak, mutable, undiscerning fondness, ill qualified to be the ground of assured trust. It is the goodness of a perfect governor, acting upon a · regular extensive plan; a steady principle of benevolence, conducted by wisdom; which, subject to no variableness or shadow of turning,' free from all partiality and caprice, incapable of being either soothed by flattery, or ruffled by resentment, resembles, in its calm and equal lustre, the eternal serenity of the highest heavens.

Such are the conceptions of the great God, which fill with veneration the heart of a devout man. His veneration is not confined to acts of immediate worship. It is the habitual temper of his soul. Not only when engaged in prayer or praise, but in the silence of retirement, and even amidst the occupations of the world, the divine Being dwells upon his thoughts. No place or object appears to him void of God. On the works of nature, he views the impression of his hand; and in the actions of men he traces the operation of his providence. Whatever he beholds on earth, that is beautiful or fair, that is great or good, he refers to God, as to the supreme origin of all the excellence which is scattered throughout his works. From those effects, he rises to the first cause. From those streams, he ascends to the fountain whence they flow. By those rays he is led to that eternal source of light in which they centre.

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the friendship which therefore, to him it d terminates in him. terests, is but a small devout man looks fordiscovers still higher ews himself as a guilty nignity has received hopes it has restored; he most glorious pros uch generosity, shown is yet more affecting onferred on the innoith astonishment, the in accomplishing resoul overflows with loved us, and washed blood. What shall I is benefits? Bless the hat is within me, bless th all thine iniquities, who redeemeth thy rowneth thee with lover mercies.'11

the desire of the soul reme Being, as its chief ferior enjoyments, the and secondary attachevery earthly affection. ce all pleasure in the e. Such an unnatural ids, and religion canese he expects not his s the vanity which be