this matter, that the offence of the cross had not yet ceased. But we cannot dwell upon it. - Our general sympathy with Dr. Channing's writings is strong, - is stronger than we can well express. His singular habit of introversion has led him, no doubt, to give to his views the distinct cast and coloring of his own mind. His conclusions, it may be objected, are sometimes deductions from his own experience, rather than from the general experience of mankind. But when was it otherwise with moral and practical writings, that are fitted to exert a commanding and permanent influence? How is truth to advance, if it is never to swell beyond the mould of common experience and opinion? Dr. Channing appears to us, as one who has sat at the shrine of the mind within, and waited in deep silence for its revealings, and who has brought forth inspiring responses from those secret oracles; as one, too, who has sat at the feet of Jesus, who has gained from thence a penetrating insight into the spirit of Christianity, and a power of communicating it, which sets him apart from all other preachers.

The great question is, and it is not about Dr. Channing's writings only, though it will materially influence the judgment that is formed of them, - whether any deeper insight into Christianity is to be sought or expected, whether religion, in the developement of its true principles, is to advance, whether the vision of moral truth and beauty is to be brightened, whether the perfection of God, the glory of Jesus Christ, and the intrinsic and original worth of human nature, are to be better understood. As a man judges on these points, he will probably judge of many of the religious writings of the day, and especially of Dr. Channing's writings. If he takes the negative side in these questions, he will probably think, that, in the pages before us, there is a good deal of pretension, and over-refining, and visionary and chimerical speculation. If he takes the affirmative side, we see not how he can fail to be deeply interested in them, and, we were ready to say, we see not how he is to resist them.

Now we know that there are many who hold that there is little or nothing more to be learnt in religion; that things have long ago come to that point, a point ascertained and laid down in definite creeds and standards, beyond which they are not much to advance; that conscience has already told them, or the Bible has already taught them, all that they are to know; that the whole meaning of Christianity is already extracted from its records; that its spirit is mainly very well understood; that its applications to duty and human life and human nature are mostly unfolded; and that all we have to desire, and all we have to do, for the mass of the people, is, to give them a deeper impression of those religious ideas that are already received among them. If any such person should chance to cast his eye on our own humble pages, we can explain to him in one word, why it is that he has so little sympathy, perchance, in many things that we have been saying in this article, and especially on the principal subject of it. We differ from him entirely on the subject of moral progress; and that is the explanation. We believe that the world is to advance. There is nothing, no subject, or science, in which there is such room for advancement, such need of advancement, such urgent demand for it, as in religion. It was among the visions of our earlier studies that there would be such a progress. It is among the strongest convictions of our maturer judgment that there is such a progress, and must be more of it. This is, with us, no sectarian feeling. Long before we felt any sympathy with the religious body to which we now belong (we speak, it will be obvious, in a personal rather than an official character), we felt all this, just as much as we feel it now. We felt that there were stumbling-blocks in the ways of piety, that there were many difficulties of human device besetting the path, that there were clouds upon it, - clouds of superstition and error: and it was among the very longings and passions of our hearts to see them removed. We had suffered from these difficulties, - not unusually perhaps, - but we had suffered from them, all our lives long. We had seen others suffer. We had seen hundreds of intelligent and interesting men, of fine natural powers, and generally irreproachable lives, turning away from religion as from a matter with which they had nothing to do, - suffering, in passive and hopeless acquiesence, the inexpressible and irreparable loss of all its precious blessings and joys and hopes, - looking upon it, perhaps, as the resort of weak and vulgar minds, and descending sometimes to low and evil courses, to slake, in the streams of pleasure, the burning thirst for happiness; and all this, we were persuaded, not only because they had natures prone to err and sin, but also because the just claims of religion, its true dignity and nobleness, its reasonableness and wisdom, its beneficence and beauty, had never been fairly spread before them. We saw this, and we felt it. We felt that it was a case to be mourned over, with all the sensibility that ever was given to the condition of the uninstructed heathen; and we felt bound by every prompting of experience, and by every sympathy of humanity as well as of Christian love, to devote our lives to the religious and moral progress of the human mind, - to the relief of spiritual sorrow and darkness, to the awakening of the soul to its intrinsic wants and immortal destinies; and we felt that this great aim ought to be more, and we thank God, was more, to us, than ever was the vision of glory to the eye of young ambition.

Is it possible that we were alone in this? Is it possible, that the intelligent young men of our colleges, and especially of our theological institutions, see nothing for them to do but to grave deeper and yet deeper upon the public mind, all the religious ideas that are now traced upon it? Is it possible that their reflections have brought with them no conviction that religion needs to be better understood; that it is now lamentably misunderstood by the mass of mankind; that its simplicity and reasonableness, and beauty and power, are as yet but faintly perceived and feebly experienced? Is it possible that the very idea of religious progress obtains from them no attention but what is implied in a shrug or a sneer? What! is science to advance, is literature to advance, - are the arts to advance, - and is there to be no progress in the great subject of subjects, in the knowledge of the infinite theme, - of the theme that is to engage the meditations of eternity! Is the great idea of God, exhausted, and is there no more light to be shed upon his ineffable perfections? Are the awful depths of this nature within us searched out? do mankind yet know themselves? Are all the relations of happiness to duty, and of duty to life, and of life to immortality, fully explored? and is the whole sublime philosophy of religion laid down in a creed of a page long?

Why, the simplest truths in religion are but half comprehended, - are held but in a weak and wavering confidence, by multitudes. That honesty is the best policy, that the way of wisdom is pleasantness, that the severity of the Christian discipline sits gently upon the soul accustomed to it, that true repentance is relief and joy to the heart, that self-denial is, in the highest degree, self-gratification, - the gratification of the soul and only the denial of sense, - that obedience is liberty, the service of God perfect freedom, and suffering often the source of the most unbounded gratitude, - how many do not understand even these things! How many suppose, that, in the very constitution of things, - not as human folly and wickedness have made it, but in the very constitution of things, there is a warfare between the interests of the present life, and the future! How many have dark questionings in their minds about vice and virtue, about pleasure and a warning conscience, - and wish, in their folly, - wish, as if it were a blessed fortune, that they could give free indulgence to all their passions, and then go to heaven at last, - which is, as if a man should wish he could go through hell to heaven! How many feebly desire to be religious, and negligently attend to it, and because they are negligent, are suffering under a dreadful apathy all their lives, are hasting to hear one preacher and another that may arouse them, are saying "Lo! here, and lo! there," and ever wishing that they could feel, that they could only feel the the power of religion, when the way to religious sensibility is in the deep places of their own hearts, if they would but look for it, and is as plain as the way to any other emotion! How many make their prayers a forced, reluctant, and inconstant service; and this because they resolve it all into a slavish action of the soul, because they have distrustful and repulsive conceptions of the Divine, Being, because they have never known the joy of a generous and disinterested contemplation of Infinite glory and goodness! In short, how much is there of that dreadful moral skepticism, which goes almost to the point of wishing, that the work of religion could be wrought out by sorne machinery; which would be glad to do the work as a definite task, if it then might have freedom and indulgence; which would be willing to labor in any way for ten hours of every Sunday, if so it could be made sure of heaven, and be dismissed from any further care or anxiety about it! - nay, and how much religion is there that is little better than machinery, that is measured out by forms, that is confined to the dimensions of a ritual, or that is summed up, in certain scarcely moral,

half animal, half enthusiastic, - frames of mind! And do men know, then, all that they are to know, of this mighty power- a power designed to renew, exalt, and fill with beatitude, their whole nature? Do they know what it is to give the whole soul to religion, to live in it, as their life; to walk in it, as their path; to pursue in that path their supreme and sublimest interest, and in that pursuit to account duty their pleasure, and humiliation their glory, and suffering a welcome minister to their improvement, - a gracious dispensation of God, to obtain for them "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory "?

We have dwelt a little on this topic of religious progress, of progress, we mean, in the very ideas of religion, because the whole character and spirit of Dr. Channing's writings urge it upon our notice, and because we were willing to bear our testimony, conscious we are how feeble it is, to their truth and importance. But are they fitted to be useful? - is also a question which has been raised; and upon the question, what consitutes useful preaching, we have something to say, which we can hardly expect, perhaps, a more fit occasion for saying, than the present.

We have chanced to hear a good deal of discussion, and somewhat earnest at times, about practical preaching and plain preaching, and the doubtful utility of lofty and intellectual discussion in the pulpit. Now it appears to us, that this is one of those cases where dispute must end, the moment that a reasonable plan of proceeding is laid down, and reasonable concessions are made on both sides. Our idea of practical or useful preaching is, that it is of a very diversified character, - a bringing of "things new and old from the treasure." We are perfectly willing to admit, that the useful preacher must not only lay out great schemes of truth, and open up glorious views and visions of moral beauty, but that he must set the steps in the paths in which they should go; that he must make fixtures in moral discussion, and drive home the nail to the very spot where sentiment may take hold on practice; that he must say, "Do this, and do that," and point out the first step, and the second step in the way; and this he must consent to do, though he may think it a very simple business to do so, -- which it is not, however; this he must consent to do, though in so doing he is obliged to come down from the lofty stride of dignity, or the