Herald of the times. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1830-1846, 1830-09-08

IUPTIIE following beautiful extract is taken
from "Prize Essay said to have been written
by Lady of Providence, and which obtained
the Premium lately offered in this city, for the
best original production in prose.
"RELIGION's ALL"
THE mind of man is like the huctuat-
ing sea. 1t never is at rest. There is
a perpetual tendency, which cannot be
cured by perpetual aldisappointment,t TO SEND
out the desires after some object beyond
our present reach. But we are never
satisfied from the attainment of our pre-
sent desires. The law of the natural
world, by which objects diminish accord
ing to their distance from us, is reversed
in the moral The objects of our wish
es are magnifed in proportion to the dis
tance at which we view them. AS we
approach near, the charm is broken, the
illusion vanishes. They prove to be
bubbles, which as soon as touched, dis
solve in airy vapor. Still we do not rest
AT every fresh disappointment, we put
forth new desires and new efforts, for the
attainment of some object yet more re-
mote. Even success, the most unbound
ed, does not satisfy us.-We weep for
more worlds to conquer.
Amid this tumult of the mind, this ev-
erlasting restlessness of the soul, religion,
benign visiter, heavenly monitor, ,descends
to man. She comes in radiant and al
Turing form, and, addresses him in ac-
cents of winning tenderness. Receive
me, and l will say to the swelling surge
Of passion, peace, be STILL / will quell
the fever of disappointment, by leading
you to fountains of living waters. will
point to you the shadow of great rock
in this weary land. Receive me, oh! on
whom the Son of God looked with tend
erncss, and / will direct you to an OBJ
ject of pursuit, worthy your heavenly
origin-worthy of your nature, but little
lower than that of angels-worthy the
inward springs (which you are proudly,
yet painfully conscious. You love pur-
suit; the OBJ ject to which will direct you
is infinite, therefore your pursuit will be
endless. You delight in progress-here
your progress will he commensurate with
eternity. Your desires are boundless,
you shall be satisfied when you awake
in the likeness of God. Not only so,
you shall frequently be filled in this
house of your pilgrimage, with preliba-
tons of future Observation-Disclosures me
and you need never fear what your ma
ture renders so revolving to you, a cessa-
ton ofhope, expectation and effort. True
your capacity for happiness shall be. fill
led as soon as you enter on your everlast-
ing Inheritance. But that capacity shall
be forever increasing, and forever filling
with all the fullness of God.-Through-
out the Immortality of her existence,
your soul shall be continually expanding
her views, strengthening her energies,
and drinking deeper and deeper of the
river of pleasure which flows at the right
hand of the Most High.
Such are the boundless offors of re-
ligion. All that man can desire, all that
his nature can receive, more than his
utmost powers of apprehension can reach.
View the nature of man, and the objects
by which he is surrounded; his immortal
capacity forever seeking, yet forever re-
fising to be filled from earthly sources;
and say is not this divine Religion, in ITS
freshness, its richness, and in its bound
lcssncss, to being thus constituted and
thus situated, is it not all? View the
individual who has embraced her in his
inmost soul, and entered on the high and
holy course which she dictates, and then
say with an emphasis, drawn from reality,
and not from theory alone, is not Reli-
gion all ? See her disciple partaker
of the ills incident to human nature.
He considers himself as "under cduca-
ton in Gods school," and whether hls
divine Master frown or smile, he knows
the dispensation is adopted to his present
need, and tends alike to fit him ior hls
future inheritance. What moral gran
deur is there in the character OF the
Christian! Amid the war of elements,
the wreck of matter, and the crush oi
worlds, he can sit like Noah in the ark,
calm, quiet and secure, for tho cdllicc oi