Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/167

 Let not religion be spoken of as melancholy; for how can that be a melancholy influence, which, while it elevates, satisfies every power, and breathes into every deep and true enjoyment the breath of immortal life! Existence, destitute of this influence, must be indeed necessarily and essentially melancholy; but admit religion, and you admit what will raise and brighten human nature with all its powers and susceptibilities, its deepest sources of interest and its dearest objects of affection.

Admit religion as the guide of life, and it will gently lead through ways of pleasantness and paths of peace, amid green pastures and beside still waters. Admit religion to the intellectual dominion, and it will give to literature a depth of interest, while heightening its grace and splendor; it will pervade the spirit with the influences of the wisdom that cometh from above; it will open up, in bright perspective, visions of glory and loveliness far surpassing what the unenlightened mind of man could otherwise conceive; and it will clear and strengthen the eye of faith to look beyond the dim horizon of earthly renown, to heaven's star-wrought firmament, where the gifted among men who have rightly used their talents shall shine in eternal honour.

Admit religion into the heart, and it will deepen and strengthen every right feeling and affection, expand and refine every sympathy, while it will wrap around the objects of our soul's love the imperishable heaven-woven mantle of the future's hope, preserving them through all the vicissitudes of this life, until we meet them in our Father's home on high.

Religion, indeed, does not promise exemption from the ordinary lot of existence, but it offers, amid all