Martinsburgh Gazette

TRUE RELIGION.

Religion is amiable and lovely, when represented in a true light-it is the highest happiness of a rational being: it exalts the mind above the captivating and alluring vanities of this world, and prepares man to meet, with true fortitude and calm resignation, the unavoidable calamities which beset human life, The felicities attending conscious innocence, are permanent and substantial: the happiness of a mind that can survey itself with tranquility and self-approbation, is, of all others, the most desirable. True Religion renders a man but little inferior to the angels. without it, he is beneath the beasts that perish

Religion is represented by some an abridgment of the pleasures of life, and is often set forth in the most gloomy and foreboding language-but mistaken is the idea--it refines the propensities of the heart, it unmasks the evils attendant on human life, and enables us to relish them as blessings in disguise, Thus a fountain of happiness is opened to the pious man, which the licentious can never approach.

How commiserating to the real Christian, to hear the most satisfactory and delightful employment of the soul represented in such cold, unbecoming language? He marks the hand of Deity in all things, and they conspire to yield him pleasure-he views with extacy the grand furniture of the skies, and adores with fervour that Being who guides the silent spheres--he admires the mechanism of God, as displayed in the grand theatre of the universe- he beholds the lofty mountains aspiring among the clouds, and the flowing seas with their inhabitants-he sees the forked lightnings glare, and hears with awe the dreadful thunder, and still more direful earthquake, shaking creation to its very centre: but he fears not--he knows, that should the globe burst asunder, and dissolve in liquid flame, that he is safe, and like Elijah, would be transported to the regions of immortal bliss!

Such are the effects of Religion! Oh, how transporting the thought, that amidst the wreck of nature and crash of worlds, the soul shall remain unhurt! Oh, Religion! how the multitude disregard and debase thy native amiableness! How long, Oh man, wilt thou delay, before thou dost embrace the glorious privilege of being rational and immortal!

Reader! adhere to the practice of virtue; oppose the licentious practice of a degenerate age, as an heir and expectant of a glorious immortality! Follow the bright example which the blessed Author of our religion has set before us, and thou shalt find comfort and consolation while here, and everlasting peace beyond the grave!

H.