48 SECOND ANNUAL MEETING. 
self to us as our “ Redeemer,” tells of wrath cancelled—as 
our “ Judge,’ of sin condemned? It is well, I think, to 
dwell on this consideration, (so often overlooked by the 
mere naturalist,) that no honest research will leave him in 
a clear and consistent scheme of natural religion, apart 
from the faith of the gospel. He will indeed be left in 
yet greater difficulties, and perplexities, and mysteries, than 
when he began—difhiculties and perplexities which can 
alone be cleared up, mysteries which can alone be, not 
solved, but accepted, by a belief in the revealed word of 
God. Im archaeological pursuits, which claim probably 
the interest of the greater number of the members of this 
society, whatever danger there may be, is supposed to 
be rather in the opposite direction. The objection to 
archaeology as a trifling and useless study being now 
abandoned, the graver charge of its reviving abandoned 
superstitions, and creating a hankering after things con- 
demned and forbidden, has been brought against it. And 
certainly that temper of moderation and forbearance,— 
that discriminating liberty of choice in choosing the good 
and refusing the evil, which under her motherly care and 
direction, our church has always allowed her faithful 
children—is nowhere more required than in the study of 
the arts and usages of past ages. For if in archaeology— 
(and I speak here with particular reference to what in this 
country must be the chief era—the middle ages, and that 
province which necessarily presents itself most conspieu- 
ously—its architectural objects, and those especially of the 
church), if, I say, in archaeological researches in this 
quarter, the subject is entered into in the mere dry letter 
of antiquarianism ; if churches are to be examined in no 
other spirit than that in which we might contemplate some 
ancient barn or some heathen temple ; ifthe motives of the 
