UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 199 



were about to issue from it, Jupiter placed the 

 last and best blessing of Hope. It is not im- 

 probable that this fable was founded on a 

 tradition of the original promise of the future 

 seed ; the hope of which could alone have sus- 

 tained the virtuous part of mankind amidst the 

 general corruption that followed the transgression 

 of Adam. 



(l But an unsettled kind of hope will be of 

 little avail ; to be useful it must be grounded on 

 faith ; on that entire faith which not only believes 

 in the authenticity of our Saviour's sacrifice, and 

 in the importance of the doctrines he taught, but 

 which fully and gratefully confides in the suffi- 

 ciency of his atonement. Then hope indeed 

 helps us to anticipate the glorious future; we 

 view him as risen triumphantly to heaven ; and 

 we feel that we shall partake in the happiness of 

 the hereafter, which He has promised. 



" That the hopes of a future state are natural 

 to the mind may be inferred from the craving and 

 dissatisfied feeling which accompanies our very 

 enjoyments, and which always more or less clouds 

 them with fresh wishes and indefinite hopes. 

 These hopes, it is true, in the worldly man, are 

 set upon pleasures, business, or ambition ; or on 

 some of those bustling objects of life, which, from 

 their vicinity to the human eye, assume a false 

 magnitude. But the true Christian learns that 

 heavenly objects, which from their distance 



