mind, that (so that, to the end that) ye may know what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of the Lord."

III. The sensibility of conscience, as a source of pleasure or of pain, is strengthened by use, and weakened by disuse.

The more frequently a man does right, the stronger is his impulse to do right, and the greater is the pleasure that results from the doing of it. A liberal man derives a pleasure from the practice of charity, of which the covetous man can form no conception. A beneficent man is made happy by acts of self-denial and philanthropy, while a selfish man performs an act of goodness by painful and strenuous effort, and merely to escape the reproaches of conscience. By the habitual exercise of the benevolent affections, a man becomes more and more capacious of virtue, capable of higher and more disinterested and more self-denying acts of mercy, until he becomes an enthusiast in goodness, loving to do good better than any thing else. And, in the same manner, the more our affections to God are exercised, the more constant and profound is the happiness which they create, and the more absolutely is every other wish absorbed by the single desire to do the will of God. Illustrations of these remarks may be found. in the lives of the Apostle Paul, John Howard, and other philanthropists. Thus, it is said of our Savior, "He went about doing good." And he says of himself, " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish his work."

And it deserves to be remarked, that, in our present state, opportunities for moral improvement and moral pleasure are incessantly occurring. Under the present conditions of our being, there are every where, and at all times, sick to be relieved, mourners to be comforted, ignorant to be taught, vicious to be reclaimed, and men, by nature enemies to God, to be won back to reconciliation to Him. The season for moral labor depends not, like that for physical labor, upon vicissitudes beyond our control: it depends solely upon our own will. This I suppose to be the general principle involved in our Savior's remark to his Apostles: Say ye not, There are four months, and then cometh the

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harvest? Lift up your eyes, and look upon the fields, for they are white already to the harvest.” That is, the fields are always waiting for the laborer in the moral harvest.

And, on the contrary, the man who habitually violates his conscience, not only is more feebly impelled to do right, but he becomes less sensible to the pain of doing wrong. A child feels poignant remorse after the first act of pilfering. Let the habit of dishonesty be formed, and he will become so hackneyed in sin, that he will perpetrate robbery with no other feeling than that of mere fear of detection. The first oath almost palsies the tongue of the stripling. It requires but a few months, however, to transform him into the bold and thoughtless blasphemer. The murderer, after the death of his first victim, is agitated with all the horrors of guilt. He may, however, pursue his trade of blood, until he have no more feeling for man, than the butcher for the animal which he slaughters. Burk, who was in the habit of murdering men, for the purpose of selling their bodies to the surgeons for dissection, confessed this of himself. Nor is this true of individuals alone. Whole communities may become so accustomed to deeds of violence, as not merely to lose all the milder sympathies of their nature, but also to take pleasure in exhibitions of the most revolting ferocity. Such was the case in Rome at the period of the gladiatorial contests; and such was the fact in Paris at the time of the French revolution.

This also serves to illustrate a frequently repeated aphorism, Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. As a man becomes more wicked, he becomes bolder in crime. Un checked by conscience, he ventures upon more and more atrocious villany, and he does it with less and less precaution. As, in the earliest stages of guilt, he is betrayed by timidity, in the later stages of it, he is exposed by his recklessness. He is thus discovered by the very effect which his conduct is producing upon his own mind.

Thus,

oppressors and despots seem to rush upon their own ruin, as though bereft of reason. Such limits has our Creator, by the conditions of our being, set to the range of human atrocity.

Thus we see, that, by every step in our progress in

virtue, the succeeding step becomes less difficult. In proportion as we deny our passions, they become less imperative. The oftener we conquer them, the less is the moral effort necessary to secure the victory, and the less frequently and the less powerfully do they assail us. By every act of successful resistance, we diminish the tremendous power of habit over us, and thus become more perfectly under the government of our own will. Thus, with every act of obedience to conscience, our character is fixed upon a more immovable foundation.

And, on the contrary, by every act of vicious indulgence, we give our passions more uncontrolled power over us, and diminish the power of reason and of conscience. Thus, by every act of sin, we not only incur new guilt, but we strengthen the bias towards sin, during the whole of our subsequent being. Hence every vicious act renders our return to virtue more difficult and more hopeless. The tendency of such a course is, to give to habit the power which ought to be exerted by our will. And, hence, it is not improbable, that the conditions of our being may be such, as to allow of our arriving at such a state, that reformation may be actually impossible. That the Holy Scriptures allude to such a condition during the present life, is evident. Such, also, is probably the necessary condition of the wicked in another world.

In stating the change thus produced upon our moral nature, it deserves to be remarked, that this loss of sensibility is, probably, only temporary. There is reason to believe, that no impressions made upon the human soul, during its present probationary state, are ever permanently erased. Causes operating merely upon man's physical nature, frequently revive whole trains of thought, and even the knowledge of languages, which had been totally forgotten during the greater portion of a long life. This seems to show, that the liability to lose impressions, once made upon us, depends upon some condition arising from our material nature only, and that this liability will cease soon as our present mode of existence terminates. That is to say, if the power of retaining knowledge is always the same, but if our consciousness of knowledge is veiled

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by our material organs, when these have been laid aside, our entire consciousness will return. Now, indications of the same nature are to be found in abundance, with respect to conscience. Wicked men, after having spent a life in prosperous guilt, and without being in trouble like other men, are frequently, without any assignable cause, tormented with all the agonies of remorse; so that the mere consciousness of guilt has become absolutely intolerable, and they have perished by derangement, or by suicide. The horrors of a licentious sinner's death bed, present a striking illustration of the same solemn fact. A scene of this sort has been, no less vividly than accurately, described by Dr. Young, in the death of Altamont. All these things should be marked by us as solemn warnings. They show us of what the constitution, under which we exist, is capable; and it is in forms like these, that the "coming events' of eternity"cast their shadows before."

SECTION V.

RULES FOR MORAL CONDUCT, DERIVED FROM THE PRECEDING

REMARKS.

Several plain rules of conduct are suggested by the above remarks, which may more properly be introduced here, than in any other place.

I. Before you resolve upon an action, or a course of action,

1. Cultivate the habit of deciding upon its moral character. Let the first question always be, Is this action right? For this purpose, God gave you this faculty. If you do not use it, you are false to yourself, and inexcusable before God. We despise a man who never uses his reason, and

scorn him as a fool. Is he not much more to be despised, who neglects to use a faculty of so much higher authority than reason? And let the question, Is this right? be asked first, before imagination has set before us the seductions of pleasure, or any step has been taken, which should pledge our consistency of character. If we ask this question first, it can generally be decided with ease. If we wait until the mind is agitated and harassed by contending emotions, it will not be easy to decide correctly.

2. Remember that your conscience has become imperfect, from your frequent abuse of it. Hence, in many

cases, its discrimination will be indistinct. Instead of deciding, it will, frequently, only doubt. That doubt should be, generally, as imperative as a decision. When you, therefore, doubt, respecting the virtue of an action, do not perform it, unless you as much doubt whether you are at liberty to refrain from it. Thus, says President Edwards, in one of his resolutions: "Resolved, never to do any thing, of which I so much question the lawfulness, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards, whether it be lawful or not; except I as much question the lawfulness of the omission."

3. Cultivate, on all occasions, in private or in public, in small or great, in action or in thought, the habit of obeying the monitions of conscience; all other things to the contrary notwithstanding.

Its slightest touches, instant pause;

Debar a' side pretences;

And, resolutely, keep its laws,

Uncaring consequences.

BURNS.

The supremacy of conscience imposes upon you the obligation to act thus. You cannot remember, in the course of your whole life, an instance in which you regret having obeyed it; and you cannot remember a single instance in which you do not regret having disobeyed it. There can nothing happen to you so bad as to have done wrong: there can nothing be gained so valuable as to have done right. And remember, that it is only by cultivating the practical supremacy of conscience over every other impulse,