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ings of better thoughts, calls of honour and self respect come to the sinner; terrific admonition whispering in his secret ear, prophetic warning pointing him to the dim and veiled shadows of future retribution, and the all-penetrating, all-surrounding idea of an avenging God are present with him: and the right arm of the felon and the transgressor is lifted up, amidst lightnings of conviction and thunderings of reproach. I can tremble at such a being as this; I can pity him ; I can weep for him; but I cannot scorn him.

The very words of condemnation which we apply to sin, are words of comparison. When we describe the act of the transgressor as mean for instance, we recognise I repeat, the nobility of his nature; and when we say that his offence is a degradation, we imply a certain distinction. And so to do wrong implies a noble power, the very power which constitutes the glory of heaven; the power to do right. And thus it is, as I apprehend, that the inspired Teachers speak of the wickedness and unworthiness of man. They seem to do it under a sense of his better capacities and higher distinction. They speak as if he had wronged himself. And when they use the words ruin and perdition, they announce, in affecting terms, the worth of that which is reprobate and lost. Paul when speaking of his transgressions says, "not I, but the sin that dwelleth in me." There was a better nature in him that resisted evil, though it did not always successfully resist. And we read of the Prodigal Son -in terms which have always seemed to me of the most affecting import-that when he came to the sense of his duty, he "came-to himself." Yes, the sinner is beside himself; and there is no peace, no reconciliation of his conduct to his nature, till he re

turns from his evil ways. Shall we not say then, that his nature demands virtue and rectitude to satisfy it?

True it is, and I would not be one to weaken nor obscure the truth, that man is sinful; but he is not satisfied with sinning. Not his conscience only, but his wants, his natural affections, are not satisfied. He pays deep penalties for his transgressions. And these sufferings proclaim a higher nature. The pain, the disappointment, the dissatisfaction that wait on an evil course, show that the human soul was not made to be the instrument of sin, but its lofty avenger. The desolated affections, the haggard countenance, the pallid and sunken cheek, the sighings of grief, proclaim that there are ruins indeed, but they proclaim that something noble has fallen into ruin-proclaim it by signs mournful, yet venerable, like the desolations of an ancient temple, like its broken walls and falling columns and the hollow sounds of decay, that sink down heavily among its deserted recesses. The sinner, I repeat it, is a sufferer. He seeks happiness in low and unworthy objects; that is his sin: but he does not find it there; and that is his glory. No, he does not find it there: he returns disappointed and melancholy; and there is nothing on earth so eloquent as his grief. Read it in the pages of a Byron and a Burns. There is nothing in literature so touching as these lamentations of noble but erring natures, in the vain quest of a happiness which the world and the world's pleasure can never give. The sinner is often dazzled by earthly fortune and pomp, but it is in the very midst of these things, that he sometimes most feels their emptiness; that his higher nature most feels that it is solitary and unsatisfied. It is in the giddy whirl of frivolous pursuits and amusements, that his soul oftentimes is sick and weary with trifles

and vanities that "he says of laughter, it is mad; and of mirth, what doeth it?"

And yet it is not bare disappointment, nor the mere destitution of happiness caused by sin-it is not these alone that give testimony to a better nature. There is a higher power that bears sway in the human heart. It is remorse, sacred, uncompromising remorse; that will hear of no selfish calculations of pain and pleasure; that demands to suffer; that, of all sacrifices on earth, save those of benevolence, brings the only willing victim. What lofty revenge does the abused soul thus take, for its offences; never, no, never, in all its anger, punishing another, as in its justice, it punishes itself!

Such, then, are the attributes that still dwell in the dark grandeur of the soul; the beams of original light, of which amidst its thickest darkness it is never shorn. That in which all the nobleness of earth resides, should not be condemned even, but with awe and trembling. It is our treasure; and if this is lost, all is lost. Let us take care, then, that we be not unjust. Man is not an angel; but neither is he a demon; nor a brute. The evil he does is not committed with brutish insensibility, nor with diabolical satisfaction. And the evil, too, is often disguised under forms that do not, at once, permit him to see its real character. His affections become wrong, by excess; passions bewilder; semblances delude; interests ensnare; example corrupts. And yet no tyrant over men's thoughts, no unworthy seeker of their adulation, no pander for guilty pleasure, could ever make the human heart what he would. And in making it what he has, he has often found that he had to work with stubborn materials. No perseverance of endeavour, nor devices of ingenuity, nor depths of artifice, have ever equalled

those which are sometimes employed to corrupt the heart from its youthful simplicity and uprightness.

In endeavouring to state the views which are to be entertained of human nature, I have, at present, and before I reverse the picture, but one further observation to make. And that is on the spirit and tone with which it is to be viewed and spoken of. I have wished, even in speaking of its faults, to awaken a feeling of reverence and regret for it, such as would arise within us, on beholding a noble but mutilated statue or the work of some divine architect, in ruins, or some majestic object in nature, which had been marred by the rending of this world's elements and changes. Above all other objects, surely, human nature deserves to be regarded with these sentiments. The ordinary tone of conversation in allusion to this subject, the sneering remark on mankind, as a set of poor and miserable creatures, the cold and bitter severity whether of philosophic scorn or theological rancour, become no being; least of all, him who has part in this common nature. He, at least, should speak with consideration and tenderness. And if he must speak of faults and sins, he would do well to imitate an Apostle, and to tell these things, even weeping. His tone should be that of forbearance and pity. His words should be recorded in a Book of Lamentations. "How is the gold become dim," he might exclaim in the words of an ancient lamentation-" how is the gold become dim, and the most fine gold changed! The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed but as earthen vessels, the work of the hands of the potter !"

II.

ON HUMAN NATURE.

PUR THOU HAST MADE HIM A LITTLE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS, AND HAST CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOUR.-Psalm viii. 5.

I HAVE endeavoured, in my last discourse, to show that the very objections which are usually brought against human nature, imply in the very fact, in the very spirit and tone of them, the strongest concessions to its worth. I shall now proceed to the direct argument in its favour. It is the constitutional worth of human nature that we have thus far considered rather than its moral worth, or absolute virtue. We have considered the indignant reproaches against its sin and debasement, whether of the philosopher or the theologian, as evidence of their own conviction, that it was made for something better. We have considered that moral constitution of human nature, by which it was evidently made not to be the slave of sin, but its conqueror.

Let us now proceed to take some account of its moral traits and acquisitions. I say its moral traits and acquisitions. For there are feelings of the human mind which scarcely rise to the character of acquisitions, which are involuntary impulses; and yet which possess a nature as truly moral, though not in as high a degree, as any voluntary acts of virtue. Such is the simple, natural love of excellence. It bears the same relation to moral effort, as spontaneous reason does to reflection or logical effort: and what is spontaneous, in both cases, is the very foundation of the acquisitions that follow. Thus, the involuntary per

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