loathing increased by having experienced the effects of intemperance here.

rance

It would be illogical to infer that, because God does not always cure a disease by the pain which arises from that disease whilst the patient is in this world, therefore God never intends to cure the disease. God is constantly using means to overcome ignohis whole universe is one great system of instruction; yet He advances but a very small distance in producing perfect wisdom, even in the brightest intelligences, whilst they are in this world and yet it would be manifestly absurd to infer that God will not succeed in making us extremely wise in millions of years after our departure from this world. Now it may be that the disease of the body produced by repeated intoxication is incurable, yet the soul may awake from its stupor in the world of spirits with a hatred of all intemperance and an inexpressible joy at finding itself freed from the miserable clog of clay, which it now perceives was the only impediment which hindered it at once from rising into the pure regions of intelligence and bliss.

But even if the case of the drunkard, and perhaps some others, can not be explained in accordance with the doctrine advanced in this paper, the general principle may still be true, that the pain which God has caused to follow transgression is intended to lead to reformation. Besides, who can tell how many are prevented from becoming confirmed drunkards by considering the horrible state to which they and their families would be reduced if they yielded to the temptation of continued intoxication?

It appears, then, highly probable that in this case, as in all others, the tendency of the pain consequent upon transgression is to produce reformation in all minds possessing sufficient reason to discover that pain is the result of the transgression; and therefore we may safely infer that God designed this tendency when he arranged it so that pain should follow transgression. Nay, further, God does not always wait till the commission of the overt act of transgression before He commences the punishment. He has beautifully and wisely and mercifully arranged it so that the punishment is cotemporaneous with the first thought of committing the transgression, even before the design is formed or the plan laid. The punishment begins thus early evidently with the design to prevent the overt act, and sometimes even the completion of the design to commit the overt act.

What an untold amount of crime is prevented by this most benevolent arrangement! How much suffering is avoided by using an ounce of prevention instead of a pound of cure! How much more beautiful is such a plan as this, and how much more efficient in advancing the moral education of rational beings, than any plan would be which would defer the punishment for a long time after the commission of the transgression! If God had caused happiness to be the result of transgression of his laws in this world and misery in the next, such an arrangement would seem like a plan to entrap us into crime, for all our experience would then lead us to believe that crimes are the true source of happiness. Such a scheme was never made by a wise and benevolent God.

Perhaps it may be objected to the system which I have here presented, that it represents God as acting inconsistently with his own plans and determinations. In a former part of this paper, it may be said I endeavored to prove that God designed that man should commit moral evil, and in the latter part I have endeavored to show that God has made the best possible contrivances to prevent moral evil, and to cure that which is not prevented. To this objection I answer: that God did certainly intend, as was demonstrated before, all the moral evil which exists, and no more, and the contrivances which He has made to prevent moral evil are intended not to prevent that which takes place, but that which would take place without these contrivances. God, in his infinite wisdom, sees that the ignorance of man would lead him eternally astray from the path of rectitude, if He did not hedge in this path with thorns and thistles, which, by their pungent stings, would warn the traveller, at every deviation, that he must immediately

return.

It may be objected, also, that the system here advocated places the revealed will of God in his Word in contradiction to his secret will in his decrees; that his revealed will is that man should commit no transgressions, but that his secret will is that he should commit all the transgressions which he does commit. To this objection I answer: that there is no contradiction between the revealed and secret will of God. The Word of God is a revelation of his laws, and not at all a revelation of his will that those laws shall not be broken. If God willed that his laws should not be broken, they never would be broken; for what God wills must come

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to pass. His written Word is only a different form of instructing his rational creatures what to do and what not to do to secure their highest happiness. It comes in aid of their experience as to the effects of actions on their happiness or misery. It is kind advice given by a most affectionate father: Do this, and be happy avoid that, or be miserable. It nowhere says that God's will or determination is that we shall not disobey. This advice, like the pain we experience from transgression, or even from the thought of transgression, is intended not to hinder us from the transgressions which we actually commit, but from those we would commit without the aid of this advice. God has determined that we shall commit no more transgressions than we actually do commit, and He has taken effectual means to insure that result. I think, also, we may safely conclude, from the means which we see in operation, that it is his determination that we shall commit fewer and fewer transgressions the longer we continue to exist, until finally, when we become perfectly wise, transgression will become impossible. In this process our free agency will all the time remain unimpaired. Our liability to sin will evidently diminish with the increase of our wisdom and goodness, whilst our free agency will constantly remain the same. Nor is it necessary that man should become infinitely wise to render transgression in him impossible; it is enough that his wisdom be coëxtensive with his sphere of action, so that nothing should be presented to his mind leading to action beyond his sphere of knowledge. Now, as man's sphere of action is limited, we may well conceive that his knowledge, which is constantly increasing in this world, and will probably increase much faster in the next, will become so extensive in millions of years that no proposition could then be proposed to him which he could not determine as to its evil or good consequences; and as God never will, to all eternity, cause happiness to be the result of the transgression of his laws, this knowledge is all that is necessary to render transgression impossible-especially when we consider that man never can have his nature so changed that he can prefer misery to happiness; and to prefer the known causes of misery to the known causes of happiness would be the same as preferring the misery itself.

Perhaps it may be objected that I have based all my reasonings, in this paper, on the supposition that man is a purely intellectual

being, and that all his volitions arise from the dictates of the understanding, whereas it is manifest that he is not purely intellectual, and that very many of his volitions are chiefly influenced by his passions, and still more by his habits- and that, too, so suddenly that his rational powers have no time to act before the volition is made; and hence it is inferred that man may still be liable to transgress the law of God, even after he becomes perfect in knowledge, if that time should ever arrive. This objection, however plausible, is easily answered. I acknowledge that many of our volitions are influenced by our passions, and many depend on our habits, as completely as the volitions of beasts depend on instinct; and I have no doubt that we are formed by the Creator with the capacity of acquiring habits, and being influenced by them, for the wisest purposes. Without such a capacity man would be in many respects inferior to the beasts, and, indeed, would be altogether unfitted for an inhabitant of this world. But habits themselves may be examined by reason, and approved or condemned as they shall appear useful or injurious to our happiness; and there is no bad habit, however confirmed by long use, that can not be corrected by long continued and repeated efforts. I will not say that the converse of this proposition is true: that good habits, when once confirmed by long use, can be changed to bad; for good habits, when examined by reason, will be approved, and, of course, no efforts will be made to change them. Thus they will remain forever as parts of our very self, eternally ready to lead us to make proper volitions on all subjects within the sphere of their influence. Hence, it is manifestly true, if you bring up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it. But Solomon nowhere says, Bring up a child in the way he should not go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

[To be Continued. ]

DEVOTION.

DEVOUTLY look, and naught
But wonders shall pass by thee;

Devoutly read, and then

All books shall edify thee;

Devoutly speak, and men

Devoutly listen to thee;

Devoutly act, and then

The strength of God acts through thee.

-Ruckert (Wisdom of the Brahmin).

TO A SKYLARK.

Written on seeing one at a bird-fancier's, in one of our large eastern cities, restlessly endeavoring to force its way through the roof of its cage.

AGAINST thy prison bars still fiercely beating

With tireless wings, striving to find thy way
Out from thy gloomy cell, and give thy greeting
Triumphant to the broad and glorious day,—
In vain endeavor thus thy short, and fleeting,
And cheerless life thou here wilt wear away.

Poor alien can it be that thou art haunted
By visions such as the sad exile sees,
Of some deep, amethystine gulf enchanted,
Far in the bosom of the Pyrenees,

Where, by no hand of mortal ever planted,
Wild blooms are reddening for the golden bees ?

Or maddening dreams-of some blue lakelet lying
'Mid the white Alps, mirroring but the sun,

A star, or warbling skylark o'er it flying

To meet the morn- -or, when the day was done,
Sinking unto his mate, and sweetly trying

His vespers o'er his nest so nearly won!

Or yet of England's hills, and of the auroral
And crimson beams flushing the orient through,
Upon her highland-moors the rose-tints floral

Deepening on heath-bells wet with sweetest dew;
Longing, with longing vain, to join the choral
And exquisite chant far in those skies of blue!

Thy alien fellow-captives never greeting,

Gathered in this dim cell from many lands,
Thou wearest out thy little life and fleeting,
Striving all vainly with thy prison bands,-
Beating against them with a restless beating,

To gain that Temple grand not made with hands!