CHAPTER XII.

HOPE AND FEAR.

HOPE and fear are the great ministers, masters, prophets, and seers of our life. But they are great deceivers as well as great seers, and always prophesy falsely to those who are ill-disposed. They connect the past and the present with the future in their visions, and impart a power to our spirits by which we experience whatever degree of pleasure or of pain may arise from the prospect of the fulfillment or the disappointment of our desires. Hope governs us by promises and fear, by threats. They have, consequently, an influence on all our motives, and constitute the sole persuasives to voluntary action, with a view to coming events. They are, therefore, involved in the consideration of every part of our subject, and might, perhaps, with propriety have been disposed of without distinct investigation, but that a clearer notion of these emotions may enable us more fully to discern the nature of moral government, and the manner in which anticipated punishment or reward operates on the mind to improve its volitions. Here a world-wide expanse of metaphysical speculation opens before us— the lights and shadows of interminable mysteries are there; but we will not enter, lest both writer and reader should find no end amidst those mazes in which angels have lost their way. There is sufficient of a plain and practical nature to be seen, while we stand on safe ground, and observe what is doing among the denizens of this world, under the persuasions of these eloquent, but also most delusive teachers.

There are three modes in which both hope and fear influence our nature,-by appealing to our in

stincts, to our natural affections, and to our reason. Our instincts are moved by those impressions on our senses which convey ideas of pain or pleasure, irrespective of moral considerations: thus certain properties of things, being the natural provocatives of appetite, are associated with desire for indulgence; and, as far as those appetites are concerned, we may hope for the possession of their appropriate object, or we may fear their loss. These instincts imperatively demand attention, since they are the groundwork of our social existence, as creatures dependent on bodily adaptation and supply; and however philosophic may be our habits of contemplation when well furnished with bodily appliances, our reasonings will avail nothing in appeasing the pangs of hunger or of thirst. It is doubtless the prerogative of reason to control the instincts by religious and moral motives, by hopes and fears, in relation to our Maker, our fellow-man, and our family affinities; the body must be so far kept in subjection, as that appetite may be appeased, as a necessity toward higher purposes, rather than indulged, as an end in itself; but yet the physical demands of our existence are so immediately imperative, and so regular in their recurrence, that to reason against their dominion, without providing for their moderate indulgence, is as vain as to bid the ordinances of nature to obey your voice, because the alternation of light and darkness happens not to suit your notions of propriety. Holiness is obedience to law for divine purposes, and God is obeyed, by using the body under the blessed restrictions of Christian temperance; for thus the whole life becomes eucharistic, being dedicated to the Holy One in prayer and thanksgiving. If then, even the devoutest saint must yield, and that in faith, to the instinctive cravings which arise from the state of the body, how shall we suppose that men whose minds are moved for the most part by appetite alone, shall

be able to resist them. He must have a strong spiritual faith of some kind who is not a rebel at heart, when called upon by authority to starve, while he sees that the plenty of his neighbor is so protected that even charity can not touch it.

Although reason has no morality but in governing the instincts, yet if the instincts be not suitably provided for, nature is outraged. To offer a book to a man who wants bread, or to promise the advantages of intellectual advancement to one who sees no prospect of obtaining another meal, is to insult the God of providence in the person of his needy creature; and to inform a man of religious duty who has never seen a family virtue, is to tell him of something beyond his faculties. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, are as binding and as divine as any commands in the decalogue; and the way in which the Almighty teaches the hopes of heaven, is daily to supply the wants which belong to earth; and those who place themselves willingly in the way, so as by the craft of covetousness to divert the gifts of God's bounty from the horces of their fellow-men, are hateful at heart now, and are to be hereafter especially marked as the accursed. To do good, is to communicate to the needy, and to administer comfort to the distressed. This word comfort means so much of present accommodation as will allow hope to sit smiling with us in our homes, and prevent the intrusion of any dispiriting apprehensions of coming want. But if hope and comfort be wanting in any dwelling, what can be the motive most prevalent there? Ask what is the temper of a tiger hunted into his lair, and there torn by dogs; and then ask what a sinful man feels, withh is capacity of loving, hating, hoping, and fearing aggravated to the utmost, and having persuaded himself that the selfishness of his potent neighbor has rendered his home a hell. It is true, he may experience even a more intolerable and

a more common torment; he may feel that he has brought desolation and misery upon himself and his family by his own guilt. But in either case, how is he to be helped? I say by encouragement to hope, and by his reasons to fear. Let him feel that the condemnation of his neighbor does not deliver himself from judgment. As a rational being, let him be persuaded to exert himself. But how can that be, without hope? Instinct prompts to seek death, rather than to live on in a world without hope; and it will be no wonder, if one who knows nothing of the Divine method of doing justice, should imagine he is fulfilling the law of Heaven, by wreaking his own vengeance according to the blindness of his fury and his ignorance. That man can have no idea of hope, but in relation to his instincts. First, show him plainly how to satisfy his appetites safely, comfortably, and with a sense of home and fellowship and responsibility, and then you may be able to convey to him the idea of a nobler enjoyment and a diviner hope. Give him means; give him something to do for himself; and then instruct him as to what the Saviour has done for him. He will scarcely be convinced of sin by his sufferings; he must be able to look at the reason for his hopes and his fears; he must be softened and soothed by the sacred spirit of kindness bringing proofs before his eyes, that Heaven has not forsaken him, but rather has sent angels to minister unto him, before he can feel afraid of his own sins. The thief on the cross was not converted by his own crucifixion, but because he saw that the Son of God was crucified. This man hath done nothing amiss, was his reason for calling him Lord, since his own conscience informed him that, if the righteous suffer, there must be a kingdom beyond this world. The Saviour's good deeds had been such mighty witnesses for him, that his Divinity was plainly seen by the man who felt that he needed salvation;

and thus God ever reveals Himself through those who are obedient to His will; and if we expect to teach the divine character of Christianity without embodying its spirit in ourselves, in deeds of kindness, we are but verbal Christians, ready, perhaps, to give our bodies to be burned in proof of the sincerity of our opinions, and all our goods to feed the poor, for the magnification of our bubble merits; while charity, in the true sense, never moved a thought in our minds or a muscle in our limbs. But there is nothing so terrible as the unresisting gentleness of a soul governed only by truth, and determined to prove it by dying, if necessary, to declare it. It is this that appeals to the Almighty, as the vindicator of the oppressed, the innocent, the obedient; and it proves that Jesus, the Lamb led to the slaughter, was really the Son of God, and that his blood was on his murderers only to save them, if they repented in His name.

We can not, however, make men comfortable any more than we can make them conscientious, in spite of themselves—they must themselves be improved—their souls must be set right before their circumstances can be permanently benefited. Those can not be helped who can not be caused to feel their own responsibility, and be induced to use the means that Providence supplies for the purposes of social intercourse and comfort. The grand difficulty with criminals, in all grades of depravity is to convince them that they are so very faulty as you seem to think them. If their feelings were as sensitive as those who pity them, they would die of remorse; but this is a state of mind rarely known in our prisons, except by those who, under some sudden provocation, have committed violence against those whom they really loved. Hence it is that inspectors of prisons have declared so many of their inmates to be incurable. There is no power in manacles and misery to convince of sin-but a few soft words