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Sin degrades, it impoverishes, it beggars the soul; and yet the soul, in this very condition, blesses itself in its superior endowments and happy fortune. Yes, every sinner is a beggar, as truly as the most needy and desperate mendicant. He begs for a precarious happiness; he begs it of his possessions or his coffers that cannot give it; he begs it of every passing trifle and pleasure; he begs it of things most empty and uncertain, of every vanity, of every shout of praise in the vacant air; of every wandering eye he begs its homage: he wants these things; he wants them for happiness; he wants them to satisfy the craving soul; and yet he imagines that he is very fortunate: he accounts himself wise, or great, or honourable, or rich, increased in goods, and in need of nothing. The infatuation of the inebriate man, who is elated and gay, just when he ought to be most depressed and sad, we very well understand. But it is just as true of every man that is intoxicated by any of his senses or passions, by wealth, or honour, or pleasure, that he is infatuated--that he has abjured reason.

What clearer dictate of reason is there than to prefer the greater good to the lesser good. But every offender, every sensualist, every avaricious man, sacrifices the greater good-the happiness of virtue and piety-for the lesser good, which he finds in his senses or in the perishing world. Nor is this the strongest view of the case. He sacrifices the greater for the less, without any necessity for it. He might have both. He gives up heaven for earth, when, ir the best sense, he might, I repeat, have both. A pure mind can derive more enjoyment from this world, and from the senses, than an impure mind. This is true

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even of the lowest senses. But there are other senses besides these; and the pleasures of the epicure are far from equalling, even in intensity, those which piety draws from the glories of vision and the melodies of sound,-ministers as they are of thoughts and feelings that swell far beyond the measure of all worldly joy.

The love of happiness might properly be treated as a separate part of our nature; and I had intended, indeed, to speak of it distinctly,-to speak of the meagre and miserable provision which unholy gratification makes for it, and yet more of the cruel wrong which is done to this eager and craving love of happiness. But as I have fallen on this topic, and find the space that belongs to me diminishing, I must content myself with a single suggestion.

What bad man ever desired that his child should be like himself? Vice is said to wear an alluring aspect, and many a heedless youth, alas! rushes into its embraces for happiness; but what vicious man, what corrupt and dissolute man, ever desired that his child should walk in his steps? And what a testimony is this-what a clear and disinterested testimony to the unhappiness of a sinful course! Yes, it is the bad man that often feels an interest about the virtue of others, beyond all, perhaps, that good men feel; feels an intensity, an agony of desire for his children, that they may be brought up virtuously-that they may never, never be such as he is!

How truly, and with what striking emphasis, did the venerable Cranmer reply, when told that a certain man had cheated him," no, he has cheated himself." Every bad man, every dishonest man, every corrupt man, cheats himself of a good, far dearer than

any advantage that he obtains over his neighbour. Others he may injure, abuse, and delude; but another thing is true, though commonly forgotten, and that is, that he deludes himself, abuses himself, injures himself, more than he does all other men.

In the next place, sin does a wrong to conscience. There is a conscience in every man, which is as truly a part of his nature as reason or memory. The offender against this, therefore, violates no unknown law, nor impracticable rule. From the very teaching of his nature he knows what is right, and he knows that he can do it; and his very nature, therefore, instead of furnishing him with apologies for wilful wrong, holds him inexcusable. Inexcusable, I am aware, is a strong word; and when I have looked at mankind, and seen the ways in which they are instructed, educated, and influenced, I have been disposed to feel as if there were palliations. But on the other hand, when I consider how strong is the voice of nature in a man, how sharp and piercing is the work of a restraining and condemning conscience, how loud and terrible is its remonstrance, what a peculiar, what a heaven-commissioned anguish it sometimes inflicts upon the guilty man, I am compelled to say, despite of all bad teaching and bad influence, “this being is utterly inexcusable:" for, I repeat it, there is a conscience in men. I cannot admit that human nature ever chooses sin as such. It seeks for good, for gratification, indeed. But take the vilest man that lives, and if it were so that he could obtain the gratification he seeks-be it property or sensual pleasure— that he could obtain it honestly and innocently, he would greatly prefer it on such terms. This shows

that there is a conscience in him. But he will have the desired gratification; and to obtain it, he sets his foot upon that conscience, and crushes it down to dishonour and agony, worse than death. Ah! my brethren, we who sit in our closets talk about vice, and dishonesty, and bloody crime, and draw dark pictures of them,-cold and lifeless, though dark pictures; but we little know, perhaps, of what we speak. The heart, all conscious and alive to the truth, would smile in bitterness and derision at the feebleness of our description. And could the heart speak—could “the bosom black as death" send forth its voice of living agony in our holy places, it would rend the vaulted arches of every sanctuary with the cry of a pierced, and wounded, and wronged, and ruined nature!

Finally, sin does a wrong to the affections. How does it mar even that image of the affections, that mysterious shrine from which their revealings flash forth, "the human face divine;" bereaving the world of more than half its beauty! Can you ever behold sullenness clouding the clear fair brow of childhood,—or the flushed cheek of anger, or the averted and writhen features of envy, or the dim and sunken eye and haggard aspect of vice, or the red signals of bloated excess hung out on every feature, proclaiming the fire that is consuming within,—without feeling that sin is the despoiler of all that the affections make most hallowed and beautiful?

But these are only indications of the wrong that is done, and the ruin that is wrought in the heart. Nature has made our affections to be full of tenderness, to be sensitive and alive to every touch, to cling to their cherished objects with a grasp from which

nothing but cruel violence can sever them. We hear much, I know, of the coldness of the world, but I cannot believe much that I hear; nor is it perhaps meant in any sense that denies to man naturally the most powerful affections-affections that demand the most gentle and considerate treatment. Human love -I am ready to exclaim-how strong is it! What yearnings are there of parental fondness, of filial gratitude, of social kindness everywhere! What impatient asking of ten thousand hearts for the love of others; not for their gold, not for their praise, but for their love!

But sin enters into this world of the affections, and spreads around the death-like coldness of distrust; the word of anger falls like a blow upon the heart, or avarice hardens the heart against every finer feeling; or the insane merriment, or the sullen stupor of the inebriate man falls like a thunderbolt amidst the circle of kindred and children. Oh! the hearts where sin is to do its work should be harder than the nether millstone; yet it enters in among affections, all warm, all sensitive, all gushing forth in tenderness; and, deaf to all their pleadings, it does its work as if it were some demon of wrath that knew no pity, and heard no groans, and felt no relenting.

But I must not leave this subject to be regarded as if it were only a matter for abstract or curious speculation. It goes beyond reasoning; it goes to the conscience, and demands penitence and humiliation.

For of what, in this view, is the sensualist guilty? He is guilty, not merely of indulging the appetites of his body, but of sacrificing to that body a soul !— I speak literally-of sacrificing to that body a soul!

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