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sisted hardens into necessity;" and then it is too late to repent. Then even agonising efforts may end only in failure and despair. "If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." Beware! Beware!

III

The Formation of Character.

ས.

RETRIBUTION.

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'
GALATIANS vi. 7.

UST as it is impossible, in the physical world,

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to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, so is it impossible in the moral world to reap, in the end and in the long-run, anything but reward for the good which we do, anything but punishment for the evil. This assertion is demonstrably, I had almost said undeniably, true. But there have always been moralists, from the Sophists of Greece to Professor Bain among ourselves, who have asserted that the only punishment to be feared by wrongdoers was that which could be inflicted from without,-fines, imprisonment, social ignominy, and so forth. If this were really

so, if there were no other form in which retribution could come, our text would not be universally valid. Its truth in any particular case would depend upon whether the wrongdoer could, or could not, escape detection. If he could, it might be possible to sow one thing and reap another, to sow evil and to reap good. It not unfrequently happens, indeed, that a man who is dishonest, by managing to appear honest, reaps the external rewards of honesty. But nevertheless, it is true of him that "Whatsoever he has sown, that shall he also reap," ay, that he has already begun to reap. There is a harvest of character that follows from human actions, and this is at once the most important and the most certain form of retribution.

Some of you will remember having read an interesting discussion on this subject in Plato's 'Republic.' Thrasymachus, one of the Sophists, undertakes to prove that the wicked, if only they are wicked on a large enough scale, are always gainers by their wickedness. If, for example, an honest and a dishonest man are partners in any business undertaking, the dishonest man overreaches the honest man, and so gets the best of the bargain. In the case of the income-tax, an untruthful person will pay less than the man

who gives an accurate return. In an official situation, again, he who is conscientious will neglect his own affairs for the sake of the general good, instead of enriching himself from the public purse, as he might have done if he had not been troubled with a conscience. To be bad on a small scale, says Thrasymachus, procures for men the names of burglar, swindler, thief, &c.; but to be bad on a large scale, like a tyrant usurper for instance, who has forced his way to a throne through rivers of blood, and has then sacrificed without stint the happiness and the lives of his subjects for his own private enjoyment, to be wicked on a magnificent scale like that, is the way to procure for one's self all that heart can wish.

It must be admitted, I think, that if there were no retribution to be feared by us except that which society inflicts, there would be considerable force in the position which is here taken up by Thrasymachus. Much of what he says is as true to-day in England as it was formerly in Greece. The man who steals a turnip is called a thief and sent to prison. Whereas, on the other hand—and those of you who know anything of the history of public companies will bear me out in what I say—

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many a man, who has amassed a fortune by ingenious swindling, has been allowed to pass muster as a gentleman.

Another speaker in the same dialogue, named Glaucon, supports a somewhat different position. He argues, that generally speaking it is impossible to commit injustice with impunity, either on a large scale or on a small scale. He admits that if it were possible to injure our neighbours without any fear of civil punishment, it would be the best thing we could do; but, he says, as men cannot count on acting injuriously to others without running the risk of being injured by them in return, they have wisely agreed among themselves that they will mutually refrain. So virtue is the result of a compromise between the best mode of life, which would be to do injustice to others without suffering it from them in return, and the worst, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation. He goes on to assert, what I hope for the sake of humanity is not true, that if the virtuous and the vicious had entire liberty given them to do what they liked, they would both go the same way, they would both become unjust. Supposing that each had a Gyges' ring, by which he could become invisible when he pleased, the actions of both would be

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