Glass. 11^3/ Book ■/?-g > _ THE CORNER-STONE, OR A FAMILIAR ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OP CHRISTIAN TRUTH, cc Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner Stone BY JACOB ABBOTT. AUTHOR OF «THE YCUNG CHRISTIAN,' AND 'THE TEACHER. BUFFALO: PUBLISHED BY PHINNEY & CO 1852. Copyright secured according to the Act of Congress. change raity MAY 7 passively, that these are all, or certainly the chief indi- cations of divine wisdom. Whereas you cannot take a walk, or sit at an open window, without finding innume- rable examples as unequivocal as these. A young lady of active mind, who was out of health, and forbidden by her physician to read or study, and who complained that she did not know how to employ her thoughts, was advised by a friend to take a walk, and see how many proofs of divine contrivance she could find. Such an experiment, I would advise all my readers to try. With a very little ingenuity, they will succeed much better than they would imagine. Should any make the attempt, and reduce to writing the result of the observations made, the report might be perhaps somewhat as follows : "From the yard of my father's house, I passed through a gate into the garden, intending to cross it and seek for my proofs of design, in the fields and wood beyond. As I passed along the walk, however, I observed several apples lying on the ground, under a tree. I took up one and found that it was ripe. I was thinking whether there was not design in the smooth tight skin by which the apple was covered, protecting it so fully from the rain, and thought that next spring, when the apples were about half formed, I would carefully pare one while it was on the tree, and then leave it, to see what effect the loss of its skin would have on its future growth. " None but the ripe apples had fallen to the ground. It seems then that when the fruit has come to its maturi- ty, it is so contrived as to let go its hold, and fall. There appears to be no natural connexion between the maturity of the fruit and the weakness of the stem precisely at its junction with the tree, particularly as the rest of the stem continues strong and sound as before. <: T mellowed one of the apples, as the boys term it, by 28 THE CORNER-STONE. [Cll. 1 Juices. Cells. The vine and its tendrils. Contraction. striking it rapidly against a smooth post, without how- ever breaking the skin. Before, though it was not very hard, it was firm to the touch, but now it was soft and yielding. What change had I made in its interior? A ball of wood could not be thus softened by blows. I cut it open. The juice flowed out profusely. If I had outfit open just as it came from the tree, not a drop would have fallen to the ground. I concluded that the sweet liquid had been carefully put up in little cells, which composed the substance of the fruit, and which had safely retained it until my blows had broken them ail away, so as to mingle their contents into one mass. I thought how busily the power of God was employed, every summer's day, in ten thousand orchards, carrying these juices into every tree, apportioning its proper share to every apple, and conveying each particle to its own minute, invisible celL "Just then I saw before me at a little distance, a cucumber vine, which had spread itself over the ground, and was clinging to every little sprig and pebble which came in its way. ' How can its little tendrils find what they wish to clasp?' thought I, as I stooped down to look at them. I observed that the tendrils which did not come into contact with any thing, were nearly or o x uite straight, though some of them had grown out to a con- siderable length. Every one however which touched any object, had curled towards it, and some had wound themselves round so many times, that they would break rather than relax their hold. How delicate must be the mechanism of fibres, so contrived that by the mere invi- tation of a touch, they should curl and grasp the object which is presented. " While looking at this, and observing that the origin of the tendril in the stem of the vine, was always at the exact place where a support would be most effectual, I noticed a small bright drop, which assumed, as I slightly Ch. l.J THE DEITY. 29 The dew drop. Its supports. • Highly finished work. changed my position, bright hues of orange, green, blue, and violet. It was a drop of dew, which lay in a little indentation of the leaf. I was admiring the admirable exactness of its form, and the brilliancy of its polished surface, and wondering at the laws of cohesion and of light which could thus retain every particle in its pre- cise position, and produce images so perfect, and yet so minute, as I saw reflected there, — when I accidentally touched the leaf, and the little world of wonders rolled away. The charm was broken at once; it vanished upon the wet ground as if it had not been. The spot upon the leaf, where it had been lying for hours was dry Thousands of downy fibres, which God had fashioned there, had held it up, and similar fibres in countless numbers clothed every leaf and every stem and every tendril of the whole. I looked over the garden and was lost in attempting to conceive of the immense number of these delicately fashioned fibres, which the all pervading Deity had been slowly constructing there, during the months that had just gone by. And when I reflected that not only that garden, but the gardens and fields all around me, — the verdure of the whole continent, — of the whole earth, — of unnumbered worlds besides, was all as exquisitely finished as this, the mind shrunk back from the vain effort to follow out the reflection." But enough. Such a narrative might be continued in- definitely, and the young Christian who will actually go forth to study God's character in garden and forest and field, will find no end to his discoveries. And the very substances which are most common, and which he has been accustomed to look upon with the slightest interest, he will find teeming with the most abundant proofs of the Creator's benevolence and skill, and the boundless resources of his power. Take for instance, water, which as it lies before us in a bowl, appears as simple^ 3* 30 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 1 Water. The fleecy cloud. Snow storms and snow flakes. and as little mechanical in its structure, as any thing can possibly be; and yet weeks would not be sufficient to describe its wonders. See it now gliding in a srnootlj gentle current to the ocean, over golden sands, enchain- ing us for hours upon its banks, to gaze upon its rippling surface, and into its clear depths, — and now roiling in the billows of the ocean, which toss, with terrific power, the proudest structures that men can frame, as easily as they do the floating sea-weed. Again it assumes an invisible form, and the same particles, under a different law, float imperceptible in the atmosphere, or by their almost resistless repulsion, work the mightiest engines which man can construct. The Protean substance again appears to us in the form of a light fleecy cloud, sailing in the clear blue sky. And what is a cloud? It presents only a surface of whiteness to the eye: but it is com- posed of countless drops, turned to their true spherical form with mathematical precision, and gently descen- ding through the air, as fast as their superior weight can find its way. Every fleecy cloud is in fact a shower, with drops smaller indeed than those of rain, and descen- ding more slowly, and consumed by the warm air below them, before they reach the earth. If we could see the gradual formation and dissipation of such a drop, as particle after particle comes to increase it, or flies away, we should see the operation of the Deity; and when we think how many clouds and storms sweep over the sky, every minute globule of which must be formed under the hand of God, we shall see how boundlessly multiplied are the operations of his hands. But the half is not yet told. Come out in the snow storm, and after surveying the vast extent of country buried in its white wintry covering, look up into the sky, and estimate, if you can, the millions of descending flakes. Every one of these flakes, countless as they are, is formed and fashioned after its proper model. It is cry:*- Ch. l.J THE DEITY 31 Perfect workmanship. The bubble. Its structure. talized in a precise form, every particle takes its precise place, every point of the beautiful star has its proper acuteness, and although in an hour a southern rain is to melt and destroy them all, still not one is neglected, not one is slighted, but every individual flake, of all the millions, is fashioned with as much exactness and care as if it was expressly intended for the examination of the chymist or philosopher. Now think of the vast fields of snow which whiten the arctic regions, — think of the eternal storms which sweep the polar skies, and which follow the retreating sun every season, far down towards his own peculiar climes, and conceive, if you can, the extent of the work, which the all pervading Deity has continually to do. There is then no end to the forms which this simple substance assumes, in the changes through which the Deity carries it. I will mention one more, because it illustrates peculiarly the idea that the most common objects are the most extraordinary, if we really look at them with an observing eye. It is the bubble; one of the most surprising things in nature, and yet one at which nobody ever thinks of being surprised. In order that we may examine it more conveniently, let us imagine it to be enlarged, for it is plain that its character does not depend at all upon its size. Imagine it then to be enlarged; suppose one, twenty feet in height, were to stand before you. What a magnificent dome! Pure, transparent, glistening in the sun, and irised by a thousand hues, which float and wave and spread in graceful and ceaseless motion on its surface! And yet this dome is built, by its architect, of what? Of marble blocks, fitted into one another with the care which man must exercise to construct his arch or dome? Of iron bars to strengthen the sides and sustain the summit? No: but of fluid particles, which glide and swim among each other, as if thev had no connexion 32 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 1 Its wonderful mechanism. Intellectual and moral exhibitions whatever. They are bound together, firmly and exactly balanced, and yet with such admirable skill, that every one is free to float and move where it will. The edifice is so strong, that if a heavy body falls upon it, it either glides down its side, or cleaves its summit; and the magic structure safely withstands the shock. It regains in an instant its form, as true, as symmetrical and as perfect as before; and yet, stable as it thus is, every stone in the edifice is in motion, and glides gracefully, and at perfect liberty, among the rest. It is indeed a wonder. The laws of reflection and cohesion and equi- librium, which every bubble brings into play, it would require a volume to elucidate, and yet the mighty ope- rator, seeming to find pleasure in endless occupation, dashes them out in the utmost perfection, under every waterfall; by means of them he surmounts every one of the countless waves of ocean with its snowy crest, and whitens a hundred thousand miles of sandy beach and rocky shore, with a perpetual fringe of foam. But after all, innumerable and wonderful as are these works of the Deity, these modes of acting out his attri- butes, there are far more interesting manifestations of his character. For, exciting and animating as are such glimpses as these of the workings of the Almightv, it is only such attributes as skill, power, taste, invention, which are brought into view by them. They are most striking exhibitions it is true, but they are exhibitions of cold intellect only, after all. The splendor of the evening sky, the sublimity of a tempest, the exquisite delicacy of structure which we see in microscopic plants and animals, affect us strongly, but it is little more thao a philosophical interest in a power and a skill, so infi- nitely varied in its designs, and so admirable in its ex- ecution. But you can go much farther than this, you can examine ev^n in nature, the moral exhibitions of God's Ch. 1.] THE DEITY. 33 An imaginary walk in June. God is love. character, and as we pass from these examples of mere mechanism, to those which exhibit to us the moral feel- ings of the being who performs these works, our hearts are touched. I will take, to illustrate this, one of the lowest examples of what I mean. It is June. We walk out in some retired and unin- habited region, in the midst of the forests, and find all nature thronged with active and happy life. Insects unnumbered sport in the sun, or skip upon the bright surface of the lake. Nimble aiaimals chase one another upon the branches of the trees, or hide in hollow trunks, or gather nuts and fruits which fall around them, in in- exhaustible profusion. And what is all this for? Per- haps for hundreds of miles around, there is not a human habitation; no human eye will witness this scene, and no human want will be supplied by any thing it produ- ces. What is it for? What motive induces these efforts? Why, it is because this mighty architect whose power is so great, and whose field is so boundless, loves to exer- cise that power in every corner of that wide spread field, for the purpose of producing enjoyment. No person can look on such a scene, with any thing like proper views of it, without feeling a glow of new interest and warmer attachment towards its mighty Author. The mere proofs of power and contrivance and skill, in the specimens of mechanism which have been noticed, awaken strong in- tellectual interest;— =-but it touches the heart, and awakens a deeper and warmer emotion there, when we see this architect, while actually carrying on the mighty mechan- ism of the heavens, still busily engaged in this seclud- ed valley, filling thousands and millions of his creatures with enjoyment, as if taking pleasure in witnessing the frolics of an insect; and drawing so copiously upon his stores of skill and power, to make a squirrel or a robin happy. The robin ; just look for a moment at his nest in the 34 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 1. The i jbin and his nest. God's? care of him. The pair. midst of this valley of peace. It is fixed securely in a cluster of branches, sheltered just enough by the foliage around, and in it are three or four tender, helpless, unfledged birds lying together. The open air and the broad sky is over their heads; nothing but the hanging leaf protects them from an enemy. They have no power to fly, no power to resist; hunger is coming on and they cannot provide food; but they lie alone and helpless and weak, the very picture of defencelessness and exposure. But they are safe and happy. God makes them his care. They cannot bear cold; God has guarded them against it, by so poising the ponderous earth, and so carefully regulating its motions, that no nipping frost, and no storm of snow can possibly come to desolate their little dwelling. They cannot defend themselves from violence or escape from it. True; and God has so regulated the instincts and propensities of the millions of living things around them, that they shall be exposed to none. They cannot provide themselves with food, and it will take but very few hours to bring them to excruciating suffering unless they are supplied. But they will be supplied. God has sent out his messengers to provide for them. One flies from tree to tree in a distant part of the forest, and the other perhaps hops upon the shore of the brook or pond. The trees around them are filled with thousands of other birds, alluring them by their songs, and brighter vales and more shady trees invite them to stay. But no. God has bound them to one another; and to their help- less young, by a mechanism, as incomprehensible as it is beautiful in its results. It allows them to fly freely and unfettered as they choose, but it retains its indissoluble hold wherever they go. No song of a stranger will make them forget one another; no other nest will lead them to forget their own; no sunny bank or shady grove will have charms enough to detain them; but faithful to theii trust they toil industriously through the day, and unless Ch I.] THE DEITY 35 The scene changed. January. Plans for protection. death or violence keep them away, they will be ready with their supply, when at night their helpless young open their mouths and cry for food. We "cannot com- prehend the admirable mechanism by which these results are secured, but we love the character which our Father manifests in securing them. But let us change the scene. It is January, and we walk out into the same forest, and look upon the same stream which in summer was the scene of so much life and activity and happiness. How changed! Where are the insects now, which sported in the sunbeams, on the glassy surface of the water? That surface is still more glassy now, — solid and cold, — and over it scud the dry wreaths of snow before the bleak wind. Where are now the thousand forms of happy life, which enlivened every bank and fluttered from flower to flower? Alas! sunny bank and gay flower, and verdant turf are gone! The deep snow clothes the whole surface of the ground, cov- ering every smaller plant, and rising around the naked trunks of the tall trees, — hanging in wreaths over the banks, and fast accumulating, as the driving wintry storm brings on fresh supplies from God's inexhaustible treasuries. Where is that happy home among the branch- es of the tree? The leaves which sheltered it are gone, a mass of drifting snow marks the spot where the deso- late and forsaken habitation remains, and the cold dreary wind whistles through the naked branches around. We must remember too, that it is not in this one spot alone, that this change, and this apparent exhaustion of life has taken place. For thousands of miles, in almost every direction, in June, life and activity and enjoyment were as abundant as in this little dell, and now over all this wide extent winter has spread her reign of desolation and death. Has God left, is a very natural inquiry, has God left all these millions of his creatures to be over- whelmed with destruction? 36 THE eORNER-STONE. *°-h. 1. The winter hoa.i. The Chrysalis. The ant. No; scarcely one. He has secured and protected them all. Never did the most cautious husbandman lay in his stores, and prepare his clothing, and secure the warmth and tightness of his buildings with half the effi- ciency of foresight and care which God exhibits every autumn, in shutting up, in places of safety and protection, all the varieties of animal and vegetable life. The storm and the wintry cold are not allowed to come till he has given maturity and strength to the helpless birds, and sent them away to warmer climes. Other animals have, in obedience to an impulse of which they could not know the nature and design, been industriously employed dur- ing the summer, in laying in their winter stores; and are now sheltered in holes, or hollow trunks, sleeping undis- turbed in the midst of a plenty which God has provided for them. Even the insect tribes, so delicate and frail, are all safe. By a most admirable arrangement, genera- tion succeeds generation in such a way, that the animal life of a whole species exists in such a form at the ap- proach of winter, that ice and cold and snow can produce neither injury nor pain. In these and in other ways, God has secured for all, protection, and exemption from suffering, and when the first wintry midnight storm roars through the forest, it finds every thing prepared for it. Every nest is empty, and its inmates are safe in another clime. All insect existence is protected, and the field mouse, and even the little ant, are carefully housed in their warm and sheltered and plentiful home. By such examinations as these, of God's works, we see that he is Love; that he is not merely a cold con- triver, exhibiting in his works mechanical skill and power alone, but that he has feelings of affection, that he is susceptible of strong personal interest and attachment It gives us great intellectual gratification to look at the exhibitions of his mere invention and power, but it touch- es our hearts, and awakens a deep and warm feeling Ch. 1.] THE DEITY, God a faiher. A magistrate too. System. there, when we see this skill and power brought into requisition to secure the protection and happiness of even the lowest creatures he has formed. The inference is irresistible, that he who takes so much pains to bring to every unfledged robin or sparrow its daily supplies of food, cannot be indifferent to our protection and happi- ness. We must be of more value than many sparrows. In studying the character however of the great unseen Power which pervades the universe, you must not look exclusively at those kind and gentle aspects of it, which we have been exhibiting. God is a magistrate as well as a father. It is the part of a magistrate to act on system, and to be firm and decided in sustaining system and law. Plans must be formed with reference to the general good, and these plans must be steadily pursued, even at the occasional expense of great individual suf- fering. The wider the field, the more extensive the community, and more lasting and momentous the in- terests involved, the greater is the necessity of this de- termined firmness on the part of the magistrate upon whom the responsibility devolves. If now you wish to make out for yourself a Deity such as may suit your own weakness or timidity, you will pass over this part of God's character; but if you wish for truth, — if you really wish to understand what sort of a Power it is that holds the reins of government over us all, you will not allow this aspect of his character to pass unexamined. Wherever we look then, whether to nature or revela- tion, or to that more distinct manifestation of his charac- ter which the invisible Supreme has made to us in the person of Jesus Christ, we shall find the most over- whelming, and sometimes appalling proofs, that God acts upon system; — that he has planned a system, both of physical and moral law, with reference to the greatest good of the greatest number, and that this system he will sustain, with the most determined and persevering 4 38 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 1. Firmness and decision. The suffering child. Its mother. decision. I shrink from coming to this part of my sub~ ject. Many of my readers, without doubt, who have fol- lowed me with all their hearts, in the pictures of God's character which have been exhibited so far, will hang back reluctant from what remains. But we must know the whole. We must endeavor to understand fully the character of the great Being with whom we have to do. If then we look at the manifestations of Jehovah's character which he has made, and is making, in nature all around us, you will find, as I said above, that he acts upon system, and that he will pursue the plan which public good requires, firmly and efficiently, even at the expense of great individual suffering. Let me first illustrate this, in regard to a mere physical Jaw. You are studying God's character, I will suppose, in what you see of his works, and as you pass by some usually quiet and happy dwelling, your attention is at- tracted by piercing cries from within, apparently coming from "a child and indicating acute suffering. You enter to ascertain the cause, and find that a little infant, just learning to delight its parents' hearts by its opening fac- ulties of speech and reason, has fallen into the fire, and is dreadfully burned. The poor child cries piteously, and extends its arms to its parents for relief. It has never before known a pain which they could not either relieve or mitigate, and its look of anguish seems to upbraid them for not rescuing it now. Its agonized parents, suffering even more than the child, look this way and that for help, but in vain. The injury is too deep to be repaired. Hour after hour, nay day after day, the in- tense suffering continues, until fever and delirium close the sad scene. Close it, did I say? No. The child sleeps, but memory does not sleep in the breast of its half-distracted mother. For weeks and months her eyes will fill with tears, and her heart will almost burst, as she looks upon Ch. !.] THE DEITY 39 Physical law sustained. God's determined decision. the deserted little cradle, or the now useless toy. Those heart rending cries and dying struggles are perpetuated in her mind by faculties which God has planted there; and the recollection will for months and years haunt her by day, and terrify her in her midnight dreams. All this follows from the accident of a moment, for which no one was to blame. There is but one Power in existence who could stop these consequences, after the recurrence of the cause. And will he do it? Will he interpose and stop the torture, and heal the wound, and bring relief and happiness once more to the distracted family? Or will he remain calmly by, leaving the laws of matter and of mind to work out in such a case their awful consequences to the full? The question does not need an answer He has es- tablished laws in regard to the nature and effects of fire upon the human frame, and the connexion of bodily in- jury with bodily suffering, and the principles which reg- ulate the movements of the human heart, which he sees are best on the wmole. These laws he has established. He sees that it is best that they should be liable to no exceptions and no uncertainty in their course, and he accordingly ivill carry them through. Men sometimes exhibit firmness and decision in carrying out a plan, which is on the whole for the best ; but if we will look around us at the works of Providence, which invite our examination on every side, we shall see that God does not hesitate to go, in the execution of his laws, where the firmest and most decided men would shrink from fol- lowing. Perhaps some persons may object to such a view of our Maker's character; but if they do, it seems impossi- ble to avoid the conclusion that it is the character itself that they object to, and not to any thing peculiar in this mode of exhibiting it. These are facts which I have been exhibiting, not theories They are common facts 40 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 1. General laws. Moral law. The wretched dwelling. too, that is, the transaction I have described not unfre- quently occurs, exactly as I have described it, and it is moreover a fair specimen of thousands and tens of thou- sands of occurrences which are precisely analogous to it in their nature, and which are constantly taking place in the view of every observer. Nor can there be any doubt of the explanation I have given. That God has ordained these general laws no one can doubt or deny. That he might arrest or suspend their operation in individual cases if he was inclined to do so, is equally unquestionable; and his allowing them to work their way through so much misery, is proof clear and undeniable as demonstration, that though he loves happiness and is planning continu- ally to secure it for millions and millions of his creatures, he can still firmly and steadily witness individual suffer- ing, when necessary, and that he will do it, rather than sacrifice the general good by violating law. You will see this still more clearly and its effects are still more terrible, in regard to the operations of moral law. I mean law relating to the moral conduct of men. If you really wish to know what God's actual character is, as he exhibits it in what he does, you will take special interest in observing what he does in cases of guilt. On the side of a bleak and barren hill half a mile from the village in which you reside, stands a miserable house, or rather hovel, which has often attracted your attention in your walks, by its ruinous and dilapidated condition, and the pale, sickly, wretched children which shiver at the door. Did you ever consider what sort of a scene its interior usually presents, at night? Come with me and see. The inner door hanging by a single hinge opens creakingly, and the cold, empty, miserable apartment, presents to you an expression of wretchedness far more gloomy than even the exterior had led you to expect. The sickly, worn out wife and mother is trying in vain Ch. 1.] THE DEITY. 4 J The interior. Misery. The father's return. to make out, from former remnants, some food for her- self and her half-starved children. They sit around the room, or hover over the embers, in a half stupor. They do not cry. The extreme of misery is silent, and these wretched ones are beyond tears. She is hurrying through her work to get them away from an approaching danger. What is that danger, which she does not dare that they should meet with her? Why their father is corning home. If it was the lightning, or a tornado, or a midnight assassin, she would gather her children around her, and they would feel safer and happier together. But their father is coming home, and the uncontrollable pas- sions of an insane husband and father, she chooses to hear alone. She sends her children away. She hides her babe in the most secret place she can find; — an ema- ciated, shivering boy spreads over him the thin covering which is all that is left, and draws himself up, as if he was trying to shrink away from cold; — and perhaps a girl, by a choice of miseries, has pleaded for permission to stay with her mother. All this is however the mere prelude, — the preparation, anticipating the scene of real misery which the return of the abandoned husband and father is to bring. But here I must stop; for if I were to describe the scene which ensues, just as it is actually exhibited in thous- ands and ten thousands of families all over England and America, every night, my readers would lay down the book, sick at heart, at the contemplation of the guilt and miseries of man. But the point I am wishing to bring to your view in all this case, is this. How firmly and steadily will Jehovah go on, night after night, for months and years, and allow the wretched sinner in this case to drink all the bitter dregs of the cup he chooses, and to bring down its dread- ful effects upon his helpless wife and children. Nay we 4* 42 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 1 Unpunished guilt, and suffering innocence. Penalties. ma) go further back. For all this misery is primarily caused by a poison which another man supplies; he deals it. out a daily potion of death, and while his own head is sheltered, and his own fireside safe from its effects, he is permitted by Providence to go on for years, sending these streams of misery into many families all around him. Why does not God interpose to stop this vice and suffering? Why does he not shelter this wretched wife, and warm and feed these perishing but innocent children? — innocent at least, of the causes of their mis- ery. Why does he not by a change in the constitution of nature destroy the possiblity of making a poison so excruciating in its effects? There ean be but one an- swer. He sees that it is on the whole for the best, that man should be left free to sin if he will, and that the nature of sin should be shown by allowing it to work out undisturbed its own awful results to all connected with the sinner. These plans of his government he has the firmness to carry out, — though every year they cut down thousands of wretched wives and starved children. The man who chooses to send firebrands, arrows and death around him, has under the government of God an oppor- tunity to do so. The door is wide open. And the help- less and innocent wife and children must take the con- sequences. But oh, thou forlorn and broken-hearted mother, be of good courage. Thou art not forgotten, though fixed laws must take their course. Thou shalt have a hearing in due time. Such cases as the above, are rather cases of moral arrangements carried out firmly to their end, than exam- ples of the execution of the penalties of a moral law. I do not bring forward cases of the latter kind, because they are familiar to every one, and most certainly if God does not shrink from individual suffering, when it is Ch. I.] THE DEITY. 43 Language of the Bible. Leading traits of the Divine character. necessary to sustain the uniformity of material processes, or to carry out the moral operations of his general sys- tem, who can imagine that he will fail in the energy of his government in regard to the consequences of personal guilt. The Bible speaks on this subject in language so terrible that men shrink from repeating it; but nature speaks all around us more emphatically and more terribly still* As I have already remarked, it would not be surpris- ing if some of my readers were to shrink back from these views of the determined decision which God man- ifests in carrying out to the end, all these arrangements which he has once deliberately adopted for the ultimate good of all. We cannot deny, however, that the history of God's dealings with men is full of such examples as we have presented, and that if we really and honestly wish to know what is his character and what principles do really govern his conduct, such cases deserve a most attentive consideration. He who wishes to frame for himself an imaginary Deity, suited to his own limited views and narrow conceptions, will probably shut his eyes against them. We however wish to know the truth. whatever it may be,- and if we attempt to study God's character as it is exhibited in those manifestations of himself which he makes in his daily providence, we shall find everywhere inscribed in blazing characters, Unbounded power and skill; Universal and inex- tinguishable love; and Inflexible firmness in the execution of law. * We must not suppose from these facts, that the Deity is guided, in the government of the world, by general laws, which, though on the whole useful and salutary, are, in individual cases, mischievous and only to be tolerated because they effect, on the whole, more good than evil. These laws of nature, even in those cases where, to the eye of man, they produce nothing but evil, are in reality as truly intended and calculated to produce good, as in the other cases where the good is manifest and direct. 44 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 1 Second manifestation. The Holy Spirit. Contrasts of character. We have thus far exhibited the mode by which you are to study the character of our great Magistrate and Father, by his acts; and this mode of study, you will observe, is essentially the same, whether you read the record of his acts contained in the Bible, or observe them in the histories of nations and individuals, or in the occurrences of common life. All these however constitute but one mode by which the Deity manifests himself to men. There are two others which I must briefly allude to here, though they will be more fully brought to view in the future chapters of this work. The second great manifestation of the Deity which is made to us, is in the exertion of a direct power upon the human heart. In all ages of the world, there have been remarkable exceptions to the prevailing selfishness and sin which generally reign among mankind. These ex- ceptions occur in the earliest history contained in the Bible; and were it not for the light which Christianity throws upon the subject, they would be almost unac- countable Cain and Abel, for example, took entirely different courses in reference to their duties towards God. Love, gratitude, and reverence seem to have reigned in the heart of one, while a cold, heartless, and selfish worship was all that the other rendered. Here is an extraordinary difference among beings of the same species, possessing the same native powers and propensi- ties, and placed in substantially the same circumstances. Noah listened to the warning voice of God, while all the rest of the world gave themselves up to sin. Why should this be so? Worldly pleasure, we might have supposed, would have been as alluring to him as to others, and the disposition to obey and fear their Maker as strong in others as in him. But it was not so. He stood alone; and how shall the moral phenomenon of his solitary virtue amidst universal degeneracy and vice, be explained ? Ch. 1.] THE DEITY. 45 Influences of the Spirit. Testimony of the Bible; of witnesses. So in a multitude of other cases. The narratives with which the Old Testament is filled seem designed to ex- hibit to us contrasts. A few individuals, with hearts filled with filial affection towards God, form the bright parts of the picture, and the natural character of selfish- ness and sin, acting in different circumstances, but in all, working out the same bitter fruits, exhibit abundantly the darker shades. Why should this be so? Why should Abraham find in himself a willingness to obey God, and to deal kindly and justly with man, while un- godliness, injustice and cruelty reigned almost all around him. Why was Joseph pure and spotless, — conscientious, just and forgiving? His brothers were men of violence and blood. Why, in such a family should there be §uch an exception? Similar examples have been always occurring and the Bible exhibits them as the effects of a peculiar operation of the Holy Spirit, as it is termed, upon the human heart. A mysterious operation, powerful in its results, but in- comprehensible in its nature. This you will observe is a manifestation of the Divinity entirely different from those to which we have already alluded. In the works of creation and Providence, Jehovah himself acts, and from the nature of his actions we learn his character In his direct power over moral agents, he mysteriously mingles his influences with their moral powers, so as to lead ihem to act, and by the character of the results, we likewise in this case learn his character. They are however two modes of manifesting the powers and char- acter of the Deity, which are very dissimilar. This class of moral effects are not only in the Bible ascribed to an influence from above, but they have always been so attributed by the individuals themselves. Good men, in all ages, have always understood, and have been eager to acknowledge their dependence upon a higher power, for all that is good in their hearts They 46 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 1. United testimony. The Son. Seeing face to face. have differed exceedingly in their modes of expressing it, but they have agreed substantially as to the fact. It has always been easy for an antagonist to run them into difficulty and perplexity in defending the opinion; still they have clung unceasingly to it; or returned to it again and again when torn away; and go where you will, among mankind, wherever you find holiness of heart, and real moral virtue, you will find their possessor as- cribing them to a mysterious but all powerful influence from above. It is so with the refined and cultivated in- tellect in the most elevated christian community, and it is so with the humblest, lowest savage that ever bowed before his Maker to confess and to abandon his sins. It was so in former times with David and with Paul, and it is so now with every lonely widow, who, in God finds consolation and even happiness in the midst of her tears; and with every sick child, who, renewed by the Holy Spirit, finds such peace with God that he can smile at death, and welcome the grave. A more full consideration of this subject we must reserve: we only allude to it here, in order to bring distinctly forward in its place, the fact that there is this, among the other modes, by which the great unseen power manifests himself to men. There is one other; which we have already alluded to, — that more direct and personal exhibition of himself which God has made in Jesus Christ his son. Here God, for the first time, shows himself to men, openly and without a veil. Here we see the moral attributes of divinity in living and acting reality. In those other manifestations of himself which he has made, "we see through a glass darkly, but here face to face." When he acts in his providence, or in the mysterious and secret agency of his Spirit in human hearts, we must pause and reflect, in order to come to conclusions; we must trace back causes to effects, and infer the principles which Ch. l.J THE DEITY. 47 Study tu^ God's character. True mode. Approaching the Deity. must have guided them. But when the great unseen assumes our own human nature, when he becomes flesh, and dwells among us, his attributes and perfections come out into open day. Such are the three great manifestations of himself to men, which the one Unseen all-pervading essence has made, as exhibited to us in the Bible, and in our own experience and observation. Though there have been interminable disputes in the Christian church about the language which has been employed to describe these facts, there has been comparatively little dispute among even nominal Christians about the facts themselves. I have endeavored in describing them to go just as far as the Bible goes, and no farther, and to use as nearly as possible the expressions which are furnished us in that sacred volume. These views, my readers will perceive, open a very wide field to be explored in studying the character of God. Many young persons, when they hear of this study, form no idea of any thing more than committing to memory a few passages of scripture, or learning by rote the summary views of some theological writer. But you see that all nature and all revelation, the whole fieid of observation, and of experience, and all the records of history are full of materials. Go then, and take no man's opinions upon trust, but study the character of God for yourselves by seeing what he does. There is one thing more to be said, before I close this chapter. Many persons feel a difficulty in determining how to approach the Deity in prayer. " What concep- tion," you ask, " shall we form, of the Being whom we address? " The unseenDivinity itself, in its purely spiritual form, we cannot conceive of; they who attempt to do it will find on a careful analysis of the mental operation, that if 48 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 1 Access by Jesus Christ. Conclusion. is the visible universe itself, that they picture to their minds, when in prayer they endeavor to form an abstract conception of the Deity which pervades it. Others in imagination look upward, and form a confused and an absurd idea of a monarch on a throne of marble and gold, with crown and sceptre, and sitting in a fancied region which they call heaven. This is a delusion which we have already endeavored to dispel. Driven from this imagination, the soul roams throughout the universe among suns and stars, or over the busy surface of the earth, seeking in vain for some conceivable image of the Deity, some form on which the thoughts can rest, and towards which the feelings can concentrate. It looks however in vain. God manifests himself indeed in the blazing sun, the fiery comet, — and in the verdure and bloom of the boundless regions of the earth; but these are not the avenues through which a soul burdened with its sins, would desire to approach its Maker. The gos- pel solves the difficulty. "It is by Jesus Christ that. we have access to the Father." This vivid exhibition of his character, this personification of his moral attributes opens to us the way. Here we see a manifestation of divinity, an image of the invisible God which comes as it were down to us; it meets our feeble faculties with a personification exactly adapted to their wants, so that the soul when pressed by the trials and difficulties of its condition, when overwhelmed with sorrow, or bowed down by remorse, or earnestly longing for holiness, will pass by all the other outward exhibitions of the Deity, and approach the invisible supreme, through that mani- festation of himself which he has made in the person of Jesus Christ, his son, our Saviour Ch. 2.J THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 49 The Savior's first words. His last words. Perfection. CHAPTER II. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. •" Leaving us an example that ye should walk in his steps." The very first words of our Savior, which have been preserved for us, contain an expression of the great lead- ing principle, which regulated his whole life. "I must be about my Father's business.'" His last words, too, show, that thirty years of fatigue, and danger, and suffer- ing, did not extinguish his zeal in this his work. "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." He came into the world to do something, not for himself, but for his Father, and he devoted himself to it entirely. He was continually engaged in it himself, while he re- mained here, going from place to place, encountering hardship and danger and suffering, and all without any reference to his own selfish interests, but regarding sole- ly the work he had to do for the salvation of men. And at last, when he left the world, his final charge to his disciples was, that they should be faithful and persever- ing in carrying forward this work. In fact he was so entirely devoted to his Father's busi- ness, that half the readers of his life do not imagine, that he had any of his own. But we must not forget, that he was a man, with all the feelings, and exposed to all the temptations of men. He might have formed the scheme of being a Napoleon, if he had chosen. The world was before him. He had the opportunity, and so far as we can understand the mysterious description of his tempta- tion, he was urged to make the attempt. It is surprising how much the example of Christ loses its power over us, simply on account of the absolute perfection of it. If he had been partly a lover of pleas- are, if he had for instance built himself a splendid man- 5 50 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 2, Common illusion. Real claims of Christianity. Mahometanisna. sion, and ornamented his grounds, and devoted some portion of his time to selfish enjoyment there; or if he had entered into political life, and devoted a share of his attention to promoting his »wn honor, and jet if he had torn himself away from these temptations, so as finally to have devoted his chief time and attention to the glory of God and the good of men, than we should have felt, that the example was within our reach. The selfish and worldly spirit, which he would have exhibited, would, as it were, have made his case come home to us, » and whatever fidelity and zeal he might have shown in his work, would have allured us to an imitation of it. But as it is, since he gave himself up wholly to his duty, since he relinquished the world altogether, Christians seem to think, that his bright example is only, to a very limited extent, an example for them. But we must remember, as I said above, that Jesus Christ was a man. His powers were human powers. His feelings were human feelings, and his example is strictly and exactly an example for all the world. Still nobody considers him a fair example; at least very few do. Most Christians think, that the general principles, which regulate his conduct, ought to regulate theirs, but then the most they think of doing is to follow in his steps slowly and hesi- tatingly, and at a great distance behind. And there is nothing in which the example of Christ takes less hold of men, than in this ieading principle of his conduct, — devotedness to his Father's business. How perfectly evident it is, that a very large proportion of professing Christians are doing their own business in this world, and not their Father's. In fact so universal is this sin, that there are great numbers of nominal Christians, who have no idea, no conception whatever, of the ground which Christianity takes in regard to a man's duty. It stands strikingly distinct from every other religion Mahometanism leaves men to pursue Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 51 Paganism. The worldly man. His character and habits. their own objects, — to live for themselves, — only it pre- scribes some rules regulating the modes, by which these aims shall be pursued. So does paganism, — so did an- cient philosophy, — so does modern infidelity. Whatever moral rules all these prescribe, are rules to regulate pur- suits, whose nature and objects remain unchanged. But Christianity does no such thing. It comes with far high- er claims, — it is no mere regulator of the machinery of human life. It comes to change the plan and object of that machinery altogether. Look at the history of a man engrossed in the world. He saw when he was young, that wealth gave considera- tion and influence to its possessor, and he felt a feverish sort of pleasure, when he received the first hundred dol- lars which he earned. He resolved to become rich, and in his eagerness to go on, he gradually became less and less scrupulous about the means of advancing. He vio- lated no laws; he exposed himself to no public disgrace, but he resorted to those mea.fi so well known to men of the world, by which he could increase his own stores at the expense of the rights or the happiness of others; and by these means he has at length acquired a fortune. He usually attends public worship on the Sabbath. It would be disreputable not to do so. But in the morning and evening, at his own private apartment, he will post his books, or look over his accounts, or plan his voyages. There is nothing disreputable in this. He is not a profane man; — not at all, in his own opin- ion. It is true, that sometimes, when excited, he will make use of what he acknowledges to be an improper expression, but men will make allowances for this. He does not do it to such an extent as to injure his char- acter. He does not worship God in his family. He has no particular objection to religion, but he has no taste for it; and then, besides, he has not time. In order to carry on 52 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 2 Seriousness. He is changed. One kind of religion his plans, it is necessary for him to go early to his count- ing room, and at night he is fatigued and exhausted, and wishes to rest. As to the answer he shall make, when, at last, God shall summon him to account for the immor- tal soul intrusted to him, he never thinks of it. Still he is not entirely devoid of all sense of accountability. He would not for the world have a note fall due, without looking forward to the time, and being prepared for it. In fact, he plans very wisely. His object is to make a fortune, and he is taking a most judicious and successful course. It is no part of his design to please God, or to do good to man; — to save his own soul, or to prepare for a happy meeting with his children in heaven. This is not his business, and of course he does not attend to it. As, however, he advances in life, he begins to think sometimes more seriously. His minister brings to his view an approaching judgment, and explains the strict ness of God's law, so that his conscience begins to trouble him. He perceives that though his mode of life has been perfectly reputable among men, still it must be considered somewhat irregular when compared with God's law. His children begin to be ungovernable and dissipated as they grow up, and one of them comes, under very melancholy circumstances, to an untimely end. He is troubled. In short he resolves to reform. He banishes all business from the Sabbath except, that when the sermon does not particularly interest him, he cannot help sometimes thinking a little of his voyages or his sales. He becomes more scrupulous about infring- ing upon his neighbor's rights, or taking an unfair ad- vantage of their necessities. He establishes morning and evening prayers in his family, and though he does not always think of the Being he is addressing, he always regularly addresses him, in words, and there is generally a feeling of reverence and awe, and a sort of vague impression on his mind, that he is really speaking Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 53 His great business. His filial account. Consequences. to the Supreme. He becomes a benevolent man too. That is, when an application is made for charity, he gives as much as he thinks will be expected of him. In a word, there is a great change in his character. 'Tis true he is still pursuing the same great objects, but then Christianity has come in to regulate the mode of his pursuing them. And he goes on for the rest of his days, making his fortune on much better principles, and in much better ways, than in the early part of his life. Still, making his fortune is his business. The ultimate object for which he lives and acts is to get money into his possession. Every thousand dollars he obtains, he invests in the most safe and profitable mode he can com- mand, and looks upon it as so much done, — accomplished And when at last he comes to die, and on his death-bed looks over his past life, all the satisfaction he can have will be, in reflecting, that though making his fortune has been the object of his life, he has nevertheless made the last half of it, in the most unexceptionable manner. Now is such a man a follower of Jesus Christ? Is making a fortune for himself his Father's business? No; when he appears before God in judgment, he must expect to be addressed thus, "Did you not know, that you were stationed on earth to do good; to turn men to God, to set an example of devoted attachment to his cause; to relieve suffering and promote human happi- ness, as the great objects of your life? All this was distinctly explained to you, and that you might perfectly understand it, you had the example of Jesus Christ, your Savior, who spent a life on earth in the most trying cir- cumstances, for the very purpose of showing how much is meant by the command, that men should serve God while they live, and not themselves. You were distinctly and emphatically told, that you were not your own, that you had been bought with a price, and were bound to live and act as a steward, an agent, a servant. But 5* 54 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 2. Samuel's business. Kow a child may imitate the Savior. you have not done so. Instead of it, you have taken possession, in your own name, of the means of influence, and of usefulness, which were put into your hands to be used for God. You have had your trial, and it has resulted in your deliberate and final choice to act for yourself, and not for your Maker. Let us look at another case. Samuel is a little boy, eight years old. He has really become a Christian, and wishes to do his duty, and his whole duty. Do you wish to know, Samuel, what it is ? If you look into the Bible, to your Savior, for an example, you will see, that the first principle of action which he announced was, that he was doing his Father's business. But you remember, that he was sent from heaven to do a great work here, which you cannot do. " I cannot go," you say, " from place to place, preaching the gospel and working miracles, and giving sight to the blind, and heal- ing the sick. I would if I could." It is true you cannot do that. That is, you cannot do your Father's business in the same way precisely, that Christ did. Or, to explain it more fully, God has a great deal of business to be done in this world, and it is of various kinds, and the particular portion allotted to each person, depends upon the circumstances in which each one is placed. You cannot do exactly what Christ did while he was here, but you can do what he would have done had he been in your place. You cannot make a blind man happy, by restoring his sight, but you can make your little sister happy, by helping her up kindly when she has fallen down; and that last, is your Father's business, as much as the other. His business here is to make every one happy, and to relieve every one's suffering. You cannot persuade great multitudes of men to love and obey God, as Christ endeavored to, but you may lead your brothers and sisters to do it, by your silent influence and happy example So you can Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 55 The glory of God. Acting as a steward. Worldliness. bear sufferings patiently, and take injuries meekly, and thus exhibit the character which God wishes to have prevail here. The light you thus let shine may be a feeble light, and it may illuminate only a narrow circle around you; but if it is the light of genuine piety, it will be in fact, the glory of God; and if it is your great object to let this light shine, you are about your Father's business, as truly as Jesus was, when he preached to the thronging multitude, or brought Lazarus from the tomb. Yes; if a little child is making it his great aim to do good, by making his parents, his brothers and sisters, and his playmates happy, for the sake of co-operating with God, he is following the example of Christ. It is very difficult for an observer to tell whether an individual is acting for God or for himself. A Christian merchant, for instance, who feels, that he holds a stew- ardship, will be as industrious, as enterprising and as persevering in his plans as any other merchant. Only he acts as agent, while the other acts as principal. So a boy may be amiable and gentle and kind without any regard to God, or any desire to carry on his. plans. But God sees very clearly, who is working for him, and who is not; and there is not one, and there never has been one, in any age, who, if he had been inclined to enter God's service, would not have found enough to do for him, had he been disposed to do it The example of Jesus Christ in this respect is an example for all mankind. It is intended for universal imitation, and they who pass through life without imitating it, must find themselves condemned when they come to their account. And how strange it is, that God should find so very few willing to do his business in this world. Even of those few, most, instead of entering into it, heart and soul, do just enough to satisfy what they suppose to be the expectations of their Christian brethren. A lady will spend her life, engrossed with such objects of interest as 66 THE CORNER-STONE. u Ch. % Love of furniture. Dress. Tbe work of God. new furniture, and fashionable dress, and the means of securing the admiration of others, for herself or her children. She thinks, for days and weeks, of procuring some new article of furniture, not for comfort or conve- nience, but for show, and when it comes she is pleas- ed and delighted, as if one of the great objects of her existence had been accomplished. She spends hours up- on the color or texture of a ribbon, which as soon as it is chosen, will begin to fade, and will soon fall into contempt and be rejected; or she pursues, month after month, and year after year, what she calls the pleasures of society, which pleasures are often a compound of pride, vanity, envy, jealousy and ill-will. Her husband all the time devotes himself to pursuits equally unworthy an immortal mind. They do some good accidentally, and call themselves Christians, but they seem to have no idea, that God has any work for them to do. Has he work for them to do ? Yes ; there is a world to be restored to holiness and happiness, and he asks their help in doing it. He has put their children almost completely in their power, so that their eternal happiness might be almost certainly secured, and has given them connexions with society, of which they might avail themselves in working most efficiently for him. If they would take hold of this enterprise, they would have some elevated and ennobling object before them. They would see, one after another, those connected with them, returning to God. They would see their children grow- ing up in piety. Every night, they would feel that they had been living for God, and whatever might be their difficulties, they would be relieved from all sense of re- sponsibility and care. Instead of feeling gloomy and sad, as their children scattered from them, or were one by one removed by death, and as they themselves were gradually drawing towards the close of life, they would find their interest in their great business growing Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 57 Low pursuits. The arts and refinements of life. stronger and stronger, as they approached the great change, which would bring them more directly into con- nexion with their Father. The offer, on the part of our Maker, to take us into his service, in this world, is the only plan, which can give human life any real dignity, or substantial value. Without it all human employments are insignificant, all pleasure is insipid, and life is a ster- ile waste, void of verdure or bloom. Without this, there is an entire disproportion between the lofty powers and capacities of human nature, and the low pursuits and worthless objects, which are before it in its present home. An immortal spirit, capable of thoughts, which explore the universe, and of feelings and desires reach- ing forward to eternity, spending life in seeing how many pieces of stamped metal it can get together! a mind made in the image of God, and destined to live as long as he, buried for years in thoughts about the size and beauty of a dwelling, which is ail the time going to decay, or about the color and fashion of dress, or the hues and carvings of rose-wood or mahogany! But let no one understand me to condemn the enjoy- ments which come to us through the arts and refinements of life. It is making these things the great object of existence, — it. is the eager pursuit of them, as the chief business of life, which the example of our Savior and the principles of the gospel condemn. These arts and refinements are intended to add to human happiness. They will make the most rapid progress in those coun- tries where Christianity most perfectly prevails. Jesus Christ had a taste for beauty, both of nature and art; he admired the magnificent architecture of the Temple, and deeply lamented the necessity of its overthrow, and his dress was at least of such a character, that the disposal of it was a subject of importance to the well-paid sol- diers, who crucified him. Yes, the universal reign of Christianity will be the reign of taste and refinement and 58 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch 2 The enjoyments of life. The Savior's character. Energy. the arts; but while the enjoyments of men will be in- creased in a tenfold degree from these and other sources, their hearts will be set far less on them, than they are now. They will be recreations by the way, to cheer and refresh those whose hearts are mainly bent on accom- plishing the objects of their Father in Heaven. I have dwelt longer, perhaps, on this subject than I ought to have done. This book, though its subject is Christian truth, is intended to throw as strong a light as possible on Christian duty, and in considering this the first great trait of our Savior's character which presents itself to view, I could not avoid asking my reader to pause a moment to consider what he himself is really living for. But let us return to the example of our Savior. Jesus Christ was in some respects the most bold, ener- getic, decided and courageous man that ever lived; but in others he was the most flexible, submissive and yielding; and in the conceptions which many persons form of his character, there is a degree of indistinctness and con- fusion, from want of clear ideas of the mode in which these seemingly opposite qualities come together. The explanation is this. The question, which of these two classes of qualities he would exhibit, depended entirely upon the question, whether it was his own personal wel- fare or his Father's business, which was at stake. If it was the latter, he feared no danger, he shrunk from no opposition, and no obstacle or difficulty would turn him from his course. If it was the former, his own personal welfare, he was exactly the reverse, — mild, gentle, yielding, to such a degree, that, at first view, it would seem impossible, that it could be the same man. There never was a mission or an enterprise of any kind, con- ducted with a more bold, energetic, fearless spirit, than the Savior's mission* and on the other hand, there never Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 59 Mildness and forbearance. His story of the Samaritan. was a case where personal sacrifices and injuries were borne with so much indifference and unconcern. Ob- serve how he reproved the insincere and dishonest pre- tenders to religion, which filled Judea in those days. He followed them into crowds, he met them face to face, and in the most direct and personal manner, spread out their insincerity and hypocrisy before them. Yes, in the midst, of Jerusalem, the very heart and centre of their influence, he brought forward his accusations against them, with a power and severity which human eloquence has very seldom equalled. This was in the cause of his Father. But when it came to his own, how changed. Peter's most unmanly and ungrateful denial, was reproved by a look! And Judas, coming at midnight with armed men, to seize him by the basest treachery, was called to a sense of his guilt, by the mildest, the very. gentlest reproof which language could frame. So when the profanation of his Father's temple was to be stopped, he could use a scourge, and effect a forcible ejectment with almost military authority, and yet when, as was shown afterwards in the judgment hall, there was nothing to excite him but his own personal injuries, he was meek and gentle as a lamb. He was equally ready to use the scourge, in the cause of God, and to submit to it in his own. And this principle is the key to his whole conduct. Many anecdotes might be given to illustrate it. One day, for example, when speaking in the midst of Priests and Levites, in the very seat of their power, he told the story of the good Samaritan. Nothing could be more keenly cutting or more bold than this. They hated the Samaritans, because they would not come to Jerusalem to worship, and were proud of their own piety, because their worship was offered in the right place! Jesus did not enter into any labored argument with them, to show that piety was a business of the heart, and not of geo- 60 THE CORNER- ■STONE. [Ch. 2. His rejection at Samaria. Plans. Bold and systematic action. graphical location ; he simply told them the story, — cutting as it did, exactly across their bitterest prejudices; they would not even have any dealings with the Samaritans. Some time afterwards, he came in contact with the same feeling again, though in a different way. He was travelling with his disciples, and on arriving at Samaria, they would not receive him, because he was going to Jerusalem. Here the prejudice between the rival sects nly injured him, personally. And he thought and cared nothing about it. His disciples were angry, but he quieted them at once, and went on. Thus it was always with him. Yielding, submissive, patient in regard to his own personal injuries and sufferings, but firm, inflex ible and courageous in the extreme, in resisting every injury to the cause committed to his care. There is something very bold and energetic in the measures he adopted in accomplishing his work. The great business which it was necessary for him to effect before his crucifixion, was, to publish effectually through out Judea, his coming, and the principles of his gospel, — and to exhibit, as publicly as possible, the miraculous evidences of his mission. He did it in the most effectual manner, in about three years. In fact, there perhaps never was so great a moral effect produced in three years, on any so extensive a community, if we consider at all the disadvantages incident to the customs of those days. There was no press, no modes of extensive written com- munication, no regularly organized channels of inter- course whatever, between the different portions of the community. He acted under every disadvantage and availed himself of no miraculous modes of disseminating his principles; but yet, so skilfully did he plan, and with such promptness and energy did he execute, that in a very short period the work was clone. What were these plans? In the first place he went himself, directly and boldly, into every centre of influence Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 61 His personal boldness. Nights of grayer. Style of speaking. and population he could find. When Jerusalem was crowded with the multitudes, which came together at the Passover, he was always there, in the most public and conspicuous places, exposing, in the most explicit and direct manner, the sins of the times, and exhibiting the principles of true religion, with a distinctness and vividness and beauty, which have never been equalled. At other times, he was travelling from place to place, through fertile and populous provinces, visiting the larger villages and towns, and gathering great multitudes around him in the open country. And yet though he was, in his business, thus bold and enterprising, he was in feeling, as we shall see more distinctly in the sequel, of a quiet and retiring spirit. He always withdrew at once from the crowd when his work was done. He sought solitude, he shrunk from observation; in fact al- most the only enjoyment which he seemed really to love, was his lonely ramble at midnight, for rest and prayer. He spent whole nights thus, we are told. And it is not surprising, that after the heated crowds and exhausting labors of the day, he should love to retire to silence and seclusion, to enjoy the cool and balmy air, the refreshing stillness, and all the beauties and glories of midnight, among the solitudes of the Gallilean hills; — -to find there happy communion with his Father, and to gather fresh strength for the labors and trials, that yet re- mained. Another thing, which exhibits the boldness and enter- prise, that characterized his plans for making an im- pression on the community, was the peculiarly new and original style of public speaking he adopted. It was sententious, brief, antithetic. Every sentence was load- ed with meaning, and so concisely and energetically ex- pressed, that the sentiment could neither be misunder- stood nor forgotten. " If worldly pleasure allures you away from duty," a more timid and cautious speaker 6 62 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 2 Sermon on the Mount. The assembly. would have said, "you must relinquish it. Think how much more important your salvation is than any tempo- ral gratification."'* If your right hand offend you, says Christ, cut it off. If your right eye offend you, pluck tt out. You had better enter into life with one eye, than to be cast into hell-fire with two. The delivery of the sermon on the mount is, probably, the most striking example of moral courage, which the world has ever seen. There are two circumstances, which render the occasion on which it was delivered, extraordinary. First, it was a very public occasion. A vast multitude from almost every part of the country were assembled. Judea, the southern province, and Gallilee, the northern, were represented; so were the eastern and western shores of the river Jordan, and many distant cities and towns. From all this wide extent of country a vast multitude, attracted by the fame of the Savior's miracles, had assembled to hear what this professed messenger from heaven had to say. Again, it was prob- ably, though not certainly, a very early occasion. Per- haps the first on which the great principles of the gospel were to be announced to men. By this discourse, con- taining, as it does, so plain and specific an exposition of the false notions of religion then prevailing, the Savior must have known, that he was laying the foundation of that enmity, which was to result in his destruction. But did he shrink? Did he hold back? Did he conceal or cover over one single obnoxious feature of the truth? He knew that the report of that meeting must be spread to every part of the country. As he looked around upon his auditory, he must have seen, here, one from a Galli- lean village, there, another from beyond the Jordan, and again a third, who would carry his report to distant Je- rusalem; and yet thus completely exposed, instead of attempting to soften or conceal, he brought out all the distinctive features of prevailing error, and contrasted Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 63 His missionaries. Results. Key to his character. them with the pure principles of his spiritual religion, with a plainness and a point, which was exactly calculat- ed to fix them in memory, and to circulate them most widely throughout the land. It was always so. The plainness, the point, the un- daunted boldness, with which he exposed hypocrisy and sin, and the clear simplicity with which he held up to view the principles of real piety, have no parallel. And yet he knew perfectly well, that in direct consequence of these things, a dark storm was gathering, which must burst in all its fury upon his unsheltered head. But the enterprising and determined spirit, with which Christ entered into his work, was not satisfied with his own personal exertions. He formed the extraordinary plan of sending out simultaneously, a number of his most cordial friends and followers, to assist in making the most extensive and powerful impression possible, upon the community. At first he sent twelve, then seventy, who went every where, presenting to men the simple duties of repentance for the past, and of pure and holy lives for the future. There could not have been measures more admirably adapted to accomplish the work he had to do. And they succeeded. In two or three years it was done. And every Christian, who has work to do for his Master here, should learn a lesson from the enterprise and sys- tem and energy, which Jesus Christ exhibited in doing his. This then is the key to the character of Jesus Christ in respect to spirit and decision. These qualities shine out with unequalled lustre, whenever there was any duty to be done ; but the most mild and patient and humble submission take their place, when there is personal injury or suffering to be endured. In the streets of Jerusalem, and on a question, which concerns the character of God or the duty of man, we find him with all his faculties aroused, silencing every opponent by his ue answerable 64 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 2. Courage. The night in the garden. Suffering arguments, or his appeals of irresistible eloquence and power. But when these subjects fail, all the energy of attack or defence on his part gives way with them, and before his personal enemies, planning personal injury to him, he stands silent, patient and submissive, leaving the whole torrent of injury to take its course, meeting it with no resistance and returning no reply. It seems to me, that the history of the world cannot exhibit an act of higher, nobler courage, than our Savior performed, in coming down to meet Judas and the armed band, the night before he was crucified. Just imagine the scene. On the eastern side of Jerusalem, without the walls, there is a sudden descent to a stream, which flows through the valley. Across this stream, on the rising ground beyond, was a quiet and solitary place, where Jesus very often went for retirement and prayer. He understood very well his approaching torture and crucifixion; he had taken, the evening before, his last sad farewell of his disciples, and with the day of agony and death before him on the morrow, lie could not sleep. It was a cold night, but a sheltered dwelling in the city was no place for him. He asked his three dearest friends to go with him, that he might once more cross the valley, and for the last time, take his midnight walk upon the Mount of Olives. Oppressed with anxiety and sorrow, he fell down alone before God and prayed, that he might be spared what was to come. He had gone on firmly thus far, but now his heart almost failed him. Six long hours of indescribable agony seemed too much, for the frail human powers, which must necessarily bear the whole. He prayed God to spare him if it could be possible. But it could not. His strength failed under the ex- haustion produced by his mental sufferings, and by the more than death-like perspiration, which the night air, so cold at this season that even the hardy soldiers needea Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 65 Lights and weapons and armed men. Real courage. fire, could not chill. Mysterious help from heaven re- stored him a little, but though refreshed by heavenly sympathy, we must remember that it was human pow- ers, that had this trial to bear. At list there is heard through the trees, at a distance down the valley, the sound of approaching voices. Lights are seen too; — and now and then a glittering weapon. They are coming for him. Fly! innocent sufferer, fly! Turn to the dark solitudes behind you, and fly for your life! — No. The struggle is over. The Savior, collect- ed and composed, rises and walks on to meet the very swords and spears sent out against him! We must re- member, that there was nobody to encourage him, nobody to defend him, or to share his fate. It was in the darkness and stillness of night, the very hour of fear and dread; and the approach of those whose dim forms and suppress- ed voices arrested his attention, was the signal not of danger, but of death, — nor of death merely, but of pro- tracted and unutterable torture. Still he arose and went forth to meet them. " Whom seek ye?" said he, — '•' I am he." We have read this story so often, that it has lost its impression upon us; but could we come to it afresh, and really appreciate the gloomy, dreadful cir- cumstances of the scene, we should feel, that the desert- ed Savior, in coming down under these circumstances, to meet the torches and the weapons, which were to light and guard him back to such enemies and to such a death, exhibits the loftiest example of fortitude, which the world has ever seen. There was less noise, less parade, less display than at Thermopylae or Trafalgar; but for the real sublimity of courage, the spectacle of this solitary and defenceless sufferer, coming at midnight to meet the betrayer and his band, beams with a moral splendor which never shone on earth before, and will probably never shine again. 6* 66 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 2 Tlnee great traits. Love of nature. Kirk White. We have thus far considered the great leading prin ciples of our Savior's public conduct. As we have pre* sented them they are three. 1. Entire devotedness to his Father's work. 2. Energy, system, and undaunted courage, in prose- cuting it. 3. The mildest, most unresisting and forgiving spirit in regard to his own personal wrongs. We might close our view of his character with these leading principles of it, but there are some other traits of a more private nature, which it is pleasant to notice We shall mention them as they occur 1. He evidently observed and enjoyed nature. There are manv allusions to his solitary walks in the fields and on the mountains, and by the sea-side; but the greatest evidence of his love for nature, is to be seen in the man- ner in which he speaks of its beauties. A man's meta- phors are drawn from the sources with which he is most familiar, or which interest him most; so that we can judge very correctly what the habitual thoughts and feel- ings of a writer are, by observing what images arise to his mind, when he is interested in writing or conversa- tion. We take down a volume of poetry, for an illustra- tion of this remark, and open, almost at random, to the following lines by Henry Kirk White. " God keep thee, Traveller, on thy journey far; The wind is bitter keen — the snow o'erlays The hidden pits and dangerous hollow ways, And darkness will involve thee. No kind star To-night will guide thee, Traveller, — and the war Of winds and elements on thy head will break, And in thy agonizing ear, the shriek Of spirits on their stormy car, Will often ring appalling — I portend A dismal night, — and on my wakeful bed, Thoughts, Traveller, of thee, will fill my head, And him, who rides where winds and waves contend And strives, rude cradled on the seas, to guide His lonely bark on the tempestuous tide Ch. 2.] THE MAN CHRIST JESUS 67 The Savior's metaphors. The lily. Insensibii ty of men. Now such a passage as this admits us very far into the author's habits of thought and feeling. No man could have written it unless he had often felt the sublimi- ty of the midnight storm, and sympathised strongly with ihe anxieties and dangers of the lonely traveller. He must have been out in such a scene and realized the emotions it excites, or he could not have painted them so vividly. We learn in the same manner how distinct were the impressions of beauty or sublimity, which the works of nature made upon the Savior, by the manner in which he alluded to them. Take for instance, the case where he speaks of the decoration of the lilies. What a concep- tion! We are so familiar with it, that it loses its impres- sion upon us, but if we could approach it anew we should oe astonished at its boldness and beauty. He is endeav- oring to persuade his disciples not to be anxious about their food or clothing, for if they will do God's will, he will take care of them. " Look at the lilies of the field," says he, " they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." A cold, heartless man, with- out taste or sensibility, would not have said such a thing as that. He could not; and we may be as sure, that Je- sus Christ had stopped to examine and admire the grace and beauty of the plant, and the exquisitely penciled tints of its petal, as if we had actually seen him bending over it, or pointing it out to the attention of his disciples. The mass of mankind never notice the beauties and wonders, that are always around them. Among hundreds walking in a garden, it is only a very few, who would perceive the objects of astonishment and delight which abound there. Here are several shrubs side by side. They grow from the same earth, are warmed by the same sun, and refreshed by the same showers; and yet the very same juices coming up one stem, arrange them- 68 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 2 The garden. Its wonders. The Savior's taste and sensibility. selves into a currant at the top, — coming up another they form themselves into a pear, and in the third case, into a rose. The real lover of nature pauses to reflect, as he sees these various fruits and flowers, how strange it is, that a mechanism so exquisite can be arranged in those stems, so as to bring such astonishing and such different results from one common store-house of materials. The multitude do not think of it at all. They consider it as a matter of course, that figs should grow upon the fig- tree, and grapes upon the vine, and that is all they think about it. Here is a little seed too. It seems to the eye, lifeless and inorganic; indistinguishable from a useless grain of sand. But what a complicated system is safely packed away in its little covering. Put it into the ground, and in a few months return to the spot, and you find a little tree, covered with leaves and flowers, and giving to many birds and insects a shelter and a home. Now Jesus Christ noticed these things. He perceiv- ed their beauty and enjoyed it. His heart was full of images, which such observations must have furnished. He could not otherwise have so beautifully compared the progress of his kingdom to the growth of such a tree. He could not have related the parable of the sower, if he had not noticed with interest the minutest circumstances con- nected with the culture of the ground. His beautiful allusions to the vine and to the fig-tree, the wheat and the tares, the birds of the air, and the flocks of the field, all prove the same thing. It is not merely that he spoke of those things, but that he alluded to them in a way so beautiful, and touching, and original, as to prove, that he had an observing eye and a warm heart for the beauties and glories of creation. 2. There is the same kind of evidence that he noticed, with the same observing eye and intelligent interest, the principles and characteristics of human nature. Take Ch. 2. J THE MAN C His mode of addressing men. Moid Rcr? for example, his story of the father's welcomi aia re- turning prodigal, — the woman seeking the los money, — the steward making friends with his master ~ and the pardoned sinner loving much because much had been forgiven. He observed every thing; and his im- agination was stored with an inexhaustible supply of images, drawn from every source, and with these he illustrated and enforced his principles in a manner alto- gether unparalleled by any writings sacred or profane. 3. In exerting an influence over man, he endeavored to avjaken the moral sijmpathies, rather than produce cold conviction through the intellect. In regard to almost all important moral and religious truth, there is a witness within every man's heart, and it was the aim of our Savior to awaken this witness and to encourage him to speak. Other men attempt to do every thing by reason- ing, — cold, naked reasoning; which, after all, it may oe almost said, is the most absolutely inefficient means which can be applied, for the production of any moral effects upon men. Christ very seldom attempted to prove what he said. He expressed and illustrated truth, and then left it to work its own way. Sometimes he argued, but then it was almost always in self-defence. When at liberty to choose his own mode, as for example in the sermon on the mount, he said such things as commended them- selves to every man's conscience, and their power con- sisted in the clearness and emphasis with which he said them. If he reasoned at all, the distance was very short between his premises and his conclusion, and his steps very simple and few. 4. Jesus loved his friends. The duty of universal benevolence, which he so strongly enforced, he never meant should supersede the claims of private, personal friendship, or interfere with its enjoyments. He himself, while he was ready to die for thousands, preferred tc R-STONE. [Ch. 2. 1 oved his mother. Proof ralks, and share his griefs, with Peter, James There is nothing more touching, in regard ject, than his private intimation at the last sup- 3 dearest personal friend, of the fact, that it 3, who was to betray him. He understood and felt tne nuppiness of communion and confidence between kindred spirits, and. by his example, has authorized us to link ourselves to one another, by the ties of friendship and affection, as strongly as we please. Christianity, in expanding the affections of the individual, till they reach every brother and sister on the globe, does not weaken or endanger a single private or domestic tie. While it draws the whole human family together, it links, by a still closer union than before, the husband with the wife, and the parent with the child, — sister to sister, and friend to friend. It is indeed "the bond of perfectness," or as we should, at this day, express it, a perfect bond 5. The last thing I have to say about the character of Jesus Christ is, he loved his mother. Perhaps I have some young readers, who can remember that at some recent period, when they have been sick or suffering from any cause, they have, by their fretfulness or discon- tent, brought trouble and care to their parents, and have considered themselves excused for it, by the circum- stances in which they have been placed. To them I have one thing to say. Your Savior was nailed to the cross. The whole weight of his body was suspended from his lacerated limbs, and here he had to hang hour after hour, till life actually sunk under the power of suffering. But even here he did not forget his mother. He gave, in the most touching manner possible, his dear- est friend a charge to be kind to her, to protect her, to take care of her as long as she should live. He did this, however, almost by a word, for under such circumstan- ces it was torture to speak. "Behold thy mother." That was all; but it was enough Now let me ask Ch. 3.] HUMAN DUTY 71 Filial affection. A difference between the gospels and the epistles. each one of my readers, whether old or young, who has a mother still in life, as you shut this book at the close of this chapter, to go and devise some act of kindness and affection for her, in imitation of the dying example which the Savior set us. Do something to cheer and comfort her; even if it is no very substantial act of kind- ness, it will bring gladness to her heart, as a memorial of your remembrance and affection. Mary must have felt this proof of love most deeply. They told the Savior, long before, that his mother was to be envied. She must have endured a great deal of solicitude and a great deal of suffering, during her life; but it must have gone far towards counterbalancing it all, to be remem- bered thus, under such circumstances, and by such a son. CHAPTER III. HUMAN DUTY, OR THE SAVIOR'S MESSAGE TO MANKIND. " And they went out and preached that men should repent." It is a remarkable fact, and one which has often sur- prised careful readers of the Bible, that scarcely any thing is said by our Savior himself,, in regard to his own sufferings, as the ground of human salvation, while the writings and addresses of the apostles are full of this theme. There is a most extraordinary contrast, in this respect, between the gospels and the epistles. In the former, Christ's sufferings and death are scarcely ever spoken of, in the latter, nothing is spoken of so much. This state of the case has, on the one hand, led many persons to underrate the influence and importance of our Savior's sufferings and death, and they defend their views by referring to the nature of our Savior's instruc- 72 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 3 Wrong way to read the Bible. Right way. tions. Others err on the other side, by taking the epistles as their only model, — not sufficiently consid- ering the character of Christ's instructions. Others are embarrassed when they think on this subject; they do not know how to reconcile the seeming inconsistency, though they endeavor to diminish it, as far as possible, by exaggerating and emphasizing the little which Jesus Christ did say, in regard to his sufferings and death. We ought always to suspect ourselves when we are attempting to get out of scriptural difficulties in this way; — by loading passages of scripture with more mean- ing than they will naturally bear; a process very com- mon among theological writers. The best way is to let the Bible speak for itself. We must not try to improve it, but just let it tell its own story, in its own way. The man who, when he reads some of the strong, decided passages in the Epistles, ascribing all hope of human salvation to the atoning sacrifice of the -Son of God finds himself holding back from the writer's view, endeav- oring to qualify the language or to explain it away, is not studying the Bible in the right spirit. On the other hand, he who cannot take the directions which Christ or John gave, for beginning a life of piety by simple repent- ance for the past, without adding something from his own theological stores, or forcing the language to express what never could have been understood by those who originally heard it, — he cannot be studying this book with the right spirit. We must take the Bible as it is; and there certainly is a very striking and extraordinary difference, between the public instructions of our Savior himself, and those of his apostles, in respect to the prominence given to the efficacy of his sufferings in preparing the way for the salvation of men. Let us look into this. Whenever, under any government, a wrong is done, here is, as any one will see, a broad distinction between Cll. 3.] HUMAN DUTY 73 The school house. A stormy night. Trouble the measures, which the government must adopt, in order to render it safe to pardon, and the conditions with which the guilty individual is required to comply, in order to avail himself of the offer. To make this plain, even to my younger readers, I will describe a case. It illustrates the principle, I admit, on a very small scale. In a remote and newly settled town in New England, on the shore of a beautiful pond, and under a hill covered and surrounded with forests, was a small school house, to which, during the leisure months of the winter, thirty or forty boys and girls gathered, day after day, from the small farm-houses, which were scattered over the valleys around. One evening a sort of exhibition was held there. Before the time had arrived, there had been indications of an approaching snow storm. These in- creased during the evening; and when, at the close of it, the assembly began to disperse, they found that the storm had fairly set in. The master was sitting at his desk, putting away his papers, and preparing to go home. The snow was beating against the windows, and the aspect of the cold and stormy weather without, made many of the scholars reluctant to leave the warm and bright fire, which was still burning on the spacious hearth. For many of them, sleighs were to be sent by their friends, others were waiting for company, and every minute or two the door would open and admit a boy shivering with cold, and white with snow. Presently the master heard some voices at the door, in which he could distinguish tones of complaint and suffering. Several of the boys seemed to be talking together, apparently about some act of injustice which had occurred, and after waiting a {exv minutes, the master sent for all the boys who were standing at the door, to come to him. Half a dozen walked eageily in, and behind them 7 74 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 3 The lost cap. Conversation. The teacher's perplexity. followed one, more reluctantly; his head was bare, and he had evidently been in tears. As they entered the room, the conversation among the other children was hushed, all their preparations were suspended, and every face was turned with an expression of eager interest towards the master, as this group approached him. "William," said the master to one of the foremost, " there seems to have been some trouble, will you tell me what it is?" " Yes sir: Joe Symmes threw his cap," (pointing to the sorrowful looking boy in the rear,) " off upon the pond, and it has blown away and he cannot find it." " Joseph," said the master, "is it so? " Joseph acknowledged the fact. It appeared, on more careful inquiry, that there had been some angry collision between the boys, in which Joseph had been almost entirely to blame; it was a case of that kind of tyranny of the stronger, which is so common among school boys. In the end, he had seized his schoolmate's cap, and thrown it off upon the icy surface of the pond, over which it had glided away with the driving wind and snow, and was soon lost from view. Joseph said he knew it was wrong, and he was sorry. He said he ran after it, as soon as it was gone, but he lost sight of it, and that now he did not know what he could do to get it again. The master told the boys they might go to the fire, while he considered, for a few minutes, what he ought to do. When left alone, the teacher reflected that there were two separate subjects of consideration for him. First there was an individual who had been guilty of an act of injustice. Next there was a little community, who had been witnesses of that injustice, and were all in suspense, waiting to know what would follow. " I am sorry to punish Joseph," thought he, " for he seems to be sorry for what he has done, and I think it Ch. 3.] HUMAN DUTY. 75 Tlie plan formed. Penitence necessary before forgiveness. highly probable he will not repeat it; but if I let such a case pass with a mere reproof, I fear it will do injury to the school. The boys will have less abhorrence in future for acts of injustice and oppression by the strong- er, than they have had. Just in proportion as they see sin, without seeing sad results coming from it, they will lose their sensitiveness to its guilt. I must not let this case pass, without something to make a moral impres- sion. I wish I could do this without bringing suffering upon Joseph, but I do not see how I can." " Ah! I see what I can do;" thought he, "I will take the suffering myself. Yes; I will forgive Joseph at once, and then I will go out myself and find the cap, or help them find it, and when the scholars see, that the conse- quences of this offence come upon mxj head, bringing me inconvenience and even suffering, especially if they see me bear them with a kind and forgiving spirit, perhaps it will do as much good as punishing Joseph would do. Yes; I know that all my pupils, and Joseph among the rest, are strongly attached to me, and I am sure that when they see me going out into the cold storm, over the ice, and through the snow, to repair the injury which he has done, it will make a strong impression. In fact it will, I am sure, touch them more effectually, and produce a much stronger dislike to such a spirit, than four times as much inconvenience and suffering inflicted as a punish- ment upon Joseph himself." It is evident now that such a plan would be safe and proper only on supposition that Joseph is really sorry for what he has done. The course proposed would be altogether inadmissable, if the offender, instead of being humble and penitent, should appear angry and stubborn. On the other hand, if the master's plan was a wise one, although real penitence on the part of Joseph would be absolutely necessary, nothing else would be neces- sary He need not know any thing about the plan on 76 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 3. Distinction illustrated. A dialogue. Fo giveness of Joseph. which the master relies, for producing the right moral impression on the little community. Now the whole object of this illustration, is to bring clearly forward the distinction, between what is neces- sary as a measure of government, — in order to prepare the way to offer pardon, and what is necessary as an act of the criminal, in order to enable him to receive it. It is very evident, in this case, that these two things are entirely distinct and disconnected, and that it is not at all necessary that Joseph should know the ground on which the Teacher concluded it safe for him to be for- given. The master's suffering the inconvenience and trouble is an essential thing to be done, in order to render it safe to forgive; but it is not an essential thing to be known, at the time forgiveness is declared. In fact, the most delicate and the most successful mode of managing the affair, would be for him to say nothing about it, but simply to do the thing, and let it produce its effects. Accordingly the master, in this case, after a few min- utes of reflection, called the boys to him again. " Joseph,' 1 said he, "you have done wrong, in op- pressing one younger and weaker than yourself, and I might justly punish you. I have concluded however to forgive you; — that is if you are sorry. Are you sorry?" " Yes sir, I am," replied the boy distinctly. " And are you willing to make proper reparation, if I will tell you what to do?" "Yes sir." " James," continued the master, " are you willing he should be forgiven?" " Yes sir, I am willing he should be forgiven, but how shall I get my cap?" " I will talk with you about that, presently. You see that is another part of the subject; the question now is what is to be done with Joseph? He has done wrong and might justly be punished, but he is sorry for it, and in this case, I conclude not to punish him." Ch. 3.] HUMAN DUTY. 77 The teacher's walk. Effect on the boys. Joseph. If the whole subject were to be left here, the reader will perceive how incomplete and unfinished the trans- action would be considered, in respect to its effects on those who witnessed it. It would, if left here, brino* down the standard of justice and kindness among the boys. And if the pupils had been accustomed to an efficient government, they would be surprised at such a result. But still, though the teacher had something in reserve to prevent such an injury, it was not, as I have said before, at all necessary, nay it was not expedient, that he should say any thing about it, thus far. Joseph's penitence was essential to render his pardon proper. This it was indeed necessary for him to understand. The measure to be adopted, was essential to render that pardon safe. This it was essential for no one but the master to understand. It was necessary that the moral effect should be produced on all, but the measure which the master had in view for producing it, might safely remain unexplained, till the time came for putting it into execution. After all was thus settled with the boys, the master took down his cloak, and said he would go out and see if he could find the cap. Joseph wanted to go with him, but his teacher replied, that it would do no good for him to go out in the cold too; — it might be necessary to go quite across the pond. He however asked Joseph to show him exactly where he had thrown the cap, and then, noticing the direction of the wind, the master walk- ed on in pursuit. A cluster of boys stood at the door, and the girls crowded at the windows to see their teacher work his way over the slippery surface, stopping to examine every dark object, and exploring with his feet every little drift of snow. They said nothing about the philosophy of the transaction; in fact they did not understand it. The 7* 78 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 3. The teacher's return. Moral effect of Christ's sufferings. theory of moral government was a science unknown to them; but every heart was warm with gratitude to their teacher, and alive to a vivid sense of the criminality of such conduct as had resulted thus. And when, after a time, they saw him returning with the cap in his hand, which he had found half buried in the snow, under a bank on the opposite shore, there was not one whose heart was not full of affection and gratitude towards the teacher, and of displeasure at the sin. And the teacher himself, though he said not a word in explanation, felt that by that occurrence, a more effectual blow had been struck at every thing like unkindness and ill-will among his pupils, than would have been secured by any reproofs he could have administered, or by any plan of punish- ment, however just and severe. Such a case is analogous, in many respects, to the measures God has adopted to make the forgiveness of human guilt safe. It is only one point, however, of the analogy, which I wish the reader to observe here, viz. that though the measure in question was a thing essen- tial for the master to do, it was not essential for the crim- inal to understand, at the time he was forgiven. So in regard to the moral effect in God's government, produced by the sufferings of Jesus Christ, in preparing the way for the forgiveness of sin. The measure was necessary to render free forgiveness safe, but a clear understanding of its nature and of its moral effect, is not always necessary to enable the individual sinner to avail himself of it. In the early ages of the world, it was obscurely inti- mated to men, that, through some future descendant of Abraham, measures were to be adopted, which should open the way for the expiation of human guilt. What these measures were, {"ew, if any, understood; they were in many cases, anxiously waiting for a developement of them, but, in the meantime, it was universally under- Ch. 3.] HUMAN DUTY. 79 Essentials. The penitent child. Tire shipwrecked minister. stood, that if any man would forsake his sins and serve Jehovah, he should be forgiven. The simple proclam- ation, "Repent and be forgiven," went everywhere. The ground, on which such a proclamation could be safe and wise, it was for God alone to consider, and to reveal to men, just as soon, and just as extensively, as he might see fit. Let it be understood, that I am speaking of what is essential, not what is desirable. The knowledge of our Savior's sufferings and death, and clear ideas of the grounds of them, have been in every age, the most pow- erful of all possible means of impressing the heart, and leading men to God. Still they are not the only means. Man could not have been forgiven if Christ had not died, but he may be forgiven, and yet not know that Christ died, till he actually meets him in heaven. The moment a little child, for instance, is capable of knowing that it has a Maker, and of discerning between right and wrong, it is capable of loving God, and feeling penitence for sin; and the mysterious influences of the Spirit may as easily awaken these feelings at this age, as at any other. It can be forgiven, however, only through the sufferings of its Savior, and yet months must elapse, before it can know any thing about these sufferings; and years, before it can look into the principles of govern- ment enough, to see why they were necessary, or to appreciate at all the moral impression they produce. Suppose a christian minister is thrown by shipwreck upon a savage island, and in a state of sickness and exhaustion so great, that he feels that he must sink in a few days to the grave. He knows nothing of the lan- guage, but he soon succeeds, by careful attention, in obtaining phrases enough to preach repentance. " There is a God," he says, to those around him in his dying hour. " He will punish the bad. — Become good and you will please him." 80 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 3 The savages. Conscience, the universal monitor. "Ah!" reply the savages, "we have all been bad already, — very bad." " Think not about the past," he replies. " It will be forgiven: — there is a way: — I cannot explain it. Leave your wickedness and do right, and God will save you." As he utters these words, his strength fails, and his audience can hear no more. But they have heard enough. I do not say enough to induce them to forsake their sins and return to God, but to show them- how to do it. And if men, after hearing only such a sermon as that, were to continue their lives of wickedness, and die unchanged, it would still be true, that the opportunity of mercy had been fully before them. "We did not know," they might say, when called to account, "that a Savior had died for us, and conse quently could not know how we could be forgiven." " You are without excuse;" the judge might reply " It was for you to abandon your sins; — It was for me to consider how you could be forgiven." Now every savage that ever lived has had just such a sermon as this preached to him. JNot by a christian minister, indeed, wrecked on the reefs of his island, but by a far more faithful and intelligible preacher than any such would be. Conscience, the universal ambassador from heaven, has been unceasingly faithful, in every age, and in every clime, preaching repentance, and open- ing the door of salvation to every human soul. That our fellowmen do almost invariably, if left to this warn- ing voice alone, disregard it and persist in sin, is indeed true; but at the day of judgment it will appear that, of all the countless millions of the human family, though but a very small portion ever heard of a Savior, there never was one, who might not have been saved through his death, if he had done what God, during all his life, was continually calling him to do. Though this preaching, that is the simple call to re- Ch. 3. J HUMAN DUTY 81 Duty plain. John the Baptist. Jonah. Voice of conscience. pentance, is generally powerless, it is not always so. In the Jewish nation there were undoubtedly a great many penitent and pardoned men, though they knew lit- tle or nothing of their future Savior. John the Baptist undoubtedly made many true converts; even Jonah's preaching was successful; and a hundred and twenty, at least, were found to have received aright the instructions of our Savior, though even his apostles did not know that he was to be crucified for them. It is so too in our times. True piety, unquestionably, often exists where there is a very imperfect understanding, or a very limited appreciation of the nature of the great sacrifice for sin. This fact, is very evident to all, though it often very much embarrasses those who do not properly distinguish between what it is necessary for man to do, in order to be saved, and what it is necessary for God to do, in order to render it safe to save him. On this latter point, the human soul may be kept in the dark by a thousand cir- cumstances, for which it is not responsible; but in regard to the former, it cannot be kept in ignorance or led into mistake. Conscience may indeed be perverted; Dut still, it will sometimes speak, — more or less distinctly it is true, — but it will speak: and not a human being can get through his time of trial here, without hearing its warning. God has given it a message to every one, which, if heeded, will secure salvation; and that message it will in every case, most assuredly deliver. It seems, then, that Jesus Christ very clearly recog- nised the distinction between the provision which God must make, in order to open the way for human salva- tion, and the part which man must perform, to avail himself of it, and it is the last, very evidently, which it ]s of direct and immediate importance for man to know. It was the last, which he accordingly devoted his chief time and attention in urging on man, — viz his own 82 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 3. Personal duty plain, though universally neglected. personal, immediate duty. They who heard him were indeed inexcusable before, but the clearness, the distinct- ness and the emphasis, with which he brought forward the claims of God over human hearts, rendered them more inexcusable still. And here I must remark, that this mode of attempting to turn men to God, met with only very partial success. Jesus Christ succeeded in persuading very few. It was not till afterwards, when the love of Christ in dying for men, was loudly and universally proclaimed, that hearts were touched, and penitence awakened. But still this preaching of the sufferings of Christ afterwards, was not throwing additional light upon duty, — it was only a new inducement to do it. The great duty, repentance, was the same afterwards as before. The only difference was, that men were more easily led to repent, after they had learned the greatness of the sacrifice by which alone pen- itence could be available. They ought, however, to have repented before; if they had done so, God would have forgiven them, though they could not have understood how such forgiveness could safely be bestowed. And so it is now. By the sacrifice of the Son of God, the door of salvation on repentance, is opened to every human being on the globe.* But to return. The great subject of Christ's instruc- tions seems to have been simply, human duly. It was his * It has often been made a question among religious writers, wheth- er, in point of fact, repentance and salvation ever come to the inhab- itants of those benighted countries, where the Savior has never been known. Into this question we do not now enter; i. e. it is not our design here to inquire whether they ever do repent and forsake their sins, but only to exhibit the sentiment held up by the apostle, in the first chapter to the Romans, that God has not left himself without witness to any son or daughter of Adam. It is certain that if they would listen to this voice, and repent of sin, they would be forgiven. Whether they will or not, is a question which we consider more fully in the following chapter Ch. 3.] HUMAN DUTY. 83 God's design in the creation. The ten cnmniiuuhnents. object to explain, not the great arrangements and meas- ures of God's government, but the duties which each individual sinner had personally to perform. In order to exhibit clearly the ground he took, we must consider a moment, the plan which God had in view in creating men. It was his design to form one great, united and happy family, with himself at the head of it. He meant to devote himself to the happiness of his crea- tures, and he wished them to be interested in each other, and joined to him. It is exactly the plan which every wise parent adopts in his family. Many a father does all he can to promote this mutual good-will among his children, and this feeling of dependence and attachment towards him as their head, while he, nevertheless, stead- ily refuses to come under the same system in his relation to God, who is the great head of the family to which he himself belongs. His children, one would suppose, might often see the contrast between the filial and frater- nal duty, which he is willing to perform himself, and what he expects of them. Taking this view of the design of God, in regard to the family of man, we shall be surprised to see how admira- bly adapted to secure it, that code of laws is, which he originally gave to men. We have read the ten com- mandments so many times, nay they have been so long, and so indelibly impressed on the memory, that it is diffi- cult for us to approach them in such a way, as to get a fresh and vivid conception of their character. To obvi- ate in some degree, this difficulty, I give the substance of them in other language, so that the reader may see more clearly, by looking at them, as it were, in a new light, with what admirable skill they are adapted to the object. The wisest assembly og statesmen or legislators which ever convened, if called together to form a code for the world, — to apply to every nation, and to operate through all time, could not have made a better selection 84 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 3. Analysis of the moral law. of points to be brought forward, or arranged them with more scientific and logical precision, or expressed them in clearer terms. And yet the infidel affects to believe, that they were the production of the half civilized leader of a wandering horde, — contrived just to assist their author in maintaining an influence over his semibarba- rous followers! But let us look at this code. THE MORAL LAW. I. DUTY TO GOD. 1. Your Maker must be the highest object of your in- terest and affection. Allow nothing to come before him; but make it your first and great desire to please him and to obey his commands. 2. You shall never speak of him lightly or with irrev- erence, and you shall not regard any visible object as the representative of him. He is a spirit, invisible from his very nature, and you must worship him in spirit and m truth. 3. Consecrate one day in seven to the worship of God, and to your own religious improvement. Entirely suspend, for this purpose, all worldly employments, and sacredly devote the day to God. II. DUTY TO PARENTS. 1 . You are placed in this world under the care of parents, whom God makes his vicegerents, to provide for your early wants, and to afford you protection. Now you must obey and honor them. Do what they command you, and comply with their wishes, and always treat thern with respect and affection. III. DUTY TO MANKIND. Keep constantly in view, in all your intercourse with men, their welfare and happiness, as well as your own. Conscientiously respect the rights of others, in regard, 1. To the security of life Gh. 3.] HUMAN DUTY. 85 lis diameter. Effects of olsedience to it. 2. To the peace and happiness of the family. 3. To property. 4. To reputation. It. keeping these commands too, you must regulate your heart as well as your conduct. God forbids the unholy desire, as much as he does the unholy action. Such is God's moral law. And we may triumphantly ask, where is the statesman or philosopher, who can mend it. In giving it as above, I have done nothing but alter its language, so as to present it with freshness to the reader, — and number its sections, so as to bring to view its admirable arrangement. I have not omitted a provi- sion, or added one not originally there, nor altered the position of a single command. Look at it again; and imagine it perfectly obeyed in this world. What a world it would make of it ! This is that great law of God, whose perfection and purity are praised from one end of the Bible to the other; this is the law men have broken and will break; and in regard to this law it is, that the whole controversy is pending between God and man. Men pretend to find a great mystery about the nature of sin, and the nature of holiness, to excuse themselves for re- maining unchanged ; but the whole mystery is here. Here is a law which they will not keep. They never have kept it, and they will not begin. And yet disregarded, violated, trampled upon as it has been by common con- sent, throughout the whole human family, no man has ever dared to lift up his voice against its justice. No. From the day when it was first thundered forth on Sinai, it has been loudly proclaiming its commands, conscience, in every bosom, re-echoing its voice; and the boldest, the wildest, the most daring opposer of God, never had a word to say against the justice of its claims. Now the great design of our Savior's instructions, was to induce men to abandon their sins, and begin at on^fe 8 86 THE CORNER -STONE. [Ch 3. Spiritual obedience to it. The Priest and the Lev ite. to keep this law. He explained its spirituality, and brought out to view the two great principles on which all its commands were based; supreme affection to God, and disinterested benevolence towards men. It is most interesting to observe, how directly and clearly Jesus Christ always insisted upon spiritual obe- dience to that law. I mean by this, obedience of the heart; — and how constantly he cut off, in the most de- cided manner, ail those hollow acts of mere external conformity, which men were continually substituting in its place. And it is, if possible, still more interesting to observe, how liberal and expanded were his views in regard to the outward acts by which this heartfelt com- pliance might be indicated. On the one hand, no act whatever, and no course of life, however seemingly re- ligious, would satisfy him, if there was evidence that the secret feelings of the heart were wrong. On the other hand, no action was too trivial to be a mark of piety, if it only proceeded from the right spirit. For example, here are a priest and a Levite, devoting their lives to their Maker's service. Nobody doubts their eminent holiness. How does the Savior judge? Why, he leads them along a road where a man lies suffering. He watches to see what they will do. — They pass by on the other side. Ah, that reveals the secret! A man may devote his life to the external service of God, without really loving him at all; but he cannot really love him, and yet pass by, and neglect a distressed and suffering brother. And so in a thousand other cases. The beauty, the clearness, the delicacy, and yet the searching, scru- tinizing power of the tests he applied to the religious professions of those days, are unparalleled. They would make sad work with some of the bold, self-sufficient, hollow-hearted zeal, which exists in our times. But while he could be deceived by no counterfeit, and would take no specious appearances on trust, but cut Ch. 3.] HUMAN DUTY. 87 Various ways of beginning to obey. The absent master. away, with a most unsparing hand, all false pretences, and all mere external show, his liberality, in regard to modes by which real, genuine piety should exhibit itself was unbounded. All he wished was to have the heart right. He cared not how its feelings were evinced. He found a man engaged in his ordinary business, and asked him to leave it and follow him; another wished to know what he should do to inherit eternal life, and he directed him to employ all his property as a means of doing good; in another case, he pronounced an indi- vidual forgiven, merely on account of personal kindness shown to himself! Sometimes he called on men to re- pent; sometimes to believe on him; sometimes to obey his precepts. He was satisfied of Mary's piety, by the teachable, docile spirit she manifested, in listening to his conversation in her house; he pronounced many persons forgiven, on account of the feeling with which they came to be healed; and even when the malefactor on the cross asked to be remembered, the Savior con- sidered those words alone, as the external indications of a renewed heart. It is very evident that he thought it of comparatively little consequence what men did first, in beginning to serve God. The great point was to induce them to serve him at all. We are very slow to follow his exam- ple in this respect. We want to have some precise way, in which all men shall repent and be saved. We arrange the steps, and must have them taken in their exact, pre- scribed order, and if these steps are not followed, we are suspicious and afraid, whatever may be the ultimate fruits. We consider the case anomalous, if we are com- pelled to admit it to be genuine. A master of a family, we will suppose, goes away from home, leaving his sons in charge of his affairs, and giving them employment, in which he urges them to be diligent and faithful until his return. After he leaves them, 88 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 3. The disobedient boys. Expostulation. How to beg»n. however, they all neglect their duty, and live in idle- ness, or occupy themselves solely with their amuse- ments. A friend comes in, and remonstrates with them. He gives them a labored account of the radical defects in their hearts, the philosophical distinction between du- tiful and undutiful sons, and the metaphysical steps of a change from one character to the other. His discourse is all perfectly true, and admirably philosophical, but it is sadly impotent, in regard to making any impression on human hearts. Another man comes to address them in a different mode. He calls upon them at once to return to their duty. "What shall we do first?" ask the boys. sufferings. Human nature. The way to study it. chasing their pardon. Even his disciples, till they came to see him die, had no conception of his love. They learned it at last however. They saw him suffer and die, and inspiration from above explained to them something about the influence of his death. They had enjoyed its benefits long before, in peace with God, forgiveness of sin, and hope of heaven; but now for the first time, they understood how those benefits were procured. It is hard to tell which touches our gratitude most sensibly; the ardent love which led him to do what he did, or the deli- cacy with which he refrained from speaking of it, to those who were to reap its fruits. He did all he could to save men, and then, in his interviews with them, spent his time in trying to persuade them to consent to be saved. His sufferings he left to tell their own story CHAPTER IV. HUMAN NATURE, OR THE SAVIOR'S RECEPTION AMONG MANKIND. " We will not have this man to reign over us." In the last chapter we considered our Savior simply as a Teacher; hereafter we shall have occasion to look at him more particularly as a sufferer. In the meantime, we must devote a few pages to considering the reception, which the principles of duty he inculcated meet with among men. This brings us at once to the study of human nature; ~ and the way to study human nature, is to look at it as it exhibits itself in the actual conduct of mankind. If we examine it thus, we shall find it presenting itself in a great many alluring aspects Look, for instance, Ch. 4 "] HUMAN NATURE. 97 The village. Morning. The wife and mother at any of those quiet villages which may be found by thousand's in every christian land. When day dawns, he gray light looks into the windows of a hundred dwel- lings, where honest industry has been enjoying repose. The population is grouped into families, according to the arrangement which God has made, and while the eastern sky reddens and glows by the reflection of the approaching sun, there is, in every dwelling, a mother, actively engaged in providing for the morning wants of the household which God has committed to her care. There is a tie around her heart, binding her to her hus- band, her children, her home, and to all the domestic duties which devolve upon her. These duties she goes on to discharge, though they are ever renewed and ever the same. She does it day aft3r day, — three hundred and sixty -five times this year, and as many more the next, and the next, perhaps for half a century. What patience! What persevering industry! and all, not for herself, but for others. At the proper time, all the families of the village as- semble, each in its own quiet home, to receive their food. The breakfast hour for one, is the breakfast hour for all. Each conforms to the customs of the others, with as much regularity as if these customs were enforced by penal laws. Every one is at liberty, and yet, in all the important arrangements of life, they all agree. And how is this agreement produced? By the regard which every one has for the opinions and feelings of the rest; a feeling which we cannot but look upon with pleasure; and it reigns in all human communities, and has almost boundless power in regulating established customs, and preserving the order of society. We next see our villagers going forth to their respec- tive labors. You will observe them issuing from their various dwellings, and repairing to their work, with as much regularity as if on a preconcerted signal The 9 98 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch.4 Industry. Benevolence. Exceptions rare. mechanics go to their shops, the tradesman to his store, and the farmers to their fields; and though there may be here and there an exception, they continue their toil as industriously as if their motions were watched, and all their actions controlled by masters, who had the right and the power to exact from them a stated daily task. And this course of daily active industry is persevered in through life, and all the means of comfort and enjoyment, which it procures, are frugally husbanded. Sickness, death, calamity, may produce an occasional interrup- tion, and even paralyze, for a time, all interest in worldly pursuits and duties; but the elastic spirit rises again, when the severity of pressure is removed, and again finds occupation and enjoyment in its daily routine of toil. The moral beauty of it all consists in the fact, that each man labors thus industriously, day after day, and year after year, not mainly for himself, but for others. Each has, upon an average, four or five, who are dependants upon him, and it is for them mainly, and not for himself, that he confines himself so constantly to his daily toil. There may be exceptions. Here and there one is idle and dissolute, leaving the inmates of his wretched home, to mourn the guilt of the husband and father, and to feel its bitter consequences. But it is only here and there one; and in almost every such case, the ills which the sufferers would otherwise have to bear, are very much alleviated by the assistance of neighbors, who cannot well enjoy their own comforts at their own homes, until they have relieved the pressure of want that is so near them. The great majority however are faithful to their trust; held to duty, not by compulsion, nor by fear of penalty, but by a tie which God has fastened round the heart, and whose control men love to obey. This is human nature The reader may perhaps say that there is no virtue in all this seeming benevolence, because such is the nature Ch. 4.J HUMAN NATURE 99 Moral beauty. Night. The sick child. of the tie, by which the father and the mother are bound to their household, that the faithful discharge of their own domestic duties is the way to secure the highest and purest happiness to themselves. It is so, undoubt- edly; and it is the very moral beauty which we have been endeavoring to point out, that in a case of such universal application, the human heart is such, that it can find, and does find, its own purest and highest enjoyment, in unceasing efforts to promote the enjoy- ment of others. Thus the day passes on in our peaceful, quiet village: the evening brings recreations of various kinds; some indeed seek guilty pleasures, but far the greater number find happiness at home. Night brings universal repose, the members of each family sleeping quietly under their own roof, " with none to molest or make them afraid." Or if there is a solitary one, who prowls about at mid- night, to steal, or burn, or kill, he is but one among a thousand, — a rare and abhorred exception to the gen- eral rufe Perhaps, however, under one roof there is sickness A pale and feeble child, who has been a source of unceasing anxiety and trouble to his parents, from his very birth, lies in his little couch, restless and feverish, under an attack of some new disease. "Mother, your sleep has been disturbed enough by its restlessness and its cries. Carry it away to some remote apartment, and leave it there, to moan alone under its sufferings, so that you may sleep, for once, undisturbed. If it should die before the morning, you will only be relieved of a continual and heavy burden." " Father, leave the little sufferer to its fate. Foil will then sleep quietly through the night, and the neces- sity for toil will be diminished on the morrow. Why should you take such pains, and bear such watching and such fatigue for this child ? Even if he lives, he will never 100 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 4. The proposal. Watchfulness. Moral beauty. repay you; but as soon as he becomes a man, he will go out from your roof, away into the world, and you will see him no more. Abandon the little sufferer therefore, now; — send him away to a distant room and leave him." The proposal makes father and mother cling still more closely to their suffering child, and when at midnight every house in the village seems desolate and still, you will see from the two windows of their chamber, the glow of lamp and fire within, contrasted with the cold white light, with which the moon silvers the windows of other dwellings. In that chamber the sleepless mother watch- es, with love which no sacrifices can exhaust, and no protracted efforts tire. It expands to meet every emer gency, and rises higher and higher, in exact proportion to the wants and sufferings of its feeble object. The light will continue at those windows, till the morning dawn extinguishes it; and as long as the loved object needs this watchfulness and care, those windows will show the same signal of sickness and suffering, as regu- larly and as constantly as night returns. There is a great moral beauty in this; and in all those principles of human nature, by which heart is bound to heart, and communities are linked together, in bonds of peace and harmony, and of mutual co-operation and good will. Some persons may indeed say that there is nothing of a moral character in it. We will not contend for a word. There is beauty in it of some sort, it is cer- tain, for the man who can look upon these, and similar aspects of human character, without some gratification, is not human. It is beauty of some sort, and it is not physical nor intellectual: — if any man chooses to apply some other term than moral to characterize it, we will not contend. At any rate, it is human nature. But nearly all that there is which appears alluring in the above views, or any other views, which can be taken Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE. 101 Human virtue. Its two foundations. of human nature, when left to itself, is to be resolved into two principles. And these principles are such that if virtue can be based upon them at all, it is certainly vir- tue of the lowest character. The principles are these. Natural Affection, and Policy; the two foundations on which rest nine-tenths of all which is called virtue in this world. There is indeed, among men, a vast amount of industry and frugality; of faithful domestic attachment, and persevering performance of the ordinary duties of life; there is honesty, and conscientiousness, and dislike of suffering, which leads to many efforts to remove or alleviate it. But after all, for we must, to be honest, come to the unpleasant conclusion, nearly the whole has its only basis in feelings of natural affection, or on views of enlightened policy. The results are beautiful; they are essential to the we.l-being, and almost to the exist- ence of society, but, when we come honestly to analyze their causes, we shall see that instinctive affection and views of policy produce nearly the whole. God has taken care, so to form the human heart, and so to consti- tute communities, that these influences of natural affec- tion, and these considerations of policy, shall be enough, in ordinary instances, to protect the outward frame-work of society. This outward frame-work, therefore, is sus- tained very well. The rest, — all that is within, the region of the heart, the private feelings and private con- duct between man and man, he has attempted to regulate by his law. And what is the consequence? Why what he impels man to do, by fixed and certain constitutional tendencies, and what he makes it plainly his interest to do, that is done. But all the rest fails. His laws are broken, his authority contemned, and though the exte- rior fabric of society is protected, as we have seen, and presents so beautiful and imposing an aspect, the heart sickens as we look at what is within. Take our village for instance. If we look at its exte- 102 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 4 The village examined. Real characters rior arrangements, how fair it seems. But the reader would shut this book in displeasure at its harshness, if I were to describe, with anything like fairness, the feelings and emotions which really reign in the hearts of its in- habitants. The children all know that God their Maker has said to them, " you shall not disobey your father and mother." They care no more for it, than for the idle wind. The mother who watches over her sick child has perhaps a heart rising against God, repining and unsubmissive. It seems to be an honest village, for the inhabitants do not rob or murder each other in the night Honest! why there is not a man who will trust his neigh- bor to make a bargain between himself and him, without watching his own interests with the utmost eagerness They seem to be benevolent; that is, they cannot bear to witness any great physical suffering, and they take measures to alleviate or remove it. Benevolent! tht> amount of real heartfelt benevolence among them is shown by this fact: that if any man comes forward with a plan for doing good, and asks the co-operation of his neighbors, nine out of ten of them will believe, that his interest is in some way or other directly connected with it, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, they will be right! Such a view of human character, on paper, is objected to, and opposed by many; but still they know that it is in fact true. They act on the presumption of its truth, in all their dealings with men; and their know- ledge of mankind is abundantly sufficient to convince them, that if the hearts of the inhabitants of any village could be really unmasked, they would present such dis- closures of envy, malice, strifes, selfishness, ill-will, pride and revenge, as would justify the strongest language which could possibly be used to describe them. It is astonishing what beautiful, what admirable re- sults, may be secured in human society, by the operation of these natural impulses and views of policy, while each Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE. 103 The post office. Apparent virtue. A distinction. individual of the community may be the abandoned slave of sin. The following is a striking illustration of it. A man may drop a letter containing a hundred dollar bill, into any post office in the country. He slips it through a little aperture, and does not know who is on the other side. The man who takes it up is a stranger. He pas- ses it into the hands of another stranger; and thus it goes from hand to hand, from driver to driver, and clerk to clerk, for a thousand miles, and at last his correspondent safely receives the money from some one, he knows not whom. And what has been its protection? A sheet of paper, fastened with a little colored paste: or in its con- dition of greatest security, a leathern bag, closed by a lock, which any stone by the side of the road would shat- ter to pieces. The treasure is thus carried over soli- tary roads, through forests, and among the mountains; and is passed from one hand to another, in a state of what would seem to be most complete exposure. What honest men these agents thus trusted, must be! is the first reflection. Honest! Why the writer of the letter would not really trust a tenth part of the sum to the honesty of a single one of them. They may be honest, or they may not, but the careless observer who should attribute the safe result to the honesty of the me; ; would be most grossly deceived. It is an adroit arrangement, — most admirably and skilfully planned, by human wis- dom, and acting by means of principles which God has implanted. — that secures the result. The merchant trusts the money to agents whom he does not know, not because he thinks they are honest, but because he knows they are wise; he relies on human nature, but it is the shrewd policy of human nature, — not its sense of justice. Forgetting this distinction has been the means of a great proportion of the disputes which have raged in the world about human character. In philosophizing upon the subject, a writer, of a poetic turn, is deluded by the 104 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 4 No real difference of opinion about human character. beauty, the moral beauty, we may perhaps safely say, of results, which really depend on very different princi- ples in human hearts, from what they seem to indicate. They who have the most romantic ideas of human nature in theory, do not fail of being sufficiently guarded and suspicious in their dealings with mankind ; or if they do, they soon inevitably become soured by disappointed hopes, and while they panegyrize the race in the mass, they bitterly accuse and reproach it in detail. Besides. there is one proof, and that on a most extensive scale, of the real nature of worldly virtue; it is this, — a fact which no man competent to judge, will deny, — that all the arrangements of business in every community, and in every scheme of government which was ever former by human skill, go on the plan of making it for the in- terest of men to do right, and not on the plan of confi- dence in the integrity and moral principle of their hearts. A government and a system of institutions based on the idea, that men were in a majority of cases, disposed to do their duty of their own accord, could not stand a day. But all this is not the worst. It is not the falseness and hollowness of worldly virtues, nor the vices of heart and life which prevail every where among men, which are the great subjects of the charge which God makes against us. It is another thing altogether, — viz. that men will not submit to the reign of God over them. This is their settled, determined, universal de- cision. It is called in the Bible by various names; — un- godliness, rebellion, unbelief, enmity against God, and many others. Jehovah has proclaimed a law; men diso- bey it altogether. They do indeed some things which are commanded in that law, but then it is only because it happens to suit their convenience. He tells us we are not our own but his;— we pay no regard to it, but go on serving ourselves. He tells us that all will soon be over with us in this~ world, and that in a very short time we Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE. 105 Alienation from God: settled and universal. Evidences. must stand in judgment before him. Who believes it? He charges the man of wealth to act as his Maker's steward in managing his property, and sacredly to appro- priate it to his cause; the wealthy man regards it just as much as he would a similar claim from the beggar in the street. He calls upon men of rank and influence to glo- rify him by exhibiting pure and holy lives, in the con- spicuous stations in which he has placed them; look at the princes and nobles, the legislators and statesmen of this world, and see how they obey. By his word and by his spirit, he telis us of our undying souls, of the value of holiness and spiritual peace, of the deep guilt of sin, of mercy through a Savior, and of eternal life with him in heaven; men turn away from such subjects in utter contempt. These topics whenever introduced among the vulgar classes of society, will ordinarily be received with open derision and scorn; and the refined circles of so- ciety, with as decided, though with a little more polite hostility, will not allow their introduction. There is as real, and certain, and determined a combination among men, to exclude God and his law from any actual con- trol over human hearts, as if the standard of open rebel- lion was raised, and there were gathered around it all the demonstrations of physical resistance. It is sometimes said that the reason why subjects con- nected with God and religion are so excluded from con- versation in polite circles of society, is the fact, that when such subjects are introduced, they are so often a cloak of hypocrisy and deceit. I know it is so, and this fact constitutes the most complete and overwhelming evidence of the extent to which this world is alienated from God. Even what little professed regard there is for him here, is, two thirds of it, hypocrisy! This is, in fact, what the objection amounts to; and what a story does it tell, in re- gard to the place which God holds in human hearts. No. As men have generally made uo their minds to have 106 THE CORNER-STONE. [Oil. 4 Use of God's name. False religions. Mint, anise and curamiiv, nothing to do with God, they are determined to hear noth ing about him, unless it be in such general terms, and in such formal ways, as shall not be in danger of making an impression. We may almost wonder how eternal justice can spare this earth from day to day, when we reflect upon what is unquestionably the awful fact, that through- out all those countries where the true God is known, in four cases out of five in which his name is mentioned at all, it is used in oaths and blasphemies. The world has been full of religions, it is true: but they have been the schemes of designing men, to gain an ascendency over the ignorant, by deceiving and bribing that conscience which God has placed in every heart to testify for him. It has been the studied aim of these religions to evade the obligation of moral law, and the authority of a pure, and holy and spiritual Deity. They substitute for it empty rites and ceremonies, in order to divert the attention of the sentry which God has station ed in the soul, while all the unholy lusts and passions are left unrestrained. The Pharisees gave a specimen which will answer for all. Unjust and cruel towards men, unfaithful and unbelieving towards God, and habit- ually violating and trampling under foot the whole spirit of his law, they would go out into their gardens, and care- fully take one tenth of every little herb which grew there; and this they would carry with ridiculous solemnity, to the Temple of God, to show their exact observance of his commands ! This is an admirable example of the spirit and nature of all false religions. Men will do any thing else but really give themselves up to God. They will go barefooted to Jerusalem, for the sake of being sainted on their return: they will fight under the cres- cent for plunder or military renown; they will build churches and contribute money to public charities, from a hundred different motives; but as to coming and really believing all that God has said, and giving up the whole Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE. 107 Tlie door of salvation open. Men will not enter. soul to him, entering his service, and looking forward habitually to heaven as their home, they will not do it, It has been proposed to them again and again, in every variety of mode, and they will not do it. The proph- ets proposed it. Men stoned them. Jesus Christ pro- posed it. They crucified him. The apostles and their immediate successors proposed it. In the course of a very few generations they succeeded in bribing them, by means of worldly rewards and honors, to pervert their message, and leave the world undisturbed in its sins. The preceding chapter of this work opened, perhaps the reader thought, a very broad door of salvation, and would lead one to ask, who can help being saved. It was indeed a wide door; one which all might enter; the condition simple, and universally proclaimed. "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord and he will have me;:cy upon him; and to our God for he will abun- dantly pardon." " In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him." But the difficulty is, that, widely extended as the gates of sal- vation are, and simple as is the entrance, men will not come in. They do not wish to be saved, and they will not seek salvation. They do not love holiness; they do not like the idea of serving God: penitence, humility, broken hearted submission to God's will, and spiritual peace and happiness, they do not like. They want to be making money, or gaining admiration, or enjoying sen- sual pleasure; and persuasion is not merely insufficient to change them, — it does not even tend to change. You cannot change the desires and affections of the heart by persuasion. No; plain, and simple, and open to every man, as is the way of life, men choose a.iother way, and if the few imperfect exceptions which exist, were not accounted for in the Bible, we should be utterly unable to account for them at all; so fixed, and settled, and 108 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch, 4. Insincerity among Christians. Open vice and crime. universal a characteristic it is of human nature, to wish to have, in this life, as httle as possible to do with Goa and eternity. Even the little love to God and submis- sion to him which exists, is so adulterated that it scarce deserves the name. The enemies of religion know this very well. They charge us with selfishness and ambi- tion and party spirit, as the real springs of a large por- tion of our pretended efforts in behalf of religion. And they are right. We deny it in our eager controversies with our foes, but every true Christian acknowledges and bewails it in his closet before God. We see thus that the great, the destroying guilt of human souls, is not open vice and crime, but determined and persevering alienation from God. The question whether a person becomes vicious and criminal depends almost entirely upon circumstances. A child brought up in the cabin of a smuggler, or on board a piratical ship, will almost inevitably become a robber or murderer; while on the other hand, the son of christian parents, who is trained up properly in a christian land, will almost as in- evitably learn to respect and obey the laws. But though they may thus widely differ in external conduct, they may both reject, with equal determination, all the au- thority of God over them. Both are equally under the control of a worldly spirit, though they gratify this spirit in different ways. Whenever w r e carry the law of God to human souls, and bring home to the conscience and the heart, the summons to surrender to it, it meets, from all the varie- ties of human character, with substantially the same reception. Take it to savages on their remote island Explain the law to them, show its moral perfection; offer them forgiveness for the past if they will now subdue their passions, and cease their murderous quarrels, and give themselves up to the service of the pure and holy Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE. 109 Salvation offered to children. Its reception. The little child. Spirit, and become like him, pure, and holy, and merci- ful and kind. Will they obey? Come then to a christian land, and collect an assem- bly of children. Describe to them the cold, cheerless misery of sin; call their attention to the secret corrodings of remorse, which they all suffer every day. Remind them of their ingratitude and disobedience to their parents, and their neglect of God; tell them how rapidly time is flying, and how soon they must appear before their Maker. Describe the moral beauty of a holy character, — pure, docile, faithful, grateful to father and mother, and filled with affection for God, — the soul re- signed and submissive to his will, and happy in a sense of his forgiveness and protection. Then ask them to come and give themselves to their Savior, and to begin lives of purity and duty and holiness. What will they do? They will sit still while you speak, if they have been trained to sit still on such occasions, and perhaps jl few may listen with real attention; but after you have finished all you have to say, they will go away with hearts as cold towards God as if they had been indurating under the influence of sin for a hundred years. Take younger children then. Here is a little one, just able to run about the floor and talk, and it yet knows little or nothing about God. It obeys its mother's ex- press commands, because it finds from experience that some unpleasant consequences will ensue if it does not, and its obedience is just in proportion to the certainty of these consequences. Call this child to you now, and tell it of duties and obligations to God. Try to awaken gratitude, filial love, and willingness to obey him. Try in a word to establish an acquaintance and communion of feeling between its heart, and the unseen, eternal spirit around it, and to awaken gratitude for his favors, and a desire to please him and to do his will. And what will be your success? Why you may excite surprise; 10 " 110 THE CORNER-STONE. [_Ch. 4 The wealthy merchant. The message to nim. you may arrest a momentary attention, you may awaken awe and even terror, by bringing death and a coming judgment to view. But to link that heart by any sub- stantial tie, to its maker and benefactor, and kindest and dearest friend, will baffle all your powers. Make the experiment then upon a maturer mind. Here is a wealthy merchant, engaged in business, which abundant prosperity from God has brought before him In order that there may be nothing exceptionable in the form and manner in which his duty as a child of God is brought before him, we will suppose that he is sick, and has sent for his pastor to come and visit him. Let this pastor explain what is meant by the requisition of the Bible, that a man of wealth should feel that his wealth is not his own, but that he holds it as steward, — agent; — and that he is bound to be faithful to the trust committed to him. He knows very well what are the duties of trustee. He understands the distinction be- tween agent and principal; so that no long explanation is necessary. Let the pastor simply call his attention to the point, and bring home to his mind the nearness of eternity, the inconceivable importance of the salvation of his soul, and that of his workmen, his clerks, his salesmen, his navigators; and plead with him to come out honestly and openly and with all his heart, on the side of God and holiness; — to let his light shine; — and to devote every thing he has to the work of helping for- ward God's cause in the world. Suppose this exper- iment were to be tried, who that knows mankind will doubt about the result. One half the christian pastors in the world would be so convinced of its hopelessness, that they would not make the attempt. They would not ask, plainly and directly, a worldly man under such circumstances, to give himself up to God. And if they should bring the question forward, plainly and faithfully, and in all its honest truth, instead of winning new con- Ch. 4.1 HUMAN NATURE 111 Enmity against God. The amiable girl. verts to God, they would, in nine cases out often, in any- commercial city in Christendom, excite high displeasure, and very likely never be able to gain admission to the bedside again. Worldly men are very willing to sustain the external institutions of religion, and to assemble on the Sabbath from time to time, to hear praises of the moral virtues, or discussions of the abstract excellences of religion. But you cannot take such a text as this, " Ye ARE NOT YOUR OWN, YE ARE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE, THEREFORE GLORIFY GoD IN YOUR BODIES AND IN YOUR spirits which are God's:" and fairly bring it before men's consciences and hearts, so that they shall really understand its meaning, without awakening strong oppo- sition or dislike. It is opposition and dislike to some- thing. They say it is not enmity against God. But that certainly looks very much like enmity against God and his government, which is excited by the presenta- tion of the very fundamental principle of all his laws. But do not let us despair. There may be some one yet, who will admit God, though all these have rejected him. Here is an amiable and gentle girl; obedient to her parents, faithful in many of her duties, affectionate, kind. Let us bring to her the invitation to come into the kingdom of heaven. Exemplary as she is in exter- nal conduct, she knows very well that her heart would not bear exposure. Envy, self-will, jealousy, pride, often reign there. She knows it; she feels it, and her con- science being still tender, these sins often destroy her peace. Tell her that divine grace will help her to sub- due these, her enemies. She sometimes looks forward to future life, and sighs to think how soon it will pass away. Tell her that piety will dispel the darkness tha< hangs over the grave, and open immortality to her view. She thinks of future trials and difficulties and dangers, with dread. Tell her that the Savior is ready to guide her and be her friend; to protect and bless her at all 112 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 4 Apparent attention. Real indifference. Almost a Christian. times, to give her employment, and to be her reward. Spread the whole subject out before her, and urge her to come and give herself up to God and save her soul. She listens to you with respectful, and perhaps even with pleased attention. Do not be deceived by it. She is, at heart, tired and sick of the gloomy subject. She might like perhaps protection and happiness, but her heart revolts against God and holiness, and you might as well talk to the deaf adder as talk to her. Or if her heart is not entirely braced up and hardened in its determination to have nothing to do with God and religion, — if she is really willing to listen and to read, — she is still just as obstinately determined not to obey. She is called perhaps a religious inquirer. She reads the Bible, and offers a daily prayer, and takes an interest in religious instruction; but her secret motive is to keep religion within her reach, because she dares not let it go altogether. She is still determined not to give up her- self to it. She can love her parents, her brothers and sisters, but her heart is cold and hard against God; and do all you can to persuade her to come out openly and honestly and cordially on his side, she is fixed, immov- ably fixed, in refusing to do it. Her religious friends think she is very near the kingdom of heaven. And in one sense, she is near. She stands at the very gate of the celestial city. All obstacles are removed: she can look in and see the happy mansions and the golden streets. The simple difficulty is, that she ivill not enter. If you urge her, she tries to perplex you with meta- physical speculations, or listens in respectful silence, and goes away and continues in sin exactly as before And thus it is all over the world. There are many beautiful moral exhibitions to be seen here; many admirable results ; many alluring aspects of human nature. But after all, any honest observer must see, that between mankind and God their Maker, there is Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE 113 Universal alienation from God. Dead in trespasses and sins a deep and settled and universal disagreement. They would be willing that God should rule over them, if he would leave them pretty much to themselves. But this he will not do. His very first and most emphatic com- mand is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with ALL THY HEART, AND THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF;" aild this theij will not do. It is their fixed, their settled, their unchanging determination that they will not do it. Perhaps I ought not to call it a determination; for it is rather a feeling than a determination, — a disrelish for holiness and the spiritual enjoyment of loving and serv- ing God. The heart, sensitive as it is in regard to its own rights and interests, is cold and torpid in regard to its Maker's claims. Motive will not act upon it. Per- suasion has no effect, for there is no feeling for persua- sion to take hold of. Argument does no good, for though you may convince the understanding without much diffi- culty, the heart remains insensible and cold; — dead, as the Bible terribly expresses it, — dead in trespasess and sins. This coldness and insensibility of the heart to- wards God, lead to all sorts of sinfulness in conduct. It takes off restraint, gives up the soul to unholy feelings, increases the power of temptation, and thus leaves the soul the habitual slave of sin. These overt acts are the effects, not the cause, and he who hopes to be morally renewed, must not look directly and mainly to his moral conduct, and endeavor to rectify that; but he must look deeper; he must examine his heart, and expect no real success which does not proceed from the warmth of spiritual life springing up there. I presume that a large portion of the readers of this chapter, will be persons who feel, in some degree, the value and the necessity of piety, and they are perhaps actually reading this book with a vague sort of wish to meet with something in it, which will help them to find salvation The book can do this only by showing you 10* 114 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 4. The real difficulty. Spiritual blindness. The ungrateful child. the real difficulty; — which is that you do not sincerely wish for salvation. " Cease to do evil, ask forgiveness in the name of Christ for the evil you have done, and henceforth openly serve God." These are certainly directions which it is easy for you to understand, and easy to practise. The difficulty is, a heart which will not comply. There is a moral obligation to comply, which the understanding admits, but which the heart does not feel; and a moral beauty in complying, which, it does not perceive. This is spiritual blindness. And yet, simple as it seems, a large portion, even of those who call them- selves religious inquirers, have very little conception of what spiritual blindness is. It is insensibility to spir- itual things, a dulness of moral perception, such that sin, though it is intellectually perceived, makes no im- pression, and holiness, though the word is understood, awakens no feeling of its excellence and beauty in the heart. I can best illustrate it by a simple case, such as parents often have occasion to observe. A noisy boy, three or four years old, was once run- ning about the house, disturbing very much, by his rac- tling playthings and his loud outcries, a sick mother, in a chamber above stairs. I called him to me, and some- thing like the following dialogue ensued.* " Where is your mother?" " She is sick up stairs." " Is she? I am sorry she is sick." A pause. * As the reader proceeds through the dialogue, we wish he would recollect that the case is not brought forward to illustrate the gen- eral character of children. That is not our present subject. The story is told merely to illustrate the nature of blindness to spiritual things; and though true, it would have answered our purpose just as well, if it had been entirely imaginary. Children generally, or at .east often, have a very keen sensibility to the guilt of ingratitude. Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE. 115 The dialogue. Ingratitude. Moral insensibility. " Were you ever sick?" " Yes. I was sick once," said he, and he began to rattle his little feet upon the chair, and to move about in a restless manner, as if he wished to get down. " Oh you must sit still a moment," said I, " I want to talk with you a little more. When were you sick?" " Oh, I dont know." " What did your mother do for you, when you was sick?" " Oh she rocked me in the cradle." " Did she? — did she rock you? I am glad she was so kind. I suppose you liked to be rocked. Did she give you anything to drink?" " Yes sir." " Did she make a noise to trouble you?" "No sir, she did not make any noise." " Well, she was very kind to you. I think you ought to be kind to her, now she is sick. You cannot rock her in the cradle, because she is too old to be rocked, but you can be gentle and still, and that she will like very much." "■ Oh but," said the boy in a tone of confidence, as if what he was saying was perfectly conclusive and sat- isfactory, " I want to ride my horse a little more." So saying, he struggled to get free, that he might resume his noisy sport. Probably nearly all the parents who read this dialogue, will remember, as they read it, many similar attempts which they have made, to lead a little child to perceive the moral beauty of gratitude, and to yield their hearts to its influence. But the child will not see or feel. It understands the terms; — it remem- bers its own sickness and its mother's kindness; — it knows that its mother is now sick, and that its noisy plays produce inconvenience and suffering; but every attempt to lead it to look at all these things in connexion, and to perceive and feel its own ingratitude, are vain. 116 THE CORNER-STOXE. [Ch. 4. Spiritual blindness. The horse and his rider. Insensibility It has no perception of it, no sensibility to it. "I want to ride my horse a little more," is the idea that fills its whole soul; and duty, gratitude, obligation are unfelfc and unseen. It is thus with you, my irreligious reader. Your heart has no spiritual perception of the guilt of ingrati- tude towards God, and the moral beauty and excellence of obedience to his law. You can look at the law, at God's character, at your own sins, at all the declara- tions of the Bible, but you do not feel their moral weight The carnal, that is, the worldly mind, does not know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Objects of natural beauty may be seen in the same manner, and yet not appreciated. A traveller on horse back, emerges from the wood, on the declivity of a mountain, and there suddenly bursts upon his view, a widely extended prospect of fertile valleys, and winding streams, and fields waving with corn; farmhouses and smiling villages giving life to the scene. He stops to gaze at it with delight. His horse looks at it too, and sees it all as distinctly as his rider does. The fields look as green, and the groves as shady, and the streams glis- ten with as bright a reflection to one as to the other. But while the man gazes upon it with emotions of de- light, the animal looks idly on, pleased with nothing but his moment's rest. All that is visible comes equally to both; but beauty is felt, not seen. Though the eye may bring in those combinations of form and color, which are calculated to awaken the emotion, there must be a heart to feel, within, — or all will be mere vision; — cold, lifeless, stupid, vision. It is so with spiritual perception. You, my reader, may understand the gospel most thoroughly, — you may have studied the Bible with diligence and care, and may see clearly and distinctly all its truths; but there is a moral and spiritual meaning and power in them, to which Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE 117 The common case. Scene at evening. Feelings. the heart, while it remains worldly, remains utterly in- sensible. It does not see, it does not feel them. I know of nothing which more forcibly illustrates the cold insensibility of men to all that relates to God and holiness, and the salvation of the soul, than the trains of reflection which the unsanctified heart falls into, in its languid efforts to bring itself under religious in- fluence. Let us take one case as a specimen of tens of thousands. The subject is a moral, upright young man, with an honest respect for religon, and a distinct understanding of its truths. He has been taught his duty from early infancy, and has at length left his father's roof, to come out into the world; and as he has not espoused his Savior's cause, his conscience keeps up a perpetual murmur, which makes him restless and dissatisfied, and destroys his peace. He has, all the time, a resolution carefully laid up in his mind, that he will become a Christian before long. This makes him feel as though he was keeping salvation within his reach, and helps a little to quiet conscience. He has lately resumed the habit, which he was early taught to estab- lish, of reading a portion of scripture before he retires to rest. This duty he generally performs, though in a cold and heartless manner, so that it does not in the least interfere with his leading, day after day, a life of irrelig- ion and sin. In fact he would be ashamed to have it known that he reads the Bible every day. He has just finished his chapter, and is sitting in his armed chair before the dying embers of his evening fire. He is alone, and it is near midnight. He walks to the window and looks for a few moments into the clear, cold sky, and a slight emotion swells in his heart, as he thinks of the boundless distance, and inconceivable magnitude of the stars he sees there. The feeling is mingled with a sort of poetic wish that he had a friend in the mighty Maker of them He soon gets into a contemplative 1.8 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 4. The Soliloquy. Wandering thoughts. Reveries mood, and sits down again in his armed chair before the fire, where a train of thought something like the follow- ing passes in his mind. I insert it, not for its dignity, or its good taste, but because it is true to human nature. THE THOUGHTFUL SINNER.' S SOLILOQUY. " Oh, I do wish I was a Christian. I must attend to the subject. I am now twenty-five, and half mankind do not live to be fifty, so that probably I am more than half through life. — I should like to know exactly what my chance of life is. They say the insurance companies can tell exactly; — wonder how they calculate. — " But I wish I was a Christian. I do not know how to repent. I will confess all my sins now, and try to feel penitence for them. I will begin back in infancy That lie I told to my father about the book. Charles Williams sat on the same seat with me then. — Wonder where he is now." Here he gets into a reverie, about home and scenes of childhood; presently he rises up and sighs, and begins to walk back and forth across the floor. " Oh dear, how hard it is to confine my thoughts. Strange; — going to judgment, — all my sins recorded, — coming up against me, and I have no heart to repent of them. Can see them, but can't feel. — Mr. W's sermon was not very clear. I do not understand how the judg- ment will be arranged. Take a great deal of time. — ■ Bible says Christ will judge the world. " But I must become a Christian. — And yet if I should, I must make a profession of religion. — Very public. — What would they all say? ." Here he stops to look out of the window, and seems lost, for a few moments, in vacancy. "Wonder who is sick in that house; — bright light. How should I feel if I was taken sick to-night, and knew I was going to die? — The time will come Ch. 4.] HUMAN NATURE. 119 The confession. The cold, formal prayer. "But my sins. — Let me see; — I disobeyed my father and mother a great many times; I used to take their things without leave, too — Stealing, that? — no, — not stealing, exactly. Why not? Let me see. " He speculates a few minutes on this question of casu- istry, and then sighs deeply as he finds his thoughts wandering again, and makes another desperate effort to bring them back. " Oh! how I wish I could really feel my sins. I will pray to God to forgive them, and then go to bed; I will sit down in my armed chair and pray. " Oh God, look down in mercy, and forgive all my sins. I confess I have been a great sinner / have, / am a great sinner, — /, (musing) — / that's a beautiful blue flame; some chemical substance in the coals, — azure (musing) O my God, forgive me, and enable me to repent of all my sins; — beautiful; — what a singu- lar thing flame is, — distinct shape, but no substance. " O! how my thoughts will wander. I wish I could confine them. What shall I do? I will go to bed; and pray there; posture is of no consequence." He lies down and begins again to call for forgiveness, but very soon loses himself in a dreamy reverie, which terminates in a few moments, in sleep. As I have been writing the above, I have been on the point, again and again, of drawing my pen over the whole, as a wrong species of composition to introduce into such a work as this. But it tells the truth. Many of my readers will see their own faces reflected in it; for as in water, face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. And it shows the real difficulty in the way of salvation, — a heart cold, insensible and callous; unbelief almost entirely darkening the soul, and pride destroying the effect of the little light which gains admission. 120 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 4. Effect of sickness and suffering. The sick man. A visit. The difficulty seems hopeless, too: that is, so far as human means will go towards removing it. Every thing fails. In the hands of the Spirit of God, as we shall hereafter show, every thing does indeed, at times, suc- ceed; but in its ordinary operation, every means and every influence which can be brought to bear upon the human heart, fails of awakening it. You cannot possibly have a stronger case to present to men, than the claims of God's law, and you cannot have a case in which argument, and eloquence, and instruction, and persua- sion, if left to themselves, will be more utterly useless and vain. It is a common opinion among men, who are aware that all this is true in regard to their own hearts, that the coldness and insensibility which they feel, will be dispelled by some future providence of God. They, think that affliction will soften them, or sickness break the tics of earth, or approaching death arouse them to vigorous effort to flee from the wrath to come. But alas, there is little hope here. Affliction does good to the friends of God, but it imbitters and hardens his enemies. Sickness stupifies, and pain distracts; and approaching death, though it may alarm and terrify the soul which is unprepared for it, seldom melts the heart to penitence and love. I will describe a case, — it is a specimen of examples so numerous, that every village and neighborhood in our land might appropriate it, and every clergyman who reads it, might almost think I took it from his own journal. A few years since, when spending a sabbath in a beautiful country town, I was sent for to visit a sick man who was apparently drawing near the grave. 1 was told, as I walked with the neighbor who came for me, towards the house of the patient, that he was in a melancholy state of mind. " He has been," said he, " a firm believer and sup- porter of the truths of religion, for many years. He Cil. 4. J BDMAN NATURE. J21 Conversation by the way. The unfeeling heart. Consumption. has been very much interested in maintaining religious worship, and all benevolent institutions; he has loved the sabbath school, and given his family every religious priv- ilege. But he says he has never really given his heart to God. He has been devoted to the world, and even now, he says, it will not relinquish its hold." " Do you think," said I, "that he must die? " "Yes," replied he, "he must die, and he is fully aware of it. He says that he can see his guilt and dan ger, but that his hard heart will not fed.'" This is the exact remark which is made in thousands and thousands of similar cases, and in almost precisely the same language. The eyes are opened, but the heart remains unchanged. We at length approached the house. It was in the midst of a delightful village, and in one of those calm, still, summer afternoons, when all nature seems to speak from every tree, and leaf, and flower, of the goodness of God; and to breathe the spirit of repose and peace. I wondered that a man could lie on his bed, with windows all around him opening upon such a scene as this, and yet not feel. As I entered the sick room, the pale and emaciated patient turned towards me an anxious and agitated look, which showed too plainly what was passing within. It was a case of consumption. His sickness had been long and lingering, as if by the gradual manner in which he had been drawn away from life, God had been endeav- oring to test by experiment, the power of approaching death to draw the heart towards him. His strength was now almost gone, and he lay gasping for the breath which his wasted lungs could not receive. His eye moved with a quick and anxious glance around the room, saying, by its expression of bright intelligence, that the mind retained undiminished power. I tried to bring to his case, those truths which I thought n 122 THE CORXER-STOXE. [Ch. 5 Hopeless condition. Character of the Deity calculated to influence him, and lead him to the Savior; but he knew all that I could tell him, and I learned from his replies, given in panting whispers, that relig- ious truth had been trying its whole strength upon him all his life, and that in presenting it to him again now, I was only attempting once more, an experiment, which had been repeated in vain, almost every day, for forty years. I saw the utter hopelessness of effort, and stood by his bed-side in silent despair. He died that night. My reader, if your heart is cold and hard towards* God, abandon all hope that the alarm and anxiety of a death-bed will change it. Seek moral renewal and for- giveness now. CHAPTER V. PUNISHMENT. OR THE CONSEQUENCES OF HUMAN GUILT " He will miserably destroy those wicked men." There are perhaps one thousand millions of men upon the earth at this time, of which probably nine hundred and ninety-nine millions entertain the feelings towards God which are described in the last chapter, and act ac- cordingly. The question at once arises, what will God do with them. The reader will perhaps recoHect, that in the first chapter of this work, when considering the character of the Deity, we found that one of its most prominent traits, is determined decision in the execution of law. This is a trait which shows itself as conspicuously in all nature around us, as it does in the declarations of the Bible; Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT 123 Efficiency in government. Different estimates of it. but one which unfortunately is not very popular in this world. Efficiency in government is popular or unpop- ular according to the character of the individual who judges of it. An efficient administration secures protec- tion and happiness to the good, but to the bad, it brings suffering, and perhaps destruction. It is natural, there- fore, that the latter should be very slow to praise the justice which they fear; and in this world, there is so large a portion upon whom God's efficiency as a moral Governor will bear very heavily, that the whole subject is exceedingly unpopular among mankind. It is curious to observe how men's estimates of the same conduct vary according to the way in which they are themselves to be affected by it; for nothing is more admired and applauded among men, than efficiency in the execution of law, in all cases where they are them- selves safe from its penalties. There have been great disputes in respect to the bounds which ought to be as- signed to political governments, or, in other words, the degree of power which the magistrate ought to possess. But within these bounds, — in the exercise of this power, — every body admires and praises firmness, energy and inflexible decision. Nobody objects except the criminal who has to suffer for the safety of the rest. He always protests against it. About fifty years ago an English clergyman of elevat- ed rank and connexions, and of high literary reputation, committed forgery. The law of England says that the forger must die. Now England is a highly commercial country, and all the transactions of business there, con- nected with the employment, and the sustenance and the property of millions and millions, entirely depend upon confidence in the truth of a written signature. Destroy the general confidence in the identity of a man's hand- writing in signing his name, and all the business of the island would be embarrassed or stopped, and universal 154 THE C0RXER-ST0NE. [Ch. 5 Severe punishment. Necessity for it. Alternative. confusion, distress and ruin would follow in a day. The man therefore, who counterfeits a signature in such a country, points his dagger at the very vital organs of society. The law of England does right, therefore, in affixing a very severe penalty to the crime of forgery, not for the purpose of revenging itself on the hapless criminal, but for the sake of protecting that vast amount of property, and those millions of lives, which are dependant upon the general confidence in the writing of a name. It is a sad thing for a clergyman of refined and cultivated mind to pass through the scenes which such a law prepared for him. Consternation, when detected; long hours of tor- turing suspense, before his trial; indescribable suffering when, on being brought to the bar, he saw the proof brought out, step by step, clearly against him, and wit- nessed the unavailing efforts of his counsel to make good his defence; and the sinking of spirit, like death itself, while the judge pronounced the sentence which sealed his awful fate. Then he is remanded to prison, to spend some days or weeks in uninterrupted and indescribable agony, until his faculties become bewildered and over- powered by the influence of horror and despair; and he walks out at last, pale, trembling, and haggard in look, to finish his earthly sufferings by the convulsive struggles of death. Sad consequences these, we admit, although they come only upon one; — and all for just affixing another man's name to a piece of paper, without any intention of defrauding anybody! For it is highly prob- able that in this case, as in many similar ones, the crimi- nal meant, in mercantile language, to have taken up the paper before it fell due. In fact he must have designed this, for this would be the only way to escape certain detection. Awful results, we admit, for a sin so quick- ly, and so thoughtlessly committed; but not so sad r it would be to let the example go on, — until the freq- mcy Ch. 5.J PUNISHMENT. 1%5 Consequences of yielding to crime. Public sentiment. Petitions. of forgery should destroy all mutual confidence between man and man, and business be stopped, and millions of families be reduced to beggary. Better that here and there a violator of the law should suffer its penalties, than that the foundations of society should be sapped, and the whole structure tumble into ruin. The question, there- fore, for the government of that island, was simply this; will you be firm, notwithstanding individual suffering, in executing the law, or will you yield, and take the conse- quences ? If you yield, you open the flood-gates of crime and suffering upon the country; and there will be no place to stop, if you once give way to crime, till the land becomes one wide-spread scene of desolation, — famine raging in every hamlet, — banditti lurking in the valleys or riding in troops upon the highways — and wretched mothers with their starving babes, roaming through the streets of desolated London, in a fruitless search for food. That was the question; and the energetic government of the country understood it so. The unhappy criminal gave every indication of penitence. He was universally believed to be truly penitent then, and is universally be- lieved to have been so, now. All England too, with one voice, sent in earnest petitions for his pardon. But it was in vain. The British ministry understood their duty better, and though it was perhaps as painful a duty as a government ever had to discharge, they were firm, un- yielding to the last. They gave him neither pardon nor reprieve; and though they would probably have submit- ted to almost any personal suffering, to save him, they were compelled to leave him to drink to the full, the bit- ter consequences of his sin. There were thousands and thousands of petitioners in his favor, overcome by compassion for the man. The tide of popular feeling was altogether against the government then, for men generally are weak minded, inefficient, yielding, when the performance of duty is painful. But 11* 126 THE CORNER-STONE. Public sentiment wow. Impartiality. Opinions influenced by character since the time has gone by, and the momentary weak- ness of the occasion has passed away, there has been as strong a tide of public approbation in their favor. In fact this so conspicuous and so terrible a case of sin and suffering, has made a permanent impression, not - only upon England, but upon the whole civilized world. Every man feels it. He may not trace back the feeling to its origin, but it is undoubtedly, in a very great degree, owing to this, and precisely similar transactions, that that distinct, that almost indelible impression has been made upon the community, and is handed down from generation to generation, which connects in every mind, such strong and mysterious associations of sacredness with the signature of the written name. From that day to this, every writer who has commented upon the trans- action, while he has many expressions of sympathy for the suffering, has a far more emphatic tribute of praise for the inflexible firmness and decision which refused to relieve it. Undoubtedly all my readers see this in the same light. We are, in a great measure, incapacitated from regarding some transactions, analogous to this, in a correct man- ner, on account of their coming too near to ourselves; — but this one can be understood ; its moral bearings and relations are seen as they are, without distortion; and the simple fact which enables us to take the view of this subject which truth and justice present, is this, — we have not committed forgery ourselves. Suppose there had been in the prison where this unhappy criminal was confined, a room full of other forgers, and their opinion had been asked about the justice or the necessity of condemning him. Could they be made to understand it? No; they would be vociferous in their outcries at the unjust severity of inflicting such protracted and terrible suffering for so little a sin. We however can understand it, for we are impartial observers We have not com- Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 127 Points illustrated. Time spent in sin. Fifteen seconds. mitted the crime, and we consequently have nothing to fear from sustaining the law. We rather see the value of an efficient administration of justice, in the protection it affords to our rights, and the addition it makes to our happiness. I have accordingly taken this case to pre- sent to my readers, to illustrate four or five points, which we can see more plainly than when we look at them di- rectly in the government of God. As I enumerate the points which such a case illustrates, let the reader listen to the voice of reason and conscience within, and he will find that it testifies in their favor. 1. The time spent in committing the sin, has nothing to do with the just duration of the punishment of it. It took Dr. Dodd fifteen seconds, to write Lord Chester- field's name. He suffered indescribable agony for many months, and was then blotted from existence for it. He would have lived perhaps forty years. So that here, for a sin of fifteen seconds, justice took forty years in pen- alty. She took more; for he would have been glad to have exchanged death for forty years of exile and suffer- ing. In fact he petitioned for such a commutation. Some one may say that I fix too small a time for the commission of the sin; — that he spent many hours and perhaps days in devising his plans, and practising his counterfeit signature, and getting his bond drawn, and that his guilt was extended over all these. His guilt was, to be sure, but he was not punished for guilt. He was punished for crime. If the last fatal act had not been performed, he would not have committed any of- fence against human law. God might have punished him, but man would not; — so that, strictly and fairly, the fifteen seconds spent in delineating the letters of his pupil's name, was the whole. For a sin of fifteen seconds, then, there followed a penalty worse than suffering for forty years, and mankind have, by common consent, from that day to this, pronounced the punishment just 128 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 5 Bad intentions. Immediate consequences. Inconsidemteness. 2. Desert of punishment does not depend upon inten- tion to do injury. The forger in this case, had not the least intention of doing injury. He could not have had such an intention, for Lord Chesterfield could not have been called upon to pay the bond without causing instant detection. This fact however was no reason why he should go free. The question was not what injury he intended to commit, but what injury really would follow, if his crime should go unpunished. 3. Desert of punishment does not depend upon the immediate consequences of the sin. The evil of sin consists not in the direct injury of the single transgres- sion, but in the ruinous effects to the community, when it is allowed to go unpunished. The only direct injury which could have resulted from this crime was the loss of £ 4903 by one individual. Fifty times that sum might probably have been raised to save his life, but it would have been unavailing. He was executed, not for put- ting to hazard the £ 4003, but for endangering the vital interests of an immense community. The £4330 has nothing to do with the case. It would have been the same, if it had been £ 40. The sin was the forgery, not the endangering of four thousand pounds. Men are always estimating their guilt, by the time employed in committing the sin, or by the direct conse- quences resulting from it; and fancy they deserve but little punishments, because they think that their trans- gressions have occupied but little time, and can of them- selves do no great, immediate injury. 4. Desert of punishment does not depend upon the degree of distinctness with which the consequences are foreseen. The criminal here, had no idea that he was involving himself in such dreadful difficulty; but this in- consideration was no admissible plea. Hearts in this world which give themselves up to sin, are unconcerned about its guilt, and have no idea of the Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 129 Object of punishment. Not revenge. Moral impression. awful consequences which are to ensue; but this will not, — cannot alter those consequences. 5. The object of punishment is not revenge against the individual. Nobody felt any sentiment of revenge against the individual here. There was one common and universal effort to save him, — and that by the very community which alone could suffer injury from his crime. The government would most gladly have par- doned him, if they could have done it safely. No one wanted him to suffer. The only reason for it was, that the suffering of the criminal in such a case, can alone arrest the consequences of the sin. In many and many an instance, has the chief magistrate of a state had the strength of his moral principle tried to the utmost, by the importunities of a whole community, and more than all the rest, of the wretched wife and children of the criminal. A weak man, in such a case, will yield. His desire to save individual suffering, will induce him to take a step which will hazard all that society holds most dear. Instead of any feelings of resentment against the individual to urge him on, there is a deep emotion of compassion for him, to keep him back; so that if he is firm and does his duty, it must be because moral princi pie carries him forward, against the strong tide of feel- ing with which his heart pleads for the life of a fellow creature. So with God. If any of us should be so happy, as, after finishing our pilgrimage in this vale of tears, to be admitted to^ the happy home in the skies, God will as- suredly protect us for ever from the sins and the sinners which have brought so much misery here. He will be firm and unyielding, in the execution of his law; but he will feel for the sufferings he must not relieve. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. 6. The object of punishment on the other hand, is, a moral impression upon the community, designed to 130 THE CORNER-STOiNE. [Ch. 5. The petition. Satisfying justice. Dr. Johnson. arrest the ruinous consequences of the sin. We have seen under the last head, that it is not resentment against the individual. The forger knew it was not, in his case, resentment that stood in the way of his pardon; and in his petitions, he made no effort to remove any feeling against him personally, but to show how the necessary moral impression might be made without his death. The following paragraph from a petition he offered to the king, shows this. rt I confess the crime, and own the enormity of its consequences, and the danger of its example. Nor have I the confidence to petition for impunity; but humbly hope, that public security may be established, without the spectacle of a clergyman dragged through the streets to a death of infamy, amidst the derision of the profligate and profane: and that justice may be satisfied with irre- vocable exile, perpetual disgrace, and hopeless penury.' It is evident from this, what object the petitioner sup- posed it to be, which required his death. And in his effort to avoid death, his plan was to show that the proper moral impression might be made on the community with- out it, so as, in his own words, " t o establish the public security" — " to satisfy justice;" expressions which are almost precisely those used by religious writers in de- scribing God's design in punishing sin, and which are spurned by the disbelievers in a judgment to come, as expressions having no meaning, or else signifying some- thing unjust or absurd. " To satisfy justice;" — a meta- phorical expression certainly, but one which any man can understand if he will. The great English philolo- gist, for it was Dr. Johnson who penned this petition for the unhappy criminal, will hardly be charged with using under such circumstances, unmeaning, or unintelligible language. If the man had been pardoned, a violence would have been done to the sense of justice which reigns in every man's bosom, which would have worked Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 131 Salvation by Christ. Penitence. Its power in averting banishment. incalculable injury. It would have undermined the au- thority of law, and brought down the standard of moral obligation, and every man would have felt, as soon as the excitement of the occasion was past, that the firm foundations of commercial confidence throughout the empire, had been rendered insecure. The object then, in endeavoring to procure pardon, was to devise some way to prevent these evils, without the death of the criminal, — some way to satisfy justice, — and sustain law, — and make the moral impression, which the government well knew would be made by the destruction of the man. No such way could be found, and the poor criminal had to submit to his fate. What this poor sufferer's learned and eloquent advo- cate failed to find, for him, Jesus Christ our Savior suc- ceeded in finding for us; — a way by which to satisfy justice, and sustain law, and make a moral impression, which should arrest the sad consequences of guilt, and render it safe that we should be forgiven. We shall consider this however more fully in the sequel. 7. The necessity of punishment is not diminished by the penitence of the sinner. All mankind know and admit this, excepting in their own case. Then they always have an undefined, but a fixed impression that penitence settles the whole difficulty. There is perhaps, as great evidence of this forger's penitence, as there can be, in such a case; but penitence, how- ever deep and however sincere, could have no power to arrest the consequences which the community must suffer from unpunished crime. If the gratification of personal resentment against the, criminal had been the reason for insisting on the penalty of violated law, then repentance would have been a valid plea, as it would have removed all personal resentment, and turned hu- man sympathy in his favor. Repentance always in- creases the desire to forgive, but it never of itself opens 132 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 5. It makes pardon desirable. Application of principles. the way. That is the distinction. I repeat it; it does a great deal towards making pardon desirable; but alone, it does nothing towards making it safe. That is, it does nothing towards making that impression on the community which the connexion of crime with suffering always makes, and which is necessary in order to arrest the ruinous consequences of sin. If, then, the question of pardon came up at all, in the British cabinet, the stronger the evidence was, that the criminal was sorry for his sin, the more painful would the duty of insisting on justice be; but the necessity of performing the duty, would remain unchanged. We have taken this case, because it is well known, and because the common sense of mankind, from that day to this, has pronounced but on-e decision upon it. The inferences which we have drawn out from it, migh' be almost equally well illustrated by any case of sin and punishment, which takes place in any government, pa- rental or political. These truths are so plain, that no man can or will deny them, excepting in his own case, or in some case which comes so near him as to bias his feel- ings. They are the principles which the Bible declares will guide Jehovah in his administration. The punish- ment due to trangression will not be regulated by the briefness of the time spent in the commission of the sin; — it will not be measured by the smallness of the imme- diate injury; — the sinner may have had no intention to invade the peace and happiness of God's great family; — he may have been entirely unaware of the conse- quences which were to follow; — he may be overwhelm- ed with consternation and sorrow when he finds what the bitter fruits must be: — he may offer reparation, a hundred fold; — but all in vain. Even repentance, sin- cere and humble repentance, will be insufficient to save him. For it is not personal resentment against the indi- vidual, nor desire to repair the immediate injury effected Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 133 Nature and effects of sin. Cock fighting. War. Spiritual blindness. by the specific sin, which leads to the infliction of the penalty. If it were, repentance would remove the one, and a comparatively slight effort, effect the other. But it is not these. It is that sin, that evil and bitter thing, wherever it comes, blights, and destroys. Just so far as it gains admission into God's dominions, peace and happiness fly, — harmony is broken up, — man hates and oppresses his fellow man, and all conspire against God. We feel not its miseries and its horrors because we have become hardened to them, and the heart is stupid and insensible to guilt in which it is itself involved. Men see and understand guilt a little sometimes, when it starts upon them in some new and unexpected form, while they are entirely blind to far greater enormities which they have themselves assisted to make common. Tne whole city of Boston was shocked a few months since, by the disclosure of a scene of vice and cruelty, which was to the mass of the inhabitants, a new and unusal form of sin. It was cock fighting. Cruel, unre- lenting wretches prepared their victims for the contest, by sawing oiTtheir natural spurs, and fastening deadlier ones of steel upon the bleeding trunks. Then, having forced the innocent animals, to a quarrel, by thrusting their beaks into each others faces, till they provoked them to anger, they sat around to enjoy the spectacle of their combat. The whole community was shocked by it, for this was sin in a new and unexpected form, and one in which they had not themselves personally partaken. But when the same experiment, precisely, is tried with men, the world looks on calmly and unmoved. Military lead- ers bring human beings together by thousands, men who have no quarrel, and would gladly live in peace. They drive them up together front to front, and having armed them with weapons, of torture and death, which nature never furnished, they succeed, half by compulsion, and half by malicious art, in getting the first blows struck. 12 134 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 5 Human insensibility to sin. Threatened destruction. and the first blood flowing, as a means of bringing the angry passions of the combatants into play. This they call getting the men engaged! There is no trouble after this. The work goes on: — a work of unutterable horror The blood, the agonv, the thirst, the groans which follow, are nothing. It is the raging fires of hatred, anger, revenge, and furious passion, which nerve every arm, and boil in every heart, and with which thousands upon thousands pour in crowds into the presence of their Maker; — these are what constitute the real horrors of a battle-field. And what do mankind say to this? Why a few christian moralists feebly remonstrate, but the great mass of men gather around the scene as near as they can get to it, by history and description, and admire the sys- tematic arrangements of the battle, and watch the pro- gress, and the manoeuvres of the hostile armies, as they would the changes in a game of chess: — and were it not for the flying bullet, they would throng around the scene m person. But when it comes to sawing off the spur? of a game cock, and exasperating him against his fellow, — oh! that is shocking cruelty: — that they cannot bear! We do not realize the nature, and the effects of any sin, when we have been long habituated to it, nor per- ceive that guilt, in which we are personally involved. But this will not alter the case. God will cherish no personal resentment against sinners, and no wish to put them to suffering. But the awful consequences of sin among his creatures must be stopped: — and in order to stop it, the wretched souls who choose it for their portion MUST BE DESTROYED. Destroyed? It is a strong expression, but God has chosen it. We take it from his word, and we may not use a gentler one. "All the wicked will he destroy." "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. " In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 135 The alternative. Open unbelief. Indifference. not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ ; "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power: " Destruction! It is a word in regard to which all com- ment is useless, and all argument vain. Perverted in- genuity might modify, and restrain even such expressions as eternal, and everlasting, but destruction, — it bids de- fiance to cavilling: it extinguishes hope. Kverlasting destruction! We are left to the single alternative of admitting the terrible truth, or positively refusing to take God's word. Of this alternative, men take different sides. They who are determined to live in vice and sin. openly deny God's declaration. Reasoning with them is useless. Can you expect to find any words plainer than "everlasting destruction!" No: the difficulty is with the heart: Till this is touched, demonstration is useless: — but then when the conscience is awakened, and the heart feels, the difficulty is over: — doubts about the Judgment to come. vanish like the dew. This open contradiction of the word of God, is, how- ever, perhaps a smaller evil than the lurking, secret un- belief which reigns in almost every heart. The number who openly deny what God declares, in regard to the desert and the punishment of sin, is very small; but the number of those who really, and from their hearts believe it, is, very probably, smaller still. Between these two ex- tremes lie the vast majority of the human race, — asleep; too faithless to believe, and too stupid and indifferent to take the trouble to deny, They do not reason aloud about it, but there is a lurking feeling in their hearts, that they have been sinners only for a little time; they have, they think, no malicious intentions, no direct hatred of God; their guilt is that of thoughtlessness and inad- 136 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 5. Mistaken views. The guilt of sinning- against God. Case of the child. vertence, and the mischief is slight, which immediately follows. Many a young person secretly reasons thus, after spending years in decided and determined neglect of God. The plea he puts in, is just the same as if the forger had urged in his petition for pardon, that it took him only fifteen seconds to commit the crime, that he had no malicious intentions towards the community in committing it, and that the sum which was hazarded, was only four thousand pounds. He cannot, he infers, deserve death for this. He overlooks altogether the wide- spread evils that would desolate the whole community, should the work he thus begins, be allowed to go on. So the sinner, a child of ten years old, who has lived a comparatively amiable and harmless life, wonders what there can be in his life and character, deserving of the terrific retribution which God has denounced. I will tell you, what it is, my child. It is not the length of the ten years, during which you have been living in sin That is nothing. It is not the inconvenience and suffer- ing you have occasioned your parents. If you had been to them, during all this time, an unceasing source of pain and anxiety, it would be comparatively nothing. It is .lot the injury you have often done your playmates by your guilty passions; if that injury had been ten times as frequent, and ten times as great as it has been, it would be comparatively nothing. It is not that you have direct- ly opposed and hated God; I admit that you have had no distinctly malicious intention: and if you had, it would not have materially altered the case. It is, however, that there is a great controversy going on, whether God shall reign or not among the beings he has made, when noth- ing but his reign can save them from universal disorder and misery, and from becoming the victims of every kind of guilt. The progress of sin, therefore, must be stop- ped. At whatever expense of individual suffering and ruin, it must be stopped It is a sad, a very sad thing, Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 137 Tiie spread of sin must be stopped. Sin overruled for good. The forgery. for a child like you to linger for ever in guilt and misery, but it would be a far more melancholy thing for the rebellion against God, which has poisoned all the sources of happiness here, to spread throughout God's empire, withering and destroying wherever it comes. So that the charge against you, is not based upon the injury your individual sins have already produced, but upon this; viz. that by deliberately rejecting God, you take the side of sin and misery; you do all in your power to bring off God's creatures from their allegiance to him; you place yourself exactly across the way over which the mighty wheels of Jehovah's government are coming, and the chariot cannot be turned aside to save you, without des- truction to the rest. But we must return once more to the forgery, for the sake of deducing one farther inference, and then we take our final leave of the illustration. 8. Sin may be overruled so as to result in good. I introduce this subject with great hesitation, for it opens one of those obscure and boundless fields of thought, which are not unfrequently presenting themselves before us in looking into the mighty government of God. Clouds and mists hang over it; some objects are entirely con- cealed, and some we see but indistinctly, notwithstand- ing our most eager efforts to fix their forms. Now and then, the shades and darkness break away a little, and we get a glimpse, far on in a perspective of difficulty and doubt; but before we have time to fix the knowledge we have obtained, the clouds close in again, and all is once more darkness and gloom. The self-sufficient and shallow intellect, which never really thinks, but takes upon trust what its leaders tell it, or studies only to find proofs of what it is determined, at all events, to believe, never experiences, what I now mean ; but no man can lay aside authority, and shake off the festers of every bias, and come, with a free, untrammeled mind, to look 12* 138 THE CORNER-STONE. fCh. 5 Its beneficial effects. Moral impression. The authority of law sustained. into the moral government of God, without being often confounded and lost in the sublime obscurities which continually gather round his way. I make these remarks because it is to such an obscure and darkened field that I point the reader now. Sin may be overruled for good. It is highly probable that the forgery which we have been considering, result- ed in the most beneficial effects to the whole community concerned in it. The sin and the penalty which follow- ed, were most conspicuously displayed. There was scarcely a man in the whole empire who did not know these facts at the time of their occurrence, and who did not watch the progress of the efforts which were made to save the criminal. Every one knew that the administra- tion had no malicious or resentful feelings against the sufferer; and that if they refused to pardon, it was only because the public safety, in their view, imperiously forbade it. Thus the attention of the whole community was called to the nature and consequences of this crime and a moral impression was produced, which must hav< been inconceivably beneficial in its effects. It has mad< men look with a feeling of respect, almost amounting to awe, upon the written signature; — and attach a sacred ness to it, which, though it is nothing more than a men- tal impression, is probably one of the greatest safeguards to property which the institutions or customs of civilized life afford. We do not mean that this instance has been the sole promoter of this feeling: but that instances like this have produced it; and this has been efficient above all others, just in proportion as it has been conspicuous beyond the rest. The effect of the moral impression produced by this forgery and its punishment, was not confined to the par- ticular class of offences which it brought -more directly to view. It sustained the general authority of law. It spoke, in a voice, which could not be misunderstood, of Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 139 Good oflen done by the commission and the punishment of sin. the nature of guilt, and the ground and the necessity of punishment; and it sent forth a warning to every village, and neighborhood in the land, — a warning which has been remembered to this day. The transaction has been appealed to continually, from that time to this, in proof of the incorruptible majesty of British law. So true is this, that if an English statesman at the time, had regarded only the effect upon the commu- nity, he would not have regretted the transaction. If he could have overlooked the misery of the poor crim- inal, he would even have rejoiced at it, as a transaction destined to result in immense public benefit. In fact it has undoubtedly often happened that a government has actually rejoiced in the commission of a crime which could be made, by exemplary punishment, the means of producing a moral impression, which would save the community from some threatening dangers. Yes; where the circumstances of the offence have been favorable for this purpose, they have actually rejoiced at it. The have rejoiced too, not merely that the criminal was de tected, but that the crime was committed, — as it gave them the opportunity to arrest far greater evils than the suffering of the offender. The most humane and benev- olent magistrate, and even the teacher of a school or the father of a family, will often find cases, where the moral effects produced upon the community under his care, by some offence and its consequences, have been so bene- ficial, that he can hardly regret the occurrence. We may go even farther than this. If it had come within the power of a statesman to do it, and if he had looked only at the general good, and not at the sufferings of the individual, he could not have adopted a wiser measure, to strengthen general confidence in the authentication of a document by a written name, than by actually pro- ducing such a conspicuous case of forgery, and inflicting its punishment. Of course, to do this is entirely beyond 140 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 5. Difficulty- Divine power over the human heart. The traveller. the limits of human power; and the mind shrinks back baffled and bewildered from the vain attempt to under- stand the degree of power which God can exercise in respect to the moral agency of the beings he has formed. Does any thing depend upon contingencies which he cannot control? If not, then it would seem that there is not any thing, not even transgression, which is not a part of his design. The origin of sin, and the reasons why it is permitted, if he only permits it, or ordained, if we consider him in all things absolute and supreme, is a subject in which the human faculties are confounded and lost. It opens before us one of those vistas of dread uncertainty and doubt, which we have already described. Shall we assign any limits to the sovereignty of Almighty God, in regard to the moral conduct of his creatures? Conflicting feelings tell us that we must, and that we must not; and reason stands overwhelmed and confound- ed by the grandeur and the profoundness of the recesses, which she attempts, in vain, to explore. We are like the traveller, lost at midnight, in the dark glens of the mountains, where frowning precipices hang over his head, and forests in silence and solitude stretch away before him. Mists float through the valleys, and heavy clouds hang over the summits of the mountains or move slowly along their sides. A momentary opening admits to his straining eyes a vista of grove and cliff and glen, which the moon, brightening for an instant, reveals to him; but before he has time to separate reality from shadow, or to gain one distinct impression, the heavy cloud rolls over him again, shuts out his light, cuts off his view, and leaves him bewildered and in darkness. It is so with many a region of religious truth. The human mind, when it has fairly entered, is bewildered and lost in the mazy scene. Sometimes an opening in the clouds in which it is enveloped, give it a momentary and partial glimpse of the objects around, and while the Cll. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 141 Spirit of controversy. God is to be feared. The Savior. thoughts are eagerly reaching forward through the vista, almost thinking that every cloud is about to break away and disappear, thick shades and darkness come over it again. Hope revives for a moment, as the moonlight beam of reason feebly shines on some new object, in some new direction; but it revives only to be again extinguished as before. Into this scene noisy contro- versy loves to enter, to dispute about what she cannot see, and to profane the sublimity which she cannot ap- preciate; but intelligent and humble piety stands awed, submissive and silent, feeling her own helpless feeble- ness, and adoring the incomprehensible majesty of God But to return, " God is love," is one part of the inspir- ed delineation of his character. " God is a consuming fire," is equally distinct, and it comes from equally high authority. There is however a common understanding among men, that they will read and appreciate the for- mer, while the latter is almost wholly passed by. In fact there is among many persons, and even among Christians, a feeling that God must be considered and represented as a father only, not as a magistrate; chil- dren must be taught to love him, not to fear him; and those terrible denunciations which frown on every page of the Bible are kept out of view. It is even thought by many that there is a kind of harshness and inhumanity in representing God as he is, a God of terrible majesty, and in holding up distinctly and clearly to view, the awful retributions he. threatens, with any design to deter men by fear, from breaking his laws. But Jesus Christ thought not so. " Fear him," says he, (i who can de- stroy both soul and body in hell. Yea I say unto you fear him." He never shrunk from bringing fully to view the undying worm, — the ceaseless torment, — the inextinguishable fire. We are too benevolent, say some, to believe such things, or to teach such things. 142 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 5. Insensibility to God's threatened judgments. A form of unbelief. Benevolent! Yes; they are more benevolent than the Savior. He had love enough for men, to tell them plainly the truth; but these, it seems, have more. I do not speak here, merely of those who openly deny the declarations of the Bible on this subject, but of a very large portion of the christian church, who never tremble themselves, or teach their children to tremble, at the wrath to come. Many a christian reader of the Bible passes over its pages, thinking that such truths are all for others, when in fact they are peculiarly needed by himself. He is a professor of religion, thinks his peace is made with God, and that consequently the terrors of a coming judgment are nothing to him. In the meantime, he leads a worldly life,^ — he does, day after day, what he knows to be wrong, — frustrating the grace of God, by making his vain hope of forgiveness the very opiate which lulls him into sin. As to threatened punishment, it passes by him like the idle wind. God is a father, he says; his government is paternal; and the language which proclaims his threatened judgments is eastern me- taphor, or, if it has any serious meaning, it is intended for others, not for him. This feeling extends to all. It is one of the forms which human unbelief, so obstinate and so universal, assumes. If we were to look through- out the Bible for the subject which is presented with the greatest prominence and emphasis there, and one which is pressed most directly, with reference to a strong and continual influence upon human minds, it is (he unshrink- ing and terrible decision, with which, under the govern ment of God, sin will be punished; and yet how very few there are, even in the most enlightened christian com- munity, and in the very bosom of the church, who stand in any daily fear of the judgment to come. So settled and universal is this feeling, that some readers will per- haps be surprised at the idea that fear of God's judg- ments should have a place in the bosom of the church Ch 5.] PUNISHMENT. 143 Christians should be affected by it. Probation. Debt and credit. " There is no fear in love," they will say; " perfect love casteth out fear." So it does, but it must be perfect love ; and when a church has attained to this, — when sin is banished from every soul, — and the world is finally abandoned, — and God reigns, in supreme, and unques- tioned, and uninterrupted sway, — and every heart is a temple of perfect purity and holiness, — then may its members cease to think of the danger of God's displea- sure. Then; but not till then. The great foundation of the almost universal unbelief which prevails, in respect to the consequences of sin, rests in the heart. Man is unwilling to believe what condemns and threatens himself. But while the origin is in the heart, the intellect assists in maintaining the de- lusion, and this chiefly through the mistake of consider- ing moral obligation as of the nature of debt and credit, instead of regarding God's government as it really is, a system of probation. The meaning of probation is understood well enough in reference to this world. Young men are led to see that there are certain crises in their lives, when immense and irretrievable conse- quences depend upon the action of an hour. This is well known; — the principle is interwoven into all the providential arrangements of life. Men do not complain of it; they see practically its fitness. But when they come to look at the attitude in which they stand towards God, the idea of probation gives way to that of debt and credit, — and they go to estimating their sins, — and to calculating the time they have spent in committing them, — and they bring on their offsets of good deeds, — and then consider what amount of suffering is necessary to close the account. In order to show how momentous are the consequen- ces which often depend upon a very brief period of trial, let us take a very common case. A boy of twelve years old, brought up by christian parents in some quiet vil- : 144 THE corner-stone. [Ch. 5 The young man. Leaving home. Allurements of sin. lage, is sent at last to the metropolis, into a commercial establishment, where he is to commence the duties of active life. As his mother gives him her last charge, and with forced smiles, but with a bursting heart, bids him good-by, he thinks he cannot yield to any tempta- tions, which can beset him. For many days, and per- haps weeks, he is strong. He is alone, though in a crowded city; his heart, solitary and sad, roams back to his native hills, and recalls a thousand incidents of childhood; conscience, foreseeing the struggles that are to come, is busy in his heart, retouching every faint and fading moral impression, which years gone by had made there. He looks upon the diseased and abandoned pro' fligates around him with horror, and shrinks instinctively back from the very idea of vice. Every night he reads a passage in the beautiful Bible, which was packed by stealth in his trunk, with his father's and mother's names upon the blank page; and he prays God for strength and help, to enable him to be faithful in duty, and grateful to them. In the course of a few weeks, the world is somewhat changed to him. He does not love his parents, and his early home the less, perhaps, but he thinks of new scenes and new employments a little more. He forms acquain- tances, and hears sentiments and language which he must, in heart, condemn, though he does it more and more faintly, at each successive repetition. He engag- es with his new comrades in plans of enjoyment which he feels are questionable. Either they are positively wrong, or else his previous notions have been too strict; he cannot exactly decide which, and he accordingly tries them more and more, occasionally reasoning with him- self in regard to their character, but coming to no abso- lute decision. He does not think of home so much as he did; — somehow or other there are melancholy thoughts connected with it, — and he finds it less easy Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT. 145 The Crisis. The sore temptation and the struggle. Results depending. and pleasant to write to his parents. He used to hare a letter, well filled, always ready for any private oppor- tunity which accident might furnish; but now, he writes seldom, though he apologizes very freely for his seem- ing neglect, and expects every week to have more time. At last, some Saturday afternoon, the proposal comes up among his companions, to go off on the morrow on a party of pleasure. It is not made directly to him, but it is in his hearing, and he knows that he is included in the plan, and must decide in favor or against it. A party of pleasure, — of innocent recreation, they call it. He knows it is a party of dissipation and vice, — and formed too for that sacred day, which God commands him to keep holy. He says nothing, and from his silent and almost indifferent look, while they loudly and eagerly discuss the plan, you would suppose that he was an un- concerned spectator. But no; look at him more atten- tively. Is not his cheek a little pale? Is there not a slight quiver upon his lip? And a slight tremor in his limbs, as he leans upon a chair, as if his strength failed him a little? These external indications are very slight, but they are the indications of a sinking of the spirit within, as he feels that the moral forces are taking sides, and marshalling themselves in array for the strug- gle which must come on. Conscience does not speak; — but he knows, he feels, how she will speak, before this question is decided. Inclinations, which are begin- ning to grow powerful by indulgence, do not yet draw, but he knows how they will draw; and the blood falls back upon his heart, and strength fails from his limbs, as he foresees the contest. It seems as if the combat- ants were drawing up their forces in gloomy silence, waiting, by common consent, till the time shall arrive, and the signal be given, for their deadly struggle. The armistice continues, with slight interruptions, until he leaves his companions, and having closed the busi- 13 146 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 5. Consequences of a defeat. Probation. Nature of it. ness of the day, walks towards his home. But there are within him the elements of war, and as soon as he retires to his solitary room, and the stimulus and excitement of external objects are removed, the contest is begun. I need not describe it; I can have no reader who does not understand the bitterness of the struggle which ensues, when duty, and conscience, and the command of God, endeavor to maintain their stand against the onset of sore temptation. Human beings have occasion to know what this is, full well. Besides, it is not to the circumstances of the contest in such a case, that I wish to turn the attention of the read- er, but to this fact: that very probably, on the event of this single struggle, the whole character and happiness of the young man, for life, depend. He may not see it so at the time, but it is so. If duty gains the victory here, her next conquest will be achieved more easily. There is a double advantage gained, for the strength of moral principle is increased, and the pressure of subse- quent attacks is diminished. The opposing forces which such a young man must encounter, in taking the right stand, are far more powerful than those which tend to drive him from it, when once it is taken. On the other hand, if he yields here, he yields probably for ever Conscience stands rebuked and silenced; guilty passions become tumultuous for future gratification; impure and unholy thoughts pollute his mind; and though remorse may, probably, for a long time to come, at intervals more and more distant, and in tones more and more faint, utter reproaches and warnings, he will, in all probability, go rapidly down the broad road of vice and sin. All this is not fancy, but fact. It is the sober history of hundreds of young men, who go down every year to ruin, in pre- cisely this way. They have their time of trial; the time when they are put to the test; a crisis, which, in many, many cases, is over in a few hours, but whose awful Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT 147 Sin perpetuates itself. Its worst effects. Wandering from God. consequences extend through a life of misery, and arc not stopped, even by the grave. Perhaps it may be supposed, that all the miseries of a life of vice, ought not to be charged upon the hour when the first step was taken, but should be considered as the consequences of the repeated acts of transgression which the individual goes on to commit. We have no objec- tion to this at all, but it does not relieve the hour of the first transgression from any portion of its responsibility; for this very disposition to go on in sin, is the direct re- sult of the first transgression; and it is the very worst result of it. If the first sin left the heart in a right state, the conscience tender, and guilty passions subdued; and if nothing was to follow from it but simple suffering, even if it were suffering for years, it would be comparatively nothing. The greatest, the most terrible of all the evils which result from the first indulgence of sin, is that it leads almost inevitably, to a second and a third. The tyrant takes advantage of his momentary power, to rivet his fetters, and to secure his victim in hopeless slavery So that if a young man spends one night in sin, the great evil is not, that he must suffer the next day, but that he will go on sinning the next day. He brings heart, and conscience, and ungodly passions into such a relative condition, that he will go on. There is not half as much to stop him, as there was to prevent his setting out, so that the first transgression has for its consequences, not only its own peculiar miseries, bui all the succeeding steps in the declivity of sin, together with the attendant suffering, which ; to the end of time, follow in their train. All this is true, though not universally, in respect to ihe vices and crimes of human life. I say not univer- sally, for the wanderer does, sometimes, of his own ac- cord, stop and return. But it is true universally, and without exception, of the broad way of sin against God, from which the wanderer, if he once enters it, will never, 148 THE CORNER-STONE [Ch. 5. Can the sinner return 1 ? Will the sinner return 1 of his own accord, turn back. Take the first step here, and all is lost. The inclination to return never comes. The whole Bible teaches us, that sin once admitted, whether it be by a spotless spirit before the throne of God, or by a tender infant here, establishes its fixed and perpetual reign. Cannot the sinner return? the reader perhaps may ask. Cannot the fallen spirit or sinning man, give up his warfare and come back to God? Can- not Dives, who neglected and disobeyed God when on earth, seek his forgiveness and his favor now? We have nothing to do with these questions; the inquiry for us to make is, not whether they can, but whether they ivill return. The Bible tells^us they will not; but with man- kind around us, and our own hearts open to our view, we scarcely need its testimony. Sin once admitted, the soul is ruined. It lies dead in trespasses and sins; going farther and farther away from God, and sinking contin- ually in guilt and misery. It may indeed, while in this state, be clothed in the appearances of external virtue, but it will still remain, hopelessly estranged from God, so deeply corrupted, and so wholly lost, that it can be restored to purity and holiness again, only by being created anew. Sin thus does more than entail misery, — it perpetuates itself. The worst of all its consequen- ces, is, its own inevitable and eternal continuance. The question is very often asked, whether the pun- ishment of sin in another world, will be suffering directly inflicted, or only the evils which naturally and inevitably - flow from sin. The distinction between these two spe- cies of retribution is very clear in respect to human punishments, but it is lost at once, in a great measure, when we come to the government of God. It is impos- sible to draw the line between them, because whatever consequences follow, they are so uniformly, and indis- solubly connected with sin, that they form a part of its Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT 149 God often employs suffering. Arrangements for it in the human frame. nature. In fact, it is not enough to say that sin brings suffering, — it is suffering. Misery is, as it were, an essential property of it; but whether rendered so by the decision of Jehovah, or by an original and absolute necessity in the very nature of things, it is perhaps im- possible for human powers to determine. One thing is certain, however, that Jehovah does not shrink from the direct employment of suffering, whenever it is necessary to accomplish his purposes. It is an unpopular subject, and one which, probably, a vast majority of readers would prefer to have passed by; but no one can form any correct idea of his Maker's character, or know at all, what he is to expect at his hands, without being fully aware of it. Take, for instance, the human frame. It is made for health and happiness, and when we look upon a counte- nance blooming with beauty, and observe its expression of quiet enjoyment, we feel that the being who formed it, is a God of love. But we must not forget, that within that very blooming cheek, there is contrived an appara- tus capable of producing something very different from enjoyment. A fibrous net-work spreads over it, coming out in one trunk from the brain, extending everywhere its slender ramifications, and sending a little thread to every point upon the surface. What is this mechanism for? Its uses are many; but among its other properties, there is in it a slumbering power, which may indeed never be called into action, but which always exists, and is always ready, whenever God shall call it forth, to be the instrument of irremediable and unutterable suffering. We admit that in almost every case, it remains harmless, and inoperative; still it is there, always there, and always ready; and it is called into action whenever God thinks best. And it is not merely in the cheek, but throughout every part of the frame that the apparatus of suffering 13* 150 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 5. Uses of suffering. Jehovah is to be feared. lies concealed; and it is an apparatus which is seldom out of order. Sickness deranges and weakens the other powers, but it seldom interferes with this; it remains always at its post, in the eye, the ear, the brain, the hand, — in every organ and every limb, and always ready to do God's bidding. Nor is it useless; an idle preparation of instruments, never to be employed. It is called into action often, and with terrific power. God accomplishes a great many of its most important purposes by it. These purposes it is not our business now to examine, though there can be scarcely a more interesting field of inquiry for us, than the uses of suffering, and the extent to which God em- ploys it in the accomplishment of his plans. These pur- poses are all benevolent, most highly so; still, suffering, freely employed, is the means through which they are produced. All nature corroborates what the Bible as- serts, that our Maker is not only a father to be loved, but a magistrate to be feared. The dreadful suffering, which God has in providence inflicted upon communities and individuals, for the viola- tions of his laws, cannot be described, nor can they be conceived, by those who have not experienced them. We know, however, something of their power, and the awful extent to which retribution for sin has been pour- ed out upon men. It is far pleasanter, in examining the character of God, and his dealings with us, to dwell upon the proofs of his love, than upon those of his anger, but we must not yield to the inclination, so as to go to the Judgment, with expectations of lenity and forbear- ance which we shall not find. It is best to know the whole, and to be prepared for it; and not to attempt to avoid a coming storm, by denying its approach, or^shut- ting our eyes to the evidences of its destructive power. Still, however, the feelings which a knowledge oi Ch. 5.] PUNISHMENT 151 Value of an efficient government. Conclusion. God's character as a magistrate, will awaken in us, will depend in a great degree, upon the side we take in re- spect to obedience to his law. An efficient government :?a terror to evil doers, but it has no terrors for those who do well. We all love to be under the dominion of just and righteous laws, and if we are disposed to keep them ourselves, we love to have them inflexibly admin- istered in respect to others. If, therefore, to any of our readers the subject of this chapter is a gloomy one, we assure them, in conclusion, that they may divest it of all its gloom, by giving up sin and returning to duty. When we think of the ravages of sin in this world, the cruelty, the oppression and indescribable miseries it has brought down upon its victims, we feel that we need an efficient and a strong protector. We must be more or less ex- posed, a little longer, here, but the time will come, when we shall enjoy full protection, and perfect safety, and though we cannot but feel sorrowful and sad, to reflect that any of our fellow beings are to be shut up at last in an eternal prison, we still cannot but rejoice that the time will come, when neglect and disobedience towards God, and selfish and ungovernable passions towards man, will be confined and separated from all that is pure and holy, by a gulf that they cannot pass over. We know that this little planet, with all its millions, is as nothing among the countless worlds which fill the wide- spread regions all around it. Into those regions we can- not but hope that sin and misery has not yet extended. There may be, we hope there is, unbroken peace and happiness and virtue there. The destructive disease which has raged here for forty centuries, spreading mis- ery, and ruin everywhere, can be controlled and stopped, only by Jehovah's hand. All depends on him; and the only hope of our ever finding a safe and quiet home, where we can once more be protected and happy, de- pends upon the firm and inflexible decision with which 152 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 6. Pardon possible. Always desirable when it is safe he manages this case of rebellion. He must not pardon, unless he can pardon safely. He must not endanger the peace and happiness of his empire, to save, comparative- ly a few, who have deliberately rejected his reign. CHAPTER VI. PARDON, OR CONSEQUENCES SAVED. " God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him." Notwithstanding all that was said in the last chap- ter, in respect to the necessity of the most vigorous and energetic measures in arresting the consequences of sin, there is such a thing as pardon; — forgiveness, perfectly free, and yet perfectly safe. There are various ways by which the objects of punishment can be secured, withr out punishment itself, — though these various modes are perhaps only different applications of the same or similar principles. The object of law and penalty is to hold up to the community distinctly the nature and the effects of sin, — to make a strong moral impression against it, and thus to erect a barrier, which shall prevent its extension. A wise parent or teacher, who feels the necessity of being firm and decisive in government, will find a great many cases occur, in which punishment that is really deserved, is unnecessary; that is, when the objects en- umerated above, can be attained without it. Now every wise parent and teacher desires to save suffering wher- ever it can be saved, and though there is great danger of doing this when it cannot be done safely, still there are cases where it certainly is safe Ch. 6.] PARDON. 153 The story of the ost cap. The teacher's motives. The reader is requested to call to mind here, the story of the lost cap, given at the commencement of the third chapter of this work. It was there introduced for an- other purpose, but it illustrates very well, the point we have here in view. The course which the teacher pur- sued in that case, was undoubtedly far better than any plan of punishment would have been. Every body will admit this. There cannot be a question in the mind of any one who understands human nature, that the course there described, was most admirably adapted to secure the object. In order to perceive this, however, it must be distinctly understood, what the real object of punish- ment is, viz. a good effect upon the community, not the gratification of personal resentment against the offender. If the teacher, in that case, had been a passionate man, and if his feelings of resentment had been aroused at the misconduct of his pupil, he never would have devised such a plan to save him. It is difficult to tell which appears most conspicuous in such a case as that, the wish to promote the highest welfare of the little commu- nity over which he presided, or delicate and compassion- ate interest in the feelings of the offender. Any person who is capable of perceiving moral beauty at all, will see that, in the plan he adopted, both these feelings, viz. firm and steady regard for the safety of the community, and benevolent interest in the transgressor, were sin- gularly and beautifully blended. The plan he adopted, was in substance, this: he substituted his own inconve- nience and suffering for the punishment of his pupil, so as to rely upon the former for the production of that moral effect which would naturally have resulted from the latter. We observe three things in the character of this transaction, which are of importance to be mentioned here. First, the plan originated in love for the offender, and a wish to save him suffering. Secondly, it was exactly adapted to touch his feelings, and produce a real 154 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 6. Cases common. Not precisely analogous to the plan of salvation. change in his heart, which punishment probably would not have effected. Thirdly, it secured the great object, the right moral impression upon the little community which witnessed it, far more perfectly and more pleas- antly, than any other mode could have done. The whole plan is an instance of what may be called moral substitution, — putting the voluntary suffering of the innocent, in the place' of the punishment of the guilty. This principle, substantially, though seldom or never brought to view by writers on rewards and punishments, is very often applied. They who resort to it, perceive, in the individual cases, by a kind of instinctive feeling, its powerful and healthful effect, though they may not perhaps philosophize on its nature. The story of the lost cap, is a specimen of many cases, where this or a similar principle is acted upon by intelligent parents or teachers. Each particular case, however, is different from the others, and presents the principle in a different aspect. I will therefore add one or two others, describ- ing them as they actually occurred. Before proceeding, however, I ought distinctly to say, >,oat no human trans- actions can be entirely analogous to the great plan of redeeming man from sin and misery by the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. They may partly illustrate it, however, some conforming to it in one respect, and some in another. The reader will therefore understand that I offer these cases as analogous to the arrangement made for saving men through the atoning sufferings of Jesus Christ, only in the general principle, viz. that of moral substitution, — accomplishing, by means of the suf- fering of the innocent, what is ordinarily secured by the punishment of the guilty. I will first mention a very trivial case. I give this rather than more important and extraordinary ones, because it is more likely to recall to the minds of parents, similar instances which may have occurred in their own government. Oh. 6.] PARDON. 155 The broken stucco Suffering of the innocent for the guilty. In a certain school, it was the custom for the pupils to play during the recesses, in the school-room, with soft balls, stuffed lightly with cotton, and which could con- sequently be thrown without danger. The use of hard balls, which were sometimes brought to school, was strictly forbidden. One morning, as the teacher entered the room, and was just taking his seat at his desk, a girl approached him, with a very sad and sorrowful look, and followed by several of her companions. She had in her hand some fragments of stucco. " Sir," said she sorrowfully, holding up the broken pieces, " see what I have done." " What is it? " said the teacher. She pointed up to the ceiling, where was an orna- mented centre piece, wrought in stucco, and said she had broken it off from that, with her hard ball. It was very evident from the countenance of the of- fender, and from the general expression of concern which was visible in the many faces which were turned towards the group at the teacher's desk, that she herself, and all the rest of the pupils, felt deeply the fact, that the con- sequences of this breach of law must come upon the teacher, as the one entrusted with the apartment, and responsible for it. They were attached to their teacher, and would rather have suffered themselves, than have brought inconvenience and trouble to him; and he per- ceived by a glance of the eye, that by this means, a moral impression was made, far more effectual and val- uable than any punishment would have produced. In a word, he saw that, through his suffering, the offender might safely go free. If no injury had been done, he would have noticed, very seriously, any violation of the law, but since the injury came upon him, and since the little community was in such a state that it would feel this deeply, the very best, the very wisest thing he could do, was to pass over the offence entirely. A 156 THE COHNER-STONE. [Ch. 6 Effects of the substitution. The principle often applied. rough, passionate and unthinking man, might perhaps, in such a case, have rebuked, with greater sternness, and punished with greater severity, just in proportion to the inconvenience and trouble the sin brought upon him; but he who knows human nature, and studies the adapt- ation of moral means, for the accomplishment of moral ends, will see in a moment, that in such a case, the mildest punishment, even the gentlest reproof would weaken the impression; and that the way to make the most of such an occurrence, would be to dismiss the sorrowful pupil with kind words in respect to the injury, and without a syllable about her sin. This, too, is moral substitution ; receiving, through the sufferings of the in- nocent, the advantages usually sought from the punish- ment of the guilty. It is difficult to lay down general principles in regard to the applications of this principle in the moral educa- tion of the young, because so much depends upon the state of feeling of the parties concerned, at the time. For example, in the case last described, had the offender been not penitent and not concerned, and had a feeling of cold indifference prevailed in the school-room, in re- gard to the injury which had l)een done, the course taken would have been most evidently unwise, and un- safe. It is a question of moral impression on hearts, — an impression in favor of law, and against the breach of it, — and it is only where this impression can be pro- duced better without the punishment than with it, that there can be any safe remission. It is however unques- tionably true, and all parents and teachers ought to keep it in mind, that where any serious consequences result from an offence, those consequences in a wise and dex- terous government, will lighten, not increase the severity of reproof and punishment. They go far towards produ- cing the very impression which reproof and punishment are intended for, and consequently, they diminish the Ch. 6.1 PARDON. 157 Another c ise. The students and the joiners. Mischief. necessity of it. Those parents and teachers, who take little notice of offences when they are harmless, and punish them with severity when followed by accidental injury, ought to perceive that they are not administering moral government, but only gratifying their own feelings of resentment and revenge. In the case we have just described, the injurious con- sequences were not voluntarily assumed by the innocent individual in order to allow the guilty one to be forgiven. They came upon him without any consent of his. The following case is different in this respect. The persons who suffered the injury here, voluntarily assumed it. The case, like the former, is described exactly as it occurred. At one of the New England colleges, not many years ago, a company of joiners were employed in erecting a building. A temporary shed had been put up in the college yard, where the work went on, and where, at night, the tools were left, protected only by the honesty of the neighborhood. From some cause or other, a feud arose between some of the workmen and the students, and the next day, when the latter came to their work, they found their tools in a sad condition. Planes were gapped and notched, saws dulled, chisel-handles split, and augers had been bored into the ground. The indig- nation which this wanton injury excited, threatened very serious consequences. Some measure of retaliation was expected from the mechanics, which of course would be repaid again by the students, and thus it was feared that a deadly and permanent hostility would be produced. It was of course impossible to ascertain the authors of the mischief, and if they had been ascertained, punish- ment would probably have only made them more secret in their future plans. A species of moral substitution removed the difficulty entirely. The plan was this. After evening prayers, when the students were all 14 168 TfeE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 6. The proposed substitution. Its effects. Moral impression. assembled, one of the officers stated to them the case, — described the injury, — presented an estimate of its amount, and proposed to them that they should raise by voluntary contribution, a sum sufficient to remunerate the injured workmen. " There is no claim upon you for this," said he; "not the slightest. The mischief was indeed undoubtedly done by some of you, but it was certainly by a very small number, and the rest are not in any degree responsible. Still, by leaving their tools so completely exposed, the workmen expressed their entire confidence in you. This confidence must now be shak- en; but if you take the course I propose, and voluntarily bear the injury yourselves, you will say, openly and pub- licly, that you disavow all participation in the offence and all approval of it : and you will probably prevent its repetition. Still, however, there is no obligation what- ever resting upon you, to do any thing of the kind. * make only a suggestion which you will consider and decide upon, as you please." The students were then left to themselves, and after a few minutes' debate, occasioned by a slight opposition from a few individuals, the vote was carried almost unanimously, to assume the injury themselves. The money was contributed and paid. The innocent suffer- ed, and the guilty went free, and the moral effect of the transaction was most happy. The whole quarrel was stopped at once. The tools were repaired, and left afterwards in perfect safety, though as unprotected as before. It ought to be stated however, that the sum necessary, was a very trifling one, and its amount had nothing to do with the moral effect of the transaction. Any officer would have paid double the sum, in a moment, to have ended the difficulty. The effect was not produced by the reparation, but by the guilty individuals seeing that their innocent companions would assume the consequen- Ch. 6.] PARDON. 159 Peculiarities of the case. The offenders not penitent. ces of their guilt, whatever they might be. It was not a measure of ways and means, but of moral impression. This case seems different from the preceding, in two important particulars. The first is, that the loss was borne, neither by the offenders, nor by the magistracy, but by a third party, not directly concerned in the trans- action. The second is, there was no evidence that the offenders were penitent. In fact the plan had no re- ference to the offenders at all. Its whole aim was moral impression upon the community. They escaped in this instance, not through any plan formed for saving them, but through the imperfection of the government, which had no means of detecting them. They were not for- given; they simply escaped. Generally, in such cases, the plan has two objects; to save the offender, if he is penitent, and to produce the right moral effect upon the community. Here, however, the former was no part of the design; it was the latter exclusively. Had they been discovered, and found to be still unchanged in heart, justice would not have been satisfied, to use Dr. Johnson's language, without their punishment. Still, the. other great design, — a strong moral impression upon the community, to arrest the progress of sin, and to create an universal feeling against it, was most admir- ably secured through the voluntary consent of the inno- cent, to suffer the consequences which ought justly to be borne by the guilty. All these are cases in which a person is relieved from sufferings which he deserves, on account of others, but it is equally in accordance with universally admitted principles of human nature, that a person should receive favors which he does not deserve, on account of others. We are represented as not only forgiven through Jesus Christ, but as receiving every blessing and favor for his sake. This seems to be a moral substitution of a little different character, but it is exemplified with even greater 160 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 6 Favors received for Christ's sake. Illustration. frequency in human life, than the other. There calls at your door, late at night, a wandering stranger, and asks admittance. He seems destitute and wretched, and as it is not convenient, and perhaps not even safe, to admit him into your family, you very properly direct him to a public house at a little distance, and supply him with the means of procuring a reception there. Just as he is leaving you, you think you recognise something familiar in his features, and on inquiring his name, you find he is the son of one of your dearest and earliest friends. How quick do you change your plan, and bid him wel- come, and endeavor to repay by your hospitality to him, the favors you received in days long past, from his father. But why ? It is no return to the father. He is long since in his grave. Why; do I ask? There is an universal, and almost instinctive feeling in the human heart, leading us, under certain circumstances, to make such moral substitutions, — to show favor to one, on ac- count of obligation to another. The apostle Paul under- stood this principle, when he sent back Onesimus to his master, and endeavored to secure for him a kind recep- tion by saying, " If thou count me a partner, receive him as myself." The reader will perceive that it has not been our object, in the preceding illustrations, to find a parallel among human transactions for the great plan adopted in the government of God, to render safe the forgive- ness of human sins. Such a parallel, precisely, cannot be found. All that we have been attempting to show is, that the principles upon which the plan is based, have a deep seated foundation in the very constitution of the human mind, and that they are constantly showing them- selves, more or less perfectly, whenever a real moral government is intelligently administered here. We must look however for such exemplifications of these princi- Ch. 6.] PARDON 161 Political governments. Moral governments. Differences. pies, in the government of the young, for in no other case in this world, is a government properly a moial one. The administration of law in a political comm nity, is a different thing altogether. It is simply tne enforcement of a system of rules of action, designed almost exclusively for the prevention of injury. In a moral government, strictly so called, one mind superior to the others, presides over a community of minds, and acts upon them in his administration with reference to their moral welfare. He looks beyond mere external action, — adapts his measures to moral wants and moral feelings, — and aims at an influence over hearts. A poli- tical government, though often confounded with this, is distinct in its nature, and aims at different objects. It attempts only the protection of the community against injury. Its province is to regulate external actions, not to purify and elevate the feelings of the heart; and it does this by endeavoring to enforce certain prescribed rules, relating almost exclusively to overt acts, and de- signed merely to prevent injury. This difference in the nature and design of a political government, and of a moral government, strictly so called, is fundamental, and it applies with peculiar force to the subjects we are con- sidering. In fact there is, properly speaking, no such ihing as forgiveness, in human jurisprudence. Legal provision is indeed made for what is called pardon; but this is, in theory, a mode of arresting punishment, where evidence, not brought forward at the trial, comes to light afterwards, or where peculiar circumstances which the strict principles of law could not recognise, render it equitable to remit the sentence. In practice, it goes indeed sometimes farther than this. In some cases the executive, overcome by compassion for the criminal, liberates him, at the risk of sacrificing the public good. In others, by a common though tacit understanding, pardons are granted so uniformly in certain cases, as to 14* 162 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 6. No forgiveness provided for by human laws. amount to a permanent modification of the law. But all this is entirely different from real forgiveness. It is, in fact, only discretionary power, lodged in suitable hands, to modify the inflexible decisions of law, when equity, in peculiar circumstances, demands their modification, — it is not real forgiveness. Real forgiveness in politica* government has no place. We must look therefore, among the young, where alone we find that anything like moral training is the object of government, for illus- trations of the principles of God's administration. We shall find them however here. A wise parent or teach- er, who acts intelligently, and watches the operation of moral causes and effects upon the hearts under his care, will often, though perhaps insensibly, adopt these princi- ples, and will imitate, almost without knowing it, the plans of the great Father of all. We certainly shall find abun- dant examples of the operation of those principles which we have been endeavoring to bring to view: viz. that the object of punishment is not to gratify resentment against an individual, but desire to promote the welfare of the community; that it cannot safely be remitted, unless there is something to take its place, and to do its work, in producing moral impression; and that this generally cannot be done without the suffering of some one who is innocent. We have dwelt upon this subject perhaps long enough already, but it is so essential to the peace and happiness of the young Christian, clearly to understand it, that we will present it in one other point of view. Let us sup- pose a father, when sitting with his children around his evening fire, accidentally learns that one of them has played truant during the day. He has been guilty of the same offence once or twice before, and the measures which were adopted then, have proved to be ineffectual Now there are plainly two distinct feelings which may lead the father to inflict punishment: I mean here by Ch. 6.] PARDON 163 Two motives for punishment. Their operation in this case. punishment, any means whatever of giving him pain, either by severe reproof, or deprivation of enjoyment, or direct suffering. There are two distinct feelings which may prompt him to inflict punishment. First he may be a passionate man, and feel personal resentment against the boy, and punish him under the influence of those feelings; — a case exceedingly common. Secondly, with- out feeling any resentment, but rather looking with ten- der compassion upon his son, he may see the necessity of doing something effectual to stop this incipient sin, and to prevent its extending to his other children. If now the former is the father's feeling, — an emotion of resentment and passion, on account of the trouble which the fault has caused, and is likely to cause him, there is no hope for the poor offender; — resentment can only be gratified by the suffering of the object of it. If, on the other hand, the feeling is only a calm, though perhaps anxious regard for the moral safety and happiness of his family, there is some hope; for punishment in this case, would only be resorted to on account of its promoting this safety and happiness, by the moral impression it would make, and there may perhaps be some other way of accomplishing this object. But let us look at this more particularly. The reason why truancy is so serious an evil, is not the loss of a day or two at school, now and then, — or any other immediate and direct consequence of it. It is because it is the beginning of a long course of sin; it leads to bad company, and to deception, and to vicious habits; it stops the progress of preparation for the duties of life, and hardens the heart, and opens the door for every temptation and sin, which, if not closed, must bring the poor victim to ruin. These are what consti- tute its dangers. Now the difficulty with the boy is, that he does not see these things. He is spiritually blind, and argument and persuasion will not open his 164 THE C0RNER- STONE. [Ch. 6 Substitute for punishment. The father' 3 plan. Visit to the poorhouse. eyes. Punishment is therefore necessary to make such an impression upon his mind and that of the others, as to arrest the progress of the sin. It may be confinement. It may be some disgrace or deprivation; or suffering in any other form. If it is however judiciously administer- ed, and in a proper spirit, it must have an effect, and it may remove the evil altogether. But there may be some other way of accomplishing the object, — that is, of producing the needed impression. Let us suppose such a way. Let us imagine that after learning that his son had been guilty of the offence, the father gives no indications of resentment, or any other personal feeling, but begins to think what he can do to arrest the evil, without bringing suffering upon his boy. At last he says, "My boys: I want you all to understand what the real nature of truancy is. I shall, however, say no more about it now, but to-morrow I shall wish you to go and take a walk with me." The boys look forward with eager interest to the time, and when it arrives, the father takes them to a neigh- boring poorhouse, where lies a man sick, and suffering excruciating pains under the power of diseases brought on by vice. We may suppose the father to have been accidentally acquainted with the case. The boys enter the large and dreary apartment, crowded with beds, ten- anted by misery in every form; for there is an apartment in every extensive poorhouse, where you may see the very extreme of human wo, — the last earthly stage of the broad road, — where life lingers in forms of most excessive misery, as if to show how much the mysterious principle can endure. On one narrow couch, foaming mania glares at you, — on another lies sightless, sense- less, torpid old age, a picture of indescribable decrep- itude and deformity; — from a third, you hear the groans and see the restless tossing of acute suffering, — and gibbering idiocy laughs upon a fourth, with a noise which Ch. 6.] PARDON. 165 The scene. The abandoned. Consequences of truancy. grates more harshly upon the feelings than the deepest groans. Into such a scene the father enters, followed by his sons, pale and trembling, for it is a scene which they have scarcely nerve to endure. The attendant, knowing whom they wish to see, precedes them, guiding them to a bed in the corner, where lies the only patient in the room who has mind enough left to be conscious who, and what, and where he is. He has covered his head, in the vain effort to hide from the horrors of his last earthly home. The attendant raises the corner of the blanket which covers him, and the visiters see there a haggard face, with its two glazed and motionless eyes rolled up towards them and staring wildly from their sunken sockets. The visiter has brought the wretched patient some little comfort or luxury, which may amuse and gratify him a moment, though it cannot relieve. He then falls into conversation with him, and the boys who stand by, learn something of the progress and the termination of a life of vice and crime. The father carries him back to early childhood, and learns from the sufferer's own lips, that truancy and the bad company which it led him into, were the first steps of his wretched course. Now there is nothing unnatural in all this. Precisely such an experiment may never have been made, but plans for producing moral impressions exactly analogous to it, have been successfully adopted a thousand times, and every reader will see that if such a plan were adopt- ed, and if the hearts of the bovs were in such a state as deeply to feel it, it would, in this case, have rendered all farther proceedings unnecessary. If the guilty one's heart was,really touched by the scene, so that he should go home penitent and humbled, and resolved to sin no more, it would be perfectly safe to forgive him. And the point to be kept most distinctly in view in the case, — the point which it is, in fact, the whole design of the 166 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 6. Moral impression made by the death of Christ. case to illustrate, is, that free forgiveness, which would be dangerous alone, may be rendered safe by measures ingeniously and judiciously adopted, which shall produce the same moral impression upon the community which punishment would have made; and that the moral Gov- ernor who is actuated by a calm regard for the general good, and not by personal resentment, will devise such measures if he can. It is the great glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that it thus provides a way for the safe forgiveness of sin. We are taken to the cross, and we see the nature and effects of sin there; and the great sacrifice which was made on Calvary, goes instead of the just punishment of men, to make that great moral impression which is necessary to sustain law, and satisfy justice, and arrest the consequences of sin. The imaginary case we have been describing, is evi- dently very different in many respects, from the plan of salvation by the sacrifice of the Son of God. It would have resembled it more closely if, instead of one offender, we had supposed two, one of whom should be affected and led to penitence by the scene he witnessed, while the other remained hard-hearted and stubborn. The father would then have felt compelled, while he forgave the one, to take some farther measures with the other. The resemblance would have been closer still, if instead of showing the boys some existing misery, an innocent brother could, in some mysterious way, himself have voluntarily assumed for a time, the sufferings which were the inevitable consequences of the sin. These changes, however, and many others designed to make it correspond more closely with the original, do not alter its nature, or touch the great principle which it brings to view: viz. that to render it safe to forgive sin, some plan must be divised, for producing, by other means, the moral effects for which punishment is intended. We have, in former chapters, taken a view of two Ch. 6.] PARDON. 167 Extent and power of it undeniable. Its present influence. great objects for which the Son of God appeared here, to set us an example, and to teach us, by precept, oui duty. We have considered the nature of the example, and also the system of duty which he held up to men. We now come, however, to look at another great design, far greater, probably, than either of those, to make, by perfect obedience during his life, and the sufferings he endured at the close of it, such an exhibition of the nature, and the effects of sin, and such an expiation for human transgressions, as should render it safe to forgive all who are penitent. He came, in other words, not only to teach us duty, and to set an example of its perform- ance, but to suffer for us, and to make, by that suffering, a moral impression on the great community of intelli- gent beings, which should go instead of our punishment, and render it safe that we should be forgiven. It has made such an impression. It is now eighteen centuries since that death occurred, and among all the varieties of opinion which have been adopted in regard to it, by Atheist, Deist, and Christian, in one point all must agree, that the death of Jesus Christ has made a stronger impression upon the human race, th-an any other transaction since the creation of the world. In the re- mote and subjugated province where it occurred, it was witnessed, indeed, only by a few thousands, and they looked upon it with little more interest than would have been excited by the execution of any other object of popular fury; they perhaps supposed too, that in a few months, it would be forgotten. But no. In a very few weeks, it was the means of arresting the attention, and subduing the hearts, and altering the characters and lives of thousands. The tidings of the transaction, and the explanation of it, spread like a flame. The walls of the city could not confine it; the boundaries of the province could not confine it. The influence of wealth, and the coercion of military power, were equally insufficient to 168 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch. 6. Its prospective influence. Necessity of atonement. stop its progress, or to prevent its effects. It shook the Roman empire to its foundations, — and now, eighteen centuries from the time of its occurrence, it holds ascen- dency over more hearts than it ever did before, and it is an ascendency which is widening, deepening and strengthening, and promises to spread to every nation, and to every family on the globe. This impression, too, is of the right kind. A know- ledge of the death of Christ, with the explanation of it given in the Scriptures, touches men's hearts, — it shows the nature and the tendencies of sin, — it produces fear of God's displeasure, — and resolution to return to duty, and thus produces effects by which justice is satisfied, and the authority of law sustained, far better in fact, than it would be by the severest punishment of the guilty sinner, There has always been in human hearts, a feeling of the necessity of some provision to render safe the for- giveness of sin. Penitence has never been enough to quiet conscience. Hence self-inflicted sufferings and sacrifices for sin, which have prevailed in every age. The latter was the institution established by divine authority to typify the great sacrifice which was to come at last. But though established by divine command, it could not have spread so far, and have been so constantly and universally observed by men, if there had not been some strong and deeply seated feelings in the human heart with which it chimed. Though, as the Apostle informs us, the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin, that is, it was not sufficient to render punishment unnecessary, still the institution, as regulated by God's commands to Moses, was admirably adapted to the moral condition and wants of men. One of the most brief and lucid descriptions of it is contained in the following passage Ch. 6.] PARDON. 169 Sacrifices. Reparation required. Sincere repentance. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbor in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbor; or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein: Then it shall be, because he hath sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered to him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely: he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering. And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estima- tion, for a trespass offering unto the priest: and the priest shall "make an atonement for him before the Lord; and it shall be forgiven him, for any thing of all that he hath done in trespassing therein." Leviticus 1 : 1 — 7. The first thing that attracts our notice in this provision is, that reparation, — full reparation for all the injury, must be made, as the first step towards a reconciliation with God. Another interesting thought is, that the ani- mal required to be brought for the sacrifice was one which in ordinary cases would probably be an object of value to the offender; for m pastoral life, men almost love their Hocks and herds, and the owner of the innocent victim, one would suppose, could not see its blood flow ing for his sins, without being moved. Still, however, it was not chiefly on this account, i. e. the direct moral effect of the transaction upon him, that the sinner was required to bring his offering, but it was to remind him 15 170 THE CORNER-STONE. fCh. 6 Principles of moral government. Application of the subject. habitually, that something was necessary to open the way for his forgiveness, besides mere repentance and reparation, and thus to bring him to the right state of heart to be saved by means of the real propitiation which was at length to be made. The manner in which David speaks of this subject, shows that it was generally under- stood that this duty was not intended to be an empty form. " Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Psalm, 51: 16, 17. We have now accomplished the plan which we had marked out for this chapter, which was the exhibition of some of the principles upon which the pardon of sin can safely be bestowed. These principles are in sub- stance as follows. The design of God in connecting such severe and lasting sufferings, with sin, is not resent- ment against the sinner, but a calm and benevolent interest in the general good. He wishes no one to suf- fer, and has accordingly provided a way by which he can accomplish more perfectly what would have been accomplished by the inflexible execution of the law. By this means, the way is open for our forgiveness, if we are penitent for our sins. The circumstances of this sacrifice will be considered more fully in a subsequent chapter; the design of this has been only to explain some of the acknowledged principles on which the ne- cessity of it is grounded. This object is now accom- plished; but before closing the chapter, we wish to devote a few pages to turning this subject to a practical account. There are a great many persons to whose wounded spirits, the truths advanced here would be balm, if they would apply them. Many a thoughtful reader of such a work as this, is often in a state of mental anxiety and Ch. 6.] PARDON 171 Address to the inquirer. Source of anxiety. Remedy. suffering, which the subject of this chapter is exactly- calculated to relieve. You feel that you are a great sinner, and though this feeling produces no powerful and overwhelming conviction, it still destroys your peace, and fills you with uneasiness, which, though it may be sometimes interrupted, returns again with increased power, at every hour of reflection, and especially in sol- itude. You wish you were a Christian, you say. I will suppose that you really do. Many persons who say that, really mean only that they wish for the benefits of piety, not for piety itself. They would like the rewards of the Savior, but they do not like his service. I will suppose, however, that you really wish to be his. It is possible that you do, and yet you may not have found peace; you think there is some love for the Savior in your heart, some interest in his cause, some desire to serve him, and yet do not feel relieved from the burden of sins, and are not cheered with the spiritual peace and joy which beam in the hearts of others. Now the cause of your restless unhappiness, is a burdened conscience; — a burdened conscience. There is a sort of instinctive feeling, or if not instinctive, it is interwoven with all the inmost sentiments of the soul, that guilt deserves pun- ishment. You feel that you are guilty. You know that God is an efficient governor, — a God of terrible majesty, — for whatever men may say, there is something in the heart, which testifies that it is an evil and bitter thing to sin against God, and that the soul which gives itself up to sin, must expect to feel the weight of divine displeasure. You know this, and you feel it, and though you ask forgiveness, you do not realize that it can safe- ly be bestowed. Now the remedy is simple, and effect- ual. It is for you to come in faith to the cross op Jesus Christ. Let me explain precisely what I mean by this. Your conscience is uneasy, being burdened by the load of 172 THE CORNER-STONE. [Ch 6 Anxiety needless. Redemption fully purchased. your past sins. Perhaps you do not distinctly fear pun- ishment, but it is the sense of responsibility for sin, and an undefined dread of something that is yet to come, which really destroys your rest. Now why have you any thing to fear? Why should God ever call you to account for those sins? It must be either from personal resentment against you, or else because the welfare of his government, requires the execution of his law upon you. There cannot be any thing like the former, you know. It must be the latter, if either. Now the balm for your wounded spirit is this, that the moral impression in respect to the nature and tendencies of sin, which is the only possible reason God can have, for leaving you to suffer its penalties, is accomplished far better by the life and death of his Son; and if you are ready to aban- don sin for the future, there is no reason whatever re- maining, why you should be punished for the past. God never could have wished to punish you for the sake of doing evil, and all the good which he could have accom- plished by it, is already effected in another and a better way. Now believe this cordially. Give it full control in your heart. Come to God and ask for forgiveness on this ground. Trust to it fully. If you do, you will feel that the account for the past is closed and settled for ever. You are free from all responsibility in regard to it. Ransomed by your Redeemer, the chains of doubt and fear and sin fall off, and you stand, free, and safe, and happy, a new creature, in Jesus Christ, — redeemed by his precious blood, and henceforth safe under his mighty protection. This change, bringing to a close the old responsibili- ties for sin, and commencing as it were, a new life in the Savior, that is, by an intimate union of spirit with him, is very clearly described in many passages of scripture like the following; which, however, you have perhaps often read without understanding it. " I am crucified Ch. 6.] PARDON. 173 Faith necessary. Difference between faith and belief. The electric machine. with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." To receive these benefits, you must have faith. Faith means confidence; not merely cold, intellectual conviction, but confidence,— a feeling of the heart. To show this distinction clearly, imagine a man unaccustomed to such an elevation, to be taken to the summit of some lofty spire, and asked to step out from an opening there, upon a narrow board, suspended by ropes over the dizzy height. How will he shrink back instinctively, from it. Explain to him the strength of the ropes, show him their size, and convince him by the most irresistible evidence that they have abundant strength to support many times his weight. Can you make him willing to trust himself to them ? N