of man. 99 Who could suppose that king David would have preferred falling into the hands of God o tbeing driven before his enemies three months, provided he had thought his condition, having fallen into the Lord's hands,—would be, as many at this day think? What would seven years of famine be when compared with a miserable eternity; or what would three days' pestilence be when once compared to eternal plagues? Surely nothing.

Is it not strange that Christians of this age should use the language of our text in the manner they do, to give countenance to a doctrine so opposed to the true parental character of that Being in whom we ought ever to confide? David knew that he had sinned. He knew that the wicked were always turned into hell. For he had been delivered from the lowest hell, whose pains got hold of him. And although he knew it was a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God, yet he regarded it not so dreadful as to fall into the hands of men, for his enemies were great.

Another prophet, who understood well the character and government of God, has said "the Lord will not cast off forever; but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies." Undoubtedly they were of one mind relative to this subject, for they spoke of the restitution of all things. And such views of Deity are as honorable to him as they are happy to us, to all who

entertain them.

I would, in the last place, speak directly in answer to our present inquiry. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God, because, as he has said, he "will render to every man according to his works." Well may it be regarded fearful, inasmuch as it is said, "Our God is a consuming fire." So said Paul. And of the effects of this consuming fire, he has told us something in 1 Cor. iii, 13, 15. "Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." We are told in this testimony of Paul, that every man's work shall be tried by fire, and that those whose works shall be burned shall suffer loss; nevertheless such should be saved even as by fire. Let us rejoice, then, that God uses his judgments only when his mercies have been disregarded, and that mercy shall always finally rejoice against judgments."

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OPPORTUNITY.

(From the Italian of Macchiavelli.)

BY S. F. STREETER.

"SAY! Who art thou,-of more than mortal seeming,
So many heavenly graces in thee meet;

Why stay'st thou not, bright one, with beauty beaming,
And why with wings are tipped thy fairy feet?"

"In speed I yield to no created thing:
Swifter my course than swiftest bird that flies
Yet, to my feet I bind the waving wing,

And thus deceive the gazer's eager eyes.

"My locks flow wildly over brow and breast,
That none may know me as I speed along ;
Let me but pass,—none can my course arrest,
Bold though he be, or strongest of the strong!"

"And who is this, that sadly comes with thee?"
It is REGRET. List now, and understand;—
Who knows not how and when to seize on me,

Grasps but this gloomy phantom's icy hand!

"And thou, even while these fleeting words are spoken,
Thou, with a thousand idle thoughts engrossed,

Seest not, Oh listless; that the charm is broken,
And OPPORTUNITY to thee is lost!"

Courtland Street, Baltimore.

Reason loses the race if it sits in meditation on the fence, while competition rushes by.

Parents should not show unequal love for their children, as they make one proud, the other envious, and both fools. Gilded roofs do not keep out sleepless nights.

ACTING FROM PRINCIPLE.

BY REV. U. CLARK.

"The law is not made for a righteous man."-1 TIM. i, 9.

As man originally came from the hand of the Creator, he was pure and innocent in all his innate faculties. But in order to test and try the strength of his moral nature, he must become subject to the influences of evil. There was no credit in being merely innocent, when, everything conspired to virtue, and no opposite influences were at work. Virtue becomes praiseworthy when compelled to battle with vice and temptation; and truth never seems so glorious as when it is seen struggling with falsehood. Man's moral nature becomes disciplined for nobler conflicts while engaged in resisting evil. There have been no virtue in our first parents, maintaining a state of innocence, had no temptations arisen to test their fortitude. The moral law of God was written in their hearts and consciences, and spake in the divine voice heard in the garden of Eden. It was no written parchment or formal enactment, but a deep law of the soul, whose penalty was moral death on the day of transgression. The deed was done, and man died a moral death. Henceforth was needed a law that appealed to something more than the moral nature of man. That nature became measureably hidden and perverted, although the eternal elements of the mind remained the same.

In a debased state of society, we find that laws are needed of a character very different from those required by a highly moral and religious society. The ancients, and especially the Jews, perhaps, had become extremely low and debased. Enslaved by the Egyptians, they had become morally enslaved; and when they were led by Moses from captivity into the wilderness, and on towards the promised inheritance, they were ready to take the most unrestrained liberties in the indulgence of their baser passions. Under circumstances like these but one policy was left for Moses to adopt. And whoever condemns the severe enactments of Moses, does so without sufficient judgment in regard to the people whom he was appointed to govern. And how could

that people be governed? They must be appealed to by means which worked upon their senses, and passions, and propensities. Their moral nature was too deeply buried in debasement, to be sensibly affected by high moral appeals. The law, with all its magnificent and awful pageantry, must speak. They stood at the foot of Sinai, and the presence of the Almighty was symbolized in thick clouds, fierce lightnings, and loud thunders, and fearful quakings. God's voice spoke as if to awake the slumbering energies of humanity to the mandate of his law; and the hosts of Israel stood trembling with amazement and awe. The heavens seemed to frown and blacken, the earth to shake from its solid basis, and Deity to speak as the stern lawgiver, whose eye went deep into the soul, and there unmasked all its recesses of guilt. The people felt, and feared, and trembled at the mandate of the law, and sought to screen themselves before their defender and leader. Speak to us, and let not God speak, lest we die."

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But amidst all this scene of terror Moses was calm and confiding. And why was it? He was strong in his own righteous integrity. The law had no terrors for him. He needed not its restraints. The elemental principles of his own moral nature,—his sense of right, and justice, and honesty, and purity of motive, were all that he needed to keep him in subjection to those requirements, to enforce which the ceremonial law was enacted. The good man is always just as ready to act from principle, as he would be were the law continually threatening. But the evil-disposed are so far perverted as to need other restraints than those of a moral nature. Ages had passed away ere the world was prepared for the elevated principles of Christianity. These no longer required all the external rites and the formal statutes of the Mosaic code. The great moral principles of the law were eternal in their nature, but their cumbrous formalities were to be removed, and the letter reduced down to a quickening spirit, which should reach the heart and appeal to the higher moral feelings of humanity. Jesus comes to fulfil the outward law,-to end its rites,-to simplify its requirements,—to throw man more upon the dignity of his own nature. The law came by Moses, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ.

Man should love instead of fear,-love God and his fellows, the two great moral statutes, embracing the spirit of all the law and the prophets. The gospel would make every man a law unto himself, without the necessity of judge, and

jury, and tribunal to make the enforcements of rigid terror and justice.

Well had it been for the Christian religion had it been remembered that Christianity consisted in no mere legal enactments. Men have attempted to unite Church and State,-law and gospel,-and in their zeal have measurably forgotten that deeper law of human nature to which Christianity appeals. The statutes of Moses, and the statutes of civil governments, and the statutes of sects and creeds, and the customs of society, and the opinions of antiquity, have all been blended in with the simplicity of the gospel, and to multitudes have made it a confused mass of inexplicable inconsistencies. Paul seems to have anticipated our times, in writing to Timothy; and he gives us the end of the whole controversy. "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and faith unfeigned; from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say, or whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for unholy and profane," &c.

It is

Society is such that the enactment of civil laws becomes expedient to restrain the viciously disposed. Education has. been such that the multitudes have been taught to believe that an escape from the penalties of violated laws, was the most important thing to be considered and secured. common to tell children, that if they do wrong they will suffer thus and so, and be punished. They are not taught to love righteousness as much as they are to fear the consequences of wickedness. They are trained up as subjects of law, rather than as subjects to be governed by moral principle, by a sense of right. And what is the result? Look at the multitudes who are brought up for the retributions of justice, sentenced, condemned, doomed, disgraced, and society at once loses all sympathy for them. They have become lawless for the lack of a moral training, which would have taught them that he who sinneth wrongeth his own soul, and he who loveth virtue and liveth righteously, is secure in peace and happiness. Men need to know that sin is an abuse of their natures, and that virtue is the only source of prosperity and enjoyment. But the multitude seem to act, at times, under a different impression. Under a species of slavery, they regard all the laws of God and

VOL. III.NO. X.

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