grace, the regenerating agency of the Holy Spirit, can touch that hard heart. No principle but the revelation within the soul of the infinite love of God in Christ can soften or break it. Like the bark of the forest tree, the hard incrustations of selfish acts and habits are utterly impervious to the vicissitudes of human experience. No warning, no humiliation checks it; no kindness and no generosity from fellow-men tell upon it, except as it opens a new channel and opportunity for the exercise of the innate and growing covetousness of the soul -a vantage ground to pursue the selfish object with the greater chance of success. And that hard, unyielding, unsympathising spirit may carry its possessor through many a struggle, and many a change; but it must fail at last. It is essentially of the nature of atheistic hostility to God. It sets the supposed interests of self in the place of the Almighty Creator; and the glory of God is concerned in bringing about the retributive conviction of the impiety of the preference. "He that will save his life, shall lose it." He who forgetting his relation to God and man, centres everything in himself, and would readily sacrifice the welfare of his fellow-creature, and the equity of the divine government, to secure his own short-sighted scheme for exclusively selfish happiness, or present gratification, must ultimately find that eternal justice is pledged to disappoint him; and that when the day of correction comes, even the voice of his own race will rise unreservedly in judgment against him: Righteous art thou, O Lord; just and true are thy judgments." And they who have drank most eagerly into the same spirit, when they see the tide turning, and the hour of disappointment approaching, will be the first to cry, "What is this to us, see thou to that."

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Yet well were it for such an one if any chastening, however severe, could wake him from the delusive dream of covetous and unjust speculation. The failure of any plan in life, the disappointment of every cherished earthly hope; the storm that leaves him alone, a blighted, and a blasted tree, without fruit or foliage-anything is better

than that thick-skinned egotism which wraps the soul in the solitary and exclusive consideration of its own temporal advancement.

But we must turn to the other side of the case. There are those who are beginning to realize the result of their own selfish doings. They have been wounded. They are smarting under the consequences of their unjust acts. Judas is a type of this class. He had arranged his scheme for aggrandizement. The closing act of dishonesty in the service of his Master was to betray him for a bribe; and come what might of the event, he hoped to sit down and enjoy himself on the estate which was bought with "the price of blood." How ill men judge of even those schemes, which they concoct in the depth of the heart. The contrivance of worldly wisdom fails. Independent of external accident, it breaks down with its own weight. Even before the crisis of the contemplated event arives, the burden of guilt is more than he can bear. He flies from the polluting inducement. He casts it from him with horror, as that on which he could not look; and, overwhelmed with agonizing convictions, "he departed, and went and hanged himself."

Several points in such a character offer themselves to notice.

1. The evil to which a ruling selfish bias leads. The covetous principle is a powerful, an absorbing one. When it takes possession of the soul, it makes every other feeling and passion subservient to it. It seizes and applies every talent, and every opportunity, to its own object. It narrows the understanding, and withers the charities of the heart. But often a result follows widely different from that which has been contemplated.

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They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition; for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some have coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Did language ever more graphically describe the awful consequences of a dominant selfishness. It is not merely

that a covetous man may blind himself to the probable interference of God's ordinary providence with his course, and say, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;" but that the very acts, the deliberate acts, of that covetousness, may arm with severity the lash of chastening; and, amidst the failure of the whole scheme of dexterous contrivance, the keenest pang will be the consciousness that the man has wrought his own ruin. How many there are now ready almost to wish that an all but idiotic fatuity had palsied their first footsteps in the pathway of a greedy and unhallowed speculation; whilst every week brings tidings of some new aceldama.

2. Notice, in such a case, the overwhelming contemplation of the responsibility incurred. It is no longer a matter of question, but of moral certainty. The deed, whatever it is, which proves and shows up the true character, is done, and there it remains. "Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." The case before us is that of sin completed; so that a man can place it, whatever it be, like Judas, categorically before his conscience. “I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." How many cases there are in which the sin is thus distinct and unequivocal, done irrevocably, and registered in the conscience, and in the "book of remembrance before the throne!" And there it is before the mind's eye night and day, like a threatening storm directly hanging over the path —the fraud, the forgery, the seduction, the adultery; no wisdom, no wealth, no reform, and no tears can make that not to be which is; and if all the world shall be ignorant of it, or indifferent, and even as yet no adverse providence calls for punishment, there is a compunctious visiting which wrings from the heart the agonizing avowal, "I have sinned." Oh, to retrace those steps, to go back to the hour of integrity and unstained reputation; to be able to put away the

actuality of the deed, with the same earnestness with which the price of its iniquity is cast forth and abandoned, after all, as worthless. But it cannot be. "Sin is finished!" Judas might go to the " field which he purchased with the reward of iniquity;" he might try to solace himself with its prospects, or its promised improvements; but there, even more than elsewhere, the thought would intrude. He was recently the companion and the apostle of the blessed Jesus-he was now the betrayer of his innocent blood: and the oppressive thought hunted him out of life.

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3. Another feature of the case is the necessity of facing the evil of incurred guilt, "See thou to that." Yes, there will be the intimate conviction in him whose selfishness had led him on to a certain measure of transgression, that he has a personal individual concern in it, into which no other human being can enter. is his own sin-his own fault. Make what he will of extenuating circumstances, and special pleadings, such as it really is it must be met-probably before men; certainly before God. At first, the thought of exposure to mankind is the most painful. Doubtless it was no light agony to Judas to think of the reproach of those with whom he had so recently gone forth as a minister of the Gospel, rejoicing that " even the devils were subject to him ;" and we may imagine something of the confusion and humiliation of him who, having occupied a station of respectability, of trust, and confidence, and having been betrayed by an unholy covetousness, to some dishonourable act, and detected, goes forth to meet the public gaze of his former compeers, the enviers, perhaps, of his former prosperitya blighted and degraded man. there is a more awful meeting than this in prospect-one which rises in magnitude as it is contemplated more nearly and more minutely. It is to bear his own burden before the throne. It is to meet the eye of the Judge. It is to meet the reproach of a Redeemer. "What shall I do when God riseth up, and when he visiteth what shall I answer him ?" How wide the difference between two states of mind

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arising out of the same acts. The one, when the eager selfist, led on by false calculations and delusive hopes, looks away from every element of discouragement, puts down the suggestions of prudence, cherishes the dreamy creations of unwarrantable hope, silences the murmurs of offended justice, and builds up, from day to day, the extravagant fancy of a golden and almost unequalled prosperity. The other, where all the whispering intimations of forethought have been realized, when the principles of equity have been vindicated, when the discomfited expectant has been entangled in the web of God's complicated providence, and in the meshes of his own weaving, and all contemplation flees from him, but the one critical act of injustice and chicane which turned the scale, and brought him down to ruin; and in the realization of conscience, he has to regard it in the light of God's countenance, to measure it with the rule of God's law, and to anticipate the dealing of his indignation. How many are there who, like Judas, have found even this grade of "punishment more than they can bear."

4. One other characteristic will complete this melancholy feature. It is the solitariness and want of sympathy which the fallen and failing man experiences. Many a friendly look and smile from the great cheered on the recreant apostle while the bargain was only striking, and the treachery incomplete; but as soon as the deed was done, he stood alone in the world, equally shunned by the Jews, and by the followers of Jesus -the son of perdition. No! for the unfortunate and failing selfist, who, for mere filthy lucre, has violated the great principles of integrity, which every one, till he is detected, professes to venerate-there is no sympathy; let him succeed in his plans, however questionable, and there is no want of following. An eager rabble could still gather round the sanguinary priests, and cry out for them, "crucify him, crucify him ;" and while a man can hold out to others opportunities of advancement, and recommend to notice, and appoint to offices, and distribute shares and "scrip," it is matter of little care to the crowd how

he got into such a position, or how he keeps it; but let him be shaken by the insecurity, and overbalanced by the vastness of his own schemes, let the chance of profiting by his dashing attempts at prosperity vanish, and not one of the flattering crowd will remain to cheer the hour of crushing disappointments. Away they go, after some wiser or more prosperous leader, hardly finding time to reply to his remonstrances, "What is that to us? See thou to that." How many break down under the cutting severity of that chastisement! The infallible record of divine truth supplies us with some melancholy instances of this class. The first man born into the world was so far a selfist, that, unable to endure the religious superiority and acceptableness of his own brother, he rose up against him in the field, and slew him. The deed was the act of dominant and inconsiderate selfishness for a single moment. The agony of remorse was the incessant companion of lengthened years, perhaps centuries! Bowed down with a punishment greater than he could bear, he went forth a fugitive and a vagabond, solitary, and without sympathy, on the face of the earth. The same identical spirit might be in other men, bitter and reigning, but it had been "marked" and smitten in him; and in proud superiority they would point at him, and turn away. A cloud rests upon his latter end. A mystery yet unveiled invests the later years of his lengthened and solitary remorse. The inspired record tells not whether, broken and humbled under the chastening of universal scorn and abandonment, he was mercifully transferred from a long scene of silent, untold, and unpitied, heart-bursting repentance; or whether, racked and torn with the inward scourging of his own bitter thoughts, he at last flung back the gift of life upon his Maker; or whether, oppressed by the infirmities of a lengthened age, he welcomed with fanatic joy the engulphing waters of the flood. The doubt throws an awful interest around his lot; but either way he stands forth a sad instance of one lashed by the legitimate result of his own selfish passion.

The close of Saul's selfish and wilful career is almost equally painful.

Abandoned by his Maker, he flies to the aid of those witches and sorcerers whom his own regal mandate had condemned; and taught even by them with more dreadful certainty, the desolate character of his lot, and the speedy termination of his life, he rushes with despairing recklessness upon ruin. The cave of the sorcerer is the last scene of selfish indulgence; and when the battle of the following day is lost, and his last sun is setting, instead of turning in penitence to him who has smitten him and conquered, he seeks to escape from a consciousness become now insupportable, by falling on his own sword.

But there is an instance recorded on the page of Scripture of a different order. One of our blessed Lord's disciples was peculiarly characterized by a headlong self-sufficiency, which often led him into error. On the eve of his Master's sufferings he had received a very plain and affectionate warning; and in that same selfish confidence in his own principles, he had replied, "Though all men forsake thee, yet will not I; though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee!" The sifting machinations of Satan prevailed against him, and placed incautiously by his own acting in circumstances which told on another feature of that selfishness-the strong desire of self-preservationhe failed under the pressure, and be gan to curse and swear, and to say, I know not the man." But this was an instance of the temporary predominance of temptation, working under favourable circumstances against the honest habit of principle graciously maintained within him. So far it went, and no further. The intercession and the power of the Mediator prevailed. The grace that had called him forsook him not; though it left him to be humbled under the sad experience of his selfish propensities; yet, then, “the Lord turned and looked upon Peter" a look of love, of affectionate reproach, of reclaiming mercy; and the

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recollections of the past evening rushed at once to his mind; he remembered-he became conscious of all his faults, and broken down under the burden of his guilt, "he went out and wept bitterly," wept over his disloyalty, wept over his selfish fears, wept over the deep-seated pride and self-confidence which no wise and affectionate warning could unfold to him, and which nothing but the humiliation of sanctified experience could subdue.

And the true and only remedy for any one who feels and laments the evil of selfishness working within, destroying present content, dispelling all practical reliance upon Providence, and pressing him on to bold and questionable ventures, in which every step ministers some new and more alluring temptation, is to turn to the same source of piety and of pardon. It is with the Judge himself, with him that searcheth the heart, with him that condemneth, and with him only that we shall find peace. It is in the midst of the throne of him who is entitled to take vengeance, that we shall find the healing balm for a wounded spirit, and the cleansing and renewing power for a covetous heart.

It is the privilege of a justifiable reliance upon the inspired message of mercy to know that there is one who, whatever be the amount of guilt incurred, has "seen to it" for us. He has anticipated our judgment; as he said, "Now is the judgment of this world." He has already borne the burden. He has put it away. He ever liveth to make intercession for us. And with him, and in the patient, child-like waiting on his appointed means of grace, deliverance awaits us. Believing approach, through his mediation, to a reconciled God and Father, will insure either to him who has yet to realize the tyranny of an ungodly covetousness, or to him who has fallen, and been trampled under its power, present and final victory!

CEPHAS.

THE feeble and inadequate views entertained of sin, we consider a great defect of the piety of our times. There is but little sympathy with that hostility and abhorrence which characterize the feelings of the Holy One towards it. No one can mistake God's estimate of sin, nor misunderstand his intentions with respect to it. He has signified, by every expression of solemnity and tenderness, by threatenings and promises, in judgments and the dying groans of his beloved Son, his repugnance to this thing his soul abhors. But who feels like God in this respect? Who measures the enormity of sin by the suffering and blood which were needful to expiate it? Who holds the awful truth to his soul, till he realizes that the reward of sin involves all the woes which Christ endured, prolonged through the weary cycles of eternal ages? Who looks forward into the world of despair; and, witnessing the fire and the worm and the ascending smoke, feels the certainty of the doom which sin carries in its own nature? Sin is indeed an evil thing and bitterthe thing more to be dreaded, prayed against, fought against, with the energy of desperation and the fierceness of the death struggle, than all other enemies in God's universe besides. Sickness, sorrow, stunning calamity, death, or hell itself, is not so much to be feared as sin; for it is sin which gives to every evil its bitterness and its sting.

Defective views of sin prevent that active spirituality, and that earnest striving which the Christian warfare demands. Religion is a stupendous work. There are enemies on every hand, powerful in conflict, and ready to seize upon every advantage. How shall the soul keep up its perpetual watch-fires, if it perceives not the malignity and strength of its foes? What shall supply the powerful and incessant motive always to pray and never faint, if the urgency of the peril be not felt? What will furnish the preventive against temptation, the safeguard against danger? What give courage to the heart, nerve to

the arm, and energy and zeal in the battle? Yet he who conquers sin must fight for it. Of all enemies it is the most subtle, persevering and dangerous. The heart needs the jealousy of a perpetual fear-the energy inspired by the consciousness of exposure to the worst evil that God can inflict or man endure-the hatred which all its enormity and hideousness can excite. Then it would make slow progress enough in the work of its mastery.

A most fruitful source of error and delusion lies also in defective views of sin. The false doctrine or false practice can scarcely be named, which may not be clearly traced to this cause; and look where you will, the most of those unstable minds who greedily catch at every new imposture and delusion, are drawn from the number, not of those who have had pungent convictions of sin, but of those whose knowledge of their own hearts is superficial and defective. Unitarianism in all its forms is as clearly traceable to this practical ignorance of the evil nature of sin, as light is to the sun. Formalism, perfectionism, selfdeception in its thousand shapes, draw life and being from this source; and though assuming different shapes at different times, it is safe to say that if the real enormity of human sin were seen and felt as God sees it-if the justice of sin's eternal penalty were felt with the force of experience which those have who believe and tremble, error and delusion could scarcely exist on the earth. It is because men do not and will not see their sinfulness, that they have become the dupes of fanaticism, or the victims of imposture. No creed, however monstrous, need despair of believers and disciples which denies or blinks the article of human depravity, while that system which intelligently and prominently sets it forth, with whatever consistency or proof, never yet failed to excite animosity and clamour. That man who is in the habit of going down into his own heart with the lighted candle of God's word, to inspect its secret workings