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prefer another to itself, in a course of lofty virtue which shall never consult its own welfare;—but it cannot deprive itself of the greatness which dictates and rewards the sacrifice; it cannot so be forgotten of our God, but the self-good which it neglects shall be God's especial care.

"The exceeding sinfulness of sin" is a conception designed to justify an eternal punishment. The vastness of our iniquity being not too well apparent in the iniquity itself, it is aggravated by the exaltation of "The Law." The orthodox sentiment of Sin finds its origin, not so much in the apparent discord of violated law, as in the consciousness of such independence of any supposable Lawgiver as allows us to violate any supposable divine law as much in our own freedom as we break the laws of men—for which last violation we account ourselves justly punished. Man must be free of God and the world in his acts, or he cannot be justly punished of God therefor. Many men satisfy themselves that they are not free of either God or the world, and, doubting not that God is just, insist that man never shall be punished. Meantime they find that man has much pain and trouble here, whether it be punishment or not. It will be necessary for us to look into the question of man's Free Agency.

That God does reign, in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,—that there is none that spake and it came to pass, and the Lord commanded it not,—that the world in every atom, and the soul in every thought is as God would have it, is a dictate of even the common decency of

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