The sick man.

Effect of sickness and suffering.

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, succeed; 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 persuasion, 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. I 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 supporter of the truths of religion, for many years. He

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 privilege. 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 danger, but that his hard heart will not feel."

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 endeavoring 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

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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, 1 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 forgiveness 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 accordingly. The question at once arises, what will God do with them.

The reader will perhaps recollect, 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;

Efficiency in government.

Different estimates of it.

but one which unfortunately is not very popular in this world. Efficiency in government is popular or unpopular according to the character of the individual who judges of it. An efficient administration secures protection and happiness to the good, but to the bad, it brings suffering, and perhaps destruction. It is natural, therefore, 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 themselves safe from its penalties. There have been great disputes in respect to the bounds which ought to be assigned 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 elevated 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, connected 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 handwriting in signing his name, and all the business of the island would be embarrassed or stopped, and universal

Bevere punishinent.

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 torturing 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 witnessed 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 overpowered 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 probable that in this case, as in many similar ones, the criminal 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 quickly, and so thoughtlessly committed; but not so sad as it would be to let the example go on,-until the frequency