ungrateful, rebellious, parricidal Absalom. Still, there is something stronger than even parental affection, the sense of right, and the moral indignation that springs up against him who wantonly violates it, be it son or brother, mother or sister. This is a distinction which nothing can obliterate, nothing altogether obscure, nothing overcome. The language, then, of the human heart to one that has done wrong, though connected with us by the closest natural ties, is, "I am bound to you by the strongest natural sympathies. I cannot but look on all you do with the greatest partiality. I would be true to you through evil report as well as good report ; but one thing I cannot do, I cannot uphold you in that which I plainly perceive to be wrong. Truth and justice are the highest law. In violating them, you have been false to yourself. In striving against these fixed and immutable principles, you strive in vain ; you can only injure yourself by doing so. In aiding you to do wrong, I am false to you as well as myself. Any temporary triumph achieved against truth and justice is no ultimate and permanent gain. All must finally be reviewed, reversed, and set aside." Do not these sentiments, and I believe that all must acknowledge that they are the sentiments of the human heart, demonstrate that there are in human nature, not only moral perceptions, but moral feelings, -that these feelings not only exist, but are the strongest of all feelings, and all other feelings, when brought into conflict with them, yield and give way?

There is a higher proof still. Every man desires to esteem himself. One of the most depressing and humiliating things that can possibly befall us is, to forfeit our self-esteem. Psychologists declare that the desire

of self-approbation is one of the strongest of human dispositions. Some physiologists have affirmed, that they have discovered a compartment of the human brain, whose especial function it is to exercise and maintain the balance of this sentiment. We all know with what ingenuity the mind labors to justify any thing it has done to itself. And what is meant by the term, "to justify to itself." Certainly, to reconcile with the sense of justice in its own constitution, which the very attempt proves to be supreme over itself, beyond its powers to bribe, to silence, or control.

And let a man do what is palpably wrong, mean, base, dishonest, and, notwithstanding his strong natural propensity to self-esteem, he sinks in his own estimation; and if his conduct has been very outrageous, he despises himself, though his conduct has been concealed from every human eye. He lurks about in holes and corners, and cannot hold up his head. This I take to be the climax of demonstration. It is the testimony of man against himself, and in favor of his nature. It is the strongest evidence that can be brought, in the case that we are considering. It proves that there is not only such a thing as conscience in human nature, but that it is supreme, enthroned by God over all the other powers and faculties; not only that there are moral perceptions, but there is a moral sense, a feeling on

the side of good and in opposition to sin;- not only is there such a feeling, but it is the strongest feeling in hu

man nature.

Another strong, though undesigned, evidence does the sinner bear to the essential rectitude of human nature, in the fact that he dreads to have his evil actions known. If he felt that human nature were itself wrong, and on

If he

the side of wrong, he could have no such dread. supposed himself living in a world inhabited by devils, he could have no objection to publishing to them his evil deeds. From them he would not expect reproof, but approbation and applause, because he would know that they were "indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is good, and wholly inclined to all evil." But it is the sinner's knowledge that such is not the character of human nature, that makes him dread to have his evil actions known. He judges other people by himself, he feels that his own nature makes him detest his own sins, and therefore justly supposes that other men sympathize with him in that detestation.

Why do men tell of the wrongs they suffer? It can be for no other reason than the conviction they feel, that those whom they address have a moral feeling in favor of the right, and an abhorrence of injustice. If the contrary were the fact, and men always sided in favor of injustice, the injured would never make the slightest complaint. What is the foundation of the advocate's eloquence? To what does he make his most powerful appeals ? Is it to the letter of the law? By no means. It is to human minds, which have an intuitive perception of justice, and to human hearts, which beat with warm emotion in favor of the injured, and in strong condemnation of the oppressor. Why are there courts of justice at all, if it is a principle in human nature to approve all that is wrong and condemn all that is right? If such were the fact, then the practical working of judicial tribunals would be to give the sanction of law to the most flagrant wrongs and oppressive abuses. In fact, society could not exist at all.

The truth is, that the doctrine of the entire corruption

90 THE MORAL PRINCIPLE THE STRONGEST PRINCIPLE.

of human nature, that it is opposed to all good and delights in all evil, is wholly false; it is one of the greatest extravagances that the human mind has ever conceived. The very existence of society is its emphatic and perpetual confutation.

It is contradicted by the crowds of pilgrims which every year pay their reverence at the graves of the holy and the just. It was proved by every stone which the Jew, as he passed, threw upon the tomb of Absalom. It is proved by the fact, that the wicked "are children of the night and not of the day,' "they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil,” a thing they would never do, if the moral sentiments of mankind were in favor of their evil deeds. "He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God." The doer of them feels himself approved by his own moral nature, and his nature is human nature, and can pronounce no other verdict than that which rises to the lips of all mankind.

The rectitude of the moral sentiments of mankind is proved by the place which Jesus Christ, the only perfect man, has found in the heart of universal humanity. Nothing can approach him, nothing can pull him down. In him, the human race acknowledge the ideal perfection of their nature. To this sentiment there is no dissenting voice. The moral sentiments of mankind cannot be inherently wrong and vicious, which acknowledge him as the only exhibition of perfect humanity. And it is the same moral sentiments of mankind which have exalted him to be king of kings and lord of lords, that have consigned the hollow falsehood and base treachery of Judas Iscariot to shame and everlasting contempt.

DISCOURSE VI.

GOODNESS, AND NOT VICE, IS THE ELEMENT CONGENIAL TO HUMAN NATURE.

AND THE LORD HAD RESPECT UNTO ABEL, AND TO HIS OFFERING: BUT UNTO CAIN AND TO HIS OFFERING HE HAD NOT RESPECT: AND

CAIN WAS VERY WROTH, AND HIS COUNTENANCE fell. - Gen. iv. 4, 5.

In pursuing the inquiry as to the essential moral character of human nature, whether it is made for good or evil, much light may be thrown upon the subject by considering the universal law of adaptation, which seems to run through all the works of God. Not only is every part of every thing constructed with perfect wisdom in itself, but likewise perfectly adapted to every other part. And every thing, as a whole, is precisely adapted to the condition in which it is placed. The happiness of the sensitive creation depends upon this adaptation. The atmosphere, the fields and woods, the ground and the waters, are the elements in which the different tribes of animals live, and move, and have their being. To put them into their element, and give them a free range of that domain of nature for which they are formed, is to place them in a state of enjoyment. The worm is