self-confident brethren. But we must give them faithful warning. Be on your guard, my dear young friends. You are not so free from defects, nor so far from danger, as your conscious innocence, or the great deceiver, may insinuate. There may be tendencies to evil within you, and temptations in the mysterious world around you, of the character and force of which you have no conception. It was as great and good a man as you perhaps that said,

"Weaker than a bruised reed,
Help I every moment need.'

There are devices of the wicked one of which you are not yet aware; "depths of Satan" which you have not yet fathomed; and terrible possibilities of which, as yet, you have never dreamed. I say again, Be on your guard. "Be not high-minded, but fear." "Blessed is the man that feareth always." None are so weak as those who think themselves strong. None are in such danger as those who think themselves secure.

Man, even at best, is not so great, so wise, so strong, as some are prone to suppose: and when, cut off from Christ and His people, from the Bible and prayer, he trusts in his own resources, he is poor, and weak, and frail in the extreme. There are no errors, no extravagances, no depths of degradation, into which the lawless self-reliant man may not fall. When I had lost my faith in Christ, and had freed myself from all restraints of Bible authority and Church discipline, I said to myself, "I will be a MAN; all that a man acting freely, giving his soul full scope, tends naturally to become; and I will be nothing else." I had come to the conclusion that man was naturally good-that, when freely and fully developed, apart from the authority of religion, churches and books, he would become the per

THE HIDDEN DEPTHS OF MAN'S NATURE. 409

fection of wisdom, and goodness, and happiness. I said to myself, "Christ was but a man; and the reason why He so much excelled all other men was, that He acted freely, without regard to the traditions of the elders, the law of Moses, or any authority but that of His own untrammelled mind. I will follow the same course. I will free myself from the prejudices of my education, from the influence of my surroundings, and from the authority of all existing laws and religions, and be my own sole ruler, my own sole counsellor, my own sole guide. I will act with regard to the religion of Christ, as Christ acted with regard to the religion of Moses; obey it, abolish it, or modify it, as its different parts may require. I will act with regard to the Church authorities of my time as Jesus acted with regard to the Scribes and Pharisees of His day; I will set them aside. I will be a man; a free, self-ruled, and selfdeveloped man.'

Alas, I little knew the terrible possibilities of the nature of man when left to itself. I had no conception of its infinite weakness with regard to what is good, or its fearful capabilities with regard to what is bad. I had no idea of the infinite amount of evil that lay concealed in the human heart, ready, when unrepressed, to unfold itself, and take all horrible forms of vice and folly. I indulged myself in my mad experiments of unlimited freedom till appalled by the melancholy results. I did not become all that unchecked license could make me; but I became so different a creature from what I had anticipated, that I saw the madness of my resolution, and recoiled. I came to the verge of all evil. God had mercy on me and held me back in spite of my impiety, or I should have become a monster of iniquity. Man was not made for unlimited liberty. He was made for subjection to the Divine will, and for obedience to God's law. He was made for fellowship with the good among his fellow-men, and for submission to Christian discipline. He can become good and great and happy only by faith in God and Christ, by selfdenial, by good society, by careful moral and religious culture, and by constant prayer and dependence on God. I now no longer say, "I will be a man," but, "Let me be a Christian." I no longer say, "I will be all that my na

ture, working unchecked, will make me;" but, "Let me be all that Christ and Christianity can make me. Let me check all tempers at variance with the mind of Christ; and all tendencies at variance with His precepts. Let the mouth of that fearful abyss which lies deep down in my nature be closed, and let the infernal fires that smoulder there be utterly smothered; and let the love of God and the love of man reign in me, producing a life of Christ-like piety and beneficence. Let all I have and all I am be a sacrifice to God in Christ, and used in the cause of truth and righteousness for the welfare of mankind."

The enemy of man has many devices. In my case, as in the case of so many others, he transformed himself into "an angel of light." He did not say, "Give up your work forsake Christ; desert His Church; indulge your appetites; give yourself to selfish, sensual pleasure; free yourself from religious restraint, from moral control, from scruples of conscience, and live for gain, or fame, or power." On the contrary; his counsel was, "Perfect your creed; perfect your knowledge; reform the Church; expose its corruptions; reform the ministry; expose its errors; go back to the simplicity of Christ; return to the order of the ancient Church; pay no regard to prevailing sentiments, or to established customs; begin anew. Resolve on perfection; it is attainable; be content with nothing less. Assert your rights. Be true. Prove all things; hold fast to what is good, but cast away whatever you find to be evil. Call no one master but Christ; and what Christ requires, ask no one but yourself. Be true to your own conscience. God has called you to restore the Church to its purity, to its simplicity, to its ancient power. Be faithful, and fear no opposition. Free inquiry must lead to truth, and truth is infinitely desirable. Assail error; assail men's inventions; spare nothing but what is of God. It is God's own work you are doing; it is the world's salvation for which you are laboring; and God's own Spirit will guide you, and His power will keep you from harm." All this was true; but it was truth without the needful accompaniment of pious caution. It was true, but it was truth without the needful amount of humility, of meekness, of gentleness, and of self-distrust. It was truth, but it

POOR WEAK MAN. SAD DISAPPOINTMENTS.

411

was truth put in such a form as to do the work of falsehood. It was an appeal to pride, to self-conceit, to selfsufficiency. It was truth presented in such a shape, as to abate the sense of my dependence on God; as to make me forgetful of my own imperfections; as to exclude from my mind all thoughts of danger, and so prepare me for mistakes, mishaps, and ultimately ruin. It is not enough to aim at good objects: we must be humble; we must be sensible that our sufficiency is of God; we must be conscious of our own weakness, of our own imperfections, and of our own danger, and move with care, and watchfulness, and prayer. We must not please ourselves with thoughts of the wonders we will achieve, of the services we will render to the world, and of the honor we shall gain; but cherish the feeling that God is all, and be content that He alone shall be glorified. We are but earthen vessels; the excellency of the power is of God.

O my poor soul, how do I grieve when I think of thy early dreams, and of thy sad awakening. Like Adam, I lived in a Paradise of bliss, suspecting no evil, and dreading no change. I had been trained to piety from my earliest years. The Bible was my delight. Christ and Christianity were my glory and joy. The Church was my home. To preach the Gospel, to defend God's cause, and to labor for the salvation of the world, were the delight of my life. I was successful. I was popular. I had many friends, and was passionately beloved. Wherever I went, men hailed me as their spiritual father. The chapels in which I preached were crowded to their utmost capacity, and men regarded me as the champion of Christianity. They applauded my labors in its behalf, and testified their esteem and admiration by unmistakable signs. At one time I might have applied to myself the words of Job, "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me. The young men saw me, and gave me reverence; and the aged arose and stood up. Unto me men gave ear, and waited; and kept silence at my counsel. They waited for my words as for the showers; and opened their mouths as for the latter rain. I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners. " And

everything seemed to foretell a continuance of my happy lot. My prejudices and my convictions, my tastes and my affections, my habits and my inclinations, my interests and my family, all joined to bind me to the cause of Christ by the strongest bonds. And I seemed as secure to others as to myself. Hence I looked forward to a life of everincreasing usefulness, reflecting credit on my family and friends, and conferring blessings on mankind at large. I revelled in hopes of a reformed Church, and a regenerated world; and, passing the bounds of time, my spirit exulted in the prospect of a glorious immortality. Yet "when I looked for good then evil came; and when I waited for light there came darkness." I fell away. My happy thoughts, my joyous hopes, my delightful prospects, all vanished. I underwent a most melancholy transformation. The eyes that gazed on me with affectionate rapture, now stared at me with affright and terror; and brave, stout men wept over me like children. The light of my life was extinguished. My dwelling was in darkness. "I was a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls." And there was nothing before me but the dreary prospect of a return to nothingness. And can you, my young friends, dream of safety with facts like these in view? Again, I say, be on your guard. An easy, dreamy self-security is the extreme of madness. Our only safety is in watchfulness and prayer. Our only sufficiency is of God.

"O, never suffer me to sleep

Secure within the reach of hell ;
But still my watchful spirit keep
In lowly awe and loving zeal:
And bless me with a godly fear,
And plant that guardian angel here.'

2. The second lesson I would name is this: It is dangerous to allow bad feeling to get into your hearts towards your Christian friends, or your brother ministers. It is especially dangerous to allow it to remain there. It works like the infection of the plague. Try therefore to keep your minds in a calm and comfortable state towards all with whom you have to do. Guard against rash judgments and