self," and saying, "Turn thou me, and I shall be turned," he answers, "Ephraim is my dear son. I will surely have mercy upon him," Jer. 31: 18, 20.'

Now the only obstruction, and it is a fatal one, to the exercise of this natural and spontaneous mercy of God, is the sinner's hardness of heart. The existing necessity for hellpunishment is not chargeable upon God. It is the proud and obstinate man who makes hell. It is his impenitence that feeds its perpetual fires. For so long as the transgressor does not grieve for sin, and does not even acknowl edge it, it cannot be pardoned. Almightiness itself cannot forgive impenitence, any more than it can make a square circle. Impenitence after sinning is a more determined and worse form of sin, than sinning is in and of itself. For it is a tacit defence and justification of sin. If after trangression the person acknowledges that he has transgressed, and asks forgiveness for so doing, he evinces that he does not excuse his act, or defend it. On the contrary, he renounces his act, condemns it, and mourns over it. But if after trangression the person makes no acknowledgment, and asks no forgiveness, he is repeating and intensifying his sin. He justifies himself in his act of rebellion against authority, and thus aggravates the original fault. It is for this reason, that impenitence for sin is more dreadful than sin itself. A penitent sinner can be forgiven; but an impenitent sinner cannot be. The former God pities, and extends the offer of mercy to him. To the latter God holds out no hope, because he cannot.

This is what gives to human existence here upon earth its dark outlook. All the gloom, discontent, and anxiety of

'Beatrice expresses the same truth to Dante, in the words:

"Whene'er the sinner's cheek

Breaks forth into the precious-streaming tears
Of self-accnsing, in our court the wheel

Of justice doth run counter to the edge."

PURGATORY, Xxxi. 36.

human life grow out of this. This is what makes "all the uses of this world so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." Men are impenitent. They give no heed to the voice of conscience; know little of remorse, nothing of genuine sorrow. They are stolid and lethargic in sin; or else angrily deny the fact. They bend no knee in self-abasement before the All-Holy; they do not cry, "O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, grant me thy peace." Human life is wretched and despairing, not because there is no mercy in the sweet heavens, but because there is no relenting, no softening, in the human heart. One is weary of hearing the incessant wail of the agnostic and the cynic over the "mystery" of this existence; the monotonous moan of the pessimist that life is not worth living. A sincere confession of what the consciousness of every man will tell him is the absolute truth respecting his character and conduct, when tried by a spiritual and perfect standard, would drive away this false view of earthly existence as the miasmatic fog is blown by the winds. But instead of confessing sin, and imploring its forgiveness, men stand complaining of its punishment, or employing their ingenuity in endeavoring to prove that there is none; and then wonder that the heavens are black and thunderous over their heads. Not by this method, will the sky be made clear and sunny. Whoever will cast himself upon the Divine Compassion will find life to be worth living; but he who quarrels with the Divine Justice will discover that he had better not have been born.

What the human race needs is-to go to the Divine Confessional. The utterance of the Prodigal should be that of every man, "Father, I have sinned." The utterance of the Psalmist should be that of every man: "O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away." "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent," Acts 17:30. But so long as man glosses over,

or conceals, the cardinal fact in his history, he must live under a cloud, and look with anxiety and fear into the deep darkness beyond. It is useless to contend with the stubborn fact of moral evil by the ostrich-method of ignoring, and denying. The sin is here, in self-consciousness, terrible and real, the lancinating sting of pain and the deadly sting of death, in this generation and in all generations. Kant, the ethical and the metaphysical, is right when he affirms that the noumenon of sin is the dark ground under the phenomenon of life. Confession, therefore, is the only way to light and mental peace. The suppression of any fundamental form of human consciousness necessarily results in unrest. Man's words about himself must agree with his true character and condition; otherwise he becomes insincere, miserable, and false. The denial of moral evil is the secret of the murmuring and melancholy with which so much of modern letters is filled. Rousseau made a confession, but not truthful, not humble; and hence it brought him no repose. Augustine made a confession, genuine, simple, thoroughly accordant with the facts of human nature; and the outpouring of his confidences into the ear of Eternal Purity and Mercy brought the peace that passes all understanding, and the immortal life that knows no melancholy, and no dissatisfaction. These historic persons are types of the two classes into which all men fall: the penitent and the impenitent.

The king in Shakespeare's Hamlet, writhing with selfish remorse but destitute of unselfish sorrow, in his soliloquy exclaims:

"Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul; that struggling to be free
Art more engaged!"

Bunyan's man of Despair, in the iron cage, when assured by Christian that "the Son of the Blessed is very pitiful,"

VOL. II.-48

replies: "I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent."

In these powerful delineations, these profound psychologists of sin bring to view a peril that environs free will. Pardon may be proffered by God, but penitence may become impossible through the action of man. "There are some

sins," says Augustine, "that follow of necessity, from foregoing sins that occurred without necessity." The adoption of atheism is a sin without necessity. It is the voluntary action of man. But the hardness of heart that results from it, results of necessity. No man is forced to be an infidel; but if he is one, he must be an impenitent man. A luxurious and skeptical age should remember this. That man cannot repent, who drowns himself in pleasure, and never seriously reflects upon his accountability to his Maker. That man cannot repent, who expends the energy of his mind in the endeavor to prove that all human action is irresponsible, and the threatenings of Revelation an idle tale. They who have "eyes full of adultery cannot cease from sin," 2 Pet. 2:14. Absorption in worldliness, and adoption of infidel opinions, make repentance an impossibility. Sensuality and atheism harden the human heart, and render it impervious to the Christian Religion.

INDEX.

Advent, second, scripture proof of, ii. Apollinarism, objections to, ii. 312.
641; not premillennial, ii. 642.
Aeonian, meaning of, ii. 682-689.
Agassiz, on uncertainty in geology, i.
39; proves that fishes are before am-
phibia, i. 483; his conception of evo-
lution, i. 499; on Darwinism, i. 501;
prevalence of his own view; asserts
fertility to be the criterion of a spe-
cies, i. 509.

Apostles' creed, original form of, ii.
604; absence of premillenarianism in,
ii. 642.

Apostolic, fathers, on premillenarian-
ism, ii. 642.

Agnosticism, objections to, i. 149.
Alexander, J. A., on the meaning of