and miserable sinners." The world takes generally what they mean particularly. But they get no relief, they only deceive themselves; for they have turned the truth itself into a falsehood, using true words which they know convey a false impression, and getting praise for humility instead of punishment for guilt. They have used all the effort, and suffered all the pang which it would have cost them to get real relief, and they have not got it; and the burden unacknowledged remains a burden still.

The third indication we have of the heaviness of this burden is the commonness of the longing for confession. None but a minister of the Gospel can estimate this: he only who, looking round his congregation, can point to person after person whose wild tale of guilt or sorrow he is cognizant of -who can remember how often similar griefs were trembling upon lips which did not unburden themselves-whose heart being the receptacle of the anguish of many, can judge what is in human hearts: he alone can estimate how much there is of sin and crime lying with the weight and agony of concealment on the spirits of our brethren.

The fourth burden is an intuitive consciousness of the hidden sins of others' hearts.

To two states of soul it is given to detect the presence of evil: states the opposite of each other-innocence and guilt. It was predicted of the Saviour while yet a child, that by Him the thoughts of many hearts should be revealed; the fulfillment of this was the history of His life. He went through the world, by His innate purity detecting the presence of evil, as He detected the touch of her who touched His garment in the crowd.

Men, supposed spotless before, fell down before Him, crying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" This, in a lower degree, is true of all innocence: you would think that one who can deeply read the human heart and track its windings must be himself deeply experienced in evil. But it is not so at least not always. Purity can detect the presence of the evil which it does not understand: just as the dove which has never seen a hawk trembles at its presence; and just as a horse rears uneasily when the wild beast unknown and new to it is near, so innocence understands, yet understands not the meaning of the unholy look, the guilty tone, the sinful manner. It shudders and shrinks from it by a power given to it, like that which God has conferred on the unreasoning mimosa. Sin gives the same power, but differently. Innocence apprehends the approach of evil by the instinctive tact of contrast; guilt, by

the instinctive consciousness of similarity. It is the profound truth contained in the history of the Fall. The eyes are opened; the knowledge of good and evil has come. The soul knows its own nakedness, but it knows also the nakedness of all other souls which have sinned after the similitude of its own sin.

Very marvellous is that test-power of guilt: it is vain to think of eluding its fine capacity of penetration. Intimations of evil are perceived and noted, when to other eyes all seems pure. The dropping of an eye, the shunning of a subject, the tremulousness of a tone, the peculiarity of a subterfuge, will tell the tale. "These are tendencies like mine, and here is a spirit conscious as my own is conscious.”

This dreadful burden the Scriptures call the knowledge of good and evil: can we not all remember the salient sense of happiness which we had when all was innocent-when crime was the tale of some far distant hemisphere, and the guilt we heard of was not suspected in the hearts of the beings around us? and can we not recollect, too, how by our own sin, or the cognizance of others' sin, there came a something which hung the heavens with shame and guilt, and all around seemed laden with evil? This is the worst burden that comes from transgression: loss of faith in human goodness; the being sentenced to go through life haunted with a presence from which we can not escape; the presence of evil in the hearts of all that we approach.

II. The Christian power of restoration: "Ye which are spiritual, restore such an one.

First, then, restoration is possible. That is a Christian fact. Moralists have taught us what sin is; they have explained how it twines itself into habit; they have shown us its ineffaceable character. It was reserved for Christianity to speak of restoration. Christ, and Christ only, has revealed that he who has erred may be restored, and made pure and clean and whole again.

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Next, however, observe that this restoration is accomplished by men. Causatively, of course, and immediately, restoration is the work of Christ and of God the Spirit. Mediately and instrumentally, it is the work of men. 'Brethren, store such an one." God has given to man the power of elevating his brother man. He has conferred on His Church the power of the keys to bind and loose, "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." It is therefore in the power of man, by his conduct, to restore his brother, or to hinder his restora

tion. He may loose him from his sins, or retain their power upon his soul.

Now the words of the text confine us to two modes in which this is done: by sympathy and by forgiveness. "Bear ye one another's burdens."

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By sympathy. We Protestants have one unvarying sneer ready for the system of the Romish confessional. They confess, we say, for the sake of absolution, that absolveď they may sin again. A shallow, superficial sneer, as all sneers are. In that craving of the heart which gives the system of the confessional its dangerous power, there is something far more profound than any sneer can fathom. It is not the desire to sin again that makes men long to unburden their conscience, but it is the yearning to be true, which lies at the bottom, even of the most depraved hearts, to appear what they are, and to lead a false life no longer; and besides this, it is the desire of sympathy. For this comes out of that dreadful sense of loneliness which is the result of sinning; the heart severed from God, feels severed from all other hearts goes alone as if it had neither part nor lot with other men; itself a shadow among shadows. And its craving is for sympathy: it wants some human heart to know what it feels. Thousands upon thousands of laden hearts around us are crying, Come and bear my burden with me; and observe here, the apostle says, "Bear ye one another's burdens." Nor let the priest bear the burdens of all: that were most unjust. Why should the priest's heart be the common receptacle of all the crimes and wickedness of a congregation? “Bear ye one another's burdens."

Again, by forgiveness. There is a truth in the doctrine of absolution. God has given to man the power to absolve his brother, and so restore him to himself. The forgiveness of man is an echo and an earnest of God's forgiveness. He whom society has restored realizes the possibility of restoration to God's favor. Even the mercifulness of one good man sounds like a voice of pardon from heaven: just as the power and the exclusion of men sound like a knell of hopelessness, and do actually bind the sin upon the soul. The man whom society will not forgive nor restore is driven into recklessness. This is the true Christian doctrine of absolution, as expounded by the Apostle Paul, 2 Cor. ii. 7-10: the degrading power of severity, the restoring power of pardon, vested in the Christian community, the voice of the minister being but their voice.

Now, then, let us inquire into the Christianity of our society. Restoration is the essential work of Christianity.

The Gospel is the declaration of God's sympathy and God's pardon. In these two particulars, then, what is our right to be called a Christian community?

Suppose that a man is overtaken in a fault. What does he, or what shall he do? Shall he retain it unacknowledged, or go through life a false man? God forbid. Shall he then acknowledge it to his brethren, that they by sympathy and merciful caution may restore him? Well, but is it not certain that it is exactly from those to whom the name of "brethren" most peculiarly belongs that he will not receive assistance? Can a man in mental doubt go to the members of the same religious communion? Does he not know that they precisely are the ones who will frown upon his doubts, and proclaim his sins? Will a clergyman unburden his mind to his brethren in the ministry? Are they not in their official rigor the least capable of largely understanding him? If a woman be overtaken in a fault, will she tell it to a sister-woman? Or does she not feel instinctively that her sister-woman is ever the most harsh, the most severe, and the most ferocious judge?

Well, you sneer at the confessional; you complain that mistaken ministers of the Church of England are restoring it amongst us. But who are they that are forcing on the confessional? who drive laden and broken hearts to pour out their long pent-up sorrows into any ear that will receive them? I say it is we: we by our uncharitableness; we by our want of sympathy and unmerciful behavior; we by the unchristian way in which we break down the bridge behind the penitent, and say, "On, on in sin-there is no returning." Finally, the apostle tells us the spirit in which this is to be done, and assigns a motive for the doing it. The mode is, "in the spirit of meekness." For Satan can not cast out Satan. Sin can not drive out sin. For instance, my anger can not drive out another man's covetousness; my petulance or sneer can not expel another's extravagance. The meekness of Christ alone has power. The charity which desires another's goodness above his well-being, that alone succeeds in the work of restoration.

The motive is, "considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." For sin is the result of inclination or weakness, combined with opportunity. It is therefore in a degree the offspring of circumstances. Go to the hulks, the jail, the penitentiary, the penal colony, statistics will almost mark out for you beforehand the classes which have furnished the inmates, and the exact proportion of the delinquency of each class.

You will not find the wealthy there, nor the noble,

nor those guarded by the fences of social life, but the poor, and the uneducated, and the frail, and the defenseless. Can you gravely surmise that this regular tabulation depends upon the superior virtue of one class compared with others? Or must you admit that the majority at least of those who have not fallen are safe because they were not tempted? Well, then, when St. Paul says, "considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted," it is as if he had written, Proud Pharisee of a man, complacent in thine integrity, who thankest God that thou art "not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, or as this publican," hast thou gone through the terrible ordeal and come off with unscathed virtue? Or art thou in all these points simply untried? Proud Pharisee of a woman, who passest by an erring sister with a haughty look of conscious superiority, dost thou know what temptation is, with strong feeling and mastering opportunity? Shall the rich-cut crystal which stands on the table of the wealthy man, protected from dust and injury, boast that it has escaped the flaws, and the cracks, and the fractures which the earthen jar has sustained, exposed and subjected to rough and general uses? Oh man or woman! thou who wouldst be a Pharisee, consider, oh consider thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

XI.

CHRIST THE SON.

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son."-Heb. i. 1, 2.

Two critical remarks.

1. "Sundry times "-more literally, sundry portions-sections, not of time, but of the matter of the revelation. God gave His revelation in parts, piecemeal, as you teach a child to spell a word-letter by letter, syllable by syllable-adding all at last together. God had a Word to spell-His own name. By degrees He did it. At last it came entire. The Word was made flesh.

2. "His Son," more correctly, "a Son"-for this is the very argument. Not that God now spoke by Christ, but that whereas once He spoke by prophets, now He spoke by a Son. The filial dispensation was the last.

This epistle was addressed to Christians on the verge of