goodness and mercy, and with the hope sure and steadfast, that he will look upon and receive him with kindness and compassion, and will minister benevolently to his necessities.

It is remarkable how men of authority have taken advantage from the very law which God established within the mind to lead his children in reverence and penitence to himself, and have compelled their subjects to bow the knee and to utter the innermost secrets of their hearts to them. They know that the human soul must of necessity worship and confess. So they impiously put themselves in the place of God, and call their disciples to worship at their feet, and to trust their thoughts in their keeping. So they force men to come in homage and submission before their usurped authority. So they wring from men all their inner life, and keep them forever in their power. But the light of Christianity is fast spreading over the world, and in this light the enslaved multitudes of the earth are quickly learning that the interests of their souls should be only under the care and direction of God, that the homage of their hearts should only be paid to him, and that to him only can they go to disburden themselves of their sins.

Our religion should be between ourselves and God. Man has no right to a spiritual dominion over us. He has received no charter from Heaven whereby he has authority to control our hearts. His breast is not a safe temple for our private thoughts. Sometimes he may be just, charitable, and benignant; but he may change and deceive us. We should regard him as a

brother whenever we meet him; we should love him as we do ourselves; we should do for him as we would have him do for us; we should vie with him in living a pure and noble life, in performing good and honorable deeds, in administering to the necessities of the poor, the weak, the oppressed and hopeless, in loving and worshipping the great God who made and loves us all. But to God only should we go with our whole hearts in confession and prayer. His justice does not change. His charity does not contract. His benignity does not lessen. In him we can always confide. Under his encouragement we can ask for admittance into his holy presence, and he will receive us; we can seek his favor, and find it; we can knock at his door, and he will open unto us. And when we enter, and frankly and fully utter our confessions, humbly, submissively, and without reservation, throw ourselves upon his mercy, he will take us to his holy and loving heart, and make us know that within his heart there is no lurking suspicion concerning us, no lingering doubt, no sinister design to chill and discourage our ardor, or to disturb our thoughts, or to fill them with apprehensions.

When confession is made to God, and his pardon is obtained, the spirit is disenthralled and filled with joy. The Father's forgiveness to the returned wanderer is full; and the child restored may enter into the life of the heavenly home with the untrammelled energy and freedom of faith, and trust, and love.

So shall it be when all the lost shall have been found, when all the dead shall have been brought to life. God's great family shall dwell with him in his heaven

of heavens, his highest and holiest abode; and all his grateful offspring in the glorious liberty of the sons of God, shall rejoice in the light and love of holiness, and glorify and praise the infinite and beneficent Father. And this worship shall never end. All creatures in heaven, and earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, shall arise and take their places in the most exalted courts of love, there to breathe the atmosphere of holiness, and to sing in the presence of God their joyful psalms.

DISCOURSE XV.

THE LAW OF CONSCIENCE, THE LAW OF GOD.

LUKE XV. 17.

WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF.

In the discourses of Christ, we not only observe that there are the great meanings of whole passages, of entire paragraphs, of complete parables or illustra tions, but also those of brief sentences. For example, the parable of the Prodigal Son, as a whole, is not excelled by any other piece of composition for the vastness and completeness of its import. It presents the entire lesson of the Christian Religion, all that Christ came into the world to teach of the fatherhood of God, of the brotherhood of man, of the parental character of the Divine government, of the greatness of human nature, of the consequences of sin, and of man's repentance, reformation and holy destiny. It is the sum of Christian revelation. If we desired a creed with all the articles of our faith, it would fully answer our purpose. We should need no other for guidance, support or consolation. We should need no no other to put into the hands of those who might ask us to point out the grounds of our faith, or to

give them a reason for the hope that is in us. And not only as a whole, is it thus comprehensive and without lack in its instruction, but there are, also, most expressive and important teachings in some of its simplest and shortest expressions. How much do we find to corroborate this remark, in the expression which I have selected to consider at the present time: "When he came so himself."

It has been

This expression is well understood. incorporated into common speech. It is in common, universal use. It implies in the Saviour's parable, where we find it, that the Prodigal had wandered far away in sin and excess, not because he came into the world totally depraved, and could therefore have no inclination but to pursue the path of iniquity, but that he had done so in opposition to the law of his own soul, and under the misapprehension, that the way of sin would be prosperous, cheerful and bright. And it implies, moreover, that in his extreme destitution and misery, while he was still absent from his home of virtue, of bounty, of agreeable life, of beauty and joy, he was not entirely swallowed up in wickedness; he had yet within his soul a spark that kindled at the first faint breath of good desire, of homewardturning thought. "When he came to himself," the coming back was that of his thought to a consciousness of his origin, capacities and obligations; it was the return of a noble feeling which had been buried in the darkness of his heart, to the uppermost place therein, where it might exert a control over the will and the affections. He had been, to use a term which