it in the authorship that he has left behind him, may I be led to the very exclamation of those early converts to our faith, who felt that the secrets of their hearts had by their teachers been made manifest, and so they fell down upon their face, and worshipped God, and reported that God was in them of a truth.

24. There is a peculiarity which often belongs to the informations of him who tells me that which passes within the limits of my own moral nature, which does not belong to him who tells me of that which passes without the limits either of my consciousness or of my own personal observation. He who relates to me the things which take place at a distance, may relate such things as my eye never saw and my ears never heard of, and which therefore impress me with all the strangeness of novelties, in the truth of which I have no other ground of reliance than the testimony of my informer. He who relates to me the things which take place within the chambers of my own heart, may relate to me such things as I have often felt and daily continue to feel; but they may at the same time be such things as I have always suffered to pass away, without remembrance and without observation. But it is very possible that the thing which I at one time felt, and then instantly forgot, and would have forgotten for ever, may reappear upon the memory, the moment that I am told of it. An acquaintance may remind me of an event which took place on some past day of my existence, that but for his doing so would never again have been present to my thoughts, till the

hour of my departure from the world. By a simple statement of the circumstances, he may bring up again to my most distinct and vivid recollection, that which had long sunk into the abyss of forgetfulness, and but for him might have remained there for ever. And what is true of a forgotten event in my history, is just as true of many of the forgotten emotions of my heart. A moralist may recal them to my notice, and I, upon his doing so, may instantly recognize them to have been my emotions; and he may turn them into the materials upon which he announces some principle or general law of my moral nature; and I may be struck with this law as the accurately just expression of what I had often felt, but never till now had reflected upon; and thus it is, that, while when the traveller relates what is beyond the range of my observation I may have nought to rely on but his testimony, when the moralist relates what passes in the busy receptacle of my own feelings, a thousand recollections may immediately start as it were from the slumbers of oblivion, and be vouchers for him that he is a true discerner. In one sense what he affirms is a novelty-for, though it be all about the daily and familiar processes of my own mind, yet they are such processes as I had never registered, but suffered all along to escape from my consciousness entirely. Yet in another sense, it is not a novelty-for, now that he relates the mental feeling or mental operation, my own memory responds to the truth of it, and I now know to be true that of which I never before noticed the existence-and, though I see in

consequence what I never saw before, yet this is simply because I never looked upon it before— and, now that I do look upon it, I cannot fail to recognize it as the unregarded companion of many a former day, as the inmate perhaps of my hourly and most familiar experience.

25. Thus it is that one man may diffuse a light over the field of another man's conscience; and guide him to the discernment of things which respect himself, and yet which he never before adverted to; and attest of him what he has not once observed, but what notwithstanding he on the instant recognizes to be true; and by a succession of bare statements, may gain at every step upon his confidence-for, no sooner does the one relate than the other may recal; and the affirmations of the former may be met by the inward responses of the latter; and as the teacher draws, so to speak, the map of man's moral constitution, the traces which had long faded away from the remembrance of the scholar, may again come forth into visibility. It is thus that one man may not only tell to another such things as respect himself, and which he already knows-but he may also discover to him such things which respect himself and are daily present with him as he does not know. They are the things which he does neither notice at the time, nor remember afterwards the fugitive sensations which pass through his heart in busy and perpetual career, to which he does not advert himself, but which he would instantly recollect and recognize were another to advert to them. It is this which gives such a charm to the descrip

tive poetry of him who often pictures what all must have felt, yet never may have reflected upon-and which confers such an interest on the performance of one man, when he holds up to another man the mirror of himself and which invests the philosophic sage who has made our common nature the province of his studious and skilful observation, with the credit of being a quick and a powerful discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart-one perhaps who can pierce and divide asunder his way through all the dormancies of another's unconsciousness, and can awaken in the bosom of many a disciple such recollections as had been long asleep, and out of these recollections can furnish each with his own image so as that he himself may recognize it. And thus again, without an argumentative process at all, without inference and without logical demonstration, but solely by judicious statements recommending themselves and approving their own truth to every man's conscience, may new and sound and most important lessons of moral wisdom be conveyed.

26. II. The second branch of the experimental evidence which we proposed to expound, lies in the accordancy between what the Bible overtures for our acceptance, and what we feel ourselves to need. Like the first it requires a comparison between the objective and the subjective. Even previous to our contemplation of the overtures of relief, our felt need of relief could only have arisen from a regard had by us to both-that is, to the objective, when we think of the character of God

the lawgiver; and to the subjective, when we think of our own character as the subjects of His law. With our actual moral nature, we cannot escape from the impression of a reigning and righteous sovereign, who cannot be mocked, but whose authority, if trampled on, must be some way vindicated and maintained. On the other hand, we can as little escape from the consciousness of being defaulters to that high and holy government under which we sit; and the most direct and palpable vindication of which were the condemnation and adequate punishment of the offenders. And thus a sense of our disruption from God, and of His displeasure against us may be said to haunt us continually. It is true that, for the greater part of life, we live in a state of exemption from this sore disquietude-not however because we have laid our confident hold on any relief or reconciliation which has been authentically proposed to us; but because, in the manifold engagements of the world, we have the faculty of committing the whole subject to oblivion, and can live at ease, simply because the thought of an angry God or of a coming vengeance is away from our hearts. It is not because we have made up the quarrel; but it is when we forget the quarrel, that we slumber in the tranquillity of our deep and fatal unconsciousness. When made fully awake to the realities of our condition, there is an unavoidable sense of necessity and of danger; and, with even nothing but the theology of conscience brought home to the bosom of guilty man, there is enough to excite his fears in the apprehended frown of the God who is above him,