thank God! has no existence in the universe in which our lot is cast.

Attempts are made to reconcile orthodox notions of future and eternal punishment with justice and mercy, but such attempts always result in pitiful failures. We must either give up the doctrine of eternal punishment or else our belief in divine mercy and justice. Punishment of an offender is justice, but unending and unalterable punishment would be incompatible with any possible conception of justice, and utterly destructive of every hope of mercy; for it is in the chastened spirit, the amended life, the tendency to better things which follow punishment, that the mercy of justice is seen. But where these are not, that is not. For us it is easier to believe that the idea of eternal punishment has arisen from the ignorance, the depravity, and the mistakes of the human mind, than to believe, as we must otherwise do, that justice is a mockery, mercy an illusion, hope a deceit, and love a dream.

V.

SIN.

WE learn from the Bible that 'sin' is a condition into which man has fallen; and we learn from our own observation and experience that it is a condition in which he is still. This state is the result of disobedience to God, and is at variance with Hise ternal moral laws; and all the sorrow and misery of the world are the consequences of this disobedience. The gospel tells us that God looks upon man in this state with the profoundest pity, and desires man to be reconciled to Himself and saved from sin. But man having thus departed from God was lost, and being immortal was eternally lost, and was becoming further and further removed from God and holiness and happiness; the gulf between God and man must have widened eternally had not God Himself intercepted the downward path of man, and brought him into a way of regeneration and life.

The nature of sin accords with the threefold characteristics described in the New Testamentit is earthly, sensual, and devilish.

Sin-earthly-arises from the natural wants of the body and the ignorance and inactivity of the spirit. The flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit striving against the flesh' presumes a spirit awakened to a consciousness of the oppression of the flesh, and contending for the supremacy which it is destined ultimately to achieve. But in unawakened men the spirit does not strive against the flesh: the flesh has it all its own way; prudence and the dictates of a selfish morality being its only restraints.

Sin-sensual-consists in seeking the gratification of the natural desire for pleasure and happiness in sensual things-in seeing, hearing, and feeling; in the indulgence of the animal sensations and appetites, the gratification of which may be right and necessary, but the indulgence in which is sinful and injurious.

Sin-devilish-seems to be of a different nature from the other kinds, as it seeks not merely its own gratification but the injury of others; it is envy, malignity, hatred. But the difference here is only in appearance, as this sin

fulness arises from the same source as all other kinds, and is a necessary consequence of earthlimindedness and sensuality. It is the hatred of those who are, or who seem to be, in the way of the attainment of our own selfish, earthly, and sensual ends. They spoil our world, and therefore we hate them. We cannot include them in our scheme of life, and therefore we wish them removed. Hence it is truly said, 'He that hateth his brother is a murderer.' For hate is the desire to destroy that which is obnoxious to us.

Earthliness is the ill-regulated yielding to the necessary claims of bodily life.

Sensuality is the unrestrained indulgence in the gratification of natural desires and passions for the sake of pleasure.

Devilishness is envying and desiring to destroy the existence or well-being of others.

Against sin the wrath of God is revealed, but it is a righteous wrath, which will not ultimately destroy, but by correction will save. For it is the wrath of the Father, and a Father's wrath proceeds from and does not go beyond a Father's love.

This opposition to sin in God which is perceived by man has produced in his self-condemned

soul a guilty, abject fear, which prevents him returning to God. He sees the punishment, and fears destruction. For sin has inevitable consequences: it has produced in the individual and in the race disease, disorder, pain, and ruin. This, observed by man amongst the heathen, was known as the Nemesis or avenger which waited on every act committed by man. Amongst the Jews it was known as the 'wrath' or 'anger' of God, and all the consequences of sin were thus attributed to the divine wrath.

There is, however, a closer connection between sin and its punishment than the attachment of an arbitrary penalty to the infraction of law. If we commit sin which causes disease, in the very act of committing the sin we produce the disease, and thus both the sin and its punishment are one and inseparable; and as all sin, error, wrongdoing, call it how you will, inevitably produces disorder and ruin, so in the commission of the first we are the authors of the second, and sin is itself its own avenger. Retribution is no arbitrary reward or punishment; the consequences of every act follow a natural, divine law.

So the sentence 'The day thou eatest thereof