over Greece and the northern provinces, at the present moment. The pretence is that to allow these provinces to become free is so much gained for Russia against Turkey. How so? Is there not a wide territory between? And have not the Greeks themselves, from the Catholic king down, solemnly declared all disconnexion from Russia? But they are of the same religion. Indeed! Then is not Romanism at work in the diplomacy of the East, and one of the controlling elements in the present troubles? All who will look calmly upon this whole question must see it distinctly, and feel in his soul a more profound abhorrence of the wickedness perpetrated in the name of our holy religion.

Nobody can seriously desire the continuance of Islamism in the Turkish empire for its own sake—that great barrier to civilization, which knows no law, right, justice, humanity, progress, not inscribed on the leaves of the Koran. But nobody wants a worse despotism in its place. The Turk has well nigh served out his time. He cannot much longer resist the light that now shines through school-houses, printing-presses, free pulpits, and commercial enterprises, scattering knowledge, freedom, charity, broadcast over the face of the whole earth. The Sultan, his ministry, and many nobles, have broken the shell; it remains for Christendom to crush the viper. No one sect, or party, or nation can do it. The Catholics can not; the Greeks can not; France can not; Russia can not; England can not. The world has no one great man now; no one master-spirit whose word can still the tempest of human activities struggling after liberty and right, and command the nations into silence. Nicholas is the last of a race of military great men, and he is blockaded. The masses move now, and, by associated effort, seeking the redemption of the race. They look prayerfully up to the universal Father, and demand of monarchs and of hierarchs the admission of their natural and inherent rights. In the name of God and justice they will ultimately obtain them. Scarce a despotism can stand alone. Nations long hostile and envious shake hands, and go forth together to prop each other's thrones, to barricade them against the assaults of the long-outraged people.

They may abide awhile longer, but gradually and surely is the despotic element in politics and religion becoming weaker, and, as "many run to and fro in the earth and knowledge increases," it will finally die out, and the world be free.

A just God will not suffer another power more despotic than Islamism to grow up in Jesus' name and bear rule in the East, to continue to curse that fairest portion of our earth with wasting and desolation. The empire that now sits upon those continents may go to pieces; but out of the fragments can never be constructed another more oppressive. The armies of other nations may congregate there; but the "sword of Godfrey de Bouillon" shall never salute, three times, a Roman Catholic throne erected in the Holy Land. Protestantism beareth not the lamp of God in vain. Free toleration must prevail in all the earth. The human soul, which God has touched with the finger of truth, which Christ has died to redeem, will burst the fetters of religious and political slavery and assert its freedom. The "living oracles" have not spoken in vain. The "spirit of prophecy" still lives in the moral eloquence of universal benevolence, seeking the removal of all evil and the enfranchisement of the race.

The Holy Land, wrapt in sackcloth and sitting in the dust, faded and wrinkled, looks out from the cradle of nations, and asks the sympathy of her children. She stretches out her trembling hands towards two continents, and begs for aid from those she has blessed. The day of her redemption draweth nigh. The present commotions shall not cease till, by ways we know not, long strides Ishall have been taken to deliver the land of miracle and marvel from the power of oppression. High above her sacred mountains shall be raised the standard of freedom, intelligence, charity, inscribed with "THE LOVE OF GOD, THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD." It shall float there freely to the spicy breezes which come through her vallies and over her plains; and the loud shouts shall yet go up from redeemed millions-"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will among men."

W. S. B.

ART. IV.

Sin its own Avenger.

Ir is the purpose of this essay very briefly to consider what those symbols signify which are employed in Scripture to represent the spiritual condition of the sinner, in respect to the effects, or the real influence of moral evil.

The Scriptures teach that the guilty shall not be unpun ished; that he who doeth wrong shall be recompensed therefor; that every man shall be rewarded according to his works. Whatever hope we may indulge of sinning with impunity, or of compromising with justice, we shall find it to be a fact, that there is no way of evading the eternal law of reaping what we sow.

"Woe

This being the fact, the questions of time and mode arise. When and how is the punishment inflicted? One sa. cred writer says with reference to transgressors, unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves." In the very act of sinning, the sinner involves himself in shame and suffering. The words of wisdom are, "He that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul." In disobeying the divine requirements, he abuses himself. And again, "The wages of sin is death;" and, "it is an evil thing and bitter, that they have forsaken God." These scriptures certainly must signify that there is a very close connection between sin and its reward; that the eternal law binds the deed with its effects and reward.

But for a long time was this truth of the ever-present evils of transgression overlooked, and it was commonly thought that sin in itself was pleasant, and in its earthly consequences advantageous to mankind. So blinded were men by their theories, that a fact kept constantly before their eyes, and pressing continually upon their experience, was yet unnoticed and disbelieved. Not all the obvious wretchedness attendant on sin availed to convince the many that sin is a present evil. No one seemed to understand its actual effects upon the mind and heart, -how it perverts the moral nature, blights the affections,

warps the intellect, and enervates the will. No one supposed the penalty of sin to be the evils in which it necessarily involves its victims, but some other thing. Only the fear of future retribution deterred from unrestrained indulgence in its fancied pleasures. And the chief inducement to virtue which the moralist presented, was the distant recompense of bliss beyond the grave; against which temptation ever urged the pressing motive of present benefit and satisfaction. No one perceived that sin itself is the real evil from which men ought to seek salvation; but how to escape the penalty of sin, was the all-absorbing question. It was the problem and the work of life.

But the punishment God's law awards to sin, is not an outward, arbitrary chastisement like that which man inflicts; but the results which naturally flow from moral disorder. The darkness with which sin clouds the mind, the remorse with which it pierces conscience, the blight with which it smites affection, crushes hope, destroys peace; the rage to which it excites the passions, the vain desires it nourishes, and the sorrow, shame, and moral death which it produces,-these are the chief punishment of sin. It may indeed, and it often does, involve its victims in other and outward evils; but the internal evils are the unavoidable ones, and are of all by far the greatest, more to be feared and shunned than any outward inflic tion. Whatever the outward circumstances of the sinner, his great misery is that he has canker and corruption at his heart.

The figurative expressions used in Scripture to represent the spiritual condition of the sinner, fully warrant this position. They show that the state of mind which sin induces, is itself the severest form of punishment. The space I feel at liberty to occupy will not admit of more than a few suggestions in connection with the instances to which I shall refer.

1. The transgressor is represented by the Saviour as weary, heavy laden, wanting rest. We readily understand the import of these expressions. Hard is his lot whom necessity compels to toil when the whole frame aches with weariness and every nerve and fibre is suffering from exhaustion. Not unfrequently does the oppressed look forward, with a kind of mournful satisfaction, to the

quiet grave, as the termination of his trials, and a home whose still repose shall never more be broken by the strife for gain, or the voice that calls to toil. Yet this weari

ness of body but faintly represents that weariness of spirit which the transgressor suffers, as he turns from scene to scene, and from one purpose to another, in search of satisfaction. The soul involved in guilt has really no time nor place of rest. It ever has some end to compass, through which it hopes for higher good, or some veil to weave to hide a past offence; for it lives without that reliance on the divine arm which alone can give assurance of protection and support at all times, and in every place. This sad unrest, which is a consequence of the soul's conflict with spiritual laws, is the chastisement ordained of God to restrain it from plunging into darker depths of guilt, and from continuing in disobedience forever. Who would increase the troubles of such a wretched life? Christian sympathy and love require us rather to pity and forgive, and to seek the return of the sufferers from their folly. Thus did the Saviour, when he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

2. Again, the sinner is described as poor and needy, famishing from thirst and hunger. When we count up the sum of privations and sufferings which follow in the train of poverty, do we think it to be an enviable lot? - Could we wish upon its subjects a greater evil than that which has befallen them? Even when it comes through their own fault, is it not in itself an evil sufficient for their chastening? What shall we say, then, of the spiritually poor, whose condition is so inadequately represented by the picture of worldly destitution? Is not the poverty of soul he suffers sufficient chastisement for him? Of the divinest elements of life and joy his soul is destitute. The wealth of virtue, faith, and worship, is not his. The riches of the universe, and the overflowing fulness of divine beneficence are not for his enjoyment. He has no adequate appreciation of the countless mercies daily manifested in Providence. That which to the real Christian is the highest, deepest and dearest of all treasures, is to him a name, a void. Without communion with the Father, without the peace for the present and the hopes for the

VOL. XII.

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