where we are concerned not with pleas of extenuation, but with results-results which remain the same, whether such pleas be true or false. And in pursuing the subject, we shall endeavor, with a view to the collateral advantage, to select, for purposes of illustration, such acknowledged instances of transgression, as being of most common occurrence, or productive of greatest mischief would, if cured, result in highest profit, not, however, forbidding ourselves to make use of other less pregnant instances should the main design seem likely to be thereby better subserved.

Endeavoring then, to preserve to the word licentiousness, in its somewhat new application here, the full sense which belongs to it in its more usual application, and so bearing in mind that it is a product of passion, of impulse, of caprice, and especially, of inordinate desire, and therefore open to censure; although the thing desired be in itself lawful, we proceed to inquire wherein abstract principles, in themselves of indisputable truth, are strained beyond their legitimate scope. Quite prevalent is a kind of reasoning which seems to assume that, because a certain proportion is absolutely true, it is therefore capable of being absolutely exhausted by a finite intelligence, and so is incapable of being taxed, still by a finite intelligence, beyond its true teachings and safe deductions. But without dwelling here upon the fact-which might lead us into an inquiry more curious than relevant to our present purposethat all moral truth, partaking of the nature of the infinite, can hardly be reducible to absolute possession by a finite intelligence, it is enough to say, that the manifest errors into which such reasoning conducts us, furnishes sufficient practical evidence upon which to challenge its correctness. one very frequent form under which such errors occur, is in the confounding of finite with infinite. Analogical reasoning, uncertain and unsafe as it always is, is, too, always seductive; and when in addition to this it is considered how there are very many subjects presenting themselves for investigation where analogy is the chief or only instrument at our command, it would hardly seem surprising if, in the discussion of this class of subjects, we should be found exacting from it

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more than it is capable of yielding. A simple illustration is this as a general proposition, it is wholly true, that stagnation does not consist with perfect happiness, or, in other words, without activity and equivalent fruit, happiness is impossible.

The science of astronomy furnishes a more extended illustration. It is often claimed that not only this little earth upon which we live, but the entire universe, is inhabited by intelligent beings. So far indeed has this claim been carried, that upon its assumed truth a supposed argument is built by the caviller against the doctrine of the Atonement; for, says such supposed argument, how absurd to imagine, that for this small portion of the universe, such a costly outlay of means should have been afforded for its deliverance, quite disproportioned, as is said, to anything which such most insignificant fraction of a great whole could have demanded. And this claim that other worlds are thus inhabited, rests upon the assertion, that the Supreme Being not only does nothing in vain, but that he employs no greater instrumentality—no more expensive machinery, than is necessary to accomplish the proposed end. And cumulative force is sought for this argument, by pointing to the fact, that upon this earth we not only fail to find anything created in vain, but a return is everywhere found proportioned to the cost. To all which there seems sufficient reply that to argue a waste of expenditure, from what to our limited and imperfect vision seems only an inadequate return-no absolute, entire failure being established-would be to fall into an error by forcing the analogy unjustly. How, with an infinite power of working, that can be termed a waste of expenditure, while there is any, even the smallest return, seems not easy to imagine. Indeed, to argue that there must always be a quid pro quo when the artificer is infinite-that no expenditure is pardonable, without its full equivalent—even supposing, which is far from true, that such equivalent were properly left to be determined by a fallible arbiter, at once reduces the Creator, with infinite resources, down to a level with man the created, who beggared in means, receives as a suppliant, even the crust that keeps him from starvation. To a necessitated, utilitarian

drudge like man, who is warned at every step to husband his resources, and who is not wholly without excuse, when he thinks of Niagara, with all its awakening sublimity, and elevating influences, as a stupendous waste, because it turns no spindles, it may also appear an equal folly, that yonder starry host

"Forever singing, as they shine,

The hand that made us, is divine,"

should have been created for so very insignificant a purpose, as to only "declare the glory of God, and show forth his handy-work," even though there may have entered into that divine purpose the further thought, that whatever promised to contribute, by its collateral aid, towards a plan of redemption for which an infinite price was thought worthy, could not be either an inappropriate, or an extravagant expenditure. But while this may satisfy the "necessitated drudge," it satisfies not logic, which says, the greater once determined upon, all the less follow.

For aught, then, that appears to the contrary-and we say it as a part of the argument, though at the hazard of its being esteemed only a splenetic outburst-an expenditure which had regard to the increased happiness and higher advancement of a race, whose existence, and whose necessities too, are not left in doubt, may be quite as far from being wasted as it would have been by being directed to the mere multiplication of intelligencies of equal frailty and fallibility. For those who find their demands answered only in statistical tables, and who find a compensatory satisfaction against an existing cause of uneasiness, by extending numerically what is in itself allied with infirmity, it may be difficult to accept a logic which reduces these rolling spheres to a mere instrument for man's advancement and man's gratification, instead of affording a habitation for myriads more, to whom attaches a similar infirmity; but there are possibly not a few who will not unwillingly listen to an argument which allows them to contemplate the starry heavens as a creation far removed from all strain of any created touch, and so, without painful stint, or

reservation, or alloy, to be received as an efficient, and not unneedful auxilliary towards a more perfect communion with the Maker of them all.

But again-let us take another instance. Man's spiritual nature is altogether paramount in value and importance to his material nature. Cultivation and improvement of the former have an elevating tendency, both in the process and in the results; and promises, too, what seems an indispensable aid towards the realization of certain pet fancies the world has for long set its heart upon; while the same attention bestowed upon the latter is for the most part attended by an effect just the opposite-gross and sensual appetites thereby stimulated, what is naturally sordid and grovelling degraded to a still lower level, and all social advancement rather hindered than helped. All this, and more to the same purpose, being true, it follows, we are told, that there is a manifest incongruity in the superior development always thus far exhibited by the material, above and beyond anything to which man's spiritual nature can point in its history; and this unseemly incongruity thus happily established, we are bid to take courage and be of good cheer, for what is thus opposed to the fitness of things may not long endure. All this is to be soon changed. A stone's throw in advance is the bright spot, which, with only a good strong pull together at the oars, we may shoot ahead into. Awaiting us now, even at the door, is the triumphant revolution by which the usurper is to lose the throne he has so long unjustly occupied, and the true heir is to come into his long withheld but rightful possessions; and, as it is important to add, we are promised all this as likely to be compassed in this present state of being. Consoling thoughts-comfortable reflections, these doubtless are; so much so, that did they appear to rest upon solid foundations, we might extract from them a certain solace, not unneedful, when the inquiry occurs why, for thousands of years, this blessed jubilee has been deferred.

But are the foundations solid? Are we warranted in availing ourselves of the solace? We do not call in question the apparent incongruity as at present exhibited, nor do we deny

the propriety of the deduction, if it can be first established that there is any necessity, in the nature of the case, that this apparent violation of the fitness of things should find its cure or its explanation in this life. But can such necessity be demonstrated? Cognizant, as we are, of a certain ephemeral existence, and of the conditions that pertain to it, and cognizant, too, of the fact that the same existence is to undergo a change, by which it shall become no longer ephemeral, but everlasting, and shall become, too, subject to other and in every respect new conditions, where can we find any warrant for asserting that the incongruity complained of must be removed in that state of being which comes first in order of time, rather than in that which comes afterwards? Nay, more; if man's life here is but an infinitismal speck when compared with his whole life, then in proportion to this disproportion is the probability that when we survey the whole we shall find that what appeared incongruous appeared so because we had hitherto beheld but a part; and since there is such strong probability that this explanation will prove the true one, we must absolutely negative its possibility before we can pronounce the present condition of affairs an incongruity at all. Given this, a complex creature, that is, a creature having a two-fold nature, the one not only unlike its fellow, but hostile to it, and then given two states of being, to which belongs a corresponding unlikeness, through both which states of being such creature is to pass, and what other than this would be required as a rational interruption of, a strait conclusion from, the whole problem-that each of these parts should seek and find its own special and chief development in that one of the two states of being which should best accord with its own special necessities and affinities? Seeing that there are two states of being, all whose respective arrangements and conditions are entirely opposite, and also a two-fold nature, whose separate parts have a character corresponding with these opposite states of being, each to each, why select that one of these two states which is confessedly, and, as we suppose, unfavorable to spiritual growth and favorable to a material advancement, and demand that here the former shall be preferred and a