nerve, they have only to blush at their folly and to cast it from them for ever; choosing a less dangerous path for the time to come, that they may walk on peaceably, without the fear of pain and torture.

But "No," say the incorrigible, "I am not the petulant and haughty ruler that I am taken for; but I'm for ever tormented with one or another setting forth a grievance; and as I cannot redress them all, the wisest plan is to pay no attention to any !"

"Nor am I the blockhead that I'm represented to be," exclaims another, "as the splendid provision bestowed on me at this moment testifies." And again,—“ It is impossible that I can be the witless upstart so unmercifully railed at, being indebted to my own capabilities alone for the protection I have experienced! And if, as has been intimated, I have no brains of my own, I've at least had wit enough to make use of other people's, which has answered my purpose just as well. Nor am I the hasty avenger of fancied insults the passionate barbarian, or the unfeeling perpetrator of crimes so odious as those with which I am charged;" continue a race of mortals whose consciences smite them to the quick for having acted with similar injustice and cruelty.

Witless cavillers! whether ye admit, or whether ye disclaim the charge, ye do but corroborate the evidence against you. The very denial betrays your guilt. Aware that you deserve the wound,

in turning to escape you betray yourselves; and in the very act of receding to avoid, receive the arrow that, perhaps, was levelled at a different object. The following occurrence may serve to illustrate the opinion that" He who has a conscience gives evidence against himself.""

An itinerant Jew, well known in one of the principal cities of the Netherlands, after commit ting a most daring robbery some years ago, inhumanly murdered the individual from whom he had stolen the property; and in order to elude the hands of justice, immediately after he had perpetrated the crime, flew for refuge to a neighbouring province. After an absence of ten or a dozen years, trusting that things were blown over, and that the affair was forgotten; he ventured to return to the place where he had committed the depredation; inquiring, when he came within the suburbs, if the person who had executed the horrid deed of so long standing, had yet been detected? Being answered in the negative, and perceiving that there was not even a surmise to deter him from proceeding, he entered the city, with his bag on his shoulder, crying-old clothes -old clothes-cot any old clothes to sell? But, alas! in one of his peregrinations, about a mile from the town, two or three days after his arrival, he by chance espied some officers of the police at a little distance; and feeling a qualm of conscience come over him, he kept looking back and quickening his pace, lest he should be overtaken. The

S

officers, who are generally pretty acute as well as active on such occasions, soon perceived that the man was endeavouring to avoid them. "We must keep him in sight," said they, "all is not right there;walk on-walk on or we shall lose him." Accordingly, they hastened their steps-the man went faster too;-they began to run-the man ran also ;-till at length the hue and cry of "stop thief" put an end to the race, and the criminal was secured.

66

"So we have got you at last, have we?” said Master Gripe. Aye-and who would have thought it, after so many years?" returned the trembling culprit. "And how did you know me? for there wash nobody there but myshelf when I did it; and I went off the very next morning, and should have been abshent from my country twelve years had I stayed another month;—but, mine Cot! what will they do with me now?" "Why make a public example of you, to be sure," said they. ," said they. Upon which the man, concluding he was known, made a full confession of his guilt. The atrocious act was brought home to him by that inward monitor from which there is no appeal; and the self-convicted villain, betrayed by his own conscience, was brought to trial, and at last suffered the awful sentence of the law; though he had so many years defeated the vigilance of justice, by absenting himself from the scene of action.

Thus do the guilty accuse and condemn themselves; and thus does the all-powerful Avenger of human crimes, by placing this celestial spark in the heart of man, bring to light the hidden deeds of darkness. Conscience, ever on the watch, and faithful to disclose the murderer's guilt, when no earthly testimony could reveal the perpetrator of the atrocious act, presents the trembling self-condemned culprit to the indignant eye.

CONSCIENCE, when it points out the good or evil of the action premeditated, may be considered as the warning voice of God; and ought so to operate on our reason and conduct, as to resolve us to do that which seemeth right, and to leave undone that which we disapprove. But man is prone to evil from his birth; and, as St. Paul saith," the good that he would, he doeth not; but the evil which he would not, that he doeth."

Though the dictates of reason be never so strong to turn him from his purpose, he will sometimes assent to the matter in deliberation, and in spite of his better judgment, do a thousand things that afterwards he would give the world, if he had it at his disposal, to have undone. Then