double-minded. It breaks down the integrity of the conscience; it turns thought aside from an honest, direct, and straight-forward course. It renders men uncandid, cowardly, and unjust. They shrink from the fair meaning of their words; they fear to avow it; they will not acknowledge it; or in the pride of impenitent assertion, they use every art to maintain it. They shun the object of their censure, or they assume a false bearing towards him; or they hate him as an enemy; they deceive him, or they persecute him; for the issue of injustice in word is injury in action; and once to injure a man is a sure way to hate him. I do not say, that matters always go to this extreme; but this is their direction, and we must not close our eyes to the catastrophe. Nor is the evil of a censorious spirit exhausted on itself, and on its objects; it operates unfavorably on all that come into contact with it. The mere listeners to hard sayings, however impartial, or however prudent, do not escape unhurt. There is that which they cannot resist, which they cannot repel; which, in fact, they cannot exclude from their attention; that, which, true or false, they wish they had not heard; their minds are disturbed, perplexed, unsettled; painful associations are implanted in their memory, and the result in their experience is discomfort and distress. And these influences spread in their respective circles through the community, undermining trust, freedom, nature, and substituting, for the genial graces of a true heart, the cold formalities of custom, caution, and suspicion.

What can counteract these evils? Not mere worldly prudence, not mere intellectual culture. It is true, that worldly prudence would constrain our speech; but it would also constrain our sympathies. It is true, that mental culture might render us thoughtless of our neighbor's failings; but it might also render us indifferent to our neighbor's welfare. It is true, that worldly prudence would lead us to mind our own affairs; but also it might harden us to the afflictions of our brethren. It is true, that mental culture would exalt us above petty gossip; it might also withdraw us from simple duties. This must not be. Our speech must not be restricted, but enlightened; our sympathies must not be limited, but enlarged; our own concerns must not be neglected, neither must our brother's need; we must be above petty gossip, but yet we must have hearts awake to ordinary incidents and humble cares. The power, which we need, we shall find effectually in Christianity. We must recognise the Christian law; we must cultivate the Christian senti

ment. If we recognise the Christian law, we shall regard sin in its nature and in its essence, and we shall hate it, not according to its social penalties, but according to its inward wrong. From this point of view we shall discern, that scorn, and contempt, and imprisonment, and bonds, do not completely measure the guilt of transgression. We shall discern, that we may not incur these, yet be spiritually worse than many that endure them; that the enactments of man may not have wherewith to charge us, and yet the perfect law of God find us deeply culpable; we shall not be satisfied, that we are free from the disgrace of perjury, or the shame of theft; we shall discern the wickedness of an evil temper and of a bitter tongue. We shall apprehend, how unholy, how ungodly, how anti-Christian, is a spirit void of charity, void of love; and in comparison with many a hapless wretch, whom the world treads down with scorn, we shall abhor ourselves in dust and ashes. If with the recognition of the Christian law of duty, we cultivate the Christian sentiment of love, what we acknowledge to be true, and what we feel to be good, will both unite to exalt and purify our conversation. The mean passions, which generate ungentle speech, still less that which is malignant and untrue, could not live in the nobleness of a Christian soul. In the glory of that light, which streams from the face of Jesus, vanity and envy must be extinguished; in the flames of his disinterested affections, anger and hatred must be consumed. This noble Christian soul, enrobed in the modesty, the meekness, the mercy, and the purity of its master, has ideas, feelings, and interests, which comport not with the grovellings of evil words. In the degree, then, to which our souls are Christian, we shall forsake the beggarly elements, which form much of our idle or injurious conversation; our intellects, accustomed to contemplate grand and solemn themes, will shrink from unworthy topics; familiar in their meditations with ideas of the perfect and the eternal, they can have no sympathy with those vain babblings, in which valuable portions of life are not only wasted, but desecrated. Our feelings, softened and enlarged by the spirit of the gospel, will be at once mild and magnanimous; in the plenitude of a Christlike bosom, no asperity will find nutriment to sustain it; we shall be true to our friends, and we shall not be ungenerous to our enemies, if enemies we should have. And cheerfulness need not be banished; we need not cloud the path of life, nor clothe our faces in gloom, nor rebuke the buoyancy of delight, nor silence the laugh of health,

nor walk our way in lamentation to the grave, as if happiness were sin, and misery were merit; but in mirth we will not forget reverence, and in gayety we will not dishonor charity. With intellects thus uplifted, and feelings thus inspired, worthy interests will engage our thoughts and words. Why should our subjects of speech be so barren, that we must seek for malice to give them zest? Why should we come together with such meagre fancies and such starved affections? It need not be so ; it ought not to be so if we are just to our natures, and true to our opportunities, it will not be so. To say nothing of those interests, which belong to the indulgence of refined pursuits, of uncorrupted tastes; to say nothing of those which study opens to us in whatever the teachers of our race have written for our learning; there are those which can engage us in every place, in every condition, and which, while they engage, will sanctify us; there are those of nature, wherever the sky bangs over us, wherever earth has a leaf, or a flower, or a sound of gladness; and for those we need but open senses, content, and health; there are those of duty, of philanthropy, of brotherly kindness, and those meet us daily within the threshold, and in the most limited neighborhood, open a field for earnest thinking, and for active work.

This grand faculty of speech is sacred, and should not be profaned. It is that by which bards from the olden time have given out the sweet music which lay within their souls, the music which has an answer for ever in the bosom of humanity. It is that by which sages in every generation have taught wisdom to their race, and by which their race have marched along from stage to stage of progress. It is that by which the bold and the free spirits, who have a hearing through the world, have poured out the eloquence, which is the very life-breath of liberty; by which thoughts of power have gone forth, as from tongues of fire, to sinite the rod of the tyrant, and to melt the chains of the slave; to vindicate the cause of the helpless and the wronged; to cry in piercing tones for neglected sorrow, until humanity has been shaken from its apathy, and compelled to look with pity on the afflicted. Speech is sacred, for it resembles creation, which is the speech of God: "day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no place where their voice is not heard: their words are to the end of the world." The mind of God is syllabled in the sighs of the wind, in the noise of the ocean; its letters are stars and suns. Speech

is sacred; for it is speech that makes known the inspiration, which God puts in the hearts of his chosen, and which comes to us from deserts and from caves, in the sublime burden of prophecy, and in the softer accents of sacred song. Speech is sacred; for by speech God through Christ has been revealed to the world, as he was never known before; and by speech the fulness of divine excellence, which dwelt in the perfect soul of Christ himself, is made manifest for our salvation. The multitudes wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; let not bitterness come from the hearts of his disciples; let us with a loving docility be often in his presence, until we shall be filled with the abundance of his spirit, and out of that abundance speak.

H. G.

PHILOSOPHY OF REFORMATION.

[From the Manuscripts of the late Rev. Noah Worcester, DD.]

As mankind while here on earth are forming their characters for a future state, and as "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," reformation must be to us all a business of the highest importance. I use the word reformation in preference to repentance, as including all that is implied in a cordial and practical obedience to the precept "Cease to do evil, learn to do well," or in turning from the ways of sin by obedience to the self-denying precepts of the Messiah. But as reformation. presupposes a sinful state, or evil practices to be corrected, to understand the philosophy of reformation it seems necessary, that we should have some correct views of the philosophy of disobedience, or how and why men transgress the laws of their Maker. Besides, as both disobedience and reformation result from, or consist in voluntary exercises of the mind, we are naturally led to inquire first of all respecting the philosophy of volition, how volition is produced, why men choose this or that, and prefer one thing to another. And, as what we 3D S. VOL. XVII. NO. III.

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call disposition and habit are justly regarded as having a powerful influence in forming the moral character, both in the course of disobedience and reformation, the philosophy of disposition and habit will require a distinct consideration. I shall therefore consider the subject under several distinct heads.

I. The philosophy of volition.

Volition is a word of the same meaning as choice. Volitions, then, are acts of the mind by which things are chosen or preferred. They may be called executive acts of the will or faculty of choosing. We may have different objects or different courses of conduct in view at the same time. More than one of them may appear in some respects agreeable or disagreeable; but all things considered, one is preferred to all the others. This preference is the choice or volition.

When we look back to the state of infancy, we may see reason to believe, that children are capable of volition before they are capable of moral agency. Volitions may therefore be divided into two classes, animal and moral; and the moral volitions may be subdivided into virtuous and vicious, or sinful and holy.

and

By animal volitions, I mean those which result from the animal properties of our nature, without any reference to a moral law, or to moral light respecting what is right and wrong. Children have animal senses, appetites, propensities, and passions, from which animal wants and desires originate, consequently volitions to supply those wants, or to gratify those desires. In the class of animal volitions I should include the volitions of children which are prior to moral agency; and it seems to me reasonable that very many of their volitions should be assigned to this class, after they become moral beings. That this is a correct view of the subject may be more evident, when we consider the additional pre-requisites to moral agency. But before I bring these to view I will quote a passage from the "Christian Spectator," which contains ideas in accordance with what I have expressed;

"But there are in the constitution of the mind certain properties, tendencies, or principles, which lie back of moral action, and belong to us simply as intellectual and sentient beings. Of this class are the natural appetites, as hunger and thirst, the social affections, as love of children, sensibility to the opinions of others, a feeling of injury when wronged, sympathy with