to thy sin. Thou shalt suffer as much as thou deservest, and no more and no less. The unbounded and unqualified declarations which are so common are apt to make us forget this just and guarded style of the Scriptures. A man is to reap exactly what he sows, of the same kind and in the same degree. Some are to be beaten with many stripes; and others, less guilty, with few stripes. And to every man will God render according to his deeds. Such perfect justice is there in the retribution that shall search us all.

Turning aside, then, from all ingenious speculations, here is the solemn fact, that should press upon our hearts, and control our lives. We must eat the fruit of our own doings, and all of it. We must receive, and it is God's justice and goodness that we should receive, down to the very dust of the balance, the whole weight of suffering corresponding to the amount of our sin. As every step we take moves, however imperceptibly, the solid globe on which we tread; as our words are for ever printed in this vast volume of leaves of air, and our deeds recorded in the very frame of nature; so, heed it, or heed it not, every moral act we perform affects our future destiny. Oh! were we but once thoroughly persuaded of this simple truth, what revolutions would take place in our lives! How should we avoid every inordinate passion as a raging fire! How should we cast all envious and uncharitable thoughts, like vipers, from our bosoms! What immense interest would life gain in our eyes! To sleep over our duties, to be indifferent to the moral tendency of our actions,

would be impossible. How would a realizing sense of this truth startle those who are giving their lives to pleasure, as the Chaldean revellers were startled at midnight by the letters blazing from the wall!

Steadily and for ever the work goes on. Subtle and strong are the cords that bind this world to the future world in fast connection. At the slightest touch tremble both the mighty spheres. Whatever we build here is builded there. Each breath, each moment here, makes a new decision as to what we shall receive hereafter. Events sweep by us, ever taking some stamp from the moral temper of our minds, the transcript of which is entered on the book of judgment. As not the smallest particle of dust is ever annihilated, so not a thought we have cherished. not a feeling we have indulged, not the most trivial act, done in the most sportive mood, shall be lost. Buried these things may be, and are, for a time, like seed in a field. The traveller walks over the smooth surface, and dreams not of the mighty process going on beneath. But, nevertheless, soon does the full harvest wave wide its golden treasure. Thus, too, the harvest-season of life shall come. Now is the spring-time of the moral year! Swiftly we scatter the seed. Like the careless traveller, we may not suspect the silent spiritual growth. Nevertheless, soon shall we see it standing high, and thick with ripened clusters. Shall it give us sweet leaves and healthful fruits, or plants of poison and bitter ashes to our taste? "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

204

DISCOURSE XX.

IT IS JOHN.

Mark vi. 15, 16. OTHERS SAID, THAT IT IS ELIAS; AND OTHERS SAID, THAT IT IS A PROPHET, OR AS ONE OF THE PROPHETS. BUT, WHEN HEROD HEARD THEREOF, HE SAID, IT IS JOHN, WHOM I BEHEADED: HE IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD.

CRITICS have questioned what led Herod to express so positively this singular opinion respecting the person who had begun to astonish Galilee with his miracles, and to amaze the synagogue with his wisdom. A close consideration of the circumstances shows that Herod's language is to be interpreted as the voice of conscience, and so opens a chapter in the history of conscience, which, even at this distance of time, it may profit us to read.

The story begins, as always, with the violation of conscience in a single infraction of right. Herod takes to himself his brother Philip's wife, while Philip lived; making room for her by divorcing, without cause, his own; thus violating, not the Jewish law only, but all law human and divine. This is the first step, conscience resisted and cast down, while some lawless appetite rides in triumph over it.

The next point in the history is the effect of charging the wrong-doer with his guilt. "It is not lawful for thee to have her," says John to Herod. The sincere Baptist spared not high or low, but, in God's name, levelled his rebuke even against the prince in his palace, surrounded by his guards, with all the powers of the state at his command. It was too much for the haughty sovereign to bear. He could not be so bearded on his throne. His proud honor was in arms. But what relief shall he gain from the stigma of crime? For never lived the human being, to whom this black stigma was not as a burning brand, sore within, and intolerable to be exposed without. What, then, shall Herod do? Behold here, indeed, the second step. He will shift the blame on his accuser. Yes, if Herod can put John in the wrong, that will be a healing salve to the smarting wound. And so, doubtless assuming great show of offended dignity and outraged majesty, and making a very ingenious plea of self-justification, he inflicts punishment on the preacher as a treasonable or seditious, at all events a dangerous, man. Is not this the second step, this attempt somehow to put our accuser in the wrong, holding true for all time, one of the subtlest devices of the wicked heart? So was it with Herod. He, like others, readily makes this cunning plan with his own conscience seem to succeed. He has but to nod to an officer at his beck, and the preacher is arrested, and conveyed by a cohort of soldiers to prison in the castle of Macharus, on the shore of the Dead Sea, where Herod was then holding his court.

Here comes the third stage, still more remarkable, and as universally true in the workings of conscience in the sinful breast, - and that is a secret respect for the right, and for the doer of the right, felt even by him that has opposed it. Man may brave it out well and boldly against just accusation; he may crush and silence, and put out of the way, his accuser; he may hope to bury one wrong in the grave of another but the heap, grown but more monstrous, shall seem to cry out against him, and the unrepented sin shall live and stir in the very sepulchre of oblivion, ready to spring forth upon its author. So is it drawn in our historic picture. John lies in his dungeon, and Herod rolls on in his path of splendor. The grand occasion arrives of his birth-day. Salome, the daughter of Herodias by Philip, sharing in her mother's treachery, pleases her new father by a display of her skill in the fine accomplishment of dancing. The weak-minded monarch, vain in his provincial dignity, and his imagination warmed with the luxury of the scene, makes to the dancing girl an extravagant promise, by which he swears to abide. For it was customary to crown such entertainments with donations to those whose talent in any art had furnished amusement for the hour. Salome, guided by Herodias, who thirsts for revenge upon John, uses her unlimited freedom of choice to demand the head of the captive. The king was sorry. Sorry? and why? Because he still feared the unpopularity of the act to which he was urged? No: the phraseology points to a different and deeper feeling, growing out of the secret, shuddering respect