still reasonable limits may be assigned, which, with an honest purpose in view, will be a safe guide to the conscience. (1.) In regard to some things, their use and tendency are naturally good, and will always be so in fact, unless they are grossly perverted and abused. This is true of almost all the professions and employments of life, they are almost all useful in their way and degree. (2.) The tendencies and consequences of other things, and of certain transactions, are doubtful. A gunsmith may, in the way of his business, rightfully dispose of a brace of pistols to a stranger as well as to an acquaintance, although he does not know but the stranger may use them in duelling, or to extort the purses of travellers on the highway. An apothecary may rightfully sell arsenic with suitable precautions; because arsenic is used in medicine, and for some other useful purposes, as well as to commit suicide. In such transactions as these, a good man may, as a general rule, be safely engaged. The exceptions consist of those cases, where the doubt is, by some means, converted into certainty or reasonable probability, that evil will be the consequence. (3.) Cases in which the effect must, in the natural course of things, be evil, and only or chiefly evil. For instance, the sale of spirituous liquors, except as a medicine, and the circulation of immoral books whether by sale or otherwise. In neither of these things ought a good man, under any circumstances, to be engaged. I shall dwell for a moment on the latter case, to confirm and illustrate the principle in question. I stand in a bookseller's shop, and observe his customers successively coming in. One orders a Bible, another a lexicon, a third a work of scurrilous infidelity, and a fourth a new licentious romance. If the bookseller takes and executes these several orders with the same willingness, is there no inconsistency, no violation of moral principle? Perhaps this bookseller is so conscious of the mischievous effects of some of his books, that he would not put them into the hands of his children, nor suffer them to be seen in his parlour. But, if he thus knows the evils which they are fitted to inflict on society, can it be right for him to be the agent in diffusing them? Step into the shop of this bookseller's neighbour, a druggist; and there, if a person asks for some arsenic, the salesman begins to be anxious. He considers whether it is probable the buyer wants it for a proper purpose. If he sells it, he cautions the buyer to keep it where others cannot have access to it; and, before he delivers the packet, legibly inscribes upon it, poison. One of these men sells poison to the body, and the other poison to the mind. If the anxiety and caution of the druggist is right, the indifference of the bookseller must be wrong. Add to this, that the druggist would not sell arsenic at all, if it were not sometimes useful; but an immoral or licentious book cannot be useful to any person, or on any occasion whatever. But this point may be usefully pursued still further. Suppose that no printer would commit such a book to his press, and that no bookseller would offer it for sale, the consequence would be, that nine-tenths of these manuscripts would be thrown into the fire, or rather that they would never have been written. The inference is obvious; and, surely, the consideration does not need enforcing, that, although one man's refusal may not prevent immoral books from being published, he is not therefore exempted from the obligation to refuse. A man must do his duty, whether the effects of his conduct be such as he would desire, or otherwise. Such purity of conduct might, no doubt, circumscribe a man's business, and so does purity of conduct in some other employments; but, if this be a sufficient excuse for contributing to demoralize the world, if profit be a good justification for departing from rectitude, it will be easy to defend the most atrocious. crimes. He who is more studious to justify his conduct than to act aright, may say, that, if a person may sell no book that can injure another, he can scarcely sell any book. The answer is, that, although there must be some difficulty in discrimination, though a bookseller cannot always inform himself what the precise tendency of a book is, yet there can be no difficulty in judging, respecting many books, that their tendency is evil, and only evil. If we cannot define the precise line of distinction between the good and the evil, we can still perceive the evil when it has attained to a certain magnitude. He who cannnot distinguish day from twilight, can distinguish it from night. And not only booksellers, but all who are knowingly concerned in the circulation of - immoral and licentious books, to wit, printers, binders, and keepers of circulating libraries, come in for their share of the guilt. But what shall we say of the authors of such books? They stand on a high preeminence of guilt; for, without them, such books would never have existed. I have selected the case of writing and circulating immoral books, to illustrate a general principle. The principle itself ought to be applied to reform and purify several employments which exist among us.* 4. No man can rightfully do any thing on the ground of a special code of professional morals, which he would not do on his own personal responsibility. Judge Hopkinson says, opinions have got a footing among mercantile men, a code of ethics has received a sanction from them, which appear to him to be altogether wanting in sound principles of justice and morality. Again, he says, addressing merchants, "Do not believe that there is one sort of honesty, one code of morality, for your business, and another for your ordinary transactions; that you may deceive and ruin a man in the way of trade, while you would shrink from taking a pin from his pocket; that any thing can be just and honorable in a merchant, that is not so in the man and the citizen, in the gentleman and the Christian. Such distinctions may satisfy the ethics of a vicious cupidity, and quiet the conscience of one who would be honest only for the world's eye, and to avoid the penalties of crime; but can never be sanctioned by a pure and uncorrupted mind."t If there is, among merchants, a special code of professional morals, subversive of the ordinary principles of morals, as this learned jurist asserts; there may be similar codes known to, and practised by, men of other professions. And his denunciation of this special mercantile code, must equally apply to all similar professional codes, customs, and systems, of whatever kind they may be. 5. Every honest man ought to blush to do any act as a member of a committee, corporation, legislature, or other body of men, which he would not be willing to do on his own individual responsibility. That bodies of men act with less rectitude and * Dymond's Principles of Morality, pp. 168, 169. less disinterestedness than individuals, has been affirmed by the most accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and for this an obvious reason has been given. Members of committees, corporations, legislatures, &c., sit with a divided responsibility; and "regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number, than when it is to fall singly on an individual."* This corporation spirit, as it may be called, which belongs, in a greater or less degree, to all associations of whatever kind, should be well known to, and kept in mind by, those who take the lead in directing our charitable, missionary, education, and other similar societies. Their success and usefulness depend on their securing general favor and esteem. To this end, they must pursue their noble objects by none but right means. I am not convinced, that there is any just cause of complaint against these associations; they do honor to our times, and are one of the brightest hopes of the times to come; but their conductors should understand their tendency to this abuse, the besetting sin to which they are most exposed, and guard well against it. * Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist, No. 15. 47 PART SIXTH. A SPECIAL CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN DUTIES AND VIRTUES, OF A CHARACTER PECULIARLY CHRISTIAN; AND A SIMILAR CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN VICES AND EVILS. Not only the gross sensual vices, some of which cannot even be named without shocking the ears of a Christian,* but hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, idolatry, deceit, malignity, backbiting, hating of God, pride, vain-glory, hypocrisy, uncharitableness, invention of evil things, disobedience to parents, covenant-breaking, implacability, want of understanding, want of compassion, covetousness, absence of natural affection, and the like, are ascribed, in Holy Writ, to the flesh lusting against the spirit, and are denounced as damnable vices, which will exclude those who practise them from all hope of the kingdom of God.† On the other hand, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, are called the fruit of the Spirit, and are ascribed to the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. Giving all diligence, we are required to add to our faith, virtue; and to our virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity.§ Christians, as the elect of God, are to put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any. And, above all these things, they are to put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. * 1 Corinthians v. 1. Galatians v. 22. § 2 Peter i. 5-7. † Romans i. 29-31; Gal. v. 17 - 21. Colossians iii. 12-14. |