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THE PORTION OF THE DEPARTED.

WHAT should the Christian parent do with the portion of the departed? Death has removed from his side a beloved wife or child, a son or daughter, and the portion of goods belonging to them, reverts in law to him. What disposition should he make of it? May he grow rich by their death? May he add to his property that which belonged to them, or which parental affection had set apart as their dowry? May this consecrated portion again be secularized, and thrown into the mart, to be periled in the fluctuations of business and trade? We have often revolved these inquiries in our mind, and now throw them out for the consideration of others. The conclusion to which we have come is, that, whatever the law may allow and public opinion sanction, to the contrary, it would be more Christian, useful, and affectionate to devote such property to the cause of the Redeemer. Once given let it remain a gift. And as it can no longer be enjoyed by the dear ones, let it be consecrated to the service of Him who hath redeemed their souls. Could they be consulted, such a disposition doubtless would most accord with their wishes, whose every desire we consulted when they tarried with us on earth, and sweetened our path through this vale of tears.

Our attention has been again directed to this subject by meeting the following touching incident in the Home Journal. It is from the pen of the Poet Willis, who is writing a series of letters from the country to that paper :

"Within a stone's throw from the portico of the hotel, upon a knoll half hidden with the trees, stands one of the most beautiful structures, of its kind, in this country-a stone church of English rural architecture, built by the painter Robert Weir. The story of its construction is a touching poem. When Mr. Weir received ten thousand dollars from the Government for his picture on the panel of the Capitol, he invested it, untouched, for the benefit of his three children. On the death of these three children-all three-soon after, the money reverted to him, but be had a feeling which forbade him to use it. Struck with the favorableness of this knoll under the mountains, as a site for a place of worship, much needed by the village near by, he applied for it to Mr. Cozzens, on whose property it stood, who at once made a free gift for the purpose. The painter's taste and heart were set to work, and with the money left him by his children, he erected this simple and beautiful structure as a memorial of hallowed utility. Its bell for evening service sounded a few minutes ago the tone selected, apparently with the taste which governed all, and making sweet music among the mountains that look down. Mr. Wire named it "The Church of the Holy Innocents."

THE NATURE OF SIN.

BY THE EDITOR.

SIN! How strange is sin! Nothing in the world is more general. It is like the air that is breathed by all. It accommodates itself to all states and grades of human life. It is with the old and young, the learned and unlearned, the rich and poor, the savage and the civilized. Persons may meet from opposite sides of the globe, may differ in their knowledge, belief, customs, language, hopes and fears; and, though they be in nothing congenial, yet do they agree in sinning together, and sympathizing in evil.

Men condemn it, and love it-cast it away, and embrace it-laugh at, and weep over it. It soothes men, and stings them. Men glory in it, and are ashamed of it. The worldly wise man and the stupid fool, join to mock at it the wise man and the fool join in wailing over it.

What is sin? Who shall define it? When have men agreed in regard to it? Philosophers have differed, the schools have differed, the worldy wise have differed, and fools have differed. In the palace and the hovel, in the schools, and on the lowest level of ignorance, ring the words of eternal dispute.

In vain do the blind dispute about colors. In vain do the dead seek to give laws to the living. In vain do we ask a sinner--what is sin? See how men practically answer the question! One says it is the necessity of our nature. One says, it is the road to pleasure and profit. One says, it is man's greatest privilege in this life-the very means by which he is to fulfil his work on earth--he can only get along with it, and without it he can do nothing. He needs it in his business, and he needs it in his amusements! See men laugh while they commit itlaugh at those who do the same-and laugh at those who struggle to avoid it.

Elsewhre must we ask the question, what is sin? In the light of revelationemust we ask. The word of God returns the true answer-an answer in which men acquiesce when they have once learned its nature by experience-when they feel its ultimate terrible power at death, at the judgment, and in hell!

Sin is something awfully solemn, whether we look at it in its nature, or in its fruits. It is not to be mocked at-turned into ridicule-or made into an amusement! Fools-fools only, make a mock at sin!

God veils his face from it in awful aversion, and shuts it up in darkness forever! Jesus weeps over it, and dies to take it away. The Holy Spirit is grieved at it, and retires from it. Angels stand aghast from it in holy amazement. The sainted, crowd up around the throne to which it can never come, and send up hallelujahs forever to Him who has washed them from its leperous stains in His own divine blood! The martyrs have burned and roasted, rather than commit it. In the churc

on earth, all who know its damning power, lie always at the altar in spirit, and cry: "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!"

Behold I fall before thy face;
My only refuge is thy grace;
No outward forms can make me clean;

The leprosy lies deep within

Sin is not a mere idea-not a mere privation of good-not a mere inability of the soul-not a mere soil on its surface-not a mere appendage afflicting it. Not certain acts or thoughts. These are themselves effects. It is a reality in the soul-as much so as the faculties of the soul-as much so as the flesh and blood of the body. It inheres in the soul. It is its motion, its bias, its habit. It is its life; or rather its death. It is a power in the soul stronger than all else in man-stronger than his will, his judgment, his affections, his desires. It masters and moves man as it will. It is in his nature.

It has a basis wider, deeper, stronger, than the individual man. It is in the world, around him and beneath him. It is in the race of which he is only a part. As a bubble-drop of water is on the deeper, broader, stronger, greater stream, so is the individual sinner in the race of sinners. The fountain from which he draws his life is sinful-the very general life in which his individual life rests, is under its power. The whole world in which he lives, and of which he is a part, lieth in wickedness.

Sin is something greater and stronger than a sinner. Sin in an individual sinner is like one of the inner circles of the maelstrom, which is itself under the power of larger, wider circles around it. Fearfully situated is he, who, on one of these smaller circles, rides round, ever nearer to the fearful funnel! Shall he who thus rides-calmly it may be, and in so wide a circuit from the immediate danger that he does not see it shall he mock and smile at the circles which bear him, and gather around him higher at each circuit he makes ?

Sin is not something inflicted upon the spirit by the superior weight and influence of the flesh. The spirit is, in order, before the flesh. The workings of sin are the other way-from the spirit toward the flesh, from the soul on the body, from the inward upon the outward. The lusts of the flesh are not the causes, but the effects of sin in the soul.

In the deepest being of the spirit, there must we seek for sin. In the centre of our life is this virus, which sends out its blight and its death, through every faculty of the soul, and through every vein of the body. "The whole head is sick." "Out of the heart proceed all

motions and acts of sin."

Sin is not, therefore, thrown off with the body, something got clear of by death. Its power and its woe are co-ordinate with the spirit's history; it will adhere to it as a body of death in all eternity. Like conscience, the spirit bears its own sorrows in the eternal presence of sin, as well as in the eternal remembrance of it. "If thou wilt be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself; and if thou scornest, thou alone shalt

bear it." Sin is opposition to God; and, as a consequence, a sundering of the soul from God-the creature separated from its Creator-the life broken away from its source. Every sin is a stroke that cuts a chord, a new remove from Him in whom alone are life and joy.

Sin is the act of negation by the spirit towards God. It ignores His will, in which alone there is freedom. His will being the law, it is a transgression, a going across that law, and an effort to be its own law. Thus the spirit is a "wandering star"-a star out of its orbit.

Sin is the spirit's turning away from the centre and source of its being to another centre-first on itself, and then on the world. Sin is the self-determination of the corrupt and lawless human will, owning nothing greater and better than itself. Sin is love perverted, and seeking itself-terminating on itself. Sin is self, seeking only its own. Sin is life turning in on itself, and consuming itself, without seeking the continuation of itself in God, the original source. As its own limited resources fail, its misery, and want, and woe increase! Sin is self-destruction; the spirit of spiritual suicide.

Behold the member at war with the life in which it rests! Behold the satellite breaking with the sun in whose balance it hangs, and moves, and in whose light it shines. Behold the creature, resting on the hand of the Creator, and smiting him in the face! This is sin!

Sin is, according to scripture testimony, confirmed by all the seeing, and thinking, and experience of men. Sin is a madness, a sleep, a stony heart, a leprous disease, a reigning power of evil, an abiding death. In the head, darkness and perversion. In the understanding, confusion. In the will, bondage. In the conscience, a scaring. In the affections, impurity and degradation. In the desires, lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life. In the senses, morbid disorder and surfeit. In all subordinate faculties and members, self-destruction and wasting disease. In death, the sting and the despair. In the whole history of the spirit, want, vanity and woe.

"Forever wasting, yet enduring still,

Dying perpetually, but never dead!"

Dreadful as sin is, in its own nature, how little do men see the horror that lies in it. This is best seen in its effects. How hard it is to see in the quietly glowing coal, or in the black-headed match, the future conflagration, and the ashes of cities, and the wail of the homeless. How little can we realize that in the gently descending rain lies latent the irresistible flood, devastated fields, and the wreck of navies. So how hard to be convinced that under the smiling face, and the golden dreams of apparently innocent infancy, lie the seeds of a polluted youth, of a hardened manhood, of wrecked old age, of darkness in death, and damnation beyond!

Fools make a mock at it. They cannot deny its fearful existence. They feel its power. They hear and dread its woe. But they make light of it. They endeavor to forget the viper which coils around the heart.

Fools mock at it. Behold the idiot laugh of him whose chains rattle, and whose doom is sealed-who but awaits the sentence, and the hurrying away.

Fools make a mock at it. They banter its power. They defy it

They sport with its contagion, and hang to it with fool-hardy boldness, while it is poisoning their blood.

They mock at it in unbelief. They say: "We shall not surely die. Our feet shall not slide." They believe only that it leads to evil, not that it is evil in itself; that it leads to death, not that it is death.

Fools mock at sin by pretending superiority over it. They regard it as something which they can handle, take up and lay aside, as they please. But, alas! can a man lay by his memory, his conscience, his life? These are the pages in which it is engraven, as by a pen of iron! Superior to it? Why, we are not superior to poison, to pestilence, to malaria! So sin is in the soul; it goes with it as its disease, and no ages can wear it from the memory, or purge it from the conscience! It is the damning spot on the soul, which no tears of repentance, and no flames of hell can obliterate !

Do we fail to realize the awfulness of sin in its nature; we canont be blind to it when we look at its fruits.

1. Aversion to God. Sin is enmity against God. He who was made in the image of God, to stand in His presence in peace, to turn and face his prototype in joy, to respond with full spirit to the divine will, turns away in dislike from the source and end of his being. God called him from the dust; he stood forth and lived; he looked into the face of Him who called him; declared himself disappointed and turned away to the earth again!

Behold every bright surface on earth, stone or water, sends back the image of the sun, moon or star, that shines into it; every flower opens, and odors, and trembles in beauty towards the sun that warms and paints it; every worm and insect creeps forth into the light which has reached its torpid abode; every dog licks the hand, and looks pleasantly into the face of him who feeds him; but man, in sin, turns away from his Sun and Source; smites the hand of the Giver of all His good; spurns and hates His presence, and likes it best the farther he can depart from His glori ous throne. Lo! thus "have your sins separated between you and your God!"

2. Ignorance of God. The emblem of sin is darkness. The empire of sin is an empire of darkness. The element of sin is darkness. end of sin is eternal darkness.

The

The effect of sin is blindness. Those that are in sin do not choose to retain the knowledge of God in their hearts; having their understanding darkened, they are alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, beause of the blindness of their heart. They sit in darkness, walk in darkness, grope in darkness, dwell in darkness, make their bed in darkness, lie down in darkness, the candle of their hope goes out in darkness, and unto them is reserved the blackness of darkness forever!

3. Terror and fear. Sin trembles in view of itself. Fear haunts it in silence. It peoples its own gloom with shapes of terror. It is ever under the power of fearful forebodings. "The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth." The spirit of sin is the spirit of fear. It is cut off from God, and turned to its own resources; and being conscious of powers higher than itself, both evil and good, it is filled with apprehension.

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