ing the will of their master, and yet doing things worthy of stripes. Their ignorance is comparative, not absolute; which mitigates their desert of punishment. This is the uniform representation of the subject in the Bible, with only one apparent exception. Paul declares in his sermon on Mars Hill, Acts xvii, 30, that God winked at the ignorance of former ages, but now commandeth all men every where to repent. But this language can mean no more than the forbearance, with which God had looked upon the sins and impenitence of the heathen, in consideration of their partial ignorance; not that he acquitted them of all blame. For the Bible else where charges them with guilt, and represents the wrath of God to be revealed from heaven against their wickedness. Rom. i, 18, 19. Hence, as a person is manifestly not culpable for actions which are naturally wrong, as murder and idolatry, if he is impelled by an unequivocal sense of duty to do them, we see no way of reconciling the fact with the Bible, but by denying that such an unhesitating belief is possible. A perfectly pure conscience belongs to those only, who, with pure motives, do acts which are not naturally wrongwhich are to them in every sense right. It often happens that the mind decides, in view of certain considerations, that a given act ought to be performed, which, in view of other considerations of higher authority, it decides ought not to be done; at least not at present, not with existing feelings, not until some prior act or further deliberation. This feeling of the mind, that we ought to reflect, or ought to do some other thing before we proceed to a given action, which we deem to be our duty, is a dictate of conscience paramount to that which urges us to perform that given action. It takes precedence of it; it speaks decisively, without hesitation, with

out ambiguity; it must be obeyed before the conscience can insist unequivocally on the performance of the other act. Thus in all cases, in which a person thinks himself under obligation to do that which God forbids, he would, on reflection, see reasons for a different opinion. This prior reflection, or a candid and full examination of the subject, is demanded by the conscience before it can pronounce an unequivocal approval on our conduct. Although a religious bigot, under the influence of pride and malignity, may feel he ought to persecute heretics, yet his self-approbation can not endure the ordeal of calm inquiry, such as his conscience requires. He must feel on reflection, that he is acting with wrong feelings, or without due deliberation. We must admit it to be universally true, that conscience thus demands, first of all, an honest and full examination of the question of duty, and that such an examination never leaves the mind in incertitude, at least not bound by an unhesitating belief that a wrong action is right and obligatory; or else that God has placed us in a condition, where we can not ascertain his will.

We have discussed this point at length, because it is only by an accumulation of probabilities, that the result can be established.

While, however, it seems certain that every voluntary act of a moral agent, which to him is naturally wrong, is also morally wrong; his ignorance may very much palliate the criminality of his conduct. The degrees of guilt, which mankind contract by violating the same law, depend on various circumstances, familiar to all, such as their respective ages, professions, information, and even habits which are the result of their own conduct. strictly temperate person who believes the use of intoxicating drinks to be unlawful, and has strong hab

A

its of self-control, would incur more guilt than a common drunkard by deliberately drinking to intoxication. The question, therefore, arises, whether man is responsible for all the natural results of his misconduct. It is the opinion of President Wayland, that a person may be equitably punished for acts, which at the time he thought it his duty to do, because his conscience was blinded by previous misconduct. This notion embraces the hypothesis, which we have endeavored to refute, that a person may be unequivocally impelled by his conscience, to do that, which is naturally wrong; and then, to relieve the difficulty, which attends the supposition, that he is blameless for such acts, affirms that he is guilty, because, if he had always done his duty, he would not have mistaken it in the present case. This is manifestly throwing the whole guilt of the agent, whatever it may be, back upon the misdeeds which lead to his present blindness. It virtually asserts that he is not directly guilty, that he may even deserve commendation, for the actions of to-day, though they are naturally wrong; but that he contracted the same amount of guilt by the previous misconduct, from which his mistake arises, which he would incur by performing his present actions with a full conviction of their unlawfulness.

This hypothesis is carried still farther by the supposition, that a person may be justly held responsible, for whatever amount of virtue and usefulness he would have attained, by a life of undeviating obedience to the moral law-that no present incapacity to do good, which is the result of past negligence, or crime, absolves from the obligation of doing it.

"Man," our author says, "is created with moral and intellectual powers, capable of progressive improvement. Hence, if he use his faculties as he ought, he

will progressively improve; that is, beHe is assured of enjoying all the bene come more and more capable of virtue. fits which can result from such improvement. If he use these faculties as he ought not, and become less and less capable of virtue, he is hence held responsible for all the consequences of his misimprovement. Now as this misimprovement is his own act, it manifestly does not affect the relations under which he is these relations; that is, he stands in created, nor the obligations resulting from respect to the moral requirements under which he is created, precisely in the his moral powers correctly." same condition as if he had always used

"As he is at this moment responsible for such a capacity for virtue, as would have been attained by a previously perfect rectitude; and as his capacity is inferior to this; and as no reason can be suggested why his progress in virtue should, under these circumstances, be more rapid than that of a perfect being, but the confall short of what is justly required of trary; it is manifest that he must ever him-nay, that he must be continually falling farther and farther behind it."

"And hence, although it were shown that

his being, incapable of that degree of vira man was, at any particular period of tue which the law of God required, it would neither follow that he was not under obligation to exercise it, nor that he was not responsible for the whole amount of that exercise of it; since, if he have dwarfed his own powers, he is responsible for the result. And, conversely, if it will not prove that man is now capable God require this whole amount of virtue, of exercising it; but only that he is either thus capable, or that he would have been so, if he had used correctly the powers which God gave him."-Moral Science, pp. 93, 4, 5.

These opinions we think erroneous. Suppose, for illustration, that A and B commence life together, with similar advantages. A embraces all his opportunities of selfimprovement, and becomes distinguished for piety and usefulness. B takes a different course, and sinks into vice and imbecility. The result is, that A now recognizes and performs cheerfully a multitude of duties, to which B is either incompetent or indisposed. Is B responsible for failing to do from day to day the same amount of good which A accomplishes, or which he would do if not prevented by past mis

conduct? To this it may be replied:

So far as the previous misconduct of B has merely increased his aversion to right moral conduct, his present duty is what it would have been, if his past conduct had been right. A mere indisposition and in aptitude to right conduct, since it is no proper inability to do his duty, is no excuse for omitting it.

So far as his past misconduct has destroyed his capacity or proper ability to do good, he is under no obligation to do good. He is responsible for only that amount of piety and well-doing to which he is now competent. The talents, the knowledge, the health, the influence, which he might have acquired, and which he is guilty for having failed to acquire, he does not now possess. A can, therefore, do more good than he, and more than he is under obligation to do. His present powers are all which he can refuse to devote to God, and all which he can choose to prostitute.

The

The criminality of each wrong act of the life of B, is measured by the violence with which he then resisted his obligations. This is the reason why wrong actions are aggravated in proportion to the light which the agent possesses respecting the nature of his conduct. more he knows of the moral turpitude of an action, and of its bad effects, the more criminality he contracts by performing it. The clearer his conviction is, that he ought not to do an act, the more guilt he contracts by doing it, because he resists more powerful motives to obedience. Thus, every foreseen and probable bad consequence of an action aug. ments the guilt of the act, because the agent chooses, for the sake of forbidden gratification, to give birth to those evils. The bad disposition which he manifests, acts with different degrees of intensity, in proportion as the counteractive influences which it encounters and overcomes

increase in power. This disposition measures the guilt of the agent, because he is worthy of the displeasure of God in proportion to the violence with which his will resists his duty.

ers.

B, then, is not responsible for all the unhappy results of his misconduct. In consequence of previous negligence and crime, he is now unable, in many respects, to do the good of which he might have be come the author. His sins have reduced him to want, to disease, to mental imbecility. Repentance itself will not completely repair the injury which he has done to his powHe can not serve God with the ability of A. Nor, as we have seen, is he now under equal obligations. His present duty is bounded by his present capacity. Neither are the acts which have led to this incapaci ty chargeable with the same amount of guilt which he would incur, if, possessing the requisite power, he should now refuse to perform the duties for which he has neglected to qualify himself. His past miscon duct is loaded with that amount of guilt only, which was contracted at the time by the violence which he did to obligation. The results, which it was impossible for him to antici. pate, had no effect on the moral quality of his actions. Because a person steals a pin in his youth, he may in manhood steal a horse; but in stealing the pin, he may contract no more guilt than by a like act in subsequent life, and probably less, since in mature life he sins against clearer light. So far as he knew, in childhood, the effect of small thefts on character, and anticipated as probable the consequent crime of horse-stealing, his guilt in stealing the pin was enhanced. But since many of the bad consequences of wrong conduct it is impossible to foresee, they are not to be considered in estimating the guilt of the agent. Take a familiar case: A man, who knows he can not drink

wine freely without losing his reason, drinks to excess, and in a fit of derangement kills his wife and children, whom in his sober moments he tenderly loves. In this dreadful act he is not a moral agent. Is he then guilty? Not for this act. He manifestly contracts no guilt in doing what he has no free agency in doing. Of what then is he guilty? Of the act of consenting to expose himself to the possibility of such a distressing deed. His criminality is not precisely that which he would have incurred, if he had foreseen the result, not that which would have accrued if he had killed his wife and children in his sane moments, but that which is involved in his consenting, for gross pleasure, to expose his family to the fury of a maniac. Thus, too, if a man sells ardent spirits to a drunkard, and the drunkard is consequently thrown from his horse and killed, though the vender is guilty, he is not guilty to that precise amount which he would have incurred, if he had murdered his customer, or if he had foreseen the consequent catastrophe. This might, if necessary, be made still more evident, by less doubtful examples of the same general charac

ter.

Suppose a man cuts off his hand, to avoid fulfilling an engage ment to labor. Is he responsible for all the results? What if, in process of time, he stands on the bank of a stream, in which a fellow creature is struggling, and, without assistance, must perish? What if he can not render this assistance, solely because he has only one hand? He stands an afflicted spectator of the death of his brother, lamenting his inability to rescue him. Is he as truly guilty of the crime of murder as he would have been if he had not maimed himself, and had stood there withholding voluntarily the relief in his power? Or did he, when he cut off his hand, contract the guilt of murder? The answer is obvious. He could not rationally have antici

pated the loss of life, as one of the consequences of his act, much less have certainly foreknown it, and hence he is not guilty of the crime of murder.

Thus, universally, the acts which occasion an incapacity of doing good, which it was impossible to foresee, are not chargeable with guilt for the subsequent omission of what would otherwise have been obligatory. Nor is any thing more required of a person, than the right. use of his present powers.

But is not man responsible at the outset of life, for the highest excellence to which he would attain by uninterrupted acts of duty during his whole life? Certainly not. He is not responsible to-day for the conduct of futurity. He is responsible for his actions as they rise from day to day. He is bound to use his powers in discharging his whole duty as it meets him. But if at any time he fails to do so, and this failure impairs his capacity for virtue, he will subsequently be responsible for that amount of virtue only, to which his impaired capacity is adequate. Were it true that man's natural capacity for moral excellence is not affected by his misconduct, but only his moral disposition, it might be said that he must answer for that amount of virtue and usefulness, to which undeviating obedience to God would lead him; for this would only be saying that he will be responsible for all these duties as they rise, and this on the ground that he will have capacity to do them. Since, however, it is true, that the misdeeds of to-day may result in diminishing his capacity for virtue and usefulness, to an extent, which in early life particularly he could not anticipate, it is manifest he did not incur the same guilt when he committed them, which he would have contracted if all these results had been foreseen.

But although no one is responsible, at the commencement of life, for all the personal excellence and

usefulness to which uninterrupted acts of duty would lead, he is responsible from day to day for the right use of all his powers. He is bound, to the full extent of his capacity, to do good, and in all his acts to obey God. At the last tribunal, he will be called to render an account for the use of his powers at each successive period of his life, not for the use of powers which he might have attained, but for those which he actually had. He will be held guilty for all the misconduct, as idleness, waste of time, intemperance, prodigality, impiety, which dwarfed his powers, or prevented their full development; yet his guilt in these acts will be estimated, not by the actual results, but by the violence with which, at the time of doing them, he resisted his obligations.

Here it is proper to remark, that the guilt of an act is enhanced by the apprehension of the agent that bad results may follow, although his suspicion may be wholly groundless. Every circumstance which presents to his mind a reason why the act ought not to be done, augments the guilt of performing it. Hence the misdeeds of to-day may be loaded with greater criminality than would be incurred by the agent if he could foresee all the results. It is plain, if a person is subject to fits of insanity, from the use of wine, that he would contract far less guilt by drinking to intoxication, if he could be positively assured he should do no harm to others, than he actually incurs when he knows the result to be uncertain.

IN 1838, when the capital of the then existing banking institutions in Mississippi amounted to forty five millions of dollars, the legislature of that state incorporated the Mississippi Union Bank, with an additional capital of fifteen and a half million dollars. The funds of this latter institution were not to be furnished by stockholders, but were to be supplied by the state. For this purpose bonds to the amount of five millions of dollars, executed, as we suppose, in the usual form, and bearing date, June, 1838, were delivered under the law incorporating this institution, by the governor of the state to the managers of the bank. The managers sold these bonds in August, to Mr. Biddle, the president of the United States Bank

*The signification given to this word throughout the following article, has become so popular and almost technical, that no apology is supposed to be necessary for having adopted it here.

of Pennsylvania. The credit of this last institution was then unshaken, and these bonds were thrown im mediately into the European mar ket, and were there speedily disposed of to a large amount to pur chasers; a small amount being at the same time sold in the United States. The bonds were executed in the proper form, pledging the faith of the state on their face, and there was nothing on their face which could induce the purchaser to inquire whether any conditions which had been originally prescri bed by the constitution or laws of the state, as precedent to the validity of their sale and transfer, had been in fact complied with. The great body of these purchasers became so un doubtedly bona fide, buying the bonds at the fair market price, and they were thus as they supposed, both equitably and legally, the credi tors of the state. When the interest which was semi-annually payable