fairly imputed. A person passes us in the street without speaking, and we immediately believe that it was an act of intentional insult-forgetting that it is probable he did not see us, or was so immersed in thought as not to recognize us. A general remark is made in conversation, which we suppose, with no other evidence than its applicability to us, was intended to expose us before the company, when, perhaps, the individual who made it had no more reference to us than to a man on the other side of the globe. A thousand cases might be mentioned, and in which, of two motives that may be imputed, we choose the evil one. If a person has previously injured us, we are peculiarly propense to this unchristian practice of thinking evil of him. We can scarcely allow ourselves to believe that he can do anything relating to us, but from an improper inducement; we suspect all his words and all his actions: nor is the propensity less strong in those cases where we have been the aggressors; we then set down everything done by the injured person to the influence of revenge.

The evil of such a disposition is manifest. It is explicitly and frequently prohibited in God's Word. This is the censoriousness forbidden by our Lord, where he says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged;" and which is condemned by Paul, where he says,

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Judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." James commands us "Not to speak evil one of another; for he that speaketh evil of his brother, judgeth his brother." "Evil surmisings" are

placed by the Apostle among the sins which oppose the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is an invasion of the prerogative of Deity, who alone can search the heart, and read the motives of the breast. It is injurious to the character of our brethren, and disturbs the peace of society. Half of the broils which arise in the world, and of the schisms which spring up in the church, may be traced to this wicked propensity of " thinking evil;" for if men think evil, it is an easy step to speak evil, and then to do evil: so that the origin of many quarrels will be found in the false impressions of a suspicious mind-the misapprehension of a censorious judgment. It is a disposition which our own observation and experience are quite sufficient, if we would be guided by them, to correct. How often, how very often, have we found ourselves mistaken in this matter! How frequently has subsequent evidence shown us our error in imputing a bad motive to an action, which, at the time, to say the worst of it, was only of a doubtful character! We have discovered that, to have originated in accident, which. we once thought to have been the result of design; and have found that, to have proceeded from ignorance, which we had hastily set down to malice. How many times have we blushed and grieved over our precipitancy, and yet, in opposition to our experience and to our resolutions, we still go on to think evil.

But love thinketh no evil:" this divine virtue delights to speak well and think well of others: she talks of their good actions, and says little or nothing, except when necessity compels her, of their bad

ones. She holds her judgment in abeyance as to motives, till they are perfectly apparent. She does not look round for evidence to prove an evil design, but hopes that what is doubtful will, by farther light, appear to be correct; she imputes not evil, so long as good is probable; she leans to the side of candour rather than to that of severity; she makes every allowance that truth will permit; looks at all the circumstances which can be pleaded in mitigation; suffers not her opinions to be formed till she has had opportunity to escape from the mist of passion, and to cool from the wrath of contention. Love desires the happiness of others; and how can she be in haste to think evil of them?

If it be asked, Do all good men act thus? I again reply, They act thus just in proportion as they are under the influence of Christian charity. The Apostle does not say that every man who is possessed of charity does so, but that charity itself thinketh no evil; and therefore implies that every good man will act thus in the same degree in which he submits to the influence of this virtue. Divine grace! hasten thy universal reign on earth, and put an end to those evil surmisings by which the comfort of mankind and the fellowship of the saints are so much disturbed!

CHAPTER XIII.

THE JOY OF LOVE,

"Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth."

KEEPING up the personification of love as presented by the Apostle, we may observe that it has its joys and its sorrows; and its smiles and its tears are the expressions of good will-the tokens of benevolence. We are first told in what it does not take complacency-" It rejoiceth not in iniquity."

Sin is, in itself, an evil of enormous magnitude. As committed against a Being whom we are under infinite obligation to love, and serve, and glorify, it must partake of infinite degrees of demerit. It is a violation of that law which, as an emanation from the perfection of the Deity, is itself perfect, and well deserves the eulogium pronounced upon it by the Apostle, when he declares it to be "holy, and just, and good." As this is the rule of government to the moral universe, and intended to preserve its order, dependence, and harmony; sin, by opposing its authority, disturbs this order, breaks this dependence, and seeks to introduce the reign of confusion and misery. None, but the infinite mind, is competent to calculate the mischief which is likely to be

produced by a single act of sin, if left to itself without a remedy, or without a punishment. We have only to see what sin has done, to judge of its most evil and hateful nature. All the misery which either is or ever will be on earth, or in hell, is the result of sin. It is the greatest evil-the only evil in the universe. It is the opposite, and the enemy to God; the contrast to all that is pure and glorious in his divine attributes, and ineffably beautiful perfections; and, as such, it is that which he cannot but hate with a perfect hatred. It is not merely the opposite of his nature, but the opponent of his government-the rebel principle that disputes with him for his seat of majesty and the dominion of the universe, saying to him, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;" seeking to cast him down from the throne which he hath prepared in the heavens, and to rise, with impious usurpation, into the holy place of the high and lofty One. Sin would thus stop the fountain of life and blessedness, by ending the reign of infinite beneficence; and is, therefore, the enemy of everything that constitutes the felicity of the various orders of rational existence. The happiness of angels and archangels, of cherubim and seraphim, and of the spirits made perfect above, as well as of those who are renewed by the grace of God on earth, arises from holiness; separate and apart from holiness, there can be no happiness for an intellectual being. Now sin is the contrary of holiness, and thus the enemy of happiness. How, then, can love delight in iniquity? If it wills the felicity of rational beings, it must hate that which directly resists and extinguishes it.