righteous, as soon as he ceases to aspire towards a higher goodness. First, then, we impute self-righteousness as a sin, chiefly where self-consciousness has been developed; for this is the stage in which there ought to be life and growth. Perhaps the difference between it and a good conscience is not developed in the earliest stages; but when a warmer and more active life of the soul has commenced, a check to its current cannot be endured without mischief. Secondly, it differs widely from a Good Conscience, inasmuch as the self-complacent man measures his present attainments with some arbitrary finite standard, and admires or approves himself as a result of the comparison. This standard may be a sort of average, struck from the apparent goodness of men in general, or may be an invention of his own; but in all cases the standard is finite, and is already reached by him. But the sacred happiness of a heart which knows it is known of God, is not derived from approving its own attainments; but from the very acting of its insatiable desires, and from its sympathy with the Source of life and joy. Its outcry is after Perfection. It longs after God's own holiness; for this it would give Earth and Heaven. It no sooner effects one conquest, than it aspires after another. While it does not renounce the world, in any such sense as not to have a thousand objects of worldly interest and desire; yet the one desire,― to please God, so predominates over all, that for personal attainment, the soul counts all things as in comparison valueless. And (where the spiritual stage of develop ment has been reached,) the consciousness of this infinite longing to be more and more like to the Only Perfect one seems to be the essence of a Good Conscience. He who breathes forth this steady desire after God's holiness, he is upright, he is reconciled, he is humble; and is truly in peace of conscience, even when most full of sacred contrition. He has no finite standard of goodness; for although what he dimly imagines as Perfection is only a limited idea of his own mind, it is both above what he has yet reached, and it rises the moment he seems about to reach it. This state of things is the exact reverse of selfrighteousness, which is stagnation. . - But what then is that, of which so many devout persons speak, daily repentance and daily forgiveness? Can it be all emptiness and morbid feeling? I am far, indeed, from saying so. I have said that we must distinguish between our failures through want of power in the spiritual affections, and failures from a double mind and a traitorous will; and must lament, indeed, but on no account scourge ourselves, on account of the former. But there is also a third class intermediate to these two, which is not to be overlooked; namely, when we fall short of our own discerned standard through a weakness of spiritual affection which may possibly be imputed to our own negligences or indolence. As our experience grows, our strength ought to grow, and to plead weakness is not always an adequate exculpation. In the further advance of spiritual life, it may seem that the affections themselves become virtually to a great extent at our call. Not that we are able at will to bid them exist and act, and that in any intensity we choose; yet experience shows us ways of courting pure and holy feeling; and if we apprehend that we have neglected these, we necessarily blame ourselves. But this is widely different from having to repent daily of deliberately wilful sin; a thing which is absolutely irreconcilable with any but a spasmodic acting of spiritual life, and must imply a state of frequent misery proportioned to the spiritual light and sincerity of the individual. It may be conceived of in one who is struggling against some fierce impulsive passion, which every day more or less overcomes him, and causes him the bitter anguish of apparently useless repentances. Let us pity, and if possible, aid such an one, and throw no stone at him; God may at length make him stand firm. But let us not represent his unhappy and convulsive state as the standard life which alone can be proposed for human attainment; or confound the diffidence of the successful warrior, who dares not claim the crown because he thinks he might have pushed his victory further, with the self-reproach of the unwary soldier whose back is covered with dishonorable gashes. The sacred complaint and sorrow, which holy men, when they have done their best, still daily pour forth, may be called Repentance, if so they please; but there is in it far more of the sweet and tender, than of the bitter. It is neither remorse, nor self-reproach; and is little else than the outbreaking of fervent desire for a higher perfection. F. W. Newman. While the moral conceptions are in clear advance of the actions, there is a secret shame which forbids repose; a sense of sorrowful aspiration impels the will to earnest effort, and sends it panting after the divine form that invites it on. At length Faith and Resolution, overtake the image; the interval is conquered, and that which was a vision in the past is a reality of the present; the outer and the inner life concur, and for a while the healthy joy of a good conscience touches the features with its light. But, in this absence of moral confusion, and under the shelter of a sacred peace, the energies of a pure mind, released from severer action, push forward to the seizure of higher thoughts. The conscience, wounded and bleeding no more, and cherished by the healthful air of God's approval, is sure to open into nobler dimensions. It is the chief good of a well-ordered structure of habits, that it protects the living soul within, frees it from new dangers, and gives it leave to grow; and so the sentiments of duty burst from their confinement, and leave the life again behind; restoring the spirit to its strife, till the intolerable chasm be traversed as before. This systole and diastole of the moral nature is as truly needful to its vital action, as the pulsations of the heart to our physical existence. Only, their period is indefinitely various, from a moment to a life. In nobler men the period of the soul is quicker; for a while they fulfil their moral aims, and after conquest, enjoy the victory; they pitch their tent upon the field, and not without a glad thanksgiving, accept a brief repose. But high hearts are never long without hearing some new call, some distant clarion of God, even in their dreams, and soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, and start on some fresh march of faithful service. And finally, looking higher still, we find those who never wait till their moral work accumulates, and who reward resolution with no rest; whose worship is action, and whose action ceaseless aspiration. This last case fulfils our conception of an angel-mind. To higher natures it belongs to have nothing discordant, nothing intermittent; their thought ever advancing, their will never lingering, the disturbance between them is annihilated as fast as it is created; and with activity more glorious than ours, they substitute for our human periodicity a divine constancy. Martineau. There is no excellence in mere outward self-denial, when it surpasses what morality may claim; nor can any thing but self-righteousness or morbid consciences be generated by enjoining in the abstract such sacrifices. Indeed this is only part of a wider doctrine; namely, that the great and universal spiritual duty is to Be, not to Act, nor to Suffer. Moral actions have a value in themselves, and at any rate require no more in the actor than general sincerity of good intention; but the value of (what is intended for) outward Spiritual action is often indefinitely small, even when very rightly meant. Transcendental acts of Duty, performed without Insight, one's goods to the Poor, or to the Church, as, to give are of very |