chance ball, and fell dead under his
burden. The officer, immediately forgetting his wound, rose up, tearing
his hair; and, throwing himself on the bleeding body, he cried, "Ah,
Valentine! and was it for me, who have so barbarously used thee, that
thou hast died? I will not live after thee." He was not by any means to
be forced from the corpse; but was removed with it bleeding in his arms,
and attended with tears by all his comrades, who knew of his harshness
to the deceased. When brought to a tent, his wounds were dressed by
force; but the next day, still calling on Valentine, and lamenting his
cruelties to him, he died in the pangs of remorse and despair.

This surely is a striking story; but the commonplace remark based upon
it by the philosopher is greatly less so. Men who have loved _do_ often
learn to hate the object of their affections; and men who have hated
sometimes learn to love: but the portion of the anecdote specially
worthy of remark appears to be that which, dwelling on the o'ermastering
remorse and sorrow of the rescued soldier, shows how effectually his
poor dead comrade had, by dying for him "while he was yet his enemy,"
"heaped coals of fire upon his head." And such seems to be one of the
leading principles on which, with a Divine adaptation to the heart of
man, the scheme of Redemption has been framed. The Saviour approved his
love, "in that while we were yet sinners, He died for us." There is an
inexpressibly great power in this principle; and many a deeply-stirred
heart has felt it to its core. The theologians have perhaps too
frequently dwelt on the Saviour's vicarious satisfaction for human sin
in its relation to the offended justice of the Father. How, or on what
principle, the Father was satisfied, I know not, and may never know. The
enunciation regarding vicarious satisfaction may be properly received in
faith as a _fact_, but, I suspect, not properly reasoned upon until we
shall be able to bring the moral sense of Deity, with its requirements,
within the limits of a small and trivial logic. But the thorough
adaptation of the scheme to man's nature is greatly more appreciable,
and lies fully within the reach of observation and experience. And how
thorough that adaptation is, all who have really looked at the matter
ought to be competent to say. Does an earthly priesthood, vested with
alleged powers to interpose between God and man, always originate an
ecclesiastical tyranny, which has the eff