d to their notice. It is not until the mind is
under the gracious influence of the Spirit of God, that men feel any
anxiety to stop the torrent of evil, and endeavour to become the
humble instruments of converting the sinner and saving his soul. Many,
in fact, who feel deeply interested in their neighbours' temporal
comforts and prosperity, feel little anxious to supply their spiritual
wants; and to this may be traced the opposition which is not
unfrequently made, even by professing Christians, to institutions
which have a direct tendency to improve the moral and spiritual
condition of the human race.

Now there are many reasons which induce a truly converted man to
labour for the spiritual benefit of others. First, there is the
dishonour which men, in an unconverted state, cast upon God. This
feeling operated on the mind of the psalmist, when he exclaimed (Ps.
cxix. 53), "Horror hath taken hold of me, because of the wicked who
forsake thy law." For when men forsake God's law, they declare that
they are little impressed with a sense of the divine majesty and
infinite goodness of the Almighty; that they are not anxious to know
his will; that his threatenings alarm them not; that his promises in
no way affect their hearts; that, in fact, they are not desirous of
that favour which rests upon those only who walk in the path of his
commandments. The psalmist's zeal and jealousy for the glory of God
were fully manifested by his anxiety to erect a house, in some
respects suitable for the divine worship; by his earnest expressions,
that the divine glory should be made known throughout the world, as
when he exclaims "Tell it out among the heathen, that the Lord
reigneth;" and this holy desire rendered every action, by which there
was the most slight appearance of dishonour being cast upon Jehovah,
abominable in his sight. When he reflected on his own departure from
the law of his God, on those acts which had caused the enemies of the
truth to blaspheme, he was indeed filled with horror. The language
uttered, when from the depths he supplicated the divine forgiveness,
powerfully demonstrates the agony of his soul--convinces us that his
repentance was sincere, and that he was anxious that in every action
of his life he might for the future glorify that Being whose gracious
hand had conducted him through his earthly pilgrimage--whose favour
had raised him to the throne of Israel--the light of whose countenance
had cheered him in m