have blasphemed the Spirit, and severed himself from all possibility of
repentance. We would say to every despairing soul seeking salvation, that
if you are capable of having the least godly sorrow on account of your
sin, or a real, inward desire to serve God, you can rest assured that you
have not committed the unpardonable sin. If you feel the Spirit of God
telling you that you ought to be saved, then salvation is for you. The
unpardonable sin deprives a person of the desire to will to love and serve
God and obey the truth. So in the language of Scripture we continue to
hold out the blessed invitation--"Whosoever _will_, let him take the water
of life freely." Amen.

The Conscience.

When we behold the mechanism of man, we are made to exclaim with the
Psalmist, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are thy works;
and that my soul knoweth right well." Man is so constituted as to
experience a feeling of joy when a desired object is obtained, or a
feeling of disappointment if it is not obtained. When danger approaches he
intuitively seeks to avert it, and experiences a feeling of gladness if he
succeeds. Among the elements of man's moral nature the highest and most
important, perhaps, is the conscience. Conscience is a principle which God
has placed in man's moral being to teach him what is right and what is
wrong. Some have said that conscience is the "voice of God in the soul."
It is a voice that is inaudible to the ear, but we feel it speaking in us,
saying, "This action is right," or, "That action is wrong." We believe
that Solomon was referring to the conscience when he said, "The spirit of
man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the
belly." Prov. 20:27.

Where there is no known law, conscience becomes our guide and the standard
by which we are judged. For proof of this we will quote Rom. 2:14, 15:
"For when the Gentiles, which have not a law, do by nature [a kind of
intuitive knowledge of right] the things contained in the law, these,
having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which shew the work of the
law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and
their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another." In
many circumstances of life we have no written law of God to guide our
actions, consequently must be directed by reason and conscience, which are
highly analogous. To be perfectly and properly directed by the conscience
necessi