discordant vileness
of his own degradation, the devouring return of his own passions,
to punish him for his sin, and to purge him of his wrong. The true
retribution of every wicked deed is contained in the recalcitration
of its own motive. What fitter penalty can the soul suffer than
that of being embraced in the hellish atmosphere of its own bad spirit,
to teach it to reform itself and cultivate a better spirit?

What, then, is the meaning of the fear, suffering and horror,
which so often accompany or follow sin? They do not, as has been
commonly supposed, express the indignation and revengefulness of
God. No, at their very darkest, they must suggest the shadow of
his aggrieved will, not the lurid frown of his rage. A part of the
discord which sin is and introduces, they denote the remedial
struggles of nature and grace to restore the perverted being to
its normal condition. If you put your finger in the fire the
burning pain is the reaction of your act, and that pain is not
vengeance, but preservative education. When some frightful disease
seizes on a man, the inflammation and convulsions which succeed
are the violent spring of the constitution on the enemy, its
desperate attempt to shake off the fell grasp, and bring the
organism to health and peace again. These efforts either succeed,
or in the exhausting shocks the body is destroyed. It is the same
with the soul. Sin is the displacement of the hierarchy of
authorities in the soul, the misbalancing of its energies, the
disturbance of its health and peace. And all the varieties of
retribution are the recoil of the injured faculties, the struggles
of the insulted authorities, to vindicate and reestablish
themselves. Now, these efforts, if the soul is indestructible,
must always, at last, be successful. Health in the body is the
harmonious adjustment of its energies with its conditions; and a
sufficient modicum must be obtained or death ensues. Virtue in the
soul is the harmony of its powers with the laws of God; the
measure of this is the measure of spiritual life; and granting the
soul to be immortal, the tendency towards a complete measure of
virtue must ultimately become irresistible, and every hell at last
terminate in paradise. The persistent forces or laws of the divine
environment steadily tend to draw the unstable forces or passions
of all creatures into harmony with them, and that harmony is
redemption. Perdition is consequently never, as the ecclesiastica