he feeling which the moralist has towards sin is so
tame and languid, when compared with the holy abhorrence of the
regenerate mind, lies in the fact that he has not contemplated human
depravity in company with a sin-hating Jehovah. At the very utmost, he
has been shut up merely with a moral sense which he has insulated from
its dread ground and support,--the personal character and holy emotions
of God. What wonder is it, then, that this finite faculty should lose
much of its temper and severity, and though still condemning sin (for it
must do this, if it does anything), fails to do it with that spiritual
energy which characterizes the conscience when God is felt to be
co-present and co-operating. So it is, in other provinces. We feel the
guilt of an evil action more sharply, when we know that a fellow-man
saw us commit it, than when we know that no one but ourselves is
cognizant of the deed. The flush of shame often rises into our face, upon
learning accidentally that a fellow-being was looking at us, when we did
the wrong action without any blush. How much more criminal, then, do we
feel, when distinctly aware that the pure and holy God knows our
transgression. How much clearer is our perception of the nature of moral
evil, when we investigate it along with Him whose eyes are a flame of
fire.

It is, consequently, a very solemn moment, when the human spirit and the
Eternal Mind are reasoning together about the inward sinfulness. When
the soul is shut up along with the Holy One of Israel, there are great
searchings of heart. Man is honest and anxious at such a time. His usual
thoughtlessness and torpidity upon the subject of religion leaves him,
and he becomes a serious and deeply-interested creature. Would that the
multitudes who listen so languidly to the statements of the pulpit, upon
these themes of sin and guilt, might be closeted with the Everlasting
Judge, in silence and in solemn reflection. You who have for years been
told of sin, but are, perhaps, still as indifferent regarding it as if
there were no stain, upon the conscience,--would that you might enter
into an examination of yourself, alone with your Maker. Then would you
become as serious, and as anxious, as you will be in that moment when you
shall be informed that the last hour of your life upon earth has come.

Another effect of this "reasoning together" with God, respecting our
character and conduct, is to render our views _discriminating_. The
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