do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." And again, Rom. viii. 1–9. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and, for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded, is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace: because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God; neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

Now it is, if I mistake not, in this opposition between man's natural inclinations and his sense of duty, that we find the true source of sin, and the true cause of its universality. Sin is the transgression of those laws which God has prescrib ed to us for the purpose of raising us to the rank of spiritual beings; and as all of us have physical bodies, all have incli nations and propensities, inciting us to transgress those laws, Whenever we act under the impulse of our animal inclinations and passions, in opposition to the laws which God has prescribed to us, we sin; and on every repetition of such indulgence, our animal propensities become strengthened, and our obedience to the laws of God more difficult. But, on the other hand, whenever we act under a sense of duty, and with reference to the will of God, we then rise in the scale of being, and become more and more spiritual; and every victory we thus obtain over our animal inclinations, lessens their power over us, and increases our moral power, until we be

come spiritual beings, capable of spiritual happiness, and fit subjects of the spiritual kingdom of Christ.

Perhaps it will be objected to the definition I have given of sin, that, according to it, no one can commit sin but those who are acquainted with the laws prescribed by God for man's government. Now, so far as relates to moral guilt, I believe this to be the case. Such appears to me to have been the opinion of St. Paul, when he tells us, Rom. v. 13, that "sin is not imputed where there is no law;" and such too appears to be the common judgment of mankind. When we read of the cannibalism of the New Zealander; of the robberies of the Arab of the desert; of the cruelties of our North Western Indians, or of the gross sensuality of the Society-Islanders, we may pity and deplore the ignorance of those nations, but we do not connect the idea of moral guilt with their conduct.But when a member of civilized society commits similar acts, we are shocked at the moral turpitude of the transgressor. But although we do not attach the idea of moral guilt to the acts of one unacquainted with God's moral laws, yet we must not think that therefore the acts of such an one produce no injurious effects on him. Every time that he indulges any one of his animal appetites or passions, that appetite or passion acquires new strength by such indulgence. To the natural inclination the force of habit is superadded; and the conversion of such an one to a spiritual life becomes gradually more difficult and more hopeless.

Perhaps some, who have received their ideas as to what man is by nature, more from the exaggerated representations of others, than from personal observation, will think, that the station I have assigned to him in the scale of being is far below that which he does actually occupy. Such I would invite to look around them, and to study man in himself. If they do so, they will find, that the virtuous, however excellent and exalted they may now be, have all become so by severe and painful efforts and self-denial; and that their struggle to obtain the mastery over their animal appetites and passions has been more or less difficult, as they had for a longer or a shorter time been under their dominion. The vicious, on the other hand, they will find to have become so, not by falling from any pristine state of moral elevation, but either by giving themselves quietly up to the guidance of the animal passions and propensities under which they were from the beginning; or by returning to their dominion, after making some feeble and unavailing efforts to obtain the mastery over themselves. Now this is precisely in accordance with the representations I have made of man.

I have thus endeavoured to shew what sin is, and whence it has its origin; and it appears to me, that the views I have taken of this subject possess a decided advantage over the popular faith in hereditary sin and depravity. Towards our own individual reformation, it is of essential service that we should have clear and definite ideas, not only as to the nature and origin of sin, and of the danger of indulging in it: but also as to the means of escaping from its dominion, and of raising ourselves to the rank of spiritual beings. To parents, the views I have taken present strong inducements for teaching their offspring early to act from principle, and under a sense of duty, before their natural tendency to sensual indulgence has become fully developed and strengthened by habit. And to the philanthropist, these views present new motives, to communicate to those who are yet living without hope, and without God in the world, the guidance of that Gospel, which an Apostle emphatically declares to be "the power of God unto salvation."*

H.

The Emancipator of the 4th inst. contains a poem in the German Language, copied from a St. Louis paper, on the death of Dr. Follen, who perished in the ill-fated Lexington. Brother Leavitt calls upon some his correspondents to give him an English version of the lines. Below, he will find a rather liberal translation, which, though falling far short of it in spirit and harmony, may yet serve to give a tolerably correct idea of the original.-Christian Witness.

CHARLES FOLLEN.

Quenched is another star, which burned
With steady light and lustre pure;
Though others from their orbits turned,

Its course on Freedom's path was sure:
Though round it roared the storms of time
And vapours gathered thick and black,
Still onward, in its strength sublime,
It swerved not from its radiant track.

*Rom. i. 16.

A heart that glowed with warmth divine,
Pleading for human rights, is still-
In faith, in courage, how like thine,
Brave HERMANN!-unsubdued by ill!
With lyre and sword amid the fight,
None struck a surer blow than he,
That from the holy seed, there might
Come the rich fruits of Liberty!

ད

A harp-'twas Freedom's own-whose strings
Trembled with music rich and rare,
Like tones some wandering seraph flings
Abroad upon the twilight air,

Lies shattered now-its master-bard

Is gathered with Death's countless throng-
Alas! that henceforth can be heard
Only the echo of his song.

Science! a chosen priest of thine

Is snatched away, whose liberal hand
Flung richest off'ring on thy shrine,
And oped, to his adopted land,
The priceless treasures of his own-
With gifts and graces to adorn
The ranks, where he conspicuous shone,
Of choicest spirits, German-born.

Whilst warred the elements around,

Flood, Frost, and Fire-he heard a call

The fleshly fetter was unbound,

And the freed soul, o'erleaping all,
Soared to the mansions of the blest,
Where pain and sorrow cannot be;
He whom two worlds with love caressed,
Is covered by the soundless sea!

There is an oak tree planted in a costly jar, which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom; the roots expand, the jar is shivered. A lovely, pure, noble and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes a hero, sinks beneath a duty which it cannot bear and must not cast away.-GOETHE.

WHAT

THE BIBLE:

IT IS, AND WHAT IT IS ΝΟΤ.

BY REV. JAMES MARTINEAU.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”— John i. 14.

The Bible is the great autobiography of human nature, from its infancy to its perfection. Whatever man has seen and felt and done on the theatre of this earth, is expressed therein with the simplicity and vividness of personal consciousness. The first wondering impressions of the new-created being, just dropt upon a scene quite strange;-the hardened heart and daring crimes of the long-resident here, forgetting that he dwells in a hospice of the Lord, and not a property of his own; the recalled and penitent spirit, awakened by the voice of Christ, when, to a world grown old and dead in custom, he brought back the living presence of God, and to the first reverence added the maturest love;-all this is recorded there, written down in the happiest moments of inspiration, which have fallen upon our race during the lapse of sixteen centuries. The volume stations us on a spot, well selected as a watchtower, from which we may overlook the history of the world; -an angle of coast between the ancient continents of Africa and Asia, subtended by the newer line of European civilization. Thence have we a neighbouring view of every form of human life, and every variety of human character. The solitary shepherd on the slopes of Chaldæa, watching the changing heavens till he worships them; the patriarch pitching his tent in the nearer plain of Mamre; the Arab, half merchant, half marauder, hurrying his fleet dromedaries across the sunny desert; the Phoenician commerce gladdening the Levant with its sails, or, on its way from India, spreading its wares in the streets of Jerusalem; the urban magnificence of Babylonia, and the sacerdotal grandeur of Egypt; all are spread beneath our eye, in colours vivid, but with passage swift. Even the echo of Grecian revolutions, and the tramp of Roman armies, and the incipient rush of Eastern nations, that will overwhelm them both, may be distinctly heard; brief agents, every one, on this stage of Providence, beckoned forward by the finger of Omnipotence, and waved off again by the signals of mercy

ever new.