man assert this even of himself, he is not to be believed; he lies to his own heart,—­and this he may do without being conscious of it.  But how can this be?  Nothing more easy:  by a simple dislocation of words; by the aid of that false nomenclature which began with the first Fratricide, and has continued to accumulate through successive ages, till it reached its consummation, for every possible sin, in the French Revolution.  Indeed, there are few things more easy; it is only to transfer to the evil the name of its opposite.  Some of us, perhaps, may have witnessed the savage exultation of some hardened wretch, when the accidental spectator of an atrocious act.  But is such exultation pleasure?  Is it at all akin to what is recognized as pleasure even by this hardened wretch?  Yet so he may call it.  But should we, could we look into his heart?  Should we not rather pause for a time, from mere ignorance of the true vernacular of sin.  What he feels may thus be a mystery to all but the reprobate; but it is not pleasure either in the deed or the doer:  for, as the law of Good is Harmony, so is Discord that of Evil; and as sympathy to Harmony, so is revulsion to Discord.  And where is hatred deepest and deadliest?  Among the wicked.  Yet they often hate the good.  True:  but not goodness, not the good man’s virtues; these they envy, and hate him for possessing them.  But more commonly the object of dislike is first stripped of his virtues by detraction; the detractor then supplies their place by the needful vices,—­perhaps with his own; then, indeed, he is ripe for hatred.  When a sinful act is made personal, it is another affair; it then becomes a part of the man; and he may then worship it with the idolatry of a devil.  But there is a vast gulf between his own idol and that of another.

To prevent misapprehension, we would here observe, that we do not affirm of either Good or Evil any irresistible power of enforcing love or exciting abhorrence, having evidence to the contrary in the multitudes about us; all we affirm is, that, when contemplated abstractly, they cannot be viewed otherwise.  Nor is the fact of their inefficiency in many cases difficult of solution, when it is remembered that the very condition to their true effect is the complete absence of self, that they must clearly be viewed ab extra; a hard, not to say impracticable, condition to the very depraved; for it may well be doubted if to such minds any act or object having a moral nature can be presented without some personal relation.  It is not therefore surprising, that, where the condition is so precluded, there should be, not only no proper response to the law of Good or Evil, but such frequent misapprehension of their true character.  Were it possible to see with the eyes of others, this might not so often occur; for it need not be remarked, that few things, if any, ever retain their proper forms in the atmosphere of self-love; a fact that will account