must carry with it a righteousness, to say the very least, equal to that in which it was originally created, or it will be cast out as an unprofitable and wicked servant. All the talents entrusted must be returned; and returned with usury.  A modern philosopher and poet represents the suicide as justifying the taking of his own life, upon the ground that he was not asked in the beginning, whether he wanted life.  He had no choice whether he would come into existence or not; existence was forced upon him; and therefore he had a right to put an end to it, if he so pleased.  To this, the reply is made, that he ought to return his powers and faculties to the Creator in as good condition as he received them; that he had no right to mutilate and spoil them by abuse, and then fling the miserable relics of what was originally a noble creation, in the face of the Creator.  In answer to the suicide’s proposition to give back his spirit to God who gave it, the poet represents God as saying to him: 

  “Is’t returned as ’twas sent?  Is’t no worse for the wear? 
  Think first what you are!  Call to mind what you were! 
  I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
  Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope. 
  Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair? 
  Make out the invent’ry; inspect, compare! 
  Then die,—­if die you dare!"[4]

Yes, this is true and solemn reasoning.  You and I, and every man, must by some method, or other, go back to God as good as we came forth from Him.  We must regain our original righteousness; we must be reinstated in our primal relation to God, and our created condition; or there is nothing in store for us, but the blackness of darkness.  We certainly cannot stand in the judgment clothed with original sin, instead of original righteousness; full of carnal and selfish affections, instead of pure and heavenly affections.  This great lack, this great vacuum, in our character, must by some method be filled up with solid, and everlasting excellencies, or the same finger that wrote, in letters of fire, upon the wall of the Babylonian monarch, the awful legend:  “Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting,” will write it in letters of fire upon our own rational spirit.

There is but one method, by which man’s original righteousness and innocency can be regained; and this method you well know.  The blood of Jesus Christ sprinkled by the Holy Ghost, upon your guilty conscience, reinstates you in innocency.  When that is applied, there is no more guilt upon you, than there was upon Adam the instant he came from the creative hand.  “There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”  Who is he that condemneth, when it is Christ that died, and God that justifies?  And when the same Holy Spirit enters your soul with renewing power, and carries forward His work of sanctification to its final completion, your original righteousness returns again, and you are again clothed in that spotless