There are some other modifications of this attribute, but the foregoing may suffice to illustrate sufficiently the various departments over which this attribute presides.

This attribute, though stern in its spirit and manifestations, is nevertheless one of prime importance in all governments of moral agents whether human or Divine. Indeed without it government could not exist. It is vain for certain philosophers to think to disparage this attribute, and to dispense with it altogether in the administration of government. They will, if they try the experiment, find to their cost and confusion that no one attribute of benevolence can say to another, "I have no need of thee." In short, let any one attribute of benevolence be destroyed or overlooked, and you have destroyed its perfection, its beauty, its harmony, its propriety, its glory. It is no longer benevolence, but a sickly, and inefficient, and limping sentimentalism, that has no God, no virtue, no beauty, or form, or comeliness in it, that when we see it we should desire it.

This attribute stands by, nay it executes law. It aims to secure commercial honesty. It aims to secure public and private integrity and tranquility. It says to violence, disorder, and injustice, Peace, be still, and there must be a great calm. We see the evidences and the illustrations of this attribute in the thunderings of Sinai and in the agony of Calvary. We hear it in the wail of a world when the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and when the windows of heaven were opened, and the floods descended, and the population of a globe were swallowed up. We see its manifestations in the descending torrent that swept the cities of the plain; and lastly, we shall forever see its bright but awful and glorious displays in the dark and curling folds of that pillar of smoke of the torment of the damned, that ascends up before God forever and ever.

Many seem to be afraid to contemplate justice as an attribute of benevolence. Any manifestation of it among men, causes them to recoil and shudder as if they saw a demon. But let it have its place in the glorious circle of moral attributes. It must have. It will have. It can not be otherwise. Whenever any policy of government is adopted, in family or state, that excludes the exercise of this attribute, all must be failure, defeat, and ruin.

Again: Justice being an attribute of benevolence, will prevent the punishment of the finally impenitent from derogating from the happiness of God and of holy beings. They

will never delight in misery for its own sake. But they will take pleasure in the administration of justice. So that when the smoke of the torment of the damned comes up in the sight of heaven, they will, as they are represented, shout "Allelulia! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." "Just and righteous are thy ways thou King of saints!"

Before I relinquish the consideration of this topic, I must not omit to insist that where true benevolence is, there must be exact justice, commercial or business honesty and integrity. This is as certain as that benevolence exists. The rendering of exact equivalents, or the intention to do so, must be a characteristic of a truly benevolent mind. Impulsive benevolence may exist; that is, phrenological or constitutional benevolence, falsely so called, may exist to any extent and yet justice will not exist. The mind may be much and very often carried away by the impulse of feeling so that a man may at times have the appearance of true benevolence while the same individual is selfish in business and overreaching in all his commercial relations. This has been a wonder and an enigma to many, but the case is a plain one. The difficulty is, the man is not just, that is, not truly benevolent. His benevolence is only an imposing species of selfishness. "He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear." His benevolence results from feeling and is not true benevolence.

Again: Where benevolence is, the golden rule will surely be observed. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." The justice of benevolence can not fail to secure conformity to this rule. Benevolence is a just state of the will. It is a willing justly. It must then by a law of necessity, secure a just exterior. If the heart is just, the life must be.

This attribute of benevolence must secure its possessor against every species and degree of injustice. He can not be unjust to his neighbor's reputation, his person, his property, his soul, his body, nor indeed be unjust in any respect to God or man. It will and must secure confession and restitution in every case of remembered wrong, so far as this is practicable. It should be distinctly understood, that a benevolent or a truly religious man cannot be unjust. He may indeed appear to be so to others; but he can not be truly religious or benevolent and unjust at the same time. If he appears to be so in any instance, he is not and can not be really so, if he is at the time in a benevolent state of mind. The attributes of selfishness, as we shall see in its proper place,

are the direct opposite of those of benevolence. The two states of mind are as opposite as heaven and hell and can no more co-exist in the same mind than a thing can be and not be at the same time. I said that if a man truly, in the exercise of benevolence, appears to be unjust in any thing, he is only so in appearance and not in fact. Observe; I am speaking of one who is really at the time in a benevolent state of mind. He may mistake and do that which would be unjust, did he see it differently and intend differently. Justice and injustice belong to the intention. No outward act can in itself be either just or unjust. To say that a man, in the exercise of a truly benevolent intention, can at the same time be unjust is the same absurdity as to say that he can intend justly and unjustly at the same time and in regard to the same thing; which is a contradiction. It must all along be borne in mind that benevolence is one identical thing, to wit, good will, willing for its own sake the highest good of being and every known good according to its relative value. Consequently, it is impossible that justice should not be an attribute of such a choice. Justice consists in regarding and treating or rather in willing every thing just agreeably to its nature or intrinsic and relative value and relations. To say, therefore, that present benevolence admits of any degree of present injustice is to affirm a palpable contradiction. A just man is a sanctified man, is a perfect man, in the sense that he is at present in a sinless state.

16. Truth or Truthfulness is another attribute of benevolence. Truth is objective and subjective. Objective truth may be defined to be the reality of things. Truthfulness is subjective truth. It is the conformity of the will to the reality of things. Truth in statement is conformity of statement to the reality of things. Truth in action is action conformed to the nature and relations of things. Truthfulness is a disposition to conform to the reality of things. It is willing in accordance with the reality of things. It is willing the right end by the right means. It is willing the intrinsically valuable as an end and the relatively valuable as a means. In short it is the willing of every thing according to the reality or facts in the case.

Truthfulness, then, must be an attribute of benevolence. It is, like all the attributes, only benevolence viewed in a certain aspect or relation. It can not be distinguished from benevolence, for it is not distinct from it, but only a phase or form of benevolence. The universe is so constructed that if every thing proceeds and is conducted and willed according

its nature and relations, the highest possible good must result. Truthfulness seeks the good as an end and truth as a means to secure this end. It wills the good and that it shall be secured only by means of truth. It wills truth in the end ånd truth in the means. The end is truly valuable and chosen for that reason. The means are truth, and truth is the only appropriate or possible means.

Truthfulness of heart, begets, of course, a state of the sensibility which we call the love of truth. It is a feeling of pleasure that spontaneously arises in the sensibility of one whose heart is truthful, in contemplating truth. This feeling is not virtue; it is rather a part of the reward of truthfulness of heart.

Truthfulness as a phenomenon of the will, is also often called and properly called a love of the truth. It is a willing in accordance with objective truth. This is virtue, and is an attribute of benevolence. Truth as an attribute of the Divine benevolence is the ground of confidence in Him as a moral govenor. Both the physical and moral law of the universe evince and are instances and illustrations of the truthfulness of God. Falsehood, in the sense of lying, is naturally regarded by a moral agent with disapprobation, disgust and abhorrence. Truth is as necessarily regarded by him with approbation, and if the will be benevolent, with pleasure. We necessarily take pleasure in contemplating objective truth as it lies in idea on the field of consciousness. We also take pleasure in the perception and contemplation of truthfulness, in the concrete realization of the idea of truth. Truthfulness is moral beauty. We are pleased with it just as we are with natural beauty by a law of necessity, when the necessary conditions are fulfilled. This attribute of benevolence secures it against every attempt to promote the ultimate good of being by means of falsehood. True benevolence will no more, can no more resort to falsehood as a means of promoting good 4 than it can contradict or deny itself. The intelligence af firms that the highest ultimate good can be secured only by a strict adherence to truth, for this adherence is a demand of the intelligence, and the mind can not be satisfied with any thing else. Indeed to suppose the contrary is to suppose a contradiction. It is the same absurdity as to suppose that the highest good could be secured only by the violation and setting aside of the nature and relations of things. Since the intelligence affirms this unalterable relation of truth to the highest ultimate good, benevolence or that attribute of benev

olence which we denominate truthfulness or love of the truth, can no more consent to falsehood than it can consent to relinquish the highest good of being as an end. And in no case then, does or can a moral agent violate truth, except as he has for the time being at least become selfish and prefers a present gratification to the highest ultimate good of being. There fore, every resort to falsehood, every pious fraud, falsely so called, is only a specious but real instance of selfishness. A moral agent can not lie for God, that is, he can not tell a sinful falsehood thinking and intending thereby to please God. He knows by intuition that God can not be pleased or truly served by a resort to lying. There is a great difference between concealing or withholding the truth for benevolent purposes and telling a wilful falsehood. An innocent persecuted and pursued man, has taken shelter from one who pursued him to shed his blood, under my roof. His pursuer comes and inquires after him. I am not under obligation to declare to him the fact that he is in my house. I may, and indeed ought to withhold the truth in this instance, for the wretch has no right to know it. The public and highest good demands that he should not know it. He only desires to know it for selfish and bloody purposes. But in this case I should not feel, or judge myself at liberty to state a known falsehood. I could not think that this would ultimately conduce to the highest good. The person might go away deceived, or under the impression that his victim was not there. But he could not accuse me of telling him a lie. He might have drawn his own inference from my refusing to give the desired information. But even to secure my own life or the life of my friend, I am not at liberty to tell a lie. If it be said that lying implies telling a falsehood for selfish purposes, and that therefore it is not lying to tell a falsehood for benevolent purposes, I reply, that our nature is such that we can no more state a wilful falsehood with a benevolent intention, than we can commit a sin with a benevolent intention. We necessarily regard falsehood as inconsistent with the highest good of being, just as we regard sin as inconsistent with the highest good of being, or just as we regard holiness and truthfulness as the indispensable conditions of the highest good of being. The correlation of the will and the intelligence forbids that the mistake should ever be fallen into that wilful falsehood is or can be the means or conditions of the highest good. Universal truthfulness, then, will always characterize a truly benevolent man. While he is truly benevolent he is, he