sin, were not worth the torture he had felt in his mind." Charles IX., who occasioned the massacre of so many Protestants in France, died miserably. Two days before his death he said to his nurse, "Ah my dear nurse, what blood, what murders. Oh, my God, pardon me and be merciful. What shall I do? I am lost forever, I know it."*
The superstitious observances of the heathen, as well as of those who profess a corrupt Christianity, even the works supposed meritorious by
��* Curiosities of Lit.
those who hold the truth in unrighteousness, are all the effect of conscience, illy directed. In such, the conscience is influenced by the prejudices of education, by an erratic imagination, or by an evil heart of unbelief; and the difficulty of rectifying such errors is the greater, on account of the strength of the attending emotions. When the mind becomes fully impressed, through parental authority, or its own fancies and reasonings, that either eternal salvation, or higher favour with God - that is, increased holiness, depend upon any particular duties or observances, nothing can deter from the performance of what is deemed essential to such an end. This is in accordance with reason; tile for kitchen for indeed what should not a man give, or do for a release from everlasting pain, or to secure the favour of the Almighty? The aged Hindoo desires to die on the banks of the Ganges, bathed in the waters which he supposes will wash away sin; the mother casts her helpless offspring into the same sacred flood to propitiate the deity. The widow ascends the burning pile, lighted by her son, to consume her living body, together with that ceramic wall tile of her dead husband, that they mny ascend to the same heaven, which cannot ceramic tile tile outlet be theirs without some extraordinary sacrifice. Even the atheistical Boodhist expects another existence of happiness, provided he is sufficiently meritorious. Among works of the highest merit, he esteems the feeding a hungry, infirm tiger, with his own flesh.*
��To the alarmed conscience, God is indeed a consuming fire, and so fearful is the imagination of His wrath, that no suffering seems too great to purchase His mercy. Those, who rest their hope of it upon their own performances, will go through an endless and tiresome routine of daily services; the omission of a single form brings its penance, perhaps of severe privation or of bodily suffering. Or, if better taught, they are exact in the duties of morality, expensive in their charities, warm in their zeal. Thus, it may be, with quieted consciences, they give God thanks that they are better than others, and possibly, in the exultation of self-complacency, they think to do Him service by harsh censures, or even by persecution.
"But, treacherous Conscience, while she seems to sleep
On rose or myrtlt, lull'd with syren song;