and honesty; to examine and weigh all the evidence in the case, and decide according to testimony. It is a state of mind which is the opposite of prejudice. Prejudice is pre-judgment. It is a decision made up with but partial information. It is not a mere opinion. It is a committal of the will.

Candor is holding the intelligence open to conviction. It is that state of the will in which all the light is sought upon all questions, that can be obtained. Benevolence is an impartial, a disinterested choice of the highest good of beingnot of some parts of it-not of self-but of being in general. It inquires not to whom an interest belongs, but what is its intrinsic and relative value, and what is the best means of promoting it. Selfishness, as we shall see, is never candid. It never can be candid. It is contrary to its very nature. Benevolence can not but be candid. It has no reasons for being otherwise. Its eye is single. It seeks to know all truth for the sake of doing it. It has no by-ends, no self-will or self-interest to consult. It is not seeking to please or profit self. It is not seeking the interest of some favorite. No, it is impartial and must be candid.

It should always be borne in mind that where there is prejudice, benevolence is not, can not be. There is not, can not be such a thing as honest prejudice. There may be an honest mistake for want of light, but this is not prejudice. If there be a mistake and it be honest, there will be and must be a readiness to receive light to correct the mistake. But where the will is committed, and there is not candor to receive evidence, there is and there must be selfishness. Few forms of sin are more odious and revolting than prejudice. Candor is an amiable and a lovely attribute of benevolence. It is captivating to behold it. To see a man where his own interest is deeply concerned, exhibit entire candor, is to witness a charming exhibition of the spirit of the law of love.

24. Stability is another attribute of benevolence. This love is not a mere feeling or emotion, that effervesces for a moment, and then cools down and disappears. But it is choice, not a mere volition which accomplishes its object and then rests. It is the choice of an end, a supreme end. It is an intelligent choice-the most intelligent choice that can be made. It is considerate choice-none so much so; a deliberate choice; a reasonable choice which will always commend itself to the highest perceptions and intuitions of the intelligence. It is intelligent and impartial, and universal consecration to an end, above all others the most important and

captivating in its influence. Now, stability must be a characteristic of such a choice as this. By stability it is not intended that the choice may not be changed. Nor that it never is changed; but that when the attributes of the choice are considered, it appears as if stability, as opposed to instability, must be an attribute of this choice. It is a new birth, a new nature, a new creature, a new heart, a new life. These and such like are the representations of Scripture. Are these representations of an evanescent state? The beginning of benevolence in the soul-this choice is represented as the death of sin, as a burial, a being planted, a crucifixion of the old man, and many such like things. Are these representations of what we so often see among professed converts to Christ? Nay verily. The nature of the change itself would seem to be a guaranty of its stability. We might reasonably suppose that any other choice would be relinquished sooner than this; that any other state of mind would fail sooner than benevolence. It is vain to reply to this that facts prove the contrary to be true. I answer, what facts? Who can prove them to be facts? Shall we appeal to the apparent facts in the instability of many professors of religion; or shall we appeal to the very nature of the choice and to the Scriptures? To these, doubtless. So far as philosophy can go, we might defy the world to produce an instance of choice which has so many chances for stability. The representations of Scripture are such as I have mentioned above. What then shall we conclude of those effervescing professors of religion, who are soon hot and soon cold; whose religion is a spasm; "whose goodness as the morning cloud and the early dew goeth away?" Why, we must conclude that they have never had the root of the matter in them. That they are not dead to sin and to the world, we see. That they are not new creatures; that they have not the spirit of Christ; that they do not keep his commandments, we see. What then shall we conclude but this, that they are stony ground Christians?

25. Kindness is another attribute of Love.

The original word rendered kindness is sometimes rendered gentleness. This term designates that state of the heart that begets a gentleness and kindness of outward demeanor towards those around us. Benevolence is good will. It must possess the attribute of kindness or gentleness toward its object. Love seeks to make others happy. It can not be otherwise than that the beloved object should be treated kindly and gently, unless circumstances and character demand a

different treatment. A deportment regardless of the sensibilities of those around us, indicates a decidedly and detestably selfish state of mind. Love always manifests a tender regard for the feelings and well-being of its object; and as benevolence is universal love, it will and must manifest the attribute of gentleness and kindness toward all except in those cases when either the good of the individual or of the public shall demand a different treatment. In such cases it will be love and only love that leads to different treatment; and in no case will benevolence treat any even the worst of beings more severely than is demanded by the highest good. Benevolence is a unit. It does every thing for one reason. It has but one end, and that is the highest good of being in general. It will and must treat all kindly unless the public good demands a different course. But it punishes when it does punish for the same reason that it forgives when it does forgive. It gives life and takes it away. It gives health and sickness, poverty and riches; it smiles and frowns; it blesses and curses, and does, and says, and omits, gives and withholds every thing for one and the same reason, to wit, the promotion of the highest good of being. It will be gentle or severe as occasions arise which demand either of these exhibitions. Kindness is its rule, and severity is its exception. Both, however, as we shall soon see, are equally and necessarily attributes of benevolence.

The gentleness and kindness of God and of Christ are strikingly manifested in providence and in grace. Christ is called a Lamb no doubt because of the gentleness and kindness of his character. He is called the good shepherd and represented as gently leading his flock and carrying the lambs in his bosom. Many such affecting representations are made of him in the bible, and he often makes the same manifestations in his actual treatment of his servants not only, but also of his enemies. Who has not witnessed this? and who can not testify to this attribute of his character as a thousand times affectingly manifested in his own history? Who can call to mind the dealings of his Heavenly Father without being deeply penetrated with the remembrances of his kindness not only, but his loving kindness, and tender mercy, its exceeding greatness? There is a multitude of tender representations in the bible which are all verified in the experience of every saint. "As the eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him

and there was no strange God with him." This lovely attribute will and must always appear where benevolence is. It is important however to remark that constitutional temperament will often greatly modify the expression of it. "Charity is kind”—this is one of its attributes; yet as I just said, its manifestations will be modified by constitution, education &c. A manifest absence of it in cases where it would be appropriate is sad evidence that benevolence is wanting.

26. Severity is another attribute of benevolence. "Behold" says the Apostle "the goodness and severity of God." They greatly err who suppose that benevolence is all softness under all circumstances. Severity is not cruelty, but is love manifesting strictness, rigor, purity, when occasion demands. Love is universal good-will, or willing the highest good of being in general. When therefore any one or any number so conduct as to interfere with and endanger the public good, severity is just as natural and as necessary to benevolence as kindness and forbearance under other circumstances. Christ is not only a Lamb, but a Lion also. He is not only gentle as mercy, but stern as justice; not only yielding as the tender bowels of mercy, but as inflexibly stern as infinite purity and justice. He exhibits the one attribute or the other as occasion demands. At one time we hear him praying for his murderers, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." At another time, we hear him say by the pen of an apostle, "If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed." At another time, we hear him in the person of the Psalmist praying for vengeance on his enemies: "Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness, and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters but I found none. They gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table become a snare before them, and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkend that they see not, and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold upon them. Let their habitation be desolate, and let none dwell in their tents. Add iniquity (punishment) to their iniquity and let them not come into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous." Many such like passages might be quoted from the records of inspiration as the breathings of the Spirit of the God of Love.

Now it is perfectly manifest that good will to the universe

of being implies opposition to whatever tends to prevent the highest good. Benevolence is and must be severe in a good sense towards incorrigible sinners like those against whom Christ prays in the Psalm just quoted.

The term severity is used sometimes in a good and sometimes in a bad sense. When used in a bad sense, it designates an unreasonable state of mind and of course a selfish state. It then represents a state which is the opposite of benevolence. But when used in a good sense, as it is when applied to God and Christ, and when spoken of as an attribute of benevolence, it designates the sternness, firmness, purity and justice of love, acting for the public good in cases where sin exists and where the public interests are at stake. In such circumstances, if severity were not developed as an attribute of benevolence, it would demonstrate that benevolence could not be the whole of virtue, even if it could be virtue at all. The intelligence of every moral being would affirm in such circumstances, that if severity did not appear, something was wanting to make the character perfect, that is, to make the character answerable to the emergency.

It is truly wonderful to witness the tendency among men to fasten upon some one attribute of benevolence and overlook the rest. They perhaps have been affected particularly by the manifestation of some one attribute, which leads them to represent the character of God as all summed up in that attribute. But this is fatally to err, and fatally to misrepresent God. God is represented in the Bible as being slow to anger, and of tender mercy; as being very pitiful; long-suffering; abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands; forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; but as also visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and that will by no means clear the guilty; and as being angry with the wicked every day. These are by no means contradictory representations. They only exhibit benevolence manifesting itself under different circumstances, and in different relations. are just the attributes that we can see must belong to benevolence, and just what it ought to be and must be when these occasions arise. Good will to the universe ought to be and must be, in a good sense, severe where the public weal demands it, as it often does. It is one of the most shallow of dreams that the Divine character is all softness and sweetness in all its manifestations and in all circumstances. The fact is that sin has "enkindled a fire in the Divine anger that shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains and shall

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