PROOFS FROM THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 



35 



guards to preven f this new massacre. It is 

 scarcely riecessar to add, that the intelligence 

 brought from Paris proved these apprehensions 

 to be groundless, and that the noises heard, must 

 have been the fanciful creations of the guilty con 

 science of the king, countenanced by the vivid 

 remembrance of those around him of the horrors 

 of St. Bartholomew s day. 



King Richard III. after he had murdered his 

 innocent royal nephews, was so tormented in 

 conscience, as Sir Thomas More reports from 

 the gentlemen of his bed chamber, that he had 

 no peace or quiet in himself, but always carried 

 it as if some imminent danger was near him. 

 His eyes were always whirling about on this 

 side, and on that side ; he wore a shirt of mail, 

 and was always laying his hand upon his dagger, 

 looking as furiously as if he was ready to strike. 

 He had no quiet in his mind by day, nor could 

 take any rest by night, but, molested with terri 

 fying dreams, would start out of his bed, and run 

 like a distracted man about the chamber.* 



This state of mind, in reference to another 

 case, is admirably described, in the following 

 lines of Dryden. 



&quot; Amidst your train this unseen judge will wait, 

 Examine how you came by all your state ; 

 Upbraid your impious pomp, and in your ear 

 Will halloo, rebel! traitor! murderer! 

 Your ill-got power, wan looks, and care shall bring, 

 Known but by discontent to be a King. 

 Of crowds afraid, yet anxious when alone, 

 You ll sit and brood your sorrows on a throne.&quot; 



Bessus the Paeonian being reproached with 

 ill nature for pulling down a nest of young spar 

 rows and killing them, answered, that he had 

 reason so to do, &quot; Because these little birds ne 

 ver ceased falsely to accuse him of the mur 

 der of his father.&quot; This parricide had been till 

 then concealed and unknown ; but the revenging 

 fury of conscience caused it to be discovered 

 by himself, who was justly to suffer for it. That 

 notorious sceptic and semi-atheist, Mr. Hobbes, 

 author of the &quot; Leviathan,&quot; had been the means 

 of poisoning many young gentlemen and others, 

 with his wicked principles, as the Earl of Ro 

 chester confessed, with extreme compunction, on 

 his death-bed. It was remarked, by those who 

 narrowly observed his conduct, that &quot; though in 

 a humour of bravado he would speak strange 

 and unbecoming things of God ; yet in his stu 

 dy, in the dark, and in his retired thoughts, 

 he trembled before him.&quot; He could not endure 

 to be left alone in an empty house. He could 

 not, even in h ; s old age, bear any discourse of 

 death, acd seemed to cast off all thoughts of it. 

 He could not bear to sleep in the dark ^and&quot; if his 

 candle happened to go out in the night, he would 

 awake in terror and amazement, a plain indica 

 tion, that he was unable to bear the dismal re 

 flections of his dark and desolate mind, and knew 



Stows Annals p. 460. 



not how to extinguish, nor how to bear the igftt 

 of the candle of the Lord&quot; within him. He is 

 said to have left the world, with great Reluctance 

 under terrible apprehensions of a dark and un 

 known futurity. 



&quot; Conscience, the torturer of the soul, unseen 

 Does fiercely brandish a sharp scourge within. 

 Severe decrees may keep our tongues in awe 

 But to our thoughts what edict can give law &quot; 

 Even you yourself to your own breast shall tell 

 Your crimes, and your own conscience be your heU. 



Many similar examples of the power of con 

 science in awakening terrible apprehensions of 

 futurity, could be brought forward from the re 

 cords of history both ancient and modern ; and 

 there can be no question, that, at the present 

 moment, there are thousands of gay spirits im 

 mersed in fashionable dissipation, and professing 

 to disregard the realities of a future world, who, 

 if they would lay open their inmost thoughts, 

 would confess, that the secret dread of a future 

 retribution is a spectre which frequently haunts 

 them while running the rounds of forbidden plea 

 sure, and embitters their most exquisite enjoy 

 ments. 



Now, how are we to account for such terrors 

 of conscience, and awful forebodings of futurity, 

 if there be no existence beyond the grave ? espe 

 cially when we consider, that many of those who 

 have been thus tormented have occupied stations 

 of rank and power, which raised them above the 

 fear of punishment from man? If they got their 

 schemes accomplished, their passions gratified, 

 and their persons and possessions secured from 

 temporal danger, why did they feel compunction 

 or alarm in the prospect of futurity ? for every 

 mental disquietude of this description implies a 

 dread of something future. They had no great 

 reason to be afraid even of the Almighty himself, 

 if his vengeance do not extend beyond the pre 

 sent world. They beheld the physical and moral 

 world moving onward according to certain fixed 

 and immutable laws. They beheld no miracles 

 of vengeance no Almighty arm visibly hurling 

 the thunderbolts of heaven against the workers 

 of iniquity. They saw that one event happened 

 to all, to the righteous as well as to the wicked, 

 and that death was an evil to which they behoved 

 sooner or later to submit. They encountered 

 hostile armies with fortitude, and beheld all tho 

 dread apparatus of war without dismay. Yet 

 in their secret retirements, in their fortified re 

 treats, where no eye but the eye of God was 

 upon them, and when no hostile incursion was 

 apprehended, they trembled at a shadow, and felt 

 a thousand disquietudes from the reproaches of 

 an inward monitor which they could not escape. 

 These things appear altogether inexplicable if 

 there be no retribution beyond the grave. 



We are, therefore, irresistibly led to the con 

 clusion, that the voice of conscience, in such 

 cases, is the voice of God declaring his abhor- 



