422 Life and Immortality. 



will not render us more virtuous, it must certainly make us 

 more innocent, for in fact the most of our criminal population 

 are mere savages, persons who can rarely read and write, 

 and whose crimes are but injudicious and desperate attempts 

 to live a savage life in the midst, and at the expense, of a 

 civilized community. Men do wrong either from ignorance 

 or in the hope, unexpressed perhaps even to themselves, that 

 they may enjoy the pleasure and yet avoid the penalty of 

 sin. All that they have to do they think, when they have 

 committed sin, is to repent. The religious teaching of the 

 day has much to do with this misapprehension. Repentance 

 is too frequently regarded as a substitute for punishment. 

 Sin it is thought is followed either by the one or the other. 

 So far, therefore, as this world is concerned, this is not the 

 case ; repentance may enable a man to avoid sin in future, 

 but has no effect on the consequences of the past. The laws 

 of nature are not only just and salutary, but they are also 

 inexorable. While all men admit that " the wages of sin is 

 death," yet they seem to think that this is a general rule to 

 which there may be many exceptions, that some sins may 

 possibly tend to happiness. That suffering is the inevitable 

 consequence of sin, as surely as an effect follows a cause, is 

 the stern yet salutary teaching of science. And certainly 

 if this lesson were thoroughly impressed upon our minds, 

 that punishment and not happiness is the consequence of 

 sin, then temptation, which is the very root of crime, would 

 be cut away, and mankind must therefore necessarily become 

 more innocent. May we not go still further and say that 

 science will also render us more virtuous ? He who studies 

 philosophy can only obtain a just idea of the great things for 

 which Providence has fitted his understanding. Such a 

 study not only makes our lives more agreeable, but it also 

 makes them better, and every motive of interest and duty 

 should constrain a rational being to direct his mind towards 

 pursuits which all experience has shown to be the sure path 

 of virtue, and happiness. 



