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 rarcly 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. 
