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tells us that offences must come, and he also, tells
us there shall be wars and rumors of wars, famine
and pestilence, earthquakes, and men’s hearts fail
ing them, and says, these things must come to pass,
but be ye not terrified. Shall we believe Christ,
and keep his word 2 or listen to these teachers *
To believe in Christ, and keep his commandments
is to # find his promised peace. To believe these
teachers crying peace when there is no peace, is to
find terror ; for the Scripture says, “when they shall
say peace and safety, then cometh sudden destruc
tion. Why do we not prefer to believe Christ?
I know the Christian, or renewed part does ; but
flesh and lumgenerate do not, For Christ teaches
Contrary to the flesh, and for this very reason : the
flesh and un reget:e ate love*to hear these teachers,
as they preach to please the flesh; but the Chris
tian may remember that whether we sleep or wake,
we should live together with Christ. If vve have
been asleep, let us know that it is high time to
awake out of sleep, for now 7 is our salvation nearer
than when we believed. The night is far spent.
The Scripture says, thou that sleepest, and
arise from tire dead, and Christ shall give thee
light. Let us examine ourselves Whether we be
in the faith, and prove ourselves; for Christ is in
us except we be reprobates. When tve examine
ourselves, if we are found to be guilty, let us con
fess our sins according to God’s word, and if we
do, he is faithful and just o forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnes . I know
that to the flesh this is a hard task, for. the flesh
don’t want to be humbled; all sin in the curisiian
is of the flesh. But I have seen many who, I hope,
were Christians, to whom it seemed an almost in
surmountable task to examine themselves, and con
fess their wrong . 1 have experimentally found it
a hard taskl, the word God requires it, and
the reward of fiawfcg forgiveness of sins, and being
cleansed from all unrighteousness, it seems to me
would a thousand fold over-balance to the believer
this stoop of mortifying the iLsh. We should ex
amine ourselves upon many points ; for every evil
of which the Christian is warned he should watch ;
for the verv warning shows ho is through the flesh,
liable to fall into it. It may be, we have been too
much in love with the world, which is enmity to
God. It may be that we have exalted ourselves ;
in which case, Christ says we shall be abased. It
may be that we have ceased to watch, and turned
to smiting our fellow servants, and to eat and
drink with the drunken, and our Lord has come in
a we were not looking for him. Per
haps vve have not taken heed to ourselves, and our
hearts have been overcharged with surfeiting, and
the cares ot this world, so that this day. of trouble
has come upon us unawares. Many other points
we should examine; yea, very many, l pray God
to give us of his Spirit to do Ins will, and glorify
him in our bodies and spirits. Do not understand
me to eay that by discharging these duties, our
spiritual relation to God is in any way changed or
affected as children ; but as servants, we expect the
reward of faithful servants in discharging duty, or
the rod of chastisement for disobedience. If we
be dead with him, we shall also reign with him ; if
SOUTHERN BAPTIST MESSENGER.
we deny him, he also will deny us, if we believe
not; yet he abideth faithful; he cannot deny him
self. The elect he recoguizes as himself. •As ser
vants we have rewards in this life ; as children, our
inheritance is in heaven, reserved for us, which vve
cau only partake of here by hope ; but it is a lively
hope. Then if we wish to glorify Gud, let us keep
his commandments. If we are troubled and af
flicted, because of the distresses of the land, let us
humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God,
confess our sins, and pray to him. I give it as
my opinion that these troubles will not cease until
the people are humbled ; or else equal or worse
distress of another kind will follow. Nebuchad
nezzar, Ahab, and many other kings, and nations,
were humbled when God’s hand was raised against
them. My desire and prayer to God is, that the
people may be humbled before God, and acknowl
edge his right to reign and to rule in the king
dom of men, submitting themselves unto him, and
that the Church may be perfect in all good works
and holy conversation, being a light to the worl i,
and making manifest their savory influence to the
earth. The work is of God ; may he work in us
to do his will. O ! that God may enable eaeh one
of his children and faithful servants to say, Not mv
will, but thine be done. Amen.
i remain your brother in affliction,
JAMES J. DAVIS.
Avarice.
The fame of poets and great literary characters
consists in nothing else but.the wonder and aston
ishment of the great mass of mankind at their ac
-1 and faithful portrayal of the
passions and emotions which seem to be inherent
in the human nature. We know so little of our
selves, and the mysterious causes of our imoulses
and “ peculiarities,” that we cannot avoid being
deeply moved when our well painted portrait is
held up to our view. And these causes ate secret
and mysterious only because we refuse to see and
know them; and our reluctance to know them
seems to be as innate in our nature as is our con
tinual wish and anxiety to persuade ourselves and
others that ail the amiable virtues are developed in
us to a supereminent degree. A child of eight or
nme years old, as yet unsophisticated in the ways
ot tne world, recoils from tho person who tells it it
has a bad, e\ii nature; but it is immediately drawn
towards you when you tell it how nice and good
and amiable it is. And if one of us, “children of a
laigei giowth, should persist in informing another
that he is as bad as we believe him to he, we know
too well what would follow ; but how acceptable is
a little aaulatioc. Were we able to condemn vices,
without alluding to, or specifying individuals, we
might offence ; but this we are unable to
do. and hence have arisen those persecutions of men
of truth and genius which have disgraced human
ity, and are a reproach to civilization. When our
Lord condemned hypocrisy he made very pointed
allusions to the Scribes and Pharisees, and when
he beheld sacrilege and desecration, he spoke not in
oiled language to the money-changers and those
who bought and sold in the temple. The conduct
of Paul, and the other apostles also show that they,
when they recognized sin and wickedness, did not.
hesitate to denounce those who practiced them.—
Perhaps this peculiarity in our nature arises from
the tact tjjpl vices, in themselves, have no indepen,
dent existence; their effects only are visible in the
actions of individuals'; and individuals are but il
lustrated and distinguished by -'those traits which
we call vicious or virtuous. It is, however, very
evident that it would be impossible to reproach
Lies and lying, were there no bars, and were truth
and honesty universal and unexceptionable ; and
vve know that r.o person is so offended when we
animadvert upon stealing as a professional thief.
As the world is made up of characters, n va : ma
jority of whom are thus illustrated, ami -on- hi ..ring
that this majority is always “pupinar,” ami very
ranch pleased with itself, and highly apmm a 0 f
its own actions, it is obvious that lie mo o. oe a
man of nerve, a man of soul, one to w.mm ihe sen
sation called fear is unknown, who ventures ; .o toil
the people that they have been doing wror, . It is
only onc-Q in an age that such a man is seen ; and
when seen, the countless shafts of malice, vituper
ation, calumny and detraction, correspond in num
ber only to the myriads of atomic souls winch hurl
them against him. But such men always remain
as immovable as the rock of eternal truth whereon
they stand, unshaken, unyielding. No wonder
that the pigmies around are astonished, and finally
forced to bow down and admire. Truth is irresisti
ble. Tennyson seems to have had a very vivid
conception of the fate of genius, when ho gave
birth to the following sentiment, in a small poem
addressed to a friend who chose not to be a poet:
“ And you have missed the irreverent doom
Os those that wear the poet’s crown ;
Hereafter neither knave nor clown
Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.
; Tis he that warbles long and loud,
And drops at glory’s temple gates,
For whom tiio carrion-vulture waits
To tear liis heart before tup crowd.”
Lufc as I am not gifted with the penetration of
genius, I cannot.say that lam about to anatomize
tue particular vice now under consideration, neither
analyze or perfectly delineate it. I expect only to
specify a few indications of its presence and na
ture, as exhibited in the individuals who have
ihe misfortune to be afflicted with it. I shall not
therefore, bo entitled to the fame of the poet, or the
immortality of genius.
Avarice and Selfishness are but two different
nainos for one ideal cause of a certain class of effects
that we see. It is true that the word selfishness,
carries with it an idea not quite so repulsive as
does the word .avarice; but there is no more real
difference between the traits themselves than there
is between murder and killing. And admitting
tnat they are somewhat different, no one can give
any evidence to show that the difference is in kind,
and not in degree. Selfishness, then, is at least,
miniature avarice, or rather, bears the same rela
tion to it that a boy does to a man. It is one of