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12 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