world of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment.

God and show them unto us." With the Psalmist then let each of us pray-" Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Give me the comfort of thy help, and stablish me with thy free spirit." "Send out thy light and thy truth, and let them guide me and lead me to thy holy hill."

We have now seen it to be most difficult to know our own heart. Some never attempt the acquisition of this knowledge; and even the most pious seekers attain it but measurably. A prominent cause of this difficulty and failure will be pointed out and discussed in the following chapter.

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CHAPTER II.

THE DECEITFUL HEART

"The heart is deceitful above all things " "Let no man deceive himself."

"Lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." "Cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing."

PERHAPS no trait of human character elicits more general reprobation than deceit. The candid, the ingenuous, the single-hearted, turn in disgust from the man "whose words are softer than oil, while there is war in his heart;" who speaks" with flattering lips and a double heart." And even this man, with all his guile, either ignorant of his true character, or anxious to conceal it from the world, is loud in his denunciations of his own characteristic vice, and in his professions of honest uncompromising sincerity. And yet, while the whole human family profess to abominate deceit, each member of it carries within him a deceitful heart. "The heart," (says the Prophet Jeremiah,) is deceitful above all things." He speaks generally. "The heart," not of this man

or of another; not of the many or of the few; but the heart generally; as it is found in all living human possessors. Still notwithstanding this sweeping declaration, which Scripture records, and which, as we shall see, facts corroborate, we' would shrink from pronouncing deceit, as the term is understood, an inseparable attribute of human character. The common ingenuousness of childhood would put to scorn such an imputation. Its open countenance, its dauntless upward-looking eye, its artless smile, all attest sincerity in the heart and speech. Should interest or fear prompt an attempt at evasion or deception, the yet unhackneyed spirit, and untutored face, betray the effort. The faltering tongue and stammering lips almost refuse to utter a falsehood, or, should the .prompting motive be sufficiently strong to overcome this repugnance when it is uttered, indignant conscience writes its proof in the downcast quailing eye, the tell-tale blush, the culprit look of the offender. This, then, would go far to prove that although the tendency to deceit may be general, the quality of deceit is not a universal characteristic of our race, that it belongs to the exceptions among us, rather than to all; and this partial proof may be completed by remembering the universal odium in which it is held, the earnestness with which it is disavowed, and the rigour with which it is punished, when it breaks out into open artifice or fraud.

Here, then, appears a seeming paradox, that deceitful men are comparatively rare, and yet that all men have within them a "deceitful heart." This, however, is easily solved. The same term has different acceptations, and its meaning varies with its applications. Thus the deceitfulness of the heart, and deceitfulness, as applied to the peculiar disposition, to conduct, or to character, are essentially distinct. The one is of generic, the other of specific application. It would be deemed an insult to tell a man of mere ordinary worldly morality, that he was deceitful: but the holiest saint that lives would not demur to the charge, that his heart is deceitful, yea, and “ deceitful above all things." In the one case, the charge alleges peculiar moral guilt; in the other, we only affirm an individual share in the universal. frailty of poor fallen humanity. It is the vice of some men to be deceitful; it is the misfortuné of all who come into the world to be born with deceitful hearts.

The degree of this deceitfulness of the heart is confessedly great. The prophet uses no measured terms" it is deceitful above all things." When we trace it in its effects, this expression will not be considered extravagant, nor resolved into mere "Eastern hyperbole." That which deceives all, and deceives all with ease, whether defective or acute in penetration, whether weak or strong in the faith, whether aware of its wiles,

and armed against its assaults, or sitting in fancied security, whether with their will or against it, may surely be pronounced "deceitful above all things;" and all this does the deceitful heart. It has put to nought the wisdom of the sage, and triumphed over the piety of the saint; causing the wise man to become a fool, and the righteous man to "fall from his steadfastness." Over the ungodly it proves its power, by causing them to trust implicitly in its guidance, and then abusing the misplaced confidence to their ruin, by causing their evil way to "seem right unto" them, although

the end thereof is the chambers of death," and by crying to them," Peace, peace," and inducing them to believe the assurance, although the God of truth has declared from the heavens, and proclaimed over the wide earth, that "there is no peace to the wicked." And the righteous show their sense of it in their fears, their watchings, and, alas! we must add, in their occasional discomfitures.

The first specific manifestation of this deceitful heart which we shall notice, is its apparently unnatural re-action upon self, that is, upon its possessor. Metaphysicians may possibly object to this distinction of man from himself—this consideration of the heart, as separate from, and acting upon its possessor; but the phraseology is current, and well understood by plain persons. Just as certainly as the body can injure itself, and