offence, let there be prompt and humble acknowledgments.

How proud and unsanetified is the spirit that cannot stoop to offer an apology, even when there is the secret consciousness that a humble acknowledgment is due; and how fearful are often the consequences of a refusal! What must be the standard of morals, and the criterion of right and wrong in that mind, in which the idea of honor is but little associated with the idea of justice? What must be the state of the moral sense in the mind of that man, who persuades himself, that the law of honor demands resentment, when the law of justice requires concession?

Most unwelcome, indeed, to human

nature is the confession of a fault; but the very pain is salutary; both as it summons to the exercise of humility, and as it is calculated to deter from a repetition of the offence. It is unquestionably a Christian duty, for it is inculcated by apostolic authority in terms the most explicit. "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another"-is the injunction of the Apostle James. And if this be a duty which we owe to man, it is also a duty which we owe to the blessed God. Be it remembered, that every sin against a fellow-creature is at the same time a sin against God, whose law requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Of all sin, without exception, it is said-" He

that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy." The sins committed against our fellowcreatures should be humbly confessed both before them and before God: for if either acknowledgment be withheld, there will be wanting the evidence that the other confession is sincere. "If we confess our sins"-as God requires us, with a humble and contrite heart-" he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Sixthly, Let there be no approach to an implacable and unforgiving spirit.

Perhaps we have sometimes heard from the lips of one who considered himself aggrieved and injured, such

utterances of the heart as this:-"I may forgive, but I cannot forget the offence." And the attendant indications of feeling may have rendered it too evident, that the proffered forgiveness, while the language of the lips, was by no means the language of the heart. Is this the forgiveness which God requires us to exercise? With such feelings as these in the heart, will a man venture before the throne of God, and offer that petition :

"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us?" Would it satisfy our desires and tranquilize our consciences, that such forgiveness should be extended to us, by Him, at whose bar we must appear? Can we entertain a hope, or

even dare to offer a supplication, that to us, there should be remitted by God a debt of ten thousand talents if we have not the heart to remit a debt due to us from a fellow-creature of even a hundred pence ? "How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him," asked Peter: "till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, until seven times; but until seventy times seven.' It was on this occasion, that our Saviour gave to his disciples the affecting parable, (to which allusion has now been made) of the debtor who hardened his heart against a fellowservant, on whom he had an inconsiderable claim, although claims, to an immense extent, had been in his