Misgiving

“ Alas! we so dearly love to be lamented in our misfortunes: indifference alone irritates and wounds us: here not only shall all hearts be shut to our misfortunes, but all beholders shall insult our shame, and the only portion left to the sinner shall be his confusion, his despair, and his crimes. ”

“ O my soul! how long shalt thou continue to love, in creatures, what is but thine affliction and punishment? Wouldst thou suffer more by breaking asunder thy chains, than thou now dost in bearing them? Would virtue and innocence be more painful than those shameful passions which at present debase and rend thee? Ah! thou shalt find every thing light and easy, in comparison with the cruel agitations which render thee so unhappy in guilt. ”

“ Those who act with rigid justice here below—those who take upon themselves to punish the sinner whom God for inscrutable purposes one moment spares, should sometimes consider that the object against whom their resentment is excited will soon be no more. Short-lived is the enjoyment even of successful guilt. An hour’s triumph has perhaps been purchased by misery so keen, that were we to know all, we should only commiserate the wretch we now seek to subdue and to punish. ”

“ Cannot my guilt be extenuated? Is there not a good that I can do thee? Must I perpetrate unmingled evil? Is the province assigned me that of an infernal emissary, whose efforts are concentred in a single purpose, and that purpose a malignant one? I am the author of thy calamities. Whatever misery is reserved for thee, I am the source whence it flows. Can I not set bounds to the stream? Cannot I prevent thee from returning to a consciousness which, till it ceases to exist, will not cease to be rent and mangled? ”

“ If, when overwhelmed with conscious guilt, you smote upon your breast and implored the divine mercy, your penitential tears moved the compassion of Heaven, how can you now harden your heart against the like plea of an offending brother? Even if he offer no plea, can you be utterly indifferent to his grief? ”

“ To Heaven I leave the vindication of my innocence. Its justice is sure, though sometimes slow, and the hour of retribution often arrives when least expected. Much as I have suffered—much as I may still suffer, I think my own situation preferable to theirs who have set their snares around me. The injurer must ever feel greater pangs than the injured—the pangs of guilt and remorse. I shall return to my obscurity, happy in the consciousness that it is not a shelter from shame, but a refuge from cruelty I seek. ”

“ Thus you will yourself be surprised at your own weakness: you will ask at yourself, what are become of all those dispositions of modesty and virtue, which formerly inspired you with such horror at sin? You no longer will know yourself: but this state of guilt will gradually appear less frightful to you. The heart soon justifies to itself whatever pleases it: whatever is agreeable to us, does not long alarm us; and to the misery of a departure from virtue, you will add the misery of ignorance and security. ”

“ But I often parted with money against my inclination, either because I wanted the resolution to refuse, or dreaded the appellation of a niggardly fellow; and I may be truly said to have squandered my estate, without honour, without friends, and without pleasure. The last may, perhaps, appear strange to men unacquainted with the masquerade of life: I deceived others, and I endeavoured to deceive myself; and have worn the face of pleasantry and gaiety, while my heart suffered the most exquisite torture. ”

“ Let not mercy be the only virtue of which your heart is unsusceptible! Pity me, most reverend! Restore my letter, nor doom me to inevitable destruction!"
"Your boldness confounds me. Shall I conceal your crime—I whom you have deceived by your feigned confession?—No, daughter, no. I will render you a more essential service. I will rescue you from perdition, in spite of yourself. Penance and mortification shall expiate your offence, and severity force you back to the paths of holiness. ”

“ Thus in a word, to avoid a long detail, those suspicious attachments, loose conversations, ridiculous compliances, and desires of pleasing, too much attended, have filled you with dispositions so nearly allied to guilt and debauchery, that you are no longer capable of resistance against any of their attacks; the corruption prepared by the whole train of your past actions, will be lighted up in an instant; your weakness will overcome your reflection; your heart will go against glory, duty, and yourself. ”

“ Ah! since you have hitherto been able to bear up against all internal anguish, the bitterness, the disgusts, the gloomy agitations of iniquity, no longer dread those of virtue: in the pains and sufferances inseparable from guilt, you have undergone trials far beyond what may be attached to virtue; and doubly so, because grace softens, and renders even pleasing, the sufferings of piety, while the only sweetener of guilt is the bitterness of guilt itself. ”

“ I will tell thee, therefore, my crimes, that thou mayst know thy own felicity, lest, ignorant it means nothing but innocence, thou shouldst lose it, unconscious of its value. Listen then to me, and learn what Misery is! Guilt is alone the basis of lasting unhappiness;—Guilt is the basis of mine, and therefore I am a wretch for ever! ”

“ As soon as we come to a right understanding of our lost and guilty condition, we shall cry: "Be merciful to me a sinner; create within me a clean heart, O God." Without such an understanding,—such an intelligent perception of our sin and guilt,—we never shall, and we never can. ”

“ Why should you hide, as though you were a culprit? You have been so completely exonerated from the imputation of guilt which once hung over you, that you owe it to yourself to front the gaze of the world fearlessly. What have you to dread? ”

“ Think of the exquisite suffering which remorse has inflicted on every human being who has reached years of reflexion. Think of the untold misery which the misdeeds of men have inflicted upon those who love and would fain respect them. It may be doubted whether all other forms of human suffering, whether mental or bodily, are more than as a drop in the ocean, compared with the agonies which have been endured through the gnawing pangs of remorse for personal misconduct, and of shame and grief for the misconduct of friends and relations. ”

“ If the vile deceiver, who brought my spotless mother to a tomb of misery, fell beneath the dagger of one who swore to revenge her —if I sent him to another world, who destroyed the peace of one I loved more than myself in this, am I to be blamed? ”

“ Ah, my lord! the proofs were contrived by malice and treachery, to ruin me in the estimation of my friends, and by perfidy, to force me into a crime, of which I already bear the appearance and the stigma. Surely, in this solemn hour, which has seen my beloved father consigned to his kindred earth, when, with a mind harassed by sorrow, and a body worn out with fatigue, I feel as if standing on the verge of the grave, I should be the most abandoned of wretches, if I could assert my innocence without the consciousness of really possessing it. ”

“ Indeed, by these daily infidelities inseparable from lukewarmness, the heart, as if by insensible steps, at last arrives at those dangerous limits, which, by a single line, separate life from death, guilt from innocence, and makes the final step almost without perceiving it ”

“ Would I could foresee a term to our misery!—Who but yourself shall find a remedy for our misfortunes? Shall we delay, until time brings to light that which is now a secret, and the affront we have received entail on us a shame more intolerable than death itself? ”

“ Refrain My conscience felt and owned the guilt, And plunged me in despair, I saw my sins His blood had spilt, And helped to nail Him there. Refrain A second look He gave, which said, “I freely all forgive; This blood is for thy ransom paid; I die that thou mayst live.” ”

“ What a horrible situation is that of a foolish soul whom God afflicteth, and who for consolation flies in the face of his God; seeks to ease his troubles in multiplying his trespasses; yields himself up to debauchery, in order to drown his sorrows; and makes the overwhelming sadness of guilt a horrible resource against the sadness of his afflictions!
No, my brethren, religion alone can truly console us in our misfortunes. ”

“ Let the guilt thou fearest be transferred from thee to us. If there be any guilt, may we and our posterity atone for it. But we do not acknowledge any guilt, and consequently, as not fearing any punishment, we boldly call it down on ourselves. ”

“ Tell all thy sorrows, all thy sin;
We cannot heal the throbbing heart
Till we discern the wounds within.
Compunction weeps our guilt away,
The sinner's safety is his pain;
Such pangs for our offences pay,
And these severer griefs are gain.
VAGRANT.
The son came back—he found us wed ”

“ But, if neither virtue nor religion can restrain your inordinate appetites, are there not many women as handsome as your friend’s wife, whom, though not with innocence, you may possess with a much less degree of guilt? What motive then can thus hurry you on to the destruction of yourself and your friend? doth the peculiar rankness of the guilt add any zest to the sin? ”

“ So from the same heart that had felt a passionate pity for the victim, compassion flowed out on the transgressor. For where others feel the tragedy of suffering, the pure in heart realize with an infinitely sharper pain the tragedy of guilt. ”

“ And alas! now I see the wrong, the loss, and the harm, [Pg 103] of the neglect I was guilty of, in putting off repentance, until Thy messenger, the Death, came to me, and, my grief! I was not prepared for him, and, moreover, I got no respite when he came, until he destroyed me—and that is my account of my life, and indeed it is more evil than it is good. ”

“ In some of the houses over which my eyes roam so coldly, guilt is entering into hearts that are still tenanted by a debased and trodden virtue,—guilt is on the very edge of commission, and the impending deed might be averted; guilt is done, and the criminal wonders if it be irrevocable. ”

“ Sorrow, I grant you, does come all too frequently, from ill-doing; but the worst is, the consequences of this ill-doing fall upon the innocent as well as upon the guilty. A husband's errors will involve his innocent wife; parent's sins fall upon their children; children will break the hearts of their parents. I can truly say, speaking in all humble submission, that I am unconscious of having deserved the great sorrow which came upon me ”

“ My life has been a sad one, and the worst of all has been the knowing I brought my troubles on myself. It’s only of late that I’ve begun to hope there might be forgiveness for me too—and there’s comfort in the thought. But the consequences of evil-doing do cling like a leech to one through life. ”

“ If you should wed, may a father's curse
⁠Be your swift and sure undoing.
“My curse shall feed on your fields of corn,
⁠On your roof-tree make its nesting,
Your wife shall wish your child unborn
⁠As he pines on her sore heart resting.”
Now when this cruel oath he said
⁠The youth did chide him, crying,
“Since I have neither field nor bed
⁠Your curse shall fall to dying. ”

“ You have endeavoured to put a brand of shame upon a man who never, consciously, was guilty of a dishonourable action in his life."
"Well, and how do you feel?"
"Feel! God forgive me, but I feel as though I should like to kill you." ”

“ He had replenished himself with dispositions so nearly bordering on guilt, that he has brought forth iniquity without pain, repugnance, visible movement, or even perceiving it himself. Similar to a dying person, whom the languors of a long and painful malady have so attenuated, and so nearly approached to his end, that the departing sigh resembles those which have preceded it, costs him no greater effort than the others, and even leaves the spectators uncertain whether his last moment is come, or if%he still breathes. ”

“ May thine every deed of mercy be turned to sorrow and to humiliation, thine every act of pity prove a curse to him who receives it, until thou on thy knees art left to sue for pity to a heart that knoweth it not, and findest a deaf ear turned unto thy cry! ”

“ You are sensible, that, even when prostrating yourselves before the Almighty, the confession of your guilt never entirely corresponds with the most intimate dispositions of your heart; that it never paints your internal situation such as in reality it is; and, in a word, that there always exists in your heart something more criminal than what in any statement of it you can bring yourselves to avow. ”

“ Noble girl! you are sacrificing yourself for a wretch and a beggar—one who has lost all, but a heart torn with love and agony;—he cannot offer you a destiny worthy of your virtue.” He then smote his forehead, in a fit of passion, reproaching himself as a thoughtless, wilful being, whose repentance had come too late. ”

“ C. E. OUR BIBLE CLASS. PSALM XXXII.
With our Bibles open before us, dear young friends, we will try to make a few comments on this portion of Scripture. But let us first turn to Psalm li., for there is the sad confession of sin which went before this joyful song of "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven." This first verse is a shout of joy and gratitude. Oh, the happiness—the indescribable happiness—of the forgiven sinner!
Four words are used to describe wrong-doing and guilt: transgression, or trespass—a venturing on forbidden ground; sin—a failing, or falling short of goodness ”