piness. That is, it is to society a matter of indifference in what way he employs it. Provided it be innocent, it does not come within the view of society. Hence, in this respect, all modes of employing it are equal. And the only question to be considered, in adjusting the appropriation, is, How much does he ask society to protect? and by this rule it should, as we have said before, be adjusted. If, then, besides this rule, another be adopted; and an individual be obliged, besides his pro rata proportion, to bear a burden levied on his particular calling, to the exemption of another, he has a right to complain. He is obliged to bear a double burden, and one portion of the burden is laid for a cause over which society professes itself to have no jurisdiction.

4. Inasmuch as the value of property depends upon the unrestrained use which I am allowed to make of it, for the promotion of my individual happiness, society interferes with the right of property, if it in any manner abridge any of these. One man is rendered happy by accumulation, another by benevolence; one by promoting science, another by promoting religion. Each one has a right to use what is his own, exactly as he pleases. And if society interfere, by directing the manner in which he shall appropriate it, it is an act of injustice. It is as great a violation of property, for instance, to interfere with the purpose of the individual in the appropriation of his property for religious purposes, as it is to enact that a farmer shall keep but three cows, or a manufacturer employ but ten workmen.

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CHAPTER THIRD.

JUSTICE AS IT RESPECTS CHARACTER.

CHARACTER is the present intellectual, social, and moral condition of an individual. It comprehends his actual acquisitions, his capacities, his habits, his tendencies, his moral feelings, and every thing which enters into a man's state for the present, or his powers for attaining to a better state in the future.

That character, in this sense, is by far the most important of all the possessions which a man can call his own, is too evident, to need discussion. It is the source of all that he either suffers or enjoys here, and of all that he either fears or hopes for hereafter.

If such be the fact, benevolence would teach us the obligation to do all in our power to improve the character of our neighbor. This is its chief office. This is the great practical aim of Christianity. Reciprocity merely prohibits the infliction of any injury upon the character of another.

The reasons of this prohibition are obvious. No man can injure his own character, without violating the laws of God, and also creating those tendencies which result in violation of the laws of man. He who, in any manner, becomes voluntarily the cause of this violation, is a partaker, -and, not unfrequently, the largest partaker, in the guilt. As he who tempts another to suicide is, in the sight of God, guilty of murder, so he who instigates another to wickedness, by producing those states of mind which necessarily lead to it, is, in the sight of God, held responsible, in no slight degree, for the result.

Again, consider the motives which lead men to injure the character of each other. These are either pure malice,

or reckless self-gratification.

First, malice. Some men so far transcend the ordinary

limits of human depravity, as to derive a truly fiend-like pleasure from alluring and seducing from the paths of virtue the comparatively innocent, and to exult over the moral desolations which they have thus accomplished. "They will compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, they make him tenfold more the child of hell than themselves." It is scarcely necessary to add, that language has no terms of moral indignation that are capable of branding, with adequate infamy, conduct so intensely vicious. It is wickedness, without excuse, and without palliation. Or, secondly, take the more favorable case. One man wishes to accomplish some purpose of self-gratification, to indulge his passions, to increase his power, or to feed his vanity; and, he proceeds to accomplish that purpose, by means of rendering another immortal and accountable moral creature degraded for ever,—a moral pest henceforth, on earth, and both condemned, and the cause of condemnation to others, throughout eternity. Who has given this wretch a right to work so awful a ruin among God's creatures, for the gratification of a momentary and an unholy desire? And will not the Judge of all, when he maketh inquisition for blood, press to the lips of such a sinner the bitterest dregs of the cup of trembling?

With this, all the teaching of the sacred Scriptures is consonant. The most solemn maledictions in the Holy Scriptures are uttered against those who have been the instruments of corrupting others. In the Old Testament, Jeroboam is signalized as a sinner of unparalleled atrocity, because he made Israel to sin. In the New Testament, the judgment of the Pharisees has been already alluded to. And, again, "Whosoever shall break the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven." By comparison with the preceding verse, the meaning of this passage is seen to be, that, as the doing and teaching the commandments of God is the great proof of virtue, so the breaking them, and the teaching others to break them, is the great proof of vice. And, in the Revelation, where God is represented as taking signal vengeance upon Babylon, it is because "she did corrupt the earth with her wickedness,"

The moral precept on this subject, then, is briefly this: We are forbidden, for any cause, or under any pretence, or in any manner, willingly to vitiate the character of another.) This prohibition may be violated in two ways:

1. By weakening the moral restraints of men. 2. By exciting their evil passions.

I. BY WEAKENING THE MORAL RESTRAINTS OF MEN. It has been already shown, that the passions of men were intended to be restrained by conscience; and that the restraining power of conscience is increased by the doctrines and motives derived from natural and revealed religion. Whoever, therefore, in any manner, renders obtuse the moral sensibilities of others, or diminishes the power of that moral truth by which these sensibilities are rendered operative, inflicts permanent injury upon the character of his fellow-men. This also is done by all wicked example; for, as we have seen before, the sight of wickedness weakens the power of conscience over us. It is done when, either by conversation or by writing, the distinctions between right and wrong are treated with open scorn or covert contempt; by all conduct calculated to render inoperative the sanctions of religion, as profanity, or Sabbath breaking; by ridicule of the obligations of morality and religion, under the names of superstition, priestcraft, prejudices of education; or, by presenting to men such views of the character of God as would lead them to believe that He cares very little about the moral actions of his creatures, but is willing that every one shall live as he chooses; and that, therefore, the self-denials of virtue are only a form of gratuitous, self-inflicted torture.

It is against this form of moral injury that the young need to be specially upon their guard. The moral seducer, if he be a practised villain, corrupts the principles of his victim before he attempts to influence his or her practice. It is not until the moral restraints are silently removed, and the heart left defenceless, that he presents the allurements of vice, and goads the passions to madness. His task is then easy. If he have succeeded in the first effort, he will rarely fail in the second. Let every young man, especially every young woman, beware of listening

for a moment to any conversation, of which the object is, to show that the restraints of virtue are unnecessary, or to diminish, in aught, the reverence and obedience, which are due from the creature to the law of the Creator.

II. We injure the characters of men BY EXCITING TO

ACTION THEIR EVIL DISPOSITIONS.

1. By viciously stimuluting their imaginations. No one is corrupt in action, until he has become corrupt in imagination. And, on the other hand, he who has filled his imagination with conceptions of vice, and who loves to feast his depraved moral appetite with imaginary scenes of impurity, needs but the opportunity to become openly abandoned. Hence, one of the most nefarious means of corrupting men, is to spread before them those images of pollution, by which they will, in secret, become familiar with sin. Such is the guilt of those who write, or publish, or sell, or lend, vicious books, under whatever name or character, and of those who engrave, or publish, or sell, or lend, or exhibit, obscene or lascivious pictures. Few instances of human depravity are marked by deeper atrocity, than that of an author, or a publisher, who, from literary vanity, or sordid love of gain, pours forth over society a stream of moral pollution, either in prose or in poetry.

And yet, there are not only men who will do this, but, what is worse, there are men, yes, and women, too, who, if the culprit have possessed talent, will commend it, and even weep tears of sympathy over the infatuated genius, who was so sorely persecuted by that unfeeling portion of the world, who would not consider talent synonymous with virtue, and who could not applaud the effort of that ability which was exerted only to multiply the victims of vice.

2. By ministering to the appetites of others. Such is the relation of the power of appetite to that of conscience, that, where no positive allurements to vice are set before men, conscience will frequently retain its ascendency. While, on the other hand, if allurement be added to the power of appetite, reason and conscience prove a barrier too feeble to resist their combined and vicious tendency. Hence, he who presents the allurements of vice before others, who procures and sets before them the means of