Its

Conscience is a faculty that justly deserves the name of common sense:-and no refinements of education or artifice can stand against it. It is of a searching and probing nature, and is the medium of all the shame or disapprobation that men feel with regard to themselves. It unmasks all those secret contrivances, which they persuade themselves the world will never detect, because they wish that it should not. activity is the criterion of moral rectitude or obliquity; and in proportion to its acuteness, every one may judge for himself whether he is, or is not, perverted in the essential requisites for forming a good man. Yet men do most ingeniously endeavour to reason themselves out of this and every other principle that thwarts their inclinations,-to lessen the authority of them, and to make the best apology they can for their vices, under the name of human weakness. It is difficult to say whether they are, in general, more solicitous to impose upon others, or to deceive themselves. This is the ground of what is usually called policy, when men act upon some ostensible principle, instead of following the dictates of their genuine feelings;-and many occasions of self-reproach arise from the reflection of having so acted. A proof that they do endeavour to stifle their consciences is, that, in the plainest cases, where there is no room for hesitation, they profess a scruple, even when they feel none, or they profess a wish to do right, but they say that they are ignorant, and do not know what to do. Now a rule that will never deceive us is to act

according to the unprejudiced dictates of our own minds. It is true, that such a conduct may sometimes give offence to other men; but in the end, it will place our characters in the fairest point of view, and will gain the esteem of the world in general. To ourselves it will be invaluable, as relieving us from the toilsome necessity of keeping up that outward shew, which is used only as a cloak for deception. We shall always have the satisfaction of having acted from pure motives, and such as we may reasonably hope will be approved by our heavenly Judge.

Of the truth of these observations we have a pregnant example in the history of Joseph's brethren. From the time that their malicious jealousy induced them to sell him to the Ishmeelites, they appear to have been continually infested with uneasiness. There is no doubt, that the sight of their father with whom they constantly lived, reminded them almost every day, of the falsehood they had imposed upon him, respecting the fate of Joseph. The consciousness of that deception must have occasioned them many a bitter pang, and have excited a perpetual struggle between their courage and their sense of guilt. Another source of disquietude must have been their doubt respecting the manner, in which their brother might have been disposed of, after he became the property of those trading Ishmeelites. But the fact itself of their having so unfeelingly and unjustly separated him from his native country, and from the society of his affectionate father, was that which evidently

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dwelt. with the keenest remorse upon their recollection. It seems to have haunted them wherever they went; and when any difficulty or distressful circum;-and stance arose, they upbraided themselves with their treachery to Joseph as the cause of it. The Mosaic account is silent as to their history, from the time of selling him to the merchants to the time of their meeting him again in Egypt-except that it relates a few particulars about Judah and his family. Yet we find upon the very first occasion upon which the brothers are again introduced-I mean, when Joseph, whom, at that time, they did not know, charged them with being spies, and insisted upon their bringing Benjamin down into Egypt,-their conscience smote them with the recollection of their former instance of guilt. "They said one to another, we are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us." There is in the human mind a natural impression that punishment is the certain consequence of sin, besides the uneasiness that attends the consciousness of the sin itself. Men look forward instinctively, if I may so say, for some special visitation for their offences, and they are often in a state of secret alarm, expecting that it is upon the point of overtaking them. And when any particular distress does overtake them, they refer the cause of it, in their own minds, to some obliquity of conduct, of which they have before been guilty. So it was with those

brethren :-and Judah, who disclaimed any consent to the deed when it happened, and endeavoured to dissuade them from it, now recognizes the justness of their self-reproach, and indeed gives greater force to it by the severity of his reprimand. His answer to them was,-" Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child, and ye would not hear? therefore, behold also his blood is required." The notion that impressed all their minds was, that they deserved punishment, and that that punishment would certainly overtake them. Their consciences were continually busy in reminding them of the deed, and in alarming them with the expectation of its consequences.

If this was the case, while they had no expectation of either seeing Joseph, or hearing of him again— how much more so must it have been, when they, at length, discovered that they were not only in his presence, but in his power,-and that he had the means, if he had chosen to exercise it, of taking a full and afflicting revenge for all the mischief they had intended him. It is true that the Divine Providence had exalted him to great honour and authority, -to much greater than he could ever have attained, if he had continued with his brethren, and led the uniform, unambitious course of life that belongs to the shepherd state; and so far, his removal into Egypt, if it did not actually increase his happiness, does not seem to have diminished it,-and amounted to what, in the language of the world, and no doubt

in his own estimation, was an advantage to him. Their conduct, however, was to be estimated by its motive, which, being in itself the very worst, could not exculpate them, whether his fortunes had been good or bad. This they knew; and therefore they "could not answer him, but were troubled at his presence:"-troubled and confounded by this unexpected discovery of himself;-troubled and thrown into consternation by the dread of his punishing them. Instead, however, of punishing them, he treated them with the utmost kindness. With a magnanimity and tenderness that are as exemplary as they are admiraable, he not only forgave the original wrong they had done him, but comforted them under their present fear and confusion. "Now, therefore, be not grieved,” said he, “nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you, to preserve life." "And God sent me before you, to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives, by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he both made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt." A person of a fiercer disposition, even though sensible of being a peculiar object of the Divine favour, and aware that his brethren had, in fact, been only as instruments in forwarding the designs of the Almighty, would not so readily have forgiven an injury so glaring as their's He would have been thankful to God for having promoted him to honour, and especially for

was.