terror and alarm, and every passing breeze bears to his tormented soul
the groans of the dying man, and conscience forces him to listen to
the heart-rending tale of wo. Fain would he fly from himself, and
enjoy one hour's repose; but alas! That God, who rules in the kingdom
of men, has written a law in his heart, where he reads and feels his
condemnation, and where conscience sits on the judgment seat,
constantly holds him arraigned at her tribunal, and fans up in his
bosom the burning flames of hell! He may lie down on his pillow, but
spectres haunt his brain; and awake, asleep, at home, abroad, he finds
that he has rendered his own existence a curse. He lives in misery,
and in darkness expires.

Let us next notice the thief, who plunders our property. His crime is
of less magnitude than the above, but his guilt is in proportion. No
one by such means has ever enriched himself. He, who obtains property
by dishonorable means, is ignorant of its value, and will dishonorably
spend it. He has forgotten that God governs the world. Our
state-prisons and penitentiaries not only (so far as human laws are
concerned) reveal his fate, but speak his woes. But suppose he escape
detection, and is only exposed to the naked and fearful grandeur of
that law which God has written in the heart. He hears its thunders,
and he feels its fires. He his taken from some fellow being his hard
earnings; and sees him and perhaps his children mourning their
misfortune and suffering the miseries of adversity. Guilt takes
possession of his soul, and misery, which the hand of time cannot
extinguish, rolls its dark waves of damnation upon him, and drowns his
dearest joys, while poverty marks him for her own.

God has so constituted his plans in the government of the world that
the plunderer cannot prosper. Inward horrors and fears of detection