uggle is going on between them, not only on the wide field of the
world; but in the narrow lists of the heart of each of us.

Sin reigns. The truths that underlie that solemn picture are plain
enough, however unwelcome they may be to some of us, and however
remote from the construction of the universe which many of us are
disposed to take.

Now, let us understand our terms. Suppose a man commits a theft. You
may describe it from three different points of view. He has thereby
broken the law of the land; and when we are thinking about that we
call it crime. He has also broken the law of 'morality,' as we call
it; and when we are looking at his deed from that point of view, we
call it vice. Is that all? He has broken something else. He has
broken the law of God; and when we look at it from that point of view
we call it sin. Now, there are a great many things which are sins
that are not crimes; and, with due limitations, I might venture to
say that there are some things which are sins that are not to be
qualified as vices. Sin implies God. The Psalmist was quite right
when he said; 'Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned'; although he
was confessing a foul injury he had done to Bathsheba, and a glaring
crime that he had committed against Uriah. It was as to God, and in
reference to Him only, that his crime and his vice darkened and
solidified into sin.

And what is it, in our actions or in ourselves considered in
reference to God, that makes our actions sins and ourselves sinners?
Remember the prodigal son. 'Father! Give me the portion of goods that
falleth to me.' There you have it all. He went away, and 'wasted his
substance in riotous living.' To claim myself for my own; to act
independently of, or contrary to, the will of God; to try to shake
myself clear of Him; to have nothing to do with Him, even though it
be by mere forgetfulness and negligence, and, in all my ways to
comport myself as if I had no relations of dependence on and
submission to him--that is sin. And there may be that oblivion or
rebellion, not only in the gross vulgar acts which the law calls
crimes, or in those which conscience declares to be vices, but also
in many things which, looked at from a lower point of view, may be
fair and pure and noble. If there is this assertion of self in them,
or oblivion of God and His will in them, I know not how we are to
escape the conclusion that even these fall under the class of sins.
For there can be no act o