being finite, and incapable of
operating in all directions at once.

What then are _sinners_? A simple question, but not so easy to answer.
_All_ men are _sinners_. But what is a _man_? A featherless biped? So
was the plucked fowl of Diogenes. A man is--well a man; and a sinner
is--well a sinner. And this is near enough for most people. But it does
not satisfy a rational investigator, to say nothing of your born critic,
who will go on splitting hairs till his head is as bare as a plate, and
then borrow materials from his neighbor's cranium.

In ancient Egypt it was a sin to kill a cat; in England cats are slain
in myriads without a tremor of compunction. Among the Jews it is a sin
to eat pork, but an English humorist writes you a delicious essay on
Roast Pig. Bigamy is a sin in the whole of Europe but the south-eastern
corner, and there it is a virtue, sanctioned by the laws of religion.
Marrying your deceased wife's sister is a sin in England; four thousand
years ago, in another part of the world, it was no sin at all; in fact,
a gentleman of remarkable piety, whom God is said to have loved, married
his wife's sister without waiting for a funeral. Did not Jacob take
Rachel and Leah together, and walk out with them, one on each arm?

Sin as a _fact_ changes with time and place. Sin as an _idea_ is
disobedience to the law of God; that is, to the doctrines of religion;
that is, to the teaching of priests. _Crime_ is quite another thing. It
is far less heinous, and far more easily forgiven. Of course crime and
sin may overlap; they may often be the same thing practically; but this
is an accident, for there are crimes that are no sins, and sins that are
no crimes. It is a crime, but not a sin, to torture a heretic; it is a
sin, but not a crime, to eat meat on a Friday.

A sinner is a person on bad terms with his God. But who, it may be
asked, is on good terms with him? No one. According to Christianity, at
any rate, we have all sinned; nay, we are all full of original sin; we
derived it from our parents, who derived it from Adam, who caught it
from Old Nick, who picked it up God knows where. Now every sinner is
a damned sinner. He may not know it, but he is so; and the great John
Wesley advises him to recognise it, and come as a "damned sinner" to
God, to be sprinkled or washed with the blood of Christ.

What is _damned_ then? We take it that "damned sinners," that is _all_
sinners, are persons to whom God says "Damn y