us that he lays religious principle out of the question; and such a man must fall. He is like a besieged city with batteries thundering at every gate, and provisions and powder exhausted. That man is sure to yield to temptation, who jumps the life to come.

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly; if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,—
But hereupon this bank and shoal of time-
WE'D JUMP THE LIFE TO COME.

Such was the theology of Shakspeare; he had no system, but it was forced upon him by his rapid and intuitive knowledge of the human heart. Though Macbeth is conscious that life is but a bank and shoal, he is willing to give up every principle for its transient and perishing rewards. Who now will say that a man's religious faith does not have some control over his actions? Believe it, ye licentious, on the authority of Shakspeare. Real faith is a mental view; and our mental views govern us. A man, who has eyes, is influenced in his walk, by the prospect before him; and, in moral things, that prospect is future truth.

But it seems that one lucid interval returns; Macbeth resolves not to commit the crime, and this resolution is grounded, not on religious principle, but on some compunctious visitings of nature. Even the good purposes that cross his mind rest upon no solid

base; they are the mere calculations of the same selfish spirit which urged him to murder the king. There are opposing principles in our hearts, to the greater crimes, which are not strictly virtuous. The dialogue between Macbeth and his wife, after the soliloquy, last alluded to, is the most striking in the whole play. Let the reader ponder the words well; and remember that they are the best purposes which arise in the murderer's mind during the whole transaction. He is talking of repenting and abstaining from his guilty design, and mark on what his best purposes are founded.

We will proceed no farther in this business;

He hath honored me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

Which should be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.

Here is not one word said about the intrinsic depravity of the deed, no reference to a higher power, no regard to the law of God, or our obligation to obey it; the man shows himself as totally destitute of good principles, when he is entertaining purposes of amendment, as when he is pacing to his crime. It is all a calculation of selfishness; it is a striking exhibition of the great law of nature and doctrine of religion, that no man is safe who builds his outward virtues on false principles; who never reached a higher motive than the golden opinions, which he could buy of men.

We find the effect just what might be expected. A little sophistry from his wife overcomes him; and he soon enters into her design, not only with no reluctance, but with eagerness. He hears her detail the plan of treachery and murder; and bursts into the raptures of ambition.

Bring forth men children only!

For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males.

This is now the turning period of his character; he gives himself up to guilt; he expects all his pleasure from it; he passes the line from which there is no return; and whatever remorse he may feel, or however keen his perception of his own state, there remains no more place for repentance, though he seek it carefully with tears.

It is thought by some to be an extremely mystical doctrine, that no man can be good without a great change in the affections of his heart. But surely a reference to the principles of our nature will lead us to this conclusion; and we have Shakspeare on our side. Macbeth, in the outset, has every amiable principle of humanity; nor was there one new principle . called into action when he proceeded to the last stages of guilt. All his crimes were grafted on the common propensities of the heart. But the poet has told us the secret; he was a mere man of the world; he had no regard to a future state, and no fear of God.

He

was like thousands of specious characters, who are living at random, and are ready to receive the first temptation. No cord of law, no band of faith bound him to his duty. He was a bark on the sea, ready to be blown in any direction. He was a specimen of human nature, and from his mournful story, every man, who lives for this life only, may learn to know himself.

These truths have often been taught from the authority of revelation; but they have been disregarded. They are here repeated, in the hope that some may receive them on the authority of Shakspeare.

There is another theological truth, which Shakspeare has brought out and sanctioned in this remarkable tragedy; and that is, the distinction between repentance and remorse. Macbeth is in the deepest remorse ever after he committed the murder; though he is as far from repentance as the most desperate persistency in sin can place him. He knows his guilt; he knows the vanity of all his honors; he knows that not one moment's repose lies between him and the grave; and the prospect beyond he shuts up in darkness and unbelief. Yet he hugs the vain shadows of his dignity; and finds his hope in the exhausted rewards of ambition. He stands alone on the mount; and enjoys nothing but the playing of the sunbeams on its barren ice. There is one speech of his, where the regret of a hardened heart is brought out in the most striking language that tragedy can

show. I allude to the speech, in which the usurper, in the very bloom of his success, and on the throne of his power, turns to the victim he has murdered, contrasts his condition with his own, and envies him the repose of the tomb. No poet ever surpassed this; for a moment, our detestation for the wretch is lost in pity; and we own the deep anguish there is in mental punishment.

Duncan is in his grave.

After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing

Can touch him further!

I have long been convinced, that, when Christianity assumes or presupposes a distinction in human nature, a careful analysis of that nature will always show such distinctions to be just. I am, therefore, happy to find, in this important tragedy, that the Bible and Shakspeare agree. That great master of human nature, who had no theories to support, and hardly a prejudice to blind him, has come, by the powerful impulses of his genius, to a conclusion on which some of the most important truths of revelation are built. There is something very convincing in the careless discernment of an untutored mind. The man of theory makes observation warp to his system; but the voice of nature is always the voice of truth.