It is very easy to talk and write of the “rewards of virtue,” the comfort of a good conscience, the delights of duty. Alas! I am afraid the delights of duty are seldom believed in, and seldomer experienced. Be sure, when a great sacrifice of interest, of affection, of hope, is made, and a great sorrow is felt—nothing—_nothing_ but a loving, Christian faith can console. And Mark Sutherland was not a Christian man. Here, then, even a philanthropist might reasonably inquire _why_ all this was done? _Why_ a youth, born and brought up a slaveholder, should, against preconceived ideas, against prudence, against self-interest, against hope, with doubtful good even to the beneficiaries of his self-devotion, beggar himself for the sake of their emancipation? Why he, being no Christian, should make such an immense sacrifice of wealth, position, affection, hope—in short, of all temporal and earthly interests? We are all able to answer, that, had a scientific phrenologist examined the moral organs of Mark Sutherland’s head, he would have found his answer in the predominant CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. It was, therefore, only a severe sense of justice that laid its iron hand upon him, obliging him to do as he had done—a single sense of justice, such as might have influenced the actions of a Pagan or an Atheist—a hard, stern sense of justice, without faith, hope, or love—an uncompromising sense of justice, without self-flattery, promise, or comfort. He is not as yet a Christian, but he may become one, he must become one, for no great sacrifice was ever made to duty, without Christ claiming that redeemed soul as his own. After all, perhaps, there is but one sin and sorrow in the world—IDOLATRY—and all forms of evil are compromised within it. It includes all shades of sin, from the lightest error that clouds the conscience, to the darkest crime that brings endless night upon the soul; and all degrees of suffering, from the discontent that disturbs the passing hour, to the anguish and despair that overwhelms and swallows up all the hopes of life. We are all idolaters. Some god-passion of the heart is ever the deity we worship. Ambition, avarice, love—“the world, the flesh, or the devil,” in some form, is always the idol. Perhaps, love; the first, the most disinterested, self-devoted, of all the forms of idolatry, comes nearest to the true worship. But it is not the true worship—by all the anguish that it brings, it is not the true worship. Oh! if but for a moment we could raise our souls to God, in the self-surrender wherewith, in passionate devotion, we throw our hearts beneath the feet of some weak and perishable form of clay—_that_ were conversion—that were regeneration—that were a great deliverance—that were eternal life, and full of joy!