I once heard a careless fellow say that he "professed nothing and lived up to it;" but "professing nothing" does not exonerate a man at all, so far as relates to the personal maintenance of honor, purity, and truth. The man who would excuse a lapse from virtue, or any obliquity of conduct, on the ground that he did not profess any thing, simply announces to me the execrable proposition that every man has a kind or degree of right to be a rascal until he pledges himself to be something better. There are altogether too many men in the world who am keeping themselves easy with the thought that if they are not very good, they never pretended or professed to be,--as if this failure publicly to pronounce themselves on the side of the highest morality, were a sufficient apology for minor delinquencies! It seems to be a poultice of poppies to some sensitively inflamed consciences, that, whatever they may have done, they have never broken promises voluntarily made, to do right--as if there were a release from the obligation to do right, in failing to make the promise! If it will help a man to do right, publicly to profess to do right, and to do good to other men by placing his influence on the right side, then the first duty a man owes to his race, is to make this declaration. But I will not linger here, because my words have led me to the discussion of the obligations of those who have made a profession of Christianity, and taken upon themselves the vows of Christian church-membership. When a man joins a Christian church, he becomes related to that church in the same way that nature makes him related to humanity. The reputation of the church is placed in his keeping. He cannot do an unchristian thing without injury to the church, or without depreciating, in the eyes of the world, every other member. Think what a blow is inflicted upon the church of Jesus Christ by such scandalous immoralities as some of its most prominent members have been guilty of--by forgeries, and adulteries, and drunkenness! These cases are not common, but when they occur, they are blows under which the church reels. The outside world looks on, and scoffs: "Aha! That's your Christianity, is it?"