We have said thus much on the subject of ignorance, in the sense of our responsibility to the truth of God and to the soul of the reader. We feel its immense practical importance. We believe we very often plead _ignorance_, when _indifference_ would be the truer term to use. This is very sad. Surely, if our God, in His infinite goodness, has made ample provision even for sins of ignorance, that is no reason why we should coolly shelter ourselves behind the plea of ignorance, when there is the most abundant information within our reach had we only the energy to make use of it. We might not, perhaps, have dwelt at such length upon this point were it not for the conviction, which becomes each day more strengthened in the soul, that we have reached a serious moment in our history as Christians. We are not given to croaking: we have no sympathy whatever with it. We believe it is our privilege to be filled with the most joyful confidence, and to have our hearts and minds ever garrisoned by the peace of God that passeth all understanding. “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Tim. i. 7.) But it is impossible to close our eyes to the startling fact that the claims of Christ, the value of truth, the authority of holy Scripture, are being more and more set aside each day, each week, each year. We believe we are approaching a moment in the which there will be toleration for any thing and every thing save the truth of God. It behooves us, therefore, to look well to it that God’s Word has its own proper place in the heart, and that the conscience is governed in all things by its holy authority. A tender conscience is a most precious treasure to carry about with us from day to day—a conscience that ever yields a true response to the action of the Word of God—that bows down without a question to its plain statements. When the conscience is in this fine condition, there is always a regulating power wherewith to act upon one’s practical course and character. Conscience may be compared to the regulator of a watch. It may happen that the hands of the watch get astray; but so long as the regulator has power over the spring, there is always the means of correcting the hands. If that power be gone, the entire watch must be taken to pieces. So with the conscience. So long as it continues true to the touch of Scripture, as applied by the Holy Ghost, there is always a safe and sure regulating power; but if it becomes sluggish, hardened, or perverted—if it refuses to yield a true response to “Thus saith the Lord,” there is little, if any, hope. It then becomes a case similar to that referred to in our chapter,—“But the soul that doeth aught _presumptuously_, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, _the same reproacheth the Lord_; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. _Because he hath despised the word of the Lord_, and hath broken