By such treatment they would be cheered and helped on in their process of reformation. A contrary course has driven many a man away from his pious resolutions, and caused him to return to the commission of crime. The heart of the penitent man is tender, and this sensibility is in proportion to the greatness of his sins. _Then_ it can bear but little, whatever it may do afterwards. _Before_ David's repentance, Nathan said to him--"Thou art the man!" but not _afterwards_. This was right; and the sinful monarch reformed. When the soul is torn by the lashes of conscience, it needs no other reprover. Then the heart is bleeding and needs not any other application than oil and wine. Its language is--"Have pity upon me! have pity upon me! O! ye my friends! for the hand of God hath touched me!" No one knows these feelings better than myself; and I know, too, what it is to have the feelings of a broken and contrite heart, harrowed up by the unsympathizing hand of _sneering_, _reproaching_, and _scornful professors_. Well do I remember those hours of darkness and pain; and a thousand scars on my soul will never suffer the remembrance to die. And that my readers may have some idea of my feelings at that time, I will ask their indulgence to insert for their perusal the following extract of a hymn, composed in one of those seasons of self-condemnation and derided misery. "Yes, I feel that I'm forgiven, Mercy cheers my soul at last; Yet my heart is always riven When I think upon the past! O the killing recollection! How it withers up my soul! What can blunt the keen reflection, Or this aching breast console! If my tears, I'd weep an ocean! If my blood, I'd rend this heart! Could I stop this dread emotion, How with being would I part! But the _past_--'tis past _for ever_!-- Yet, if suffer'd still to live, Will the friends of Jesus _never_, My repented deeds _forgive_?" Such are the feelings of a contrite soul, when the painful remembrance of its sins is aggravated by the constant and unfeeling indications of a world's scorn.