It teaches us that the penalty is as certain as the commission of the crime; because one is the cause, and the other the effect. Hence we could as easily replace a lost arm, torn off in the field of battle, by prayer, or stop the descending lightning from splintering yonder tree into a thousand fragments, as to avert or set aside the penalty for crime by "supplicating the throne of grace." We hold that every wrong act we commit, if it does not destroy our happiness at the time, and operate as a barbed arrow sticking in the soul, will at least weaken our capacity for happiness in the future, weaken our moral strength and resolution to abstain from crime, weaken our natural detestation of crime, and weaken our moral ability to resist the temptation to commit the same and other crimes in the future, and finally destroy our moral manhood and true dignity. Now, here is a series of powerful motives for eschewing evil, and leading a life of virtue, which will operate to arrest that river of crime and iniquity now flowing through all Christian countries as soon as the people are taught these rational and beautiful doctrines in lieu of those weak and foolish incentives to virtue which are taught them from the Christian pulpit. They possess a much greater moral force than the fear of angry Gods and horned Devils. _Reader ponder these maxims._ _The True Theory of Reform_.--It requires but a few words to show what kind of moral teaching is required to reform the world. As happiness is the predominant desire and inalienable right of every human being, all aim to pursue that course best calculated to attain it; but, as men are now organized and circumstanced, they often pursue a course of life which infringes upon and destroys the happiness of others: and some of them commit acts known as crimes, which are simply trespasses upon the rights, peace, and happiness of their neighbors. If, in thus pursuing happiness, they must destroy the happiness of others, then it follows that the happiness of others is incompatible with their own. If so, then God has made a serious blunder in making one man's happiness depend upon destroying the happiness of others; and, as their happiness would depend equally upon destroying his, the happiness of all would thus be destroyed. Hence the theory won't work. It follows, then, that men lead a life of crime calculated to destroy the happiness of others, because they are ignorant of the fact that they can pursue a course of life that will secure their own happiness without destroying that of others. All that is necessary to reform them, therefore, is to convince them of this fact. This is the true theory, and the whole theory, of reform. And when people become acquainted with the modern discovery in moral philosophy, which teaches us that we can not attain to complete happiness without consulting the happiness of others in every act which affects them, there will be a double motive for leading a virtuous and honorable life.