If the nature of Christian obedience had been different,--if it had been ritual instead of spiritual, it may be conceived possible that God might have committed to man the power of judging and sentencing; but the things of the heart, the desires, the struggles with temptation, the silent conflicts, the unapparent defeats and victories of conscience, are known and can be known by none but God. Through the medium of confession alone can one man gain any insight into the spiritual state of another; and no medium can be more deceptive. It is perhaps impossible for the most conscientious mind to communicate to the most congenial fellow-mind a faithful detail of the thoughts, wishes, hopes, and fears of any single hour; and if it were possible, the fellow-mind would still be incapable of forming an estimate of the spiritual state, or of directing the necessary discipline; because the apparent results of operations which he does not understand are all the materials that he has to judge from; whereas the object of discipline is to rectify the operations themselves. If a man confesses to his bosom friend that his devotional feelings have been for some time past sensibly weakening; that he looks on the beautiful world of nature with apathy, and thinks on the perpetual presence of God without awe or delight; that his spirit is dead in the public offices of devotion, and roving when it ought to be fixed in prayer; his friend may mourn with him over so painful an experience, and suggest, more or less wisely, methods of arousing the sleeping faculties, and kindling anew the failing fires of devotion. But he does this as an adviser, and not as a judge; for the power of judging is not given to him. He knows not whether the origin of the distemper be bodily or mental: he knows nothing of the thousand influences, from within and from without, which have of late modified the delicate processes of the intellect and the soul. He cannot therefore know what restorative influences are most needed; whether mute converse with nature or busy intercourse with men; whether the terrifying or the alluring appeals of the Gospel; whether the awful claims of the Divine holiness, or the mild persuasions of the Divine compassion; whether any or all of these, or of the manifold influences besides which are perpetually dispensed by Him who knoweth our frame, but have never been confided to the empirical disposal of man.