In saying that the first result of belief in God, and in the revelations which he has given is _repentance_, I shall raise no controversy, for it is a truth generally accepted; indeed it follows faith in logical sequence. No sooner does conviction of God's existence, and of the truth of the revelations which he has given of himself, and of his laws, dawn upon the mind, than man becomes conscious of his being a violator of the holy and just laws of heaven. In the days of his unbelief and spiritual darkness he sinned recklessly and wantonly, without regard to God and often in defiance of him; but when belief takes hold of the mind, and when mere belief begins to ripen into intelligent faith through becoming acquainted with the character of the Deity--when it becomes clear to the understanding that he is the creative and sustaining power of all things; when it is understood that from him man derives his existence and that in him he lives, and moves and has his being; and when it is further known that his laws are beneficent and good, shaped for the purpose of ennobling man and exalting him; when some revelation of the great love of God and his Son Jesus Christ rushes in upon the mind like a flood of heavenly light into darkness--how the haughty, rebellious spirit is humbled, the heart softened, and the whole demeanor changed! With what contrition does the man, truly convinced of all these things we have enumerated respecting the Deity, seek the throne of grace and cry aloud: "O God! Have mercy upon me a sinner!" For almost at the same moment that faith took hold of him, he began to understand how great his sins were before God. And that realization growls upon him as conviction, becomes more certain, until the spirit is bowed down with sorrow because of his many violations of the laws of righteousness. Nor do these remarks apply only to those who have been enormously wicked. Take those of a naturally good disposition, and who have followed the light of reason, and even they, in taking a retrospective view of their lives, will find that they have fallen far short of coming up to what they conceived to be their duty. Even the light they possessed--I mean aside from the revelations of God--revealed to them a higher moral excellence than they have attained. They have not done as well as they could have done. This fact is evident--one of which all may give witness. This being true, that is, man seeing that he has come short of doing his whole duty according to his natural conceptions of what that duty is, how much more distant from the goal of desired excellence will he esteem himself when the light of revelation breaks in upon his life, bringing into bolder relief his mistakes, and revealing to him a purer moral and spiritual life than it was possible for his mind, unaided by revelation, to conceive? I venture the assertion that even the best men--by that I mean those who have best conformed their lives to the