Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/463

 effect the moral and spiritual emancipation of a people, suffering far less under the evils of a foreign sway, than under the debasing dominion of folly and sin. And was this an occasion to arm against him the darker feelings of his trusted and loved companions?—to turn the instruments of his mercy into weapons of death? Ought the mere disappointment of a worldly-minded spirit, that was ever clinging to the love of material things, and that would not learn the solemn truth of the spiritual character of the Messiah's reign, now to cause it to vent its regrets at its own errors, in a traitorous attack upon the life of him who had called it to a purpose whose glories and rewards it could not appreciate? These and other mournful thoughts would naturally rise to the repentant traitor's mind, in the awful revulsion of feeling which that morning brought with it. But repentance is not atonement; nor can any change of feeling in the mind of the sinner, after the perpetration of the sinful act, avail anything for the removal or expiation of the evil consequences of it. So vain and unprofitable, both to the injurer and the injured, are the tears of remorse! And herein lay the difference between the repentance of Judas and of Peter. The sin of Peter affected no one but himself, and was criminal only as the manifestation of a base, selfish spirit of deceit, that fell from truth through a vain-glorious confidence,—and the effusion of his gushing tears might prove the means of washing away the pollution of such an offense from his soul But the sin of Judas had wrought a work of crime whose evil could not be affected by any tardy change of feeling in him. Peter's repentance came too late indeed, to exonerate him from guilt; because all repentance is too late for such a purpose, when it comes after the commission of the sin. The repentance of an evil purpose, coming in time to prevent the execution of the act, is indeed available for good; but both Peter and Judas came to the sense of the heinousness of sin, only after its commission. Peter however, had no evil to repair for others,—while Judas saw the bloody sequel of his guilt, coming with most irrevocable certainty upon the blameless One whom he had betrayed. Overwhelmed with vain regrets, he took the now hateful, though once-desired price of his villainy, and seeking the presence of his purchasers, held out to them the money, with the useless confession of the guilt, which was too accordant with their schemes and hopes, for them to think of redeeming him from its consequences. The words of his confession were, "I have sinned, in betraying innocent blood." This late protestation was received