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ceeded: but I would expressly disavow an exact verbal responsi bility. For the sentiments I make myself answerable.

In some instances I have brought together observations made af different times: the reader is not, therefore, to understand that the thoughts here collected on any subject, always followed in immediate connection.

REMARKS

MADE BY MR. CECIL,

CHIEFLY IN

CONVERSATION WITH THE EDITOR,

OR IN

DISCUSSIONS WHEN HE WAS PRESENT.

- Multa ab eo prudenter disputata, multa etiam breviler el commodè dicta memoriæ mandabam, fierique studebam ejus prudentiâ doctior....Cic. de. Amicit. I.

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ON THE

CHRISTIAN LIFE AND CONFLICT..

The direct cause of a Christian's spiritual life, is. Union with Christ. All attention to the mere circumstantials of religion, has a tendency to draw the soul away from this union. Few men, except ministers, are called, by the nature of their station, to enter much into these circumstantials : such, for instance, as the evidences of the truth of religion. Ministers feel this deadening effect of any considerable or continued attention to externals: much more must private Christians. The head may be strengthened, till the heart is starved. Some private Christians, however, may be called on by the nature of those circles in which they move, to be qualified to meet and refute the objections which may be urged against religion. Such men, as well as ministers, while they are furnishing themselves for this purpose, must acquiesce in the work which God appoints for them, with prayer and watchfulness. If they cannot always live and abide close to the ark, and the pot of manna, and the cherubims, and the mercy-seat; yet they are drawing the water and gathering the wood necessary for the service of the camp. But let their hearts still turn toward the place where the Glory resideth.

The Christian's fellowship with God is rather a habit, than a rapture. He is a pilgrim, who has the habit of looking forward to the light before him; he has the habit of not looking back: he has the habit of walking steadily in the way, whatever be the weather, and whatever the road. These are his habits : and the Lord of the Way is his Guide, Protector, Friend, and Felicity.

As the Christian's exigencies arise, he has a spiritual habit of turning to God, and saying, with the Church, 4. Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flocks to rest at noon.' I have tried to find rest elsewhere. I have fled to shelters, which held out great promise of repose; but I have now long since learned to turn unto thee: "Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flocks to rest at noon.? "

6

The Christian will look back, throughout eternity, with interest and delight, on the steps and means of his conversion. “My Father told me this! My Mother told me that! Such an event was sanctified to 'me! In such a place God visited my soul!" These recollections will never grow dull and weari

some.

A VOLUME might be written on the various methods which God has taken, in Providence, to lead men first to think of Him.

The history of a man's own life, is, to himself, the most interesting history in the world, next to that of the scriptures. Every man is an original and solitary character. None can either understand or feel the book of his own life like himself. The lives of other men are to him dry and vapid, when set beside his

He enters very little into the spirit of the Old

own.

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