PREFACE. THE following Essays are part of a series, the plan of which was sketched by Mr. Ware a short time before his death. I find a list of subjects for twenty-two essays; but only one appears to have been finished that entitled "The Importance of Principle in Religion." The two others which are here published, though probably incomplete, are too valuable to be cast aside. One of Mr. Ware's favorite subjects of preaching and conversation was the importance of personal religion; and he would, no doubt, have prepared a most useful volume of essays, by the execution of the plan here alluded to, had his life been prolonged. C. R. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Ir is surprising to observe the indifference of even serious people to personal religion. One would suppose that the personal claims of religion would be first and principally regarded; that men would chiefly recognize it as their own concern, and as having their own guidance and destiny in its keeping. Yet, if we might judge from their general appearance and style of remark, we might conclude that this was the last aspect in which they felt it important to regard it. They treat it as they do the statutes of the commonwealth, which deserve all respect as excellent in themselves and interesting to those whom they concern, but with which it is of no importance to any others to be acquainted. Doubtless the enactments respecting insurance and the decisions on maritime law are very wise and necessary; they regard the public good, and must be matters of great interest to those whose professions and business they regulate; but it is enough for me to know that they exist; I need not know what they are. Thus the community is made of citizens who believe the laws to be necessary and good, but who have no acquaintance with them, excepting as, in some accidental emergency, any of them may become applicable to their own case. The Christian world is full of men who treat the doctrines and laws of religion in precisely this manner. They yield it all honor as the light of the world and the guide of those who need its guidance; they think that society would be unsafe without its institutions and influences; but as for making themselves familiar with it, attaching themselves to it heartily, and applying to it daily, hourly, for direction and aid, they do not dream of it. They regard it as a general, not a personal, obligation and blessing. There are too many symptoms of a similar error even among those who esteem themselves decidedly religious persons. They are interested in the affairs of the church, always present at public worship, attentive to the minister, forward in promoting the interests of the society; but their zeal expends itself in these external manifestations; they give no proofs of a hearty interest in the principles of their faith, or of any great desire to subject their lives to its power. They would think it hard that their Christian standing should be questioned; and yet they give no intimation of any higher than a worldly life, and never assign any reason for their conduct excepting a worldly consideration. There is danger, too, lest some should be drawn away from the culture of personal piety by the call at present made on believers for action in public abroad. Hurried from one plan of enterprise to another, their strength, their thoughts, their time, exhausted in planning, talking, and acting for others, they are in danger of ceasing to plan and act for themselves; and their very devotedness to the outward affairs of religion may hinder their attention to its influence within their own souls. In these and various other ways is exhibited that indifference to personal religion of which I spoke. Instead of finding it, as we might expect, the subject of all others most absorbing and exciting, it is contemplated coolly, as some very respectable and decorous thing; but it calls up no glow of strong feeling, it rouses no anxious vigilance, it kindles no desire of higher and higher excellence. Too many Christians are what the state of society in which they live makes them; they are formed by the pressure from without, not by the impulse from within; they would be just what they are, even if they had no religious faith; their virtue is conventional, not personal. It is the result of circumstances, not of effort; it is the secondary effect of Christianity, reflected from the characters around them, not its direct action on their own heart and will. They walk by the general light diffused through the atmosphere of the civilized world; they have lighted no lamp of their own from the great fountain; or, if once they did so, they have ceased to think it essential to keep it trimmed and burning, and it has gone out. It is sad to perceive how this prevalence of the secondary influence of Christianity is permitted to hinder its primary influence. When it first dawned upon the world and acted by its immediate light upon the soul, when men could receive it only from the direct orb, then the fulness of its efficacy was witnessed, and the disciples were devoted with singleness of heart, in life and in death. But as the gospel became one of the permanent institutions of the world, men came to receive it from one another; to be satisfied with the little which was reflected from their neighbors; to be content with its indirect influences. It was a beautiful arrangement, indeed, of divine wisdom, that the race of man should be thus ameliorated; that they who would not yield themselves, as disciples and confessors, to the immediate control of truth, should, notwithstanding, be unable to escape its indirect control; that that light, as it entered the moral atmosphere of socięty, should be in so various ways reflected and refracted as to fill the whole circumference of human being, and penetrate every dwelling, and shine upon every |