pleasure, however thoughtless can never make himself believe that he is doing right. The man plunged in the serious bustle of business, cannot easily persuade himself that he may be doing wrong.

Commutation, compensation, and substitution, are the grand engines which WORLDLY RELIGION incessantly keeps in play. Her's is a life of barter, a state of spiritual traffic, so much indulgence for so many good works. The implication is," we have a rigorous master," and it is but fair to indemnify ourselves for the severity of his requisitions; just as an overworked servant steals a holiday. "These persons," says an eminent writer*, "maintain a meum and tuum with heaven itself." They set bounds to God's prerogative, lest it should too much encroach on man's privilege.

We have elsewhere observed, that if we invite people to embrace religion on the mere mercenary ground of present pleasure, they will desert it as soon as they find themselves disappointed. Men are too ready to clamour for the pleasures of piety, before they have, I dare not say, entitled themselves to them, but put themselves into the way of receiving them. We should be angry at that servant, who made the receiving of his

The learned and pious John Smith.

wages a preliminary to the performance of his work. This is not meant to establish the merit of works, but the necessity of our seeking that transforming and purifying change which characterizes the real Christian; instead of complaining that we do not possess those consolations, which can be consequent only on such a mutation of the mind.

But if men consider this world on the true scripture ground, as a state of probation; if they consider religion as a school for happiness indeed, but of which the consummation is only to be enjoyed in heaven, the Christian hope will support them; the Christian faith will strengthen them. They will serve diligently, wait patiently, love cordially, obey faithfully, and be stedfast under all trials, sustained by the cheering promise held out to him "who endures to the end."

There are certain characters who seem to have a graduated scale of vices. Of this scale they keep clear of the lowest degrees, and to rise above the highest they are not ambitious, forgetful that the same principle which operates in the greater, operates also in the less. A life of incessant gratification does not alarm the conscience, yet it is equally unfavourable to religion, equally destructive of its principle, equally opposite to its spirit, with more obvious vices.

These are the habits which, by relaxing the mind and dissolving the heart, particularly foster indifference to our spiritual state, and insensibility to the things of eternity. A life of voluptuousness, if it be not a life of actual sin, is a disqualification for holiness, for happiness, for heaven. It not only alienates the heart from God, but lays it open to every temptation to which natural temper may invite, or incidental circumstances allure. The worst passions lie dormant in hearts given up to selfish indulgences, always ready to start into action as occasion calls.

Voluptuousness and irreligion play into each other's hands they are reciprocally cause and effect. The looseness of the principle confirms the carelessness of the conduct, while the negligent conduct in its own vindication shelters itself under the supposed security of unbelief. The instance of the Rich Man in the Parable of Lazarus, strikingly illustrates this truth.

Whoever doubts that a life of sensuality is consistent with the most unfeeling barbarity to the wants and sufferings of others; whoever doubts that boundless expence and magnificence, the means of procuring which were wrung from the robbery and murder of a lacerated world, may not be associated with that robbery and murder, let him turn to the gorgeous festivities, and unparalleled pageantries of Versailles and

Saint Cloud-There the imperial Harlequin, from acting the deepest and the longest Tragedy that ever drew tears of blood from an audience composed of the whole civilized Globe, by a sudden stroke of his magic wand, shifts the scene to the most preposterous Pantomime :

Where moody madness laughing wild
Amidst severest woe,

gloomily contemplates the incongruous spectacle, sees the records of the Tyburn Chronicle embellished with the wanton splendours of the Arabian tales; beholds

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things;

beholds Tyranny with his painted visor of patriotism, and Polygamy with her Janus face of political conscience and counterfeit affection fill the fore ground; while sceptered parasites, and pinchbeck potentates, tricked out with the shining spoils of plundered empires, and decked with the pilfered crowns of deposed and exiled Monarchs, fill and empty the changing scene, with "exits and with entrances," as fleeting and unsubstantial as the progeny of Banquo;-beholds inventive but fruitless art, solicitously decorate the ample stage to conceal the stains of blood-stains as indelible as those which the ambitious wife of the irresolute Thane vainly

strove to wash from her polluted hands, while in her sleeping delirium she continued to cry,

Still here's the smell of blood;

The perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten it.

But to return to the general question. Let us not enquire whether these unfeeling tempers and selfish habits offend society, and discredit us with the world; but whether they feed our corruptions and put us in a posture unfavourable to all interior improvement; whether they offend God and endanger the soul; whether the gratification of self is the life which the Redeemer taught or lived; whether sensuality is a suitable preparation for that state where God himself, who is a spirit, will constitute all the happiness of spiritual beings.

But these are not the only, perhaps not the greatest dangers. The intellectual vices, the spiritual offences, may destroy the soul without much injuring the credit. These have not, like voluptuousness, their seasons of alternation and

repose. Here the principle is in continual operation. Envy has no interval. Ambition never cools. Pride never sleeps. The principle at least is always awake. An intemperate man is sometimes sober, but a proud man is never humble. Where vanity reigns, she reigns always. These interior sins are more difficult of