If a man would seriously set himself to this work, he must retire from the crowd. He must not live in a bustle. If he is always driving through the business of the day, he will be so in harness as not to observe the road he is going.

He must place perfect standards before his eyes. Every man has his favorite notions; and, therefore no man is a proper standard. The perfect standard is only to be found in Scripture. Elijah meets Ahab, and holds up the perfect standard before his eyes, till he shrinks into himself.* I have found great benefit in being sickened and disgusted Iwith the false standards of men. I turn, with stronger convictions, to the perfect standard of God's Word.

He should also commune with his own heart upon his bed-"How did I fall, at such or such a time, into my peculiar humours! Had any other man done so, I should have lost my patience with him."

Above all, he must make his defects matter of constant prayer—Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

MEN are to be estimated, as Johnson says, by the MASS OF CHARACTER. A block of tin may have a grain of silver, but still it is tin; and a block of silver may have an alloy of tin, but still it is silver. The mass of Elijah's character was excellence; yet he was not without the alloy. The mass of Jehu's character was base; yet he had a portion of zeal which was directed by God to great ends. Bad men are made the same use of as scaffolds; they are employed as means to erect a building, and then are taken down and destroyed.

* 1 Kings xviii, 17, &c.

WE must make great allowance for constitution. I could name a man, who, though a good man, is more unguarded in his tongue than many immoral persons: shall I condemn him? he breaks down here, and almost here only. On the other hand, many are so mild and gentle, as to make one wonder how such a character could be formed without true grace entering into its composition.

GOD has given to every man a peculiar constitution. No man is to say "I am such or such a man, and I can be no other such or such is my way, and I am what God made me." This is true, in a sound sense; but, in an unsound sense, it has led men foolishly and wickedly to charge their eccentricities, and even their crimes, on God. It is every man's duty to understand his own constitution; and to apply to it the rein or the spur, as it may need. All men cannot do, nor ought they to do, all things in the same way, nor even the same things. But there are common points of duty, on which all men of all habits are to meet. The free horse is to be checked, perhaps, up-hill, and the sluggish one to be urged; but the same spirit, which would have exhausted itself before, shews itself probably in resistance down-hill, when he feels the breeching press upon him behind-but he must be whipped out of his resistance.

THERE is a large class of Christians, who want dis'crimination in religion. They are sound and excellent men, but they are not men of deep experience. They are not men of Owen's, Gilpin's, Rutherford's, Adams's, or Brainerd's school. They have a general, but not a minute acquaintance, with the combat between sin and grace in the heart. I have learnt not to bring deeply experimental subjects

efore such persons. They cannot understand em, but are likely to be distressed by them. This ifference between persons of genuine piety arises rom constitution-or from the manner in which he grace of God first met them-or from the naare and degree of temptation through which God as led them. A mind finely constituted, or of rong passions-a mind roused in its sins, rather han one drawn insensibly-a mind trained in a evere school for high services-is generally the ubject of this deeply interior acquaintance with eligion.

THERE is a great diversity of character among real Christians. Education, constitution, and circumstances will fully explain this diversity.

He has seen but little of life, who does not discern every where the effects of EDUCATION on men's opinions and habits of thinking. Two children bring out of the nursery that, which displays itself throughout their lives. And who is the man, that can rise above his dispensation, and can say "You have been teaching me nonsense?"

As to CONSTITUTION-look at Martin Luther: we may see the man every day: his eyes, and nose, and mouth attest his character. Look at Melancthon: he is like a snail with his couple of horns: he puts out his horns and feels-and feels-and feels. No education could have rendered these two men alike. Their difference began in the womb. Luther dashes in saying his things: Melancthon must go round about-he must consider what the Greek says, and what the Syriac says. Some men are born minute men-lexicographers-of a German character: they will hunt through libraries to rectify a syllable. Other men are born keen as a razor: they have a sharp, severe, strong acumen: they cut every thing to pieces: their minds are like

a case of instruments; touch which you will, wounds: they crucify a modest man. Such me should aim at a right knowledge of character. they attained this, they would find out the sin the easily besets them. The greater the capacity such men, the greater their cruelty. They ought to blunt their instruments. They ought to keep them in a case. Other men are ambitious-fond of power: pride and power give a velocity to their motions. Others are born with a quiet, retiring mind. Some are naturally fierce, and others nat urally mild and placable. Men often take to them selves great credit for what they owe entirely to nature. If we would judge rightly, we should st that narrowness or expansion of mind, niggardi ness or generosity, delicacy or boldness, have less of merit or demerit than we commonly assign to them.

CIRCUMSTANCES, also, are not sufficiently taken into the account, when we estimate charac ter. For example-we generally censure the Re formers and Puritans as dogmatical, morose, sys tematic men. But, it is easier to walk on a road, than to form that road. Other men labored, and we have entered into their labors. In a fine day, I can walk abroad; but, in a rough and stormy day, I should find it another thing to turn coachmen and dare all weathers. These men had to bear the burden and heat of the day: they had to fight agains hard times: they had to stand up against learning and power. Their times were not like ours: a man may now think what he will,and nobody cares what he thinks. A man of that school was, of course, stiff, rigid, unyielding. Tuckney was such a man: Whichcot was for smoothing things, and walking abroad. We see circumstances operating in many other ways. A minister unmarried, and the same man married, are very different men. A minister in a small parish, and the same man in a large

here where his sides are spurred and goaded, are ery different men. A minister on tenter-hooksarassed-schooled, and the same man nursedherished-put into a hot-house, are very different ¡en. Some of us are hot-house plants. We grow 11: not better-not stronger. Talents are among e circumstances which form the diversity of charcter. A man of talents feels his own powers, and rows himself into that line which he can pursue ith most success. Saurin felt that he could flourh-lighten-thunder-enchant like a magician. very one should seriously consider, how far his lents and turn of mind and circumstances drive im out of the right road. It is an easy thing for a an of vigor to bring a quiet one before his bar: nd it is as easy for this quiet man to condemn the ther: yet both may be really pious men-serving God with their best powers. Every man has his eculiar gift of God; one after this manner, and he other after that.

On the Fallen Nature of Man.

SEEM to acquire little new knowledge on any ubject, compared to that which I acquire concernng man. This subject is inexhaustible. I have ately read Colquhoun's Treatise on the "Police of the Metropolis," and Barruel's "Memoirs of Jacobinism.' When we preachers draw pictures of human nature in the pulpit, we are told that we calumniate it. Calumniate it!-Let such censurers read these writers, and confess that we are novices in painting the vices of the heart. All of us live to make discoveries of the evils of the heart-not of its virtues. All our new knowledge of human nature is occupied with its evil.