sible that true religion should gain or retain a place in their minds, as that the highest science or learning should. Their manner of life renders the cultivation of religious sentiment impracticable, and the state of their hearts renders it undesirable.

But where the love of the world has not proceeded to this extreme, its effects are still deplorable and sad. It disorders the mind-unsettles it-incapacitates it for reflection-alienates it from quiet and sober pleasures—creates a restless and uneasy longing for excitements, which ordinary life, and still more religion, fails to afford. In the same way that the intemperate man has created by indulgence an appetite which continued indulgence can alone allay and satisfy; the lover of pleasure has nourished desires and cultivated tastes, whose wants a life of idleness and pleasure can alone meet. He, perhaps, has not the means or the opportunity always to gratify his desires, and is obliged at times to refrain; but it is unwillingly and with regret, and the mind turns coldly and heavily to other sources.

With others, again, the love of the world is a mixed emotion. God and the world rule by turns. The empire of the mind is a contested region. The heart is divided. It would fain love God and lift its affections to him, and yet it cannot bring itself to renounce so much of the world as to enable it to do so. It is so desirous to love and relish the things of religion and God, that when in the world and bent upon its pleasures,it is discontented and unhappy ; and on the other hand, it loves these so well, that when it flies to religion for joy and comfort, it is soon weary and must again return to the world. Worldliness is in this way the successful and potent enemy of religion. It does not succeed in banishing it wholly from the soul; but it does succeed in diminishing and alloying its comforts. It does not take the mind wholly from God, and the contemplation of its great destiny; but it takes it away so much and so often, that it returns to them unwillingly, and derives from them little satisfaction. It is

in Christians of this frame, that worldly mindedness produces the most mental sorrow and disquiet. It poisons all their sources of religious pleasure, and substitutes none in their place. It withdraws the heart from what it feels it ought chiefly to love, and yet gives it nothing upon which it can lean, or from which it can derive solid and enduring consolation. They who surrender themselves wholly and without reserve to the world, are in the comparison, happy and at ease. Their affections are undivided; their whole souls are fixed upon one class of objects, and no regrets from opposite quarters intrude to disturb their peace. But with the others, it is not so. In the world they are without peace, for their consciences upbraid them. In religion they are restless, for their thoughts still wander to the world.

If it were only for these sad effects upon our minds and hearts, which would otherwise find their joy in the best and holiest things, we see reason enough to detest the disposition of which we speak, as one mischievously productive of the acutest pains and most desponding sensations of which the human heart is susceptible.

I have urged the importance of resisting the influence of the world, its occupations, and pleasures; but I do not say that it is an easy duty. It is a hard one. To say that it were easy were untrue and unwise; untrue--for the multitudes of those who are its slaves notwithstanding the confessed misery of their servitude, disclose that it is no easy duty to throw off its chains. Unwise--for the task is ever slighted or done ill, which is set forth as a light one and to be accomplished at any time. The world, let it be remembered, is the powerful adversary of man, and to be overcome must rouse into action every energy of his nature. To those who live and move in the better walks of life, into whose lap fortune has poured her full horn, who enjoy the honors and praise of the world, there is a brilliant lustre spread over the face of society, a joy and excitement in its dazzling intercourse, a deep interest in its scenes of pleasure, that occupy and absorb the whole

heart, that tie it down to earth by a bond strong as death, but invisible and unfelt. It is not easy to break this bond, to conquer the strong love which has been thus created. It is not easy thus to take the heart away from such scenes and pleasures, to teach it to find its happiness in scenes and pleasures the very opposite. It is not easy for one, all whose thoughts have been of the earth, to fix them on the things that are above. This change involves as entire a revolution of character and feeling, as when the slave of notorious sin is converted, and finds in virtue the peace and joy he once found only in vice. It demands, therefore, great effort on the part of those who are interested in the work of their own conversion, in order thoroughly to accomplish it. And there cannot be a more dangerous and fatal error, than the idea that this work can be done in a short time and at a brief notice. They who linger in the haunts of pleasure, in the resolve that bye and bye, at whatever time they shall desire, they will break from the world and shut it wholly out of their hearts, but in the meantime they will love it as they have ever done,―are precisely those who will always love it, and the more passionately and exclusively, as the mind becomes weakened by age.

A worldly mind, my friends, in its different degrees and forms, is what we need all of us most to struggle against. Many of us may never experience a single motion of the mind towards palpable vice, who are yet violently tempted to worldliness; and many of us who would startle and shrink at the idea of crime, give our minds to the world without a thought of its danger or its sin. But it is little less dangerous to the soul than vice itself; it is deceitful in its advances, and appearances; and often before we are aware, it has wholly engrossed the desires and drawn away the soul from God. The empire thus lost, it is almost imLet us be on our guard-let us watch the avenues by which a worldly spirit enters-and, knowing its evil and danger, let us resist it unto death.

possible to regain.

BY REV. NATHAN PARKER, D. D. PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

THE GOODNESS OF GOD LEADETH MEN TO REPENTANCE.

ROMANS II. 4.

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.

No man, whose affections have felt the power of religion, can have failed to notice with the most grateful sentiments the benevolent spirit of Christianity. Nor can any devout and rational Christian, who is accustomed to watch the progress of religious feeling upon the most interesting of all subjects, be unimpressed with the conviction, that the gentle spirit of Jesus is gaining a deeper interest in the hearts of men. There is, notwithstanding the influence of revolting popular creeds, more kindness in the manner of exhibiting the instructions of Christ, less of rancor and cruelty, than once prevailed. Of this fact, we think, there can be no doubt, however much we may have occasion to deplore the still prevailing influence of selfishness and ambition in the church. In this we do, and will rejoice. It gives proof, that the character of our religion is better understood, than it once was; and it encourages the hope, that it will be more widely embraced, and exert a happier influence over human char

acter.

Our existence is worth more, when our affections, in all circumstances, are taught to repose with a delightful confidence on an infinite Father, than when they are frightened from him by images of terror only. Human fellowship is worth more, the world is more cheerful in its aspect, when our existence is held among those, whose religion teaches them to be pure and kind, than when we associate with those, whose countenances are covered with gloom, who tremble before a God, whose only prominent attributes are infinite power and unrelenting justice.

But, while we rejoice in the benevolent spirit of the gospel, and that this spirit is becoming more generally understood, it ought not to be forgotten, that there are peculiar dangers to which, in such circumstances, men are exposed. The transition from a discipline of great severity to one more generous and kind is always mo e or less perilous. The goodness of God may be, it has been abused. His design, as exhibited in the gospel, is to draw up the affections to the Author of all good, to render men, like to the God, whose goodness is the foundation of their hopes. The happiness of man is then only safe, when this design is accomplished. If, on the other hand, he disregard the purposes of God, and estrange his heart from him, he becomes from the very habits of his soul the subject of misery. It is this abuse of the divine goodness concerning which the apostle remonstrated with the Jews. It was this, which rendered their condemnation not only just, but inevitable. To the same guilt and to a similar ruin, are those now exposed, to whom the gospel is addressed. Let us then endeavor to gather up and bring to our consciences, the instructions, suggested by the scripture, placed at the head of this discourse.

1. Men are indisposed to make the goodness of God a subject of serious and grateful reflection. In proof of this assertion it is unnecessary to go into an examination of facts, transmitted to us by history. Personal observation and consciousness will afford sufficient evidence to all, who will impartially attend to their testimony.