of calling evil good and good evil-this deli cacy of feeling, which, while it forbids the obtrusion of religious views, lest they create offence, and shuts the lips of the awakened sinner, is not a rare ingredient in the characters of many who entertain a trust that they have been the subjects of saving grace. There are those who have sustained a long and tedious struggle in their hearts-who, possessing a faint hope that they have passed from death unto life, relinquish the ordinary pleasures of the world, and engage in all the duties which are fulfilled by a lukewarm professor of religion -except the duty of profession itself-and who, while they lead a cheerless life, seem not to consider that what they deem an apology for neglect, is the very sin which keeps them suspended between heaven and earth, unfit for the enjoyment of either.

And even after a public profession of faith has been made, evils are multiplied from the same cause: Not only when the Christian and the Worldling, in their ordinary interviews, consider the topic of religion forbidden ground to both, but in the discharge of many of those obligations which both reason and revelation enjoin. A valued friend once told me, that

one of the most painful trials he had ever known, was in founding the domestic altar. On other matters he could speak freely; and private devotion occupied a due proportion of his time. But the conflict in his bosom was long and severe before he could persuade himself to become "the minister to his family." And can it be doubted that thousands of the rising generation retire unblessed from the restraint of parental prayer? Or can it be doubted that this single neglect has checked the influence of many a parental example, which might have led the offspring to serious thought, if not to salvation?

There is another modification of this delicacy, which attaches suspicion to it in all its forms; social intimacy is often seriously injurious to that Christian fellowship on which the prosperity, if not the life, of personal piety depends. This may seem a singular position, and it would be so but for the very matter now before us. The truth is one of every day's observation, that husbands and wives often converse more freely on the experimental points of piety, with those who are comparatively strangers, than with each other. The bond which nature has formed between relatives,

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and which time has riveted, appears too frequently loosened, when we find that incongruous reluctance to converse together on matters of piety; and when we have seen even children more ready to open their minds on this subject, to friends less nearly allied, than to the parent who has watched over them with prayerful solicitude. How is all this? Is there something defective in Christianity itself? or something that changes the nature of our mutual relations? Not at all. There may be different causes which produce different degrees of influence towards these effects, but still the mover of all this mischief is that most secret of agents-pride. There is no need of defining, no need of explaining the operation of this principle; and it is wholly useless to quarrel with terms. Let him who speaks of this delicacy, and continues to foster it, examine the first feelings to which it gives rise: let him compare these feelings together, and note well their selfishness; and see if it be possible to escape our conclusion. Yes, pride has its retired habits as well as modesty, its seemly aspect, and its very diffidence of manner. And it is hence, that among the children of God, the consciousness that their mutual infirmities

are known to each other, and the corresponding fear that they might generate a distrust of their sincerity, very often stand in the way of a fulfilment of that prophecy which the latter days shall complete-"then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another."

You have sometimes seen the mind which nature had rendered ingenuous and frank, drooping under cherished woes-bending beneath a weight it strove to conceal-mingling bitterness with domestic peace, and discontent with outward prosperity-until the hand that was about to set the spirit free from its tabernacle, laid bare to the sight the wounds that festered within; and the nearing terrors of a death-hour broke the spell of restraint—and for the first time, the sufferer could ask, "what shall I do to be saved?"

Or where the mind dared not brood over its disquietudes, and was equally unwilling to divulge them, how often have religious impressions which seemed nigh to some good hope, left place to a spurious peace, which continued unbroken through life!

"But there are moments,"-you say,"when you are not only anxious to hear all that can be said on this subject, but almost wil

ling to inquire of those around you." A more intense feeling of danger would certainly produce this effect. Even pride gives way in a season of peril. A greater passion usurps the seat of a lesser, when the two can not reign together. And you have, perhaps, witnessed in another, that hardly-repressed anxiety of manner, which solicited an inquiry into its cause -that distant hinting at a subject there was not quite boldness enough to introduce; and you saw, plainly, the cause of all this, through the miserable efforts to conceal it. But because that hint was not taken, and that exposed anxiety was not reached by a single question,

and the theme of religion was still kept back-the half awakened inquirer suppressed a murmur, at the disappointment, and, in the petulance of a mortified child, gave up the whole matter, with the self-consoling thought--"It is partly the fault of others, if I perish." Here is pride acted out. And puerile as it may appear, it is a case of no uncommon occurrence. I am persuaded that if the inquirer will take. pains to examine the ground he is treading, he will find a scriptural admonition meeting him at every step, and fitting the very dis position of mind which he then entertains.