Moreover, are not the men called godly often hated, and persecuted, and of all men the most miserable? Is not this their promised lot--"In the world ye shall have tribulation;" or "The world shall laugh, but ye shall weep and lament?" How, then, can it be time, the question again and again recurs, that such buffeted men have the promise of the present life? Nay, does not an apostle himself confess, that, in certain conditions, Christians may be of all men the most miserable? With all these things, however, full in view, we still declare that the promise is true, and that no man really enjoys this world except the man of God. Whether it be in the Heart, that heart is the happiest whose godliness is greatest; or in the Home, that home is the most blessed where godliness is the most ascendant; or in the Workshop, that workshop is ever the best conditioned, and the most free from those things which rudely shock man's moral nature, where the fear of God is most felt; or in the Market-place, that business is ever the most healthy, the least exposed to panics or to failure, where the lamp of life, the Bible, sheds light upon our path. Gain without godliness is gold put into a bag with holes. It is a rusted and a moth-eaten thing; it eats the flesh as doth a canker. ESAU. Let us now, then, glance at religion in its general bearing upon the life of man on earth. It is the appointed Director of life; it is the Ornament and the joy of life; it is the prelude, the foretaste, or the earnest of the Life to come.--Viewed under these aspects, it may not be difficult to discover the folly of those who act in the spirit of Esau, and barter away their birthright for pleasures which perish in the using; or the wisdom of those who seek that righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which are guaranteed to the Christian by an eternal covenant. As the Director of life, then, it cannot be difficult to show that true religion is all-important. THE GUIDE, THE COUNSELLOR, THE FRIEND. Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a wiser guide than the only-wise God? Is not that man under some dire infatuation, who thinks that he can discover a safer? But true religion, the religion which the Spirit of God has embodied in the Bible, just consists in being under the guidance of the Holy One, in thought, word, and deed. Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a path more pleasant than that in which the Eternal leads us? Now, the religion of truth just places us in the narrow path to glory opened up by God.