Now, in these remarks, we have just been enforcing a trite, but profound maxim, "What is a man profited, though he could gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul?" Surely men buy gold at too high a price, when their immortal spirits are given in exchange for it. Success in such a case is a terrible disaster, and far better a mercantile crash than eternal ruin. To give ourselves up to the devoted pursuit of the world, and to secure what we pursue, while God and heaven are forsaken, is a calamity to be deplored through all eternity. Better far the cross and the disappointment; better far the shattered hope and the world's neglect, than to sit with princes and to forfeit heaven--to rank among those whose gold cannot be counted, and yet to be poor, and wretched, and miserable in the high estimate of eternity--There is an animal which strikes the arm with feebleness the moment it is touched. The muscles are benumbed, the sense of feeling is for the time destroyed, and the affected parts are as if they had been struck by lightning, and in a similar way, do this world's cares benumb or stupify the soul. Its desire for the good and the pure, and its power to enjoy them, are at once destroyed by intense engrossment with the world's cares; and he who has not felt and lamented the effects of such engrossment, should beware, lest his want of feeling be the result of his want of life. * * * * * THE PREVALENCE OF THE FALSE: INSTANCES.