amuse our fancies with palaces to be built, and forests to be planted, worshipping within our breasts the idol of self-complacency, while we contemplate _ourselves_ as the _great_ engineers whose skill is to operate these mighty improvements. We _assume_ too much, we _trust_ too little; we know nothing but the present, and the present we despise. Our limited vision cannot extend beyond a point, and we strain our eyes over all created space. _Little_ things and _proximate_ purposes, make up the real sum of happiness and virtue: but we pass by these in contemptuous disdain, to aim at the great and the distant; the undefined and generally unattainable. True wisdom is surely to watch with our best attention, and cultivate with assiduity, the daily, the hourly circumstances which arise in our path, leaving the widely spreading consequences of unseen result, to Him who alone is acquainted with the final issues. I have never known a failure in any wish of my own respecting the good of my family, which I could not resolve into over solicitude in _looking_ too far, and _doing_ too much in my _own strength_. Examine your heart; be sure that it is single, that no divided empire _there_ is likely to split its councils, and lead to compromise or dissimulation. _Simplicity_ of design is a panoply of power. Clad in its protective guardianship, put up your prayers with confidence for that aid, without which all your efforts will be abortive, and rising from your knees refreshed by the blessed assurance that the sincere suppliant is _never_ disregarded, go forth to your _daily_ task; as you are taught to ask for your _daily_ bread. Endeavour to perform the little duties which are allotted to a _given hour_. Neither perplex your thoughts, nor weaken your sight by scrutinizing the hidden things, and pouring through the darksome mists of future time, but leave it to _become_ the present. At its appointed period your duty is declared, and its boundary is traced: be that your _practical_ object. What mind indeed of "lofty pitch" would be contented with the prison that I prescribe, were I not confining the consideration to that part which we are individually called upon to _act_ in life; but you do not mistake my meaning. Ah! who would wish to walk over "the field of Marathon, or wander amid the ruins of Iona," without desiring to possess the power of abstracting thought from the fleeting moment that eludes our grasp, to expatiate in the mighty vast of years gone by? Or who that has ever loved and lost, would clip the spirit's wing, and stay its airy flight from stretching beyond this narrow strait of time and space into the boundless regions of eternal blessedness, where it is not forbidden to seek amongst the dazzling host, the happy myriads of the sky, for _one_ bright seraph, dearer than the rest, towards whom the newly emancipated stranger flies to meet its fondest though unearthly welcome? _Can_ there be danger--_is_ there impiety--in this