DISCOURSE VIII. Faith triumphant over the Powers of Darkness. St. MARK, CHAP. ix. Part of VER. 24. "LORD, I BELIEVE: HELP THOU MINE UNBELIEF!" The false estimate of happiness, which is made by the generality of men, entirely proceeds from their not taking into the account the real, though invisible, objects of another world, with which they are much more intimately concerned than with the present temporary state of things. Hence it is, that they judge of the seeming pleasures of this life, not from a comparative view of them with the superior enjoyments of a better, but according to the proportion which they bear to one another. It is upon this principle, coinciding with the peculiar constitutional desires of different men, that their different worldly pursuits are formed and regulated. The penurious grasping miser declaims, with an eloquence which avarice alone inspires, against the rash and silly conduct of the gay and thoughtless spendthrift. The man of pleasure expresses his astonishment at the strange taste, and stupid employment of his neighbour, who can sit poring over his accounts from morning till night, and values himself upon the accuracy with which they are kept, and the strict economy with which all his expences are regulated. The votary of ambition considers his taste and pursuits of a far more sublime nature than those of either of the former, and looks down with contempt upon the plodding dullness of the miser, and the short-lived pleasures of the sensualist. In the mean while, the sagacious enquirer after knowledge, who spends days and nights in the most laborious researches, perpetually seeking after Truth in the countless volumes of antiquity, congratulates himself upon the superiority of his genius, and wonders that all mankind are not so captivated with the charms of science, as immediately to forsake the false and fleeting joys of avarice, ambition, and voluptuousness.