dedicated to the world, both in youth and age. If our actions are not constantly referred to him, if his approbation and favour is not our principal object, we shall certainly take up with the applause of men, and make that the ruling motive of our conduct. How melancholy is it to see this phantom so eagerly followed through life! whilst all that is truly valuable to us is looked upon with indifference; or, at best, made subordinate to this darling pursuit! Equally vain and absurd is every scheme of life that is not subservient to, and does not terminate in, that great end of our being--the attainment of real excellence, and of the favour of God. Whenever this becomes sincerely our object, then will pride and vanity, envy, ambition, covetousness, and every evil passion, lose their power over us; and we shall, in the language of scripture, "walk humbly with our God." We shall then cease to repine under our natural or accidental disadvantages, and feel dissatisfied only with our moral defects;--we shall love and respect all our fellow-creatures, as the children of the same dear parent, and particularly those who seek to do his will: All our delight will be "in the saints that are in the earth, and in such as excel in virtue." We shall wish to cultivate good-will, and to promote innocent enjoyment wherever we are:--we shall strive to please, not from vanity, but from benevolence. Instead of contemplating our own fancied perfections, or even real superiority with self-complacence, religion will teach us to "look into ourselves, and fear:" the best of us, God knows, have enough to fear, if we honestly search into all the dark recesses of the heart, and bring out every thought and intention fairly to the light, to be tried by the precepts of our pure and holy religion. It is with the rules of the gospel we must compare ourselves, and not with the world around us; for we know, "that the many are wicked: and that we must not be conformed to the world." How necessary it is frequently thus to enter into ourselves, and search out our spirit, will appear, if we consider, how much the human heart is prone to insincerity, and how often, from being first led by vanity into attempts to impose upon others, we come at last to impose on ourselves. There is nothing more common than to see people fall into the most ridiculous mistakes, with regard to their own characters; but I can by no means allow such mistakes to be unavoidable, and therefore innocent: they arose from voluntary insincerity, and are continued for want of that strict honesty towards ourselves and others, which the Scripture calls "_singleness of heart_;" and which in modern language is termed _simplicity_,--the most enchanting of all qualities, esteemed and beloved in proportion to its rareness.