"I wished you had been by my side on Sunday, while I sat in my old corner in Federal Street meeting-house, listening to that voice which is to us both associated with some of our best religious impressions. I went to hear Dr. Channing, for the second time only since I returned home, as much for the sake of recalling old associations as from any expectation of new influences; for it does me good now and then to go back to what I was, the better to understand what I am. If he had known just what I was suffering, he could not have adapted himself more entirely to my case. He was upon some of the obstacles which may prevent our use of the present moment for improvement; and he enlarged upon the tendency to rest satisfied with past attainments. Because we had at one period of our lives been deeply moved and strongly influenced by religious motives,--had performed some great acts of benevolence, or sustained ourselves under great trial with fortitude and submission,--we deluded ourselves with the idea, that we had attained a height from which we could not fall. But no mistake could be more ruinous. The past was _nothing_, except as it influenced the present. We trust too much to future improvement, to a vague notion of gradual progress,--we know not exactly how, or by what means. But as we are not conscious of becoming worse, we think we must be growing better, and shall by and by be all that we ought to be. Or we hope for more favorable circumstances to influence us, and expect to be, we know not why, in a more fit state at some other time for our religious duties.