feeling, “how can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” Yet, is it not notorious, that a great, an overwhelming portion of the inhabitants of this enlightened land, are governed in a very small, if in any degree, by this pure sense of spiritual and religious obligation? Commonly, when they are solicited to sinful gratifications and pursuits, “God is not in all their thoughts:” whether they yield or not, depends partly upon the strength of their natural inclination; partly upon the light in which the sin may be regarded by the world around them; upon the extent to which it may affect their worldly reputation; upon what they may calculate to gain or lose by their conduct. The law of custom has manifestly a greater influence than the law of God; nay, what are called the _rules of honour_, which, in many instances, are flagrantly repugnant and opposite to the divine will, (and might rather be called the rules of _dishonour_,) are appealed to, in a Christian country, as the arbiters of right and wrong; while the “honour that cometh from God only” is totally disregarded and forgotten. And even of those, who are unacquainted with the precise terms of these fallacious rules, what multitudes are there, whose practice and conduct are determined by considerations merely human; who will be guided by a feeling of gratitude to an earthly benefactor, and yet have no sense or remembrance of the favour of an all-merciful God; who will be deterred from evil by the dread of offending an earthly superior, that has power only over the body, and yet possess in their hearts no fear whatever of Him, “who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.” Where there are no better guides, no higher inducements than these, “to refuse the evil and to choose the good,” we cannot be surprised at the licentiousness and corruption, which so unhappily prevail; nor even at the flagrant and shameless commission of that calamitous sin, which Joseph rejected with such holy disdain. Against the impetuous desires and cravings of the flesh; the assiduous entreaties of wicked companions; and the beguiling charms, which Satan so well knows how to spread over all the ways and works of evil; against all these combining together, it cannot be expected, that any human motives or maxims, any earthly feelings alone, should be able successfully to stand.