Do you listen to them? Do they not pass you unperceived like the flitting zephyrs' leaving no trace to mark their passage. Did you ever seriously try to render an account of the attributes of God, and particularly of His goodness and justice? of His goodness to endear Him to all, and of His justice to make Him be feared by all. Have you considered well that to know God is to know all, because He is the Author of all creation possessing in Himself to an infinite degree all the perfections of His creation? He who does not labor to obtain a knowledge of God can scarcely obtain any knowledge of himself. How is it possible for us to know what we are while we ignore what God is for us and what we owe Him? Oh, how few there are who know themselves! The first condition necessary to secure this knowledge, so important and so precious, is profound humility, which unsparingly reveals the real motive of all our actions, the uncompromising antagonist of our pride and self-love. Now it is quite evident that he who does not know God does not possess this virtue; for how can a man humble himself before a being that he ignores? At first sight it may seem that there is nothing so easy as to know one's self,--that this knowledge may be obtained by a close consideration of the heart's operations; but when we give the matter sufficient thought the work does not appear to be so easy. And the number of those who have acquired this knowledge to any noted degree is so limited that we are forced to infer that a knowledge so rare must offer great difficulties.