benefits, and learn lessons suited to the condition of suffering and short lived humanity, above all the gilded scenes of earthly splendor. And we may be bold to say, that if the pleasure-taker could, from the highest style of sensual indulgence, prove, that he tasted delight in any degree equal to that, which _he_ feels, who makes the “widow’s heart to dance for joy;” we would then leave him in peaceable possession of the amusements that engross his time. But as he can never possibly prove it, we must mortify him in the midst of his gratifications, by telling him, that he who liveth in pleasure is “dead while he liveth;” dead to the life of religion and to the offices of real humanity; and that there is an awful day approaching, in which the Judge of heaven and earth shall say to sinners of a certain description, “In as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me.” But humanity and charity do not constitute the whole of religion. Something more is required; and that is, that a man “keep himself unspotted from the world.” The christian character, or the conversation of a true believer, is, according to scripture metaphor, represented under the emblem of a white garment; the color denoting purity and glory. They who walk consistently with their profession, are described as not sullying the purity of it. So our Lord says of some in the church of Sardis, “Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.” Rev. iii. 4. Perhaps the allusion in both places is made to the custom of arraying, as the word signifies, all candidates for offices, as among the Romans, in white robes. Christians are candidates for glory. They are adorned in the white garment of Christ’s righteousness for their justification before God; Rev. iii. 5; and they wear the sacred robe of personal holiness, as the justification of their character before men. The former is incapable of defilement, and is that “fine linen, clean and white, in which the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” is to be adorned in the grand solemnization of her nuptials in the last day. The latter, when under the inspection of omniscience, and compared with the extensive purity of the law, requires to be “washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.” Rev. viii. 14. It is this last robe, the Christian’s walk and character, which it is incumbent upon him to keep unspotted from the world. And as a white garment shews any accidental defilement on it sooner and more conspicuously, than one of a different color; this application of the emblem points out the greater necessity of watching against every inconsistency, that would disgrace his profession and bring his character into suspicion. The world watches for his halting, and will be ready upon every occasion to impute faults where there are none, and to aggravate and triumph in real ones. If