True it is (a truth often stated and proved) that worldliness and carnality, and self-indulgence in all its phases,--in the wardrobe, the library, the equipage, and the table,--that fashion and style, folly and vanity, pride of _caste_, of intellect, and of purse,--none of these things can be talked down, written, lectured, or scolded down. This we fully believe. But must not conscience be addressed? Must not the voice of holy exhortation fall on the ear? Shall we suffer laxity, indifferentism, and Laodicean lukewarmness to pave the way for a universal skepticism, infidelity, and practical atheism, and not be roused in conscience ourselves, and seek to rouse others? God forbid! No doubt, the higher and the better way is to have the evil expelled by the good, to have the flesh subdued by the Spirit, to have self displaced by Christ, to have the love of the world supplanted by the love of the Father:--all this we fully feel and freely admit; but, while feeling and admitting all this, we must still press upon our own conscience and that of the reader the urgent demand for solemn and searching review--for deep searchings of heart in the secret of the presence of God--for profound self-judgment, in reference to our whole career. Blessed be God! we can carry on these exercises before the throne of grace, the precious mercy-seat. "Grace reigns." Precious consoling sentence! Should it prevent exercise of soul? Nay, it should only impart the right tone and character thereto. We have to do with victorious grace, not that we may indulge self, but mortify it all the more thoroughly. May the Lord make us really humble, earnest, and devoted! May the deep utterance of the heart both of the writer and the reader be, "Lord, I am Thine--Thine only, Thine wholly, Thine forever!" This may seem to some a digression from our special theme; but we trust the digression may not be in vain, but that, by the grace of God, it will yield something for the heart and conscience of both the writer and the reader; and thus we shall be better prepared to understand and appreciate the powerful ministry of Elihu, to which we shall now turn our attention, in dependence upon divine guidance.