What would be with me the result of moral reflections and trust in human means, in the power of a vile heart to cure its own iniquities? I have a conviction amounting to sensation in its truth, that everything but looking unto Jesus is weaker than water—vain and frivolous. This is the grand consideration, result, and object of religion in the soul, all beside is wide of the mark and without power and efficacy. Oh, my God, my God! write these truths in my soul, impress them in my heart, that by communion with Thee I may by Thy grace be purified, washed, and cleansed from every evil thought. Blessed be Thy Holy Name for keeping me from _acts_ of sin. Oh! have mercy on my mind and take away every _thought_ of it. I shall have to experience another temptation, and should be preparing for it. I have little doubt but Lord Carrington will be again President of the Board. He likes not me, and I shall be much more uncomfortable than I have been with Lord Sheffield; but such changes, if they happen, will be from the Lord, for nothing is so idle as for a Christian to suppose that anything takes place by chance. I do not mean to leave town till the Woburn meeting, but I am restless, and want to get away. This is a common folly, and ought carefully to be checked. It is the spirit that wastes half a life, ever looking to a future moment and never enjoying the present, which is that alone that is truly our own.[224] There is not a more valuable lesson than to learn how to apply every portion of time to use, and not to suffer the expectation of, or waiting for, any future moment to make the intermediate ones tiresome or unpleasant. It is wasting life and time that is never to return. Yesterday, at 7 P.M., I dined with Mr. Anson—a farming party: Duke of Bedford, Earl of Galloway, Earl of Albemarle, Lord Somerville, Sir Robert Lowley, Sir John Wrottesley, Mr. Coke, Mr. Motteaux, Mr. Child, Sir G. Pigot, Mr. Western, Mr. Wilbraham, all M.P.’s or in high life. Nothing but a farming conversation makes the company of these people proper for me to have anything to do with; and that it is not to be conceived how little they know on the subject, considering it’s a favourite pursuit. Such great fortunes and a life of luxury and bustle and motion are hostile to every kind of knowledge; and the conversation abounds with information for those who watch for and have a memory to retain it, yet it demands a good deal of knowledge previously digested and arranged to make a due use of it. A splendid house, one of the best in London; magnificent furniture, plate, servants, wines, and everything, equal to 30,000_l._ or 40,000_l._ a year, but he has no such income.