You have seen the religionist of mere passion. That impulsive temperament is doubtless capable of good services to the master. But, to that end, the master must have the reforming of it. That unsteady purpose must be made steadfast through a thoughtful imitation of the constancy that said, “Behold, I go up to Jerusalem to be crucified.” That fluctuating wing of worship must be poised by some influence from those hills, where whole nights were not too long for a Redeemer’s prayers. That inexpert swimmer in the sea of life, now rising, now sinking, and now noisily splashing the waters, must be schooled by sober experience to glide onward with a firmer and stiller stroke. Ardor must be matched with consistency. You are not to be carried to heaven by a fitful religion, periodically raised from the dead at seasons of social exhilaration; not by a religion alive at church, but stagnant in the streets and in the market-places; not by a religion kindling at some favored hour of sentimental meditation, only to sink and flicker in the drudgery of common work. It is to little purpose that we read, and circulate, and preach the Bible, except all our reading and all our living gain thereby a more biblical tone. And it is quite futile that our breasts glow with some fugitive feeling in the house of God, unless that feeling dedicates our common dwellings to be all houses of God. So have you seen the religious legalist. In business, in the street, in sanctuaries, at home, you have seen him. In business, measuring off his righteousness by some sealed measure of public usage, as mechanically as his merchandise, and making a label or a dye-stuff his cunning proxy to tell the lie that some judicial penalty had frightened from his tongue; disowning no patent obligation, but cheating the customer, or oppressing the weak, in secret. In the street, wearing an outside of genial manners, with a frosty temper under it, or a cloak of propriety with a heart of sin; in the sanctuary, purchasing, with formal professions, one day, the privilege of an untroubled self-seeking the other six, or possibly opening the pew door and the prayer-book here to-day, with the same hand that will wrong a neighbor to-morrow; and at home, practicing that reluctant virtue that would hardly give conjugal affection but for the marriage-bond, and that, by being exported to another continent, would find a Parisian atmosphere a solvent of all its scruples. Not descending, at present, to the depth of depravity, he certainly never rises to a pure piety. Whatever respectable or admirable traits you see in him, you miss that distinctive mark which every eye takes knowledge of as a spiritual consecration.