There is an egotism, of which we must speak more seriously. Faults, that in the world we laugh at, when they attain the dignity and purity of sacred things, become matter of serious regret. I speak nothing further of the ostentatious display of pious and benevolent exertion. We live at a time when religion, its deepest and dearest interests, have become a subject of general conversation. We would have it so; but we mark, with regret, that self has introduced itself here. The heartless loquacity--we must say heartless, for, in a matter of such deep interest, facility of speech bespeaks the feelings light--the unshrinking jabber with which people tell you their soul's history--their past impressions and present difficulties--their doctrines and their doubts--their manifestations and their experiences--not in the ear of confidence, to have those doubts removed and those doctrines verified; not in the ear of anxious inquiry, to communicate knowledge and give encouragement, but any where, in any company, and to any body who will listen, the _I_ felt--_I_ thought--_I_ experienced. Sorrows that, if real, should blanch the cheek to think upon; mercies that enwrap all hearers in amazement, they will tell as unconcernedly as the adventures of the morning. The voice falters not; the color changes not; the eye moistens not. And to what purpose all this personality? To get good, or do good? By no means; but that, whatever subject they look upon, they always see themselves in the foreground of the picture, with every minute particular swelled into importance, while all besides is merged in indistinctness. We may be assured there is nothing so ill-bred, so annoying, so little entertaining, so absolutely impertinent, as this habit of talking always with reference to ourselves; for every body has a self of their own, to which they attach as much importance as we to ours, and see all others' matters small in the comparison. The lady of rank has her castles and her ancestors--they are the foreground of her picture. There they stood when she came into being; and there they are still, in all the magnitude of near perspective; and, if her estimate of their real size be not corrected by experience and good sense, she expects that others will see them as large as she does. But that will not be so. The lady of wealth has gotten her houses and lands in the foreground. These are the larger features in her landscape; titles and the castles are seen at a smaller angle. Neither lady will admire the proportions of her neighbor's drawing, should they chance to discover themselves in each other's conversation. She, again--whether rich or poor--whose world is her own domesticity, sees nothing so prominent as the affairs of her nursery or her household; and perceives not that, in the eyes of others, her children are a set of diminutives, undistinguishable in the mass of humanity, in which that they ever existed, or that they cease to exist, is matter of equal indifference.