_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"I admit the correctness of your statement, and I assure you that this view of the matter has often excited my astonishment. I have in my parish a gentleman, who is very humane and benevolent--a faithful friend--beloved by all who know him; but he has not been to church for nearly twenty years, except when he came to receive the sacrament, on his being elected sheriff of the county. I have sometimes spoken to him on the subject of religion, but he shrewdly gets away from my arguments by saying, 'Sir, you are to be commended for doing your duty.'" _Mr. Roscoe._--"And will not these facts convince you that the moral disorder of our nature lies in the heart, which may be deceitful and desperately wicked in the sight of God, even while some of the virtues adorn the character. Have you yet to learn, my brother, that pride, which disdains vulgar vice--that a love of fame and that self-interest may generate many social and domestic virtues, even while the inner man is enmity against God, neither recognizing the authority of his law, nor embracing the truths of the gospel? On this subject I can speak with strong personal feeling; and if I may refer to a passage in my own history, it is not to gratify vanity, but to illustrate the distinction which the Scriptures preserve between morality and personal religion. I lived for many years a virtuous life, attached to the church, and devoting much of my time to the study of the Scriptures, reverencing God as a great and good being, and believing in the Divine mission of Jesus Christ; but during the whole of this time I was ignorant of the alienation of my affections from God--of the actual depravity of my heart--of the essential evil of sin; nor could I understand how we are to be saved by grace, through faith, until it pleased God to enlighten my understanding; then all obscurity vanished, and now, I trust, I know the mysteries of truth more perfectly." _Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"You who embrace what are termed evangelical sentiments, always employ a mystical phraseology of speech, which no one can understand but the initiated; and this is one principal cause of the prejudice which prevails against them amongst the more intelligent and less enthusiastic part of society."