One of the chief causes of decay in religion, is our forgetting that the means necessary for first bringing us to God, are no less essential for retaining us steadily in a close walk with him. To watch and pray was no less the duty of the disciples, when they had left all for Christ, than when they first approached his presence, and sought his pardon and love. He has prayed that we may be kept from the evil of the world; but we must look for an answer to this prayer--in our choice of good, and rejection of evil--in the control of our passions--and in the integrity and uprightness of our conduct. It has been observed, that apostasy begins in the closet; secret prayer is at first carelessly performed--then occasionally omitted--and then entirely neglected. When this is the case, the religious taste becomes fastidious--a roving habit is often indulged--the customs of the world are yielded to, and the principle of sin, which once lay dormant in the heart, rises up with renewed strength, and breaks forth in open manifestations of evil. This process in moral degeneracy may be slow or rapid, according to the degree of influence which circumstances may be permitted to supply, but when it has once begun, it is always going on; and though it may not be in our power to assign the _primary_ cause, yet too much secular prosperity is generally one of the most operative. The more a Christian is indulged with temporal blessings--the higher he or his family rises in the world--the more he ought to have his heart glowing with love and gratitude to God. But so inveterate is the depravity of human nature, that uninterrupted prosperity imperceptibly deadens the best affections of the soul, which becomes so completely engrossed in worldly objects and pursuits, that religion is rarely thought of but on Sabbath, and even then it is entangled and mixed up with the things of time and sense. When prosperity comes thus to act on a person who possesses only the form of godliness, while destitute of its power, its fatal effects may be looked for with almost perfect certainty.