16. Do not suppose you can recommend religion, by appearing interested in every thing that interests those who have no better portion than this world.—Remember that your deportment, your conversation; your interest in dress, in company and amusements; the manner in which you perform your religious duties, are all carefully noted and weighed by those around you, who do not love religion; and if they do not see a _marked difference_ between you and themselves, they either conclude there is nothing in religion, or else that you are a hypocrite. Worldlings _expect_ that you will be _very_ different from them, and _despise_ you in their hearts if you are not. If you wish to recommend religion, let the world see it acted out according to the beautiful pattern laid down in the bible, and do not suppose that you can improve this pattern by any addition or subtraction of your own. On one subject there are some who need instruction. There is a class of christians who appear taciturn, unsocial, and even sad. This appearance is altogether inconsistent with the spirit of religion. Christians ought to appear cheerful and happy; to appear to receive with pleasure and gratitude all the lawful enjoyments bestowed by their Heavenly Father. Such a gloomy deportment as has been described, does not do honour to religion, and causes those whom we wish to win to the ways of pleasantness and peace, to feel that religion is a melancholy, unsocial, and forbidding subject. All professors of religion should endeavour to have such views of God, his love, his providence, his care; and should so live, as to _be_ cheerful and happy, and to _appear_ so. On the contrary, there is a class of professed christians, who indulge in frequent trifling and levity. This is quite as inconsistent and injurious as the former, and if any thing it is more so. Let the _christian_ at least, learn to make a distinction between _cheerfulness_ and _levity_. Remember we are commanded to avoid _foolish talking and jesting_, and that it is possible to be happy, cheerful, affable, and kind without any trifling or levity. 17. Remember that your evidence of possessing religion _ceases_ when _any thing else_ has the _first_ place in your thoughts and interests. Religion should not lessen our love for our friends, or our real enjoyments; but _the desire to please God in all our ways_ should be the _prevailing feeling_ of the mind. Our Saviour says, we cannot have _two masters_; _God and his service_ must be first in our thoughts and affections, or else the _world and its pleasures_ are first. If then we would find whose servants we are, we must find who has the first place in our thoughts and affections.