may be wanting which is requisite for enabling them to act with propriety, when their virtue is put to a decisive trial. The softness of their nature is unfavourable to a steady perseverance in the course of integrity. They possess the amiable qualities; but there is ground to suspect, that in the estimable ones they are deficient. While, therefore, we by no means class them among the bad, we dare not give them the full praise of virtue. When they set out in the world, we cannot pronounce with confidence, what confirmed features their character will assume; nor how far they can be depended upon in future life. Allow me now to point out the dangers which such persons are most likely to incur; and to show what is requisite for them farther to study, in order to their fulfilling the part of good men and true Christians.

I. Persons of this description are not qualified for discharging aright many duties, to which their situation in life may call them. In certain circumstances, they behave with abundance of propriety. When all is calm and smooth around them; when

nothing occurs to agitate the mind, or to disturb the tenor of placid life, none of their defects come forward. They are beloved, and they are useful. They promote the comfort of human society; and, by gentleness and courtesy of manners, serve to cement men together in agreeable union. But to sail on the tranquil surface of an unruffled lake, and to steer a safe course through a troubled and stormy ocean, require different talents: and, alas! human life oftener resembles the stormy ocean, than the unruffled lake. We shall not

have been long embarked, without finding the resemblance to hold too closely.

Amidst the bustle of the world, amidst the open contentions and secret enmities which prevail in every society, mildness and gentleness alone are not sufficient to carry us with honour through the duties of our different stations, as heads of families, citizens, subjects, magistrates, or as engaged in the pursuits of our several callings. Disturbances and trials arise, which demand vigorous exertions of all the moral powers; of patience, vigilance, and selfdenial; of constancy and fortitude, to sup

port us under danger and reproach; of temperance to restrain us from being carried away by pleasure; of firm and determined principle, to make us despise the bribes of sin. These manly dispositions of mind are indispensably necessary to prepare one for surmounting the discouragements of virtue, and for struggling honourably through the hardships of life. Unless he be thus armed and fortified, whatever good intentions have been in his heart, they are likely to be frustrated in action. Nothing that is great can be undertaken; nothing that is difficult or hazardous can be accomplished. Nor are we to imagine, that it is only in times of persecution, or war, or civil commotions, that there is occasion for those stronger efforts, those masculine virtues of the soul, to be displayed. The private, and seemingly quiet, stations of life, often call men forth, in the days of peace, to severe trial of firmness and constancy. The life of very few proceeds in so uniform a train, as not to oblige them to discover, in some situation or other, what portion they possess of the estimable qualities of man. Hence it sometimes

happens, that persons whose manners were much less promising and engaging than those of others, have, nevertheless, when brought to act a part in critical circumstances, performed that part with more unsullied honour, and firmer integrity, than they.

II. Persons of the character I have described are ill fitted, not only for discharging the higher duties of life, but also for resisting the common temptations to vice. With good dispositions in their mind, with a desire, like the young ruler in the text, to know what they shall do in order to inherit eternal life; yet, when the terms required of them interfere with any favourite enjoyment, like him, they are sorrowful, and go away. The particular trial to which he was put, may appear to be a hard one, and to exceed the ordinary rate of virtue. Our Lord, who discerned his heart, saw it to be necessary, in his case, for bringing his character to the test. But in cases, where trials of much less difficulty present themselves, they who partake of a character similar to his, are often found to give way. The good qualities which they pos

sess, border on certain weaknesses of the mind; and these weaknesses are apt to betray them insensibly into vices, with which they are connected.

Good nature, for instance, is in danger of running into that unlimited complaisance, which assimilates men to the loose manners of those whom they find around them. Pliant, and yielding in their temper, they have not force to stand by the decisions of their own minds, with regard to right and wrong. Like the animal which is said to assume the colour of every object to which it is applied, they lose all proper character of their own; and are formed by the characters of those with whom they chance to associate. The mild are apt to sink into habits of indolence and sloth. The cheerful and gay, when warmed by pleasure and mirth, lose that sobriety and self-denial, which is essential to the support of virtue. -Even modesty and submission, qualities so valuable in themselves, and so highly ornamental to youth, sometimes degenerate into a vicious timidity; a timidity which restrains men from doing their duty with firmness; which cannot stand the frown of