of a Christian, a degree of credit attends his new
profession, but he never suspects there is either difficulty or
discipline attending it; he fancies religion is a thing for talking
about, and not a thing of the heart and the life. He never suspects
that all the psalm-singing he joins in, and the sermons he hears,
and the other means he is using, are only as the exercise and the
evolutions of the soldiers, to fit and prepare him for actual
service; and that these means are no more religion itself, than the
exercises and evolutions of your parade were real warfare.

"At length some trial arises: this nominal Christian is called to
differ from the world in some great point; something happens which
may strike at his comfort, or his credit, or security. This cools
his zeal for religion, just as the view of an engagement cooled your
courage as a soldier. He finds he was only _angry_ with the world,
he was not _tired_ of it. He was out of humor with the world, not
because he had seen through its vanity and emptiness, but because
the world was out of humor with him. He finds that it is an easy
thing to be a fair-weather Christian, bold where there is nothing to
be done, and confident where there is nothing to be feared.
Difficulties unmask him to others; temptations unmask him to
himself; he discovers, that though he is a high professor, he is no
Christian; just as you found out that your red coat and your
cockade, your shoulder-knot and your musket, did not prevent you
from being a coward.

"Your misery in the military life, like that of the nominal
Christian, arose from your love of ease, your cowardice, and your
self-ignorance. You rushed into a new way of life without trying
after one qualification for it. A total change of heart and temper
were necessary for your new calling. With new views and principles
the soldier's life would have been not only easy, but delightful to
you. But while with a new profession you retained your old nature it
is no wonder if all discipline seemed intolerable to you.

"The true Christian, like the brave soldier, is supported under
dangers by a strong faith that the fruits of that victory for which
he fights will be safety and peace. But, alas! the pleasures of this
world are present and visible; the rewards for which he strives are
remote. He therefore fails, because nothing short of a lively faith
can ever outweigh a strong present temptation, and lead a man to
prefer the joys of conque