It will not be
attained by men of delicacy and sensibility, except by long and trying
practice. It will be the result of much rough attrition with the world,
and many mortifying failures. And after all, occasions may occur, when
the most experienced will be put off their guard. Still, however, much
may be done by the control which a vigorous mind has over itself, by
resolute and persevering determination, by refusing to shrink or give
way, and by preferring always the mortification of ill success, to the
increased weakness which would grow out of retreating.

There are many considerations, also, which if kept before the mind would
operate not a little to strengthen its confidence in itself. Let the
speaker be sensible that, if self-possessed, he is not likely to fail;
that after faithful study and preparation, there is nothing to stand in
his way, but his own want of self-command. Let him heat his mind with
his subject, endeavour to feel nothing, and care for nothing, but that.
Let him consider, that his audience takes for granted that he says
nothing but what he designed, and does not notice those slight errors
which annoy and mortify him; that in truth such errors are of no moment;
that he is not speaking for reputation and display, nor for the
gratification of others, by the exhibition of a rhetorical model, or for
the satisfaction of a cultivated taste: but that he is a teacher of
virtue, a messenger of Jesus Christ, a speaker in the name of God; whose
chosen object it is to lead men above all secondary considerations and
worldly attainments, and to create in them a fixed and lasting interest
in spiritual and religious concerns;--that he himself therefore ought to
regard other things as of comparatively little consequence while he
executes this high function; that the true way to effect the object of
his ministry, is to be filled with that object, and to be conscious of
no other desire but to promote it. Let him, in a word, be zealous to do
good, to promote religion, to save souls, and little anxious to make
what might be called a fine sermon--let him learn to sink every thing in
his subject and the purpose it should accomplish--ambitious rather to do
good, than to do well;--and he will be in a great measure secure from
the loss of self-command and its attendant distress. Not always--for
this feeble vessel of the mind seems to be sometimes tost to and fro, as
it were, upon the waves of circumstances, unmanageable by