wledge, and which he
has been trained either directly or indirectly to draw from "the only
rule of duty," the Bible. When, accordingly, the temptation is farther
pressed upon him, and the reasons of his refusal are regularly put into
form, they appear in something like the following shape and order:--"I
must not absent myself from public worship; for thus it is written,
'Forget not the assembling of yourselves together;' and, 'Jesus, _as his
custom was_, went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.'"--"I must not
profane this holy day; for thus it is written, 'Remember the Sabbath day
to keep it holy,'"--And, "I must not go with these boys; for thus it is
written, 'Go not in the way of the ungodly;' and 'Evil communications
corrupt good manners.'"

Whoever will investigate the subject closely, will find, that the above
is a pretty correct picture of the mental process, wherever temptation
is opposed and overcome by means of religious principle;--but it is also
worthy of remark, that the form is still nearly the same by whomsoever a
temptation is resisted, and whether they do or do not take the
Scriptures for their text-book and directory. The only difference in
such a case is, that their lessons have been drawn from some _other_
source. For example, another boy exposed to the above temptation might
successfully resist it upon the following grounds. He might say, "I must
not absent myself from public worship; because I shall then lose the
promised reward for taking home the text;"--"I dare not profane the
Sabbath; because, if I did, my father would punish me;"--"I will not go
with these boys; because I would be ashamed to be seen in their
company." In this latter example, we have the same lessons, and the same
application, although these lessons have been derived from a more
questionable, and a much more variable source. In both cases, however,
it is the same operation of Nature, and which we ought always to imitate
therefore upon scriptural and solid grounds.

These examples might be multiplied in various forms, and yet they would
in every case be found substantially alike. The application of
knowledge, whether by the common or the moral sense, is carried forward
only in one way, in which the truth, the lesson, and the application,
follow each other in natural order, whether they be perceived or not. To
this process, therefore, every branch and portion of our knowledge ought
to be adapted, as it is obviously the great end