lt,
and a contest, and a strife, and the voice of conscience may still
command a certain attention to its warnings. While there are these
indications of life, there is yet hope of the man; but on each moment is
now suspended his moral existence. Let him retire from the influence of
external things; and listen to that voice within, which, though often
unheeded, still pleads for God. Let him call to aid those high truths
which relate to the presence and inspection of this being of infinite
purity, and the solemnities of a life which is to come. Above all, let
him look up in humble supplication to that pure and holy One, who is the
witness of this warfare,--who will regard it with compassion, and impart
his powerful aid. But let him not presumptuously rely on this aid, as if
the victory were already secured. The contest is but begun; and there
must be a continued effort, and unceasing watchfulness,--a habitual
direction of the attention to those truths which, as moral causes, are
calculated to act upon the mind,--and a constant reliance upon the power
from on high which is felt to be real and indispensable. With all this
provision, his progress may be slow; for the opposing principle, and the
influence of established moral habits, may be felt contending for their
former dominion; but by each advantage that is achieved over them, their
power will be broken, and finally destroyed. Now in all this contest
towards the purity of the moral being, each step is no less a process of
the mind itself than the downward course by which it was preceded. It
consists in a surrender of the will to the suggestions of conscience,
and a habitual direction of the attention to those truths which are
calculated to act upon the moral volitions. In this course, the man
feels that he is authorized to look for a might and an influence not his
own. This is no imaginary or mysterious impression, which one may fancy
that he feels, and then pass on contented with the vision; but a power
which acts through the healthy operations of his own mind; it is in his
own earnest exertions, as a rational being, to regulate these
operations, that he is encouraged to expect its communication; and it is
in feeling these assuming the characters of moral health, that he has
the proof of its actual presence.

And where is the improbability that the pure and holy One, who framed
the wondrous moral being, may thus hold intercourse with it, and impart
an influence in its h