ejudice or mental impression, which has probably no better foundation,
puts away real and important truths without any examination of the
evidence on which they are founded. The misapplication of the reasoning
powers is the same in both. It consists in proceeding upon mere
impression, without exercising the judgment on the question of its
evidence,--or on the facts and considerations which are opposed to it.
Two characters of a very opposite description thus meet in that mental
condition, which draws them equally, though in different directions,
astray from the truth.

When a truth has fully received the sanction of the judgment, the second
office of faith is, by attention and conception, to keep it habitually
before the mind, so that it may produce its proper influence upon the
character. This is to live by faith;--and in this consists that
operation of the great principle, which effectually distinguishes it
from all pretended feelings and impressions assuming its name. We speak,
in common language, of a head-knowledge which does not affect the
heart;--and of a man who is sound in his creed, while he shews little of
its influence upon his conduct. The mental condition of such a man
presents a subject of intense interest. His alleged belief, it is
probable, consists merely in words, or in arguing ingeniously on points
to which he attaches no real value. These may have been impressed upon
him by education;--they may constitute the creed of a party to which he
has devoted himself; and he may argue in support of them with all the
energy of party zeal. In the same manner, a man may contend warmly in
favour of compassion, whose conduct shows a cold and barren
selfishness;--but this is not benevolence;--and the other is not faith.
Both are empty professions of a belief in certain truths, which have
never fixed themselves in the mind, so as to become regulating
principles or moral causes in the mental constitution. We may indeed
suppose another character, slightly removed from this, in which the
truths have really received the approbation of the judgment, and yet
fail to produce their proper influence. This arises from distorted moral
habits, and a vitiated state of the moral faculties, which have
destroyed the healthy balance of the whole economy of the mind. The
consequence is, that the man perceives and approves of truths, without
feeling their tendencies, and without manifesting their power.

Intimately connected with thi