arlow, "who would strictly keep within the
bounds prescribed by their religion, should imitate the ancient Romans,
who carefully watched that their god Terminus, who defined their limits,
should never recede; the first step of his retreat, they said, would be
the destruction of their security."

"But, Doctor," said Sir John, "pray what remedy do you recommend against
this natural, I had almost said this invincible, propensity to
over-value the world? I do not mean a propensity merely to over-rate its
pleasures and its honors, but a disposition to yield to its dominion
over the mind, to indulge a too earnest desire of standing well with it,
to cherish a too anxious regard for its good opinion?"

"The knowledge of the disease," replied the worthy Doctor, "should
precede the application of the remedy. Human applause is, by a worldly
man, reckoned not only among the luxuries of life, but among articles of
the first necessity. An undue desire to obtain it has certainly its
foundation in vanity; and it is one of our grand errors to reckon vanity
a trivial fault. An over-estimation of character, and an anxious wish to
conciliate all suffrages, is an infirmity from which even worthy men are
not exempt; nay, it is a weakness from which, if they are not governed
by a strict religious principle, worthy men are in most danger.
Reputation being in itself so very desirable a good, those who actually
possess it, and in some sense deserve to possess it, are apt to make it
their standard, and to rest in it as their supreme aim and end."

"You have," said Sir John, "exposed the latent principle; it remains
that you suggest its cure."

"I believe," said Dr. Barlow, "that the most effectual remedy would be,
to excite in the mind frequent thoughts of our divine Redeemer, and of
_his_ estimate of that world on which we so fondly set our affections,
and whose approbation we are too apt to make the chief object of our
ambition."

"I allow it to have been necessary," replied Sir John, "that Christ, in
the great end which he had to accomplish, should have been poor, and
neglected, and contemned, and that he should have trampled on the great
things of this world, human applause among the rest; but I do not
conceive that this obligation extends to his followers, nor that we are
called upon to partake the poverty which he preferred, or to renounce
the wealth and grandeur which he set at naught, or to imitate him in
making himself of no reputat