King David, assign their fourscore years as a reason for
no longer "delighting in the voice of singing men and singing women."

Sir John and Lady Belfield, however, kept a large general acquaintance;
and it is not easy to continue to associate with the world, without
retaining something of its spirit. Their standard of morals was high,
compared with that of those with whom they lived; but when the standard
of the gospel was suggested, they drew in a little, and thought _things
might be carried too far_. There was nothing in their practice which
made it their interest to hope that Christianity might not be true. They
both assented to its doctrines, and lived in a kind of general hope of
its final promises. But their views were neither correct, nor elevated.
They were contented to generalize the doctrines of Scripture, and though
they venerated its awful truths in the aggregate, they rather took them
upon trust than labored to understand them, or to imbue their minds with
the spirit of them. Many a high professor, however, might have blushed
to see how carefully they exercised not a few Christian dispositions;
how kind and patient they were! how favorable in their construction of
the actions of others! how charitable to the necessitous! how exact in
veracity! and how tender of the reputation of their neighbor!

Sir John had been early hurt by living so much with men of the world,
with wits, politicians, and philosophers. This, though he had escaped
the contagion of false principles, had kept back the growth of such as
were true. Men versed in the world, and abstracted from all religious
society, begin, in time, a little to suspect whether their own religious
opinions may not possibly be wrong, or at least rigid, when they see
them so opposite to those of persons to whose judgment they are
accustomed to look up in other points. He found too, that, in the
society in which he lived, the reputation of religion detracted much
from that of talents; and a man does not care to have his understanding
questioned by those in whose opinion he wishes to stand well. This
apprehension did not, indeed, drive him to renounce his principles, but
it led him to conceal them; and that piety which is forcibly kept out of
sight, which has nothing to fortify, and every thing to repel it, is too
apt to decline.

His marriage with an amiable woman, whose virtues and graces attached
him to his own home, drew him off from the most dangerous of his