times when, in the presence of
worldly men, to confess becomes a duty; but these seasons, whether of
privilege or of duty, are comparatively rare. But we are always with
ourselves and our God; and that silent inward confession in His
presence may be sustained and continual, and will end in durable fruit.

But if those persons come short of their duty who make religion a
matter of impulse and mere feeling, what shall be said to those who
have no feeling or thought of religion at all? What shall be said of
the multitude of young people who ridicule seriousness, and
deliberately give themselves up to vain thoughts? Alas! my brethren,
you do not even observe or recognize the foolish empty thoughts which
pass through your minds; you are not distressed, even at those of them
you recollect; but what will you say at the last day, when, instead of
the true and holy visions in which consists Divine communion, you find
recorded against you in God's book an innumerable multitude of the
idlest, silliest imaginings, nay, of the wickedest, which ever
disgraced an immortal being? What will you say, when heaven and hell
are before you, and the books are opened, and therein you find the sum
total of your youthful desires and dreams, your passionate wishes for
things of this world, your low-minded, grovelling tastes, your secret
contempt and aversion for serious subjects and persons, your efforts to
attract the looks of sinners and to please those who displease God;
your hankerings after worldly gaieties and luxuries, your admiration of
the rich or titled, your indulgence of impure thoughts, your
self-conceit and pitiful vanity? Ah, I may seem to you to use harsh
words; but be sure I do not use terms near so severe as you will use
against yourselves in that day. Then those men, whom you now think
gloomy and over-strict, will seem to you truly wise; and the advice to
pray without ceasing, which once you laughed at as fit only for the
dull, the formal, the sour, the poor-spirited, or the aged, will be
approved by your own experience, as it is even now by your reason and
conscience. Oh, that you could be brought to give one serious hour to
religion, in anticipation of that long eternity where you _must_ be
serious! True, you may laugh now, but there is no vain merriment on
the other side of the grave. The devils, though they repent not,
tremble. _You_ will be among those unwilling serious ones then, if you
are mad enough to be gay