er cannot be more effectually weakened. This is,
however, an invariable feature throughout all the dispensations of God,
and you would do well to examine carefully into it, that you may add
experience to your faith in the Scripture assertion, "What a man soweth,
that shall he also reap."[34] May you be given grace to sow such present
seed as may bring forth a harvest of peace to yourself, and peace to
your friends!

I must not forget to make some observations with respect to those
physical influences which affect the temper and spirits. It is true that
these are, at some times, and for a short period, altogether
irresistible. This is, however, only in the case of those whose
character was not originally of sufficient force and strength to require
much habitual self-control, as long as they possessed good health and
spirits. When this original good health is altered in any way that
alters their natural temper, (all diseases, however, have not this
effect,) not having had any previous practice in resisting the new and
unaccustomed evil, they yield to it as hopelessly as they would do to
the pain attending the gout and the rheumatism. If, however, such
persons as those above described are sincere in their desire to glorify
God, and to avoid disturbing the peace of those around them, they will
soon learn to make use of all the means within their reach to remove the
moral disease, as assiduously and as vigorously as they would labour to
remove the physical one. Their newly-acquired self-control will be blest
to them in more ways than one, for the grace of God is always given in
proportion to the need of those who are willing to work themselves, and
who have not incurred the evil they now struggle against, by wilful and
deliberate sin. I have spoken of only a few cases of ill-temper being
irresistible, and even these few only to be considered so at first,
before proper means of cure and prevention are used. Under other
circumstances, though the ill-temper mourned over may be strongly
influenced by physical causes, the sin must still remain the same as if
the causes were strictly moral ones. For instance, if you know that by
sitting up at night an hour or two later than usual, or by not taking
regular exercise, or by eating of indigestible food, you will put it out
of your power to avoid being ill-tempered and disagreeable on the
following day, the failure is surely a moral one. That the immediate
causes of your ill-humour may