ncy, and unpractised in any
regular and consistent course of religion. He has, perhaps, been
outwardly respectful to sacred things and persons, but has had no
serious thoughts about the next world. He has taken good and
evil--religion and the world--as they came, first one and then the
other, without much consideration. He has been fond of gaiety and
amusements, or he has been deeply interested in some pursuit or other
of time and sense,--whether it be his own trade or profession, or some
of the studies and employments now popular. He has fallen in with the
ways of the company in which he has found himself; has been profane
with the profane; then, again, has had for a season religious
impressions, which in turn have worn away. Thus he has lived, and
something has then occurred really to rouse him and give him what is
called a serious turn. Such a person, man or woman, young or old,
certainly does need to take a serious turn, does require a change; and
no one but must be very glad to hear that a change has taken place,
though at the same time there may be changes not much better than the
change which happened to him, whose soul, in our Lord's language, was
but "swept and garnished;" not really changed in a heavenly way, and
having but the semblance of faith and holiness upon it.

Now the cases I am speaking of are somewhat like that which our Saviour
seems to speak of in the passage referred to. When a man has been
roused to serious resolutions, the chances are, that he fails to take
up with the one and only narrow way which leads to life. The chances
are that "then cometh the wicked one," and persuades him to choose some
path short of the true one--easier and pleasanter than it. And _this_
is the kind of course to which he is often seduced, as we frequently
witness it; viz. to feel a sort of dislike and contempt for his
ordinary worldly business as something beneath him. He knows he must
have what Scripture calls a spiritual mind, and he fancies that to have
a spiritual mind it is absolutely necessary to renounce all earnestness
or activity in his worldly employments, to profess to take no interest
in them, to despise the natural and ordinary pleasures of life,
violating the customs of society, adopting a melancholy air and a sad
tone of voice, and remaining silent and absent when among his natural
friends and relatives, as if saying to himself, "I have much higher
thoughts than to engage in all these perishin