hall be
recognised and submitted to, is the privilege of a mind of no ordinary
fairness and firmness.

The Scriptures say "The heart of man is deceitful above all things." The
thinking principle within us is so subtle, has passed through so many
forms of instruction, and is under the influence and direction of such a
variety of causes, that no man can accurately pronounce by what impulse
he has been led to the conclusion in which he finally reposes. Every
ingenuous person, who is invited to embrace a certain profession, that
of the church for example, will desire, preparatorily to his final
determination, to examine the evidences and the merits of the religion
he embraces, that he may enter upon his profession under the influence
of a sincere conviction, and be inspired with that zeal, in singleness
of heart, which can alone prevent his vocation from being disgraceful
to him. Yet how many motives are there, constraining him to abide in an
affirmative conclusion? His friends expect this from him. Perhaps his
own inclination leads him to select this destination rather than any
other. Perhaps preferment and opulence wait upon his decision. If the
final result of his enquiries lead him to an opposite judgment, to how
much obloquy will he be exposed! Where is the man who can say that
no unconscious bias has influenced him in the progress of his
investigation? Who shall pronounce that, under very different
circumstances, his conclusions would not have been essentially other
than they are?

But the enquiry of an active and a searching mind does not terminate on
a certain day. He will be for ever revising and reconsidering his first
determinations. It is one of the leading maxims of an honourable mind,
that we must be, at all times, and to the last hour of our existence,
accessible to conviction built upon new evidence, or upon evidence
presented in a light in which it had not before been viewed. If then the
probationer for the clerical profession was under some bias in his
first investigation, how must it be expected to be with him, when he has
already taken the vow, and received ordination? Can he with a calm and
unaltered spirit contemplate the possibility, that the ground shall be
cut away from under him, and that, by dint of irrefragable argument, he
shall be stripped of his occupation, and turned out naked and friendless
into the world?

But this is only one of the broadest and most glaring instances. In
every questio