eans of
bringing out their moral characteristics one way or the other. Often, as
in the case of very illiterate and unreflecting persons, it proves
nothing either way; but in those who are not so, it is right or wrong,
as their hearts are right or wrong; it is an exercise not of reason but
of heart. Take, for instance, the case of a servant in a family; she is
baptized and educated in the Church of England, and is religiously
disposed; she goes into Scotland and conforms to the Kirk, to which her
master and mistress belong. She is of course responsible for what she
does, but no one would say that she had formed any purpose, or taken any
deliberate step. In course of time, when perhaps taxed with the change,
she would say in her defence that outward forms matter not, and that
there are good men in Scotland as well as in England; but this is an
after-thought. Again, a careless person, nominally a Churchman, falls
among serious-minded Dissenters, and they reclaim him from vice or
irreligion; on this he joins their communion, and as time goes on,
boasts perhaps of his right of private judgment. At the time itself,
however, no process of inquiry took place within him at all; his heart
was "opened," whether for good or for bad, whether by good influences or
by good and bad mixed. He was not conscious of convincing reasons, but
he took what came to hand, he embraced what was offered, he felt and he
acted. Again, a man is brought up among Unitarians, or in the frigid and
worldly school which got a footing in the Church during last century,
and has been accustomed to view religion as a matter of reason and
form, of obligation, to the exclusion of affectionateness and devotion.
He falls among persons of what is called an Evangelical cast, and finds
his heart interested, and great objects set before it. Such a man falls
in with the sentiments he finds, rather than adopts them. He follows the
leadings of his heart, perhaps of Divine grace, but certainly not any
course of inquiry and proof. There is nothing of argument, discussion,
or choice in the process of his conversion. He has no systems to choose
between, and no grounds to scrutinize.

Now, in all such cases, the sort of private judgment exercised is right
or wrong, not as private judgment, but according to its circumstances.
It is either the attraction of a Divine Influence, such as the mind
cannot master, or it is a suggestion of reason, which the mind has yet
to analyze, be