"There are probably in this church many persons of the profession of
the law, who have often asked before, with better faith than their
brother, and who do now ask this great question, 'What shall I do to
inherit eternal life?' I shall, therefore, direct to them some
observations on the particular duties they owe to society, because I
think it suitable to this particular season, because it is of much
more importance to tell men how they are to be Christians in detail,
than to exhort them to be Christians generally; because it is of the
highest utility to avail ourselves of these occasions, to show to
classes of mankind what those virtues are, which they have more
frequent and valuable opportunities of practising, and what those
faults and vices are, to which they are more particularly exposed.

"It falls to the lot of those who are engaged in the active and
arduous profession of the law to pass their lives in great cities,
amidst severe and incessant occupation, requiring all the faculties,
and calling forth, from time to time, many of the strongest passions
of our nature. In the midst of all this, rivals are to be watched,
superiors are to be cultivated, connections cherished; some portion of
life must be given to society, and some little to relaxation and
amusement. When, then, is the question to be asked, 'What shall I do
to inherit eternal life?' what leisure for the altar, what time for
God? I appeal to the experience of men engaged in this profession,
whether religious feelings and religious practices are not, without
any speculative disbelief, perpetually sacrificed to the business of
the world? Are not the habits of devotion gradually displaced by other
habits of solicitude, hurry, and care? Is not the taste for devotion
lessened? Is not the time for devotion abridged? Are you not more and
more conquered against your warnings and against your will; not,
perhaps, without pain and compunction, by the Mammon of life? And what
is the cure for this great evil to which your profession exposes you?
The cure is, to keep a sacred place in your heart, where Almighty God
is enshrined, and where nothing human can enter; to say to the world,
'Thus far shalt thou go, and no further'; to remember you are a
lawyer, without forgetting you are a Christian; to wish for no more
wealth than ou