r designs, and not a little compassion for our gloomy habits of
life, an implied contempt of our judgment, some friendly hints that we
carry things too far, an intimation that being righteous overmuch in the
practice has a tendency to produce derangement in the faculties. These
are the petty but daily trials of every man who is seriously in earnest;
and petty indeed they are to him whose prospects are well-grounded, and
whose hope is full of immortality."

"This hostility, which a real Christian is sure to experience," said I,
"is not without its uses. It quickens his vigilance over her own heart,
and enlarges his charity toward others, whom reproach perhaps may as
unjustly stigmatize. It teaches him to be on his guard, lest he should
really deserve the censure he incurs; and what I presume is of no small
importance, it teaches him to sit loose to human opinion; it weakens his
excessive tenderness for reputation, makes him more anxious to deserve,
and less solicitous to obtain it."

"It were well," said Dr. Barlow, "if the evil ended here. The
established Christian will evince himself to be such by not shrinking
from the attack. But the misfortune is, that the dread of this attack
keeps back well disposed but vacillating characters. They are
intimidated at the idea of partaking the censure, though they know it to
be false. When they hear the reputation of men of piety assailed, they
assume an indifference which they are far from feeling. They listen to
the reproaches cast on characters which they inwardly revere, without
daring to vindicate them. They hear the most attached subjects accused
of disaffection, and the most sober-minded churchmen of innovation,
without venturing to repel the charge, lest they should be suspected of
leaning to the party. They are afraid fully to avow that their own
principles are the same, lest they should be involved in the same
calumny. To efface this suspicion, they affect a coldness which they do
not feel, and treat with levity what they inwardly venerate. Very young
men, from this criminal timidity, are led to risk their eternal
happiness through the dread of a laugh. Though they know that they have
not only religion but reason on their side, yet it requires a hardy
virtue to repel a sneer, and an intrepid principle to confront a
sarcasm. Thus their own mind loses its firmness, religion loses their
support, the world loses the benefit which their example would afford,
and they themselv