t, when we come to die, we shall be
very glad to have led religious lives: but to tell us that it is a
_pleasant_ thing to be religious, this is too much: it is not true; we
feel that it is not true, all the world knows and feels it is not true;
religion is something unpleasant, gloomy, sad, and troublesome. It
imposes a number of restraints on us; it keeps us from doing what we
would; it will not let us have our own way; it abridges our liberty; it
interferes with our enjoyments; it has fewer, far fewer, joys at
present than a worldly life, though it gains for us more joys
hereafter." This is what men say, or would say, if they understood
what they feel, and spoke their minds freely.

Alas! I cannot deny that this _is_ true in the case of most men. Most
men do not like the service of God, though it be perfect freedom; they
like to follow their own ways, and they are only religious so far as
their conscience obliges them; they are like Balaam, desirous of "the
death of the righteous," not of his life. Indeed, this is the very
thing I am lamenting and deploring. I lament, my brethren, that so
many men, nay, I may say, that so many of you, do _not_ like religious
service. I do not deny it; but I lament it. I do not deny it: far
from it. I know quite well how many there are who do not like coming
to Church, and who make excuses for keeping away at times when they
might come. I know how many there are who do not come to the Most Holy
Sacrament. I know that there are numbers who do not say their prayers
in private morning and evening. I know how many there are who are
ashamed to be thought religious, who take God's name in vain, and live
like the world. Alas! this is the very thing I lament,--that God's
service is not pleasant to you. It is not pleasant to those who do not
like it: true; but it is pleasant to those who _do_. Observe, this is
what I say; not that it is pleasant to those who like it not, but that
it is pleasant to those who like it. Nay, what I say is, that it is
much _more_ pleasant to those who like it, than any thing of this world
is pleasant to those who do not like it. This is the point. I do not
say that it is pleasant to most men; but I say that it is in itself the
most pleasant thing in the world. Nothing is so pleasant as God's
service to those _to whom_ it is pleasant. The pleasures of sin are
not to be compared in fulness and intensity to the pleasures of holy
living. The pleasu