d not be uneasy. In the main we do not fall below the general
standard of morals, of the class and station to which we belong, we may
therefore allow ourselves to glide down the stream without apprehension
of the consequences.

Some, of a character often hardly to be distinguished from the class we
have been just describing, take up with _sensual_ pleasures. The chief
happiness of their lives consists in one species or another of animal
gratification; and these persons perhaps will be found to compose a
pretty large description. It will be remembered, that it belongs not to
our purpose to speak of the grossly and scandalously profligate, who
renounce all pretensions to the name of Christians; but of those who,
maintaining a certain decency of character, and perhaps being tolerably
observant of the forms of Religion, may yet be not improperly termed
_sober sensualists_. These, though less impetuous and more measured, are
not less staunch and steady, than the professed votaries of licentious
pleasure, in the pursuit of their favourite objects. "Mortify the flesh,
with its affections and lusts," is the Christian _precept_; a soft
luxurious course of habitual indulgence, is the _practice_ of the bulk
of modern Christians: and that constant moderation, that wholesome
discipline of restraint and self-denial, which are requisite to prevent
the unperceived encroachments of the inferior appetites, seem altogether
disused, as the exploded austerities of monkish superstition.

Christianity calls her professors to a state of diligent watchfulness
and active services. But the persons of whom we are now speaking,
forgetting alike the duties they owe to themselves and to their
fellow-creatures, often act as though their condition were meant to be a
state of uniform indulgence, and vacant, unprofitable sloth. To multiply
the comforts of affluence, to provide for the gratification of appetite,
to be luxurious without diseases, and indolent without lassitude, seems
the chief study of their lives. Nor can they be clearly exempted from
this class, who, by a common error, substituting the means for the end,
make the preservation of health and spirits, not as instruments of
usefulness, but as sources of pleasure, their great business and
continual care.

Others again seem more to attach themselves to what have been well
termed the 'pomps and vanities of this world.' Magnificent houses, grand
equipages, numerous retinues, splendid entertain