d talents to
the less gainful labours of increasing the stores of learning or
enlarging the boundaries of science; who are engaged in raising the
character and condition of society, by improving the liberal arts, and
adding to the innocent pleasures or elegant accomplishments of life."
Let not the writer be so far misunderstood, as to be supposed to
insinuate that Religion is an enemy to the pursuits of taste, much less
to those of learning and of science. Let these have their _due_ place in
the estimation of mankind; but this must not be the _highest_ place. Let
them know their just _subordination_. They deserve not to be the
_primary_ concern, for there is another, to which in importance they
bear no more proportion than our span of existence to eternity.

Thus the supreme desires of the heart, the center to which they should
tend, losing its attractive force, are permitted without controul to
take that course, whatever it may be, which best suits our natural
temper, or to which they are impelled by our various situations and
circumstances. Sometimes they manifestly appear to be almost entirely
confined to a single track; but perhaps more frequently the lines in
which they move are so intermingled and diversified, that it becomes not
a little difficult, even when we look into ourselves, to ascertain the
object by which they are chiefly attracted, or to estimate with
precision the amount of their several forces, in the different
directions in which they move. "Know thyself," is in truth an injunction
with which the careless and the indolent cannot comply. For this
compliance, it is requisite, in obedience to the Scripture precept, "to
keep the heart with all diligence." Mankind are in general deplorably
ignorant of their true state; and there are few perhaps who have any
adequate conception of the real strength of the ties, by which they are
bound to the several objects of their attachment, or who are aware how
small a share of their regard is possessed by those concerns on which it
ought to be supremely fixed.

But if it be indeed true, that except the affections of the soul be
supremely fixed on God; that unless it be _the leading and governing
desire and primary pursuit_ to possess his favour and promote his glory,
we are considered as having transferred our fealty to an usurper, and as
being in fact revolters from our lawful sovereign; if this be indeed the
Scripture doctrine, all the several attachments which hav