ple of old, that, while they called him Sovereign and
Father, they withheld from him the regards which severally belong to
those respected and endearing appellations. Thus we likewise think it
enough to offer to the most excellent and amiable of Beings, to our
supreme and unwearied Benefactor, a dull, artificial, heartless
gratitude, of which we should be ashamed in the case of a
fellow-creature, who had ever so small a claim on our regard and
thankfulness!

It may be of infinite use to establish in our minds a strong and
habitual sense of that first and great commandment--"Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy strength." This passion, operative and vigorous
in its very nature, like a master spring, would put and maintain in
action all the complicated movements of the human soul. Soon also would
it terminate many practical questions concerning the allowableness of
certain compliances; questions which, with other similar difficulties,
are often only the cold offspring of a spirit of reluctant submission,
and cannot stand the encounter of this trying principle. If, for
example, it were disputed, whether or not the law of God were _so_
strict as had been stated, in condemning the slightest infraction of its
precepts; yet, when, from the precise demands of justice, the appeal
should be made to the more generous principle of love, there would be at
once an end of the discussion. Fear will deter from acknowledged crimes,
and self-interest will bribe to laborious services: but it is the
peculiar glory, and the very characteristic, of this more generous
passion, to shew itself in ten thousand little and undefinable acts of
sedulous attention, which love alone can pay, and of which, when paid,
love alone can estimate the value. Love outruns the deductions of
reasoning; it scorns the refuge of casuistry; it requires not the slow
process of laborious and undeniable proof that an action would be
injurious and offensive, or another beneficial or gratifying, to the
object of affection. The least hint, the slightest surmise, is
sufficient to make it start from the former, and fly with eagerness to
the latter.

I am well aware that I am now about to tread on very tender ground; but
it would be an improper deference to the opinions and manners of the age
altogether to avoid it. There has been much argument concerning the
lawfulness of theatrical amusements[9