nce a just ground of self-exaltation, have
commonly been the most forward to confess that their views were bounded
and their attainments moderate. Had they indeed been less candid, this
is a discovery which we could not have failed to make of ourselves.
Experience daily furnishes us with examples of weakness, and
short-sightedness, and error, in the wisest and the most learned of men,
which might serve to confound the pride of human wisdom.

Not so in morals.--Made at first in the likeness of God, and still
bearing about us some faint traces of our high original, we are offered
by our blessed Redeemer the means of purifying ourselves from our
corruptions, and of once more regaining the image of our Heavenly
Father[106]. In love, the compendious expression for almost every
virtue, in fortitude under all its forms, in justice, in humility, and
in all the other graces of the Christian character, we are made capable
of attaining to heights of real elevation: and were we but faithful in
the use of the means of grace which we enjoy; the operations of the Holy
Spirit, prompting and aiding our diligent endeavours, would infallibly
crown our labours with success, and make us partakers of a Divine
nature. The writer has himself known some who have been instances of the
truth of this remark. To the memory of one,[107] now no more, may he be
permitted to offer the last tribute of respectful friendship? His
course, short but laborious, has at length terminated in a better world;
and his luminous tract still shines in the sight, and animates the
efforts of all who knew him, and "marshals them the way" to Heavenly
glory. Let me not be thought to undervalue any of the gifts of God, or
of the fruits of human exertion: but let not these be prized beyond
their proper worth. If one of those little industrious reptiles, to
which we have been well sent for a lesson of diligence and foresight,
were to pride itself upon its strength, because it could carry off a
larger grain of wheat than any other of its fellow-ants; should we not
laugh at the vanity which could be highly gratified with such a
contemptible pre-eminence? And is it far different to the eye of reason,
when man, weak, short-sighted man, is vain of surpassing others in
knowledge, in which at best his progress must be so limited; forgetting
the true dignity of his nature, and the path which would conduct him to
real excellence?

The unparalleled value of the precepts of Christiani