e and full of glory."

But this world is not his resting place: here, to the very last, he must
be a pilgrim and a stranger; a soldier, whose warfare ends only with
life, ever struggling and combating with the powers of darkness, and
with the temptations of the world around him, and the still more
dangerous hostilities of internal depravity. The perpetual vicissitudes
of this uncertain state, the peculiar trials and difficulties with which
the life of a Christian is chequered, and still more, the painful and
humiliating remembrance of his own infirmities, teach him to look
forward, almost with outstretched neck, to that promised day, when he
shall be completely delivered from the bondage of corruption, and sorrow
and sighing shall flee away. In the anticipation of that blessed period,
and comparing this churlish and turbulent world, where competition, and
envy, and anger, and revenge, so vex and agitate the sons of men, with
that blissful region where Love shall reign without disturbance, and
where all being knit together in bonds of indissoluble friendship, shall
unite in one harmonious song of praise to the Author of their common
happiness, the true Christian triumphs over the fear of death: he longs
to realize these cheering images, and to obtain admission into that
blessed company.--With far more justice than it was originally used, he
may adopt the beautiful exclamation--"O praeclarum illum diem, cum ad
illud divinum animorum concilium coetumque proficiscar, atque ex hac
turba et colluvione discedam!"

What has been now as well as formerly remarked, concerning the habitual
feelings of the real believer, may suggest a reply to an objection
common in the mouths of nominal Christians, that we would deny men the
innocent amusements and gratifications of life; thus causing our
Religion to wear a gloomy forbidding aspect, instead of her true and
natural face of cheerfulness and joy. This is a charge of so serious a
nature, that although it lead into a digression, it may not be improper
to take some notice of it.

In the first place, Religion prohibits no amusement or gratification
which is _really_ innocent. The question, however, of its innocence,
must not be tried by the loose maxims of worldly morality, but by the
spirit of the injunctions of the word of God; and by the indulgence
being conformable or not conformable to the genius of Christianity, and
to the tempers and dispositions of mind enjoined on its professor