o undervalue knowledge. But
while emotion is inseparable from spiritual religion, knowledge is no
less essential to intelligent emotion. Ignorance is not the mother of
devotion; and though a person may be sincerely and truly pious, with
only the knowledge of a few simple principles, yet, without a thorough
and comprehensive knowledge of religious truth, the Christian character
will be weak and unstable, easily led astray, and carried about by every
wind of doctrine. Knowledge is also essential to a high degree of
usefulness. It expands and invigorates the mind, and enables us, with
divine aid, to devise and execute plans of usefulness, with prudence and
energy.

But knowledge alone is not sufficient; nor even knowledge added to
faith. Temperance must be added, as a regulator, both of soul and body.
All our appetites and passions, desires and emotions, must be brought
within the bounds of moderation. And to temperance must be added
patience, that we may be enabled to endure the trials of this life, and
not to faint under the chastening hand of our heavenly Father. As it is
through much tribulation that we are to enter into the kingdom of
heaven, we have need of patience, both for our own comfort, and for the
honor of religion. Indeed, no grace is more needful, in the ordinary
affairs of life. It is the little, every-day occurrences that try the
Christian character: and it is in regard to these that patience works
experience. Many of these things are more difficult to be borne than the
greater trials of life, because the hand of God is less strikingly
visible in them. But patience enables us to endure those things which
cross the temper, with a calm, unruffled spirit; to encounter
contradictions, little vexations, and disappointments, without fretting,
or repining; and saves us from sinking under severe and protracted
afflictions.

To patience must be added godliness, "which is profitable unto all
things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
come." To be _godly_, is to be, in a measure, _like God_. It is to be
"renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created us," and to
have the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus. This is the fruit of
that patience which works experience, and results in hope, which maketh
not ashamed.

To godliness must be added brotherly kindness; which is but acting out
the state of heart expressed by _godliness_, which indicates a partaking
of divine benev