e
them, deeply criminal, turning away, as they do, from the bread of
heaven, to feed upon ashes, with a deceived and corrupted imagination.

This love of indiscriminate praise, then, is an odious, superfluous,
wanton sin, and we should put it away with a manly hatred, as something
irrational and degrading. Shall man, born for high ends, the servant
and son of God, the redeemed of Christ, the heir of immortality, go out
of his way to have his mere name praised by a vast populace, or by
various people, of whom he knows nothing, and most of whom (if he saw
them) he would himself be the first to condemn? It is odious, yet
young persons of high minds and vigorous powers, are especially liable
to be led captive by this snare of the devil. If reasoning does not
convince them, let facts,--the love of glory has its peculiar
condemnation in its consequences. No sin has been so productive of
wide-spread enduring ruin among mankind: wars and conquests are the
means by which men have most reckoned on securing it. A tree is known
by its fruit.

These remarks apply to the love of indiscriminate praise in all its
shapes. Few persons, indeed, are in a condition to be tempted by the
love of glory; but all persons may be tempted to indulge in vanity,
which is nothing else but the love of general admiration. A vain
person is one who likes to be praised, whoever is the praiser, whether
good or bad. Now consider, how few men are not in their measure vain,
till they reach that period of life when by the course of nature vanity
disappears? Let all Christians carefully ask themselves, whether they
are not very fond, not merely of the praise of their superiors and
friends--this is right,--but of that of any person, any chance-comer,
about whom they know nothing. Who is not open to flattery? and if he
seems not to be exposed to it, is it not that he is too shrewd or too
refined to be beguiled by any but what is delicate and unostentatious?
A man never considers who it is who praises him. But the most
dangerous, perhaps, of all kinds of vanity is to be vain of our
personal appearance, most dangerous, for such, persons are ever under
temptation--I may say, ever sinning. Wherever they go they carry their
snare with them; and their idle love of admiration is gratified without
effort by the very looks of those who gaze upon them.

Now I shall say something upon the natural and rational love of praise,
and how far it may be safely indulg