by the counsel of
God, without purpose, nor maintained without result: Their
interpretation we may accept, into their labor we may enter, but they
themselves must look to it, if what they do has no intent of good, nor
any reference to the Giver of all gifts. Selfish in their industry,
unchastened in their wills, ungrateful for the Spirit that is upon them,
they may yet be helmed by that Spirit whithersoever the Governor
listeth; involuntary instruments they may become of others' good;
unwillingly they may bless Israel, doubtingly discomfit Amalek, but
shortcoming there will be of their glory, and sure, of their punishment.

Sec. 9. The second objection arising from the coldness of Christian men to
external beauty.

I believe I shall be able, incidentally, in succeeding investigations,
to prove this shortcoming, and to examine the sources of it, not
absolutely indeed, (seeing that all reasoning on the characters of men
must be treacherous, our knowledge on this head being as corrupt as it
is scanty, while even in living with them it is impossible to trace the
working, or estimate the errors of great and self-secreted minds,) but
at least enough to establish the general principle upon such grounds of
fact as may satisfy those who demand the practical proof (often in a
measure impossible) of things which can hardly be doubted in their
rational consequence. At present, it would be useless to enter on an
examination for which we have no materials; and I proceed, therefore, to
notice that other and opposite error of Christian men in thinking that
there is little use or value in the operation of the theoretic faculty,
not that I at present either feel myself capable, or that this is the
place for the discussion of that vast question of the operation of taste
(as it is called) on the minds of men, and the national value of its
teaching, but I wish shortly to reply to that objection which might be
urged to the real moral dignity of the faculty, that many Christian men
seem to be in themselves without it, and even to discountenance it in
others.

It has been said by Schiller, in his letters on aesthetic culture, that
the sense of beauty never farthered the performance of a single duty.

Sec. 10. Reasons for this coldness in the anxieties of the world. These
anxieties overwrought and criminal.

Sec. 11. Evil consequences of such coldness.

Sec. 12. Theoria the service of Heaven.

Although this gross and