excuses for the defect, and fritter it away to nothing. This shews the hypocrisy-the falsehood -the self-love-and the flattery of the heart. This endeavour to conceal or palliate defects, instead of a desire to discover them, grows up with us from infancy. There is something so deceitful in sin! A man is brought to believe his own lie! He is so accustomed to hide himself from himself, that he is surprised when another detects and unmasks him. Hazael verily believed himself incapable of becoming what the prophet foretold.

Many motives urge us to attempt a rectification of our defects. Consider the importance of character: he, who says he cares not what men think of him, is on a very low form in the school of experience and wisdom: character and money effect almost every thing. It should be considered, too, how much we have smarted for want of attending to our defects: nineteen out of twenty of our smarting times, arise from this cause.

In counteracting our defects, however, we should be cautious not to blunder by imitation of others. There are such men in the world as Saint-Errants. One of these men takes up the history of Ignatius Loyola; and nothing seems worthy of his endeavour, but to be just such a man in all the extravagancies of his character and conduct. We should search till we find where our character fails, and then amend it-not attempt to become another man.

A wise man, who is seriously concerned to learn the truth respecting himself, will not spurn it even from a fool. The great men, who kept fools in their retinue, learnt more truth from them than from their companions. A real self-observer will ask whether there is any truth in what the fool says of him. Nay, a truth, that may be uttered in envy or anger, will not lose its weight with him. The man, who is determined to find happiness, must bear to have it even beaten into him. No man ever found it by chance, or "yawned it into being with a wish." When I was young, my mother had a servant whose conduct I thought truly wise. A man was hired to brew; and this servant was to watch his method, in order to learn his art. In the course of the process, something was done which she did not understand. She asked him, and he abused her with the vilest epithets for her ignorance and stupidity. My mother asked her when she related it, how she bore such abuse. "I would be called," said she, worse names a thousand times, for the sake of the information which I got out of him,”

If a man would seriously set himself to this work, he must retire from the crowd. He must not live in a bustle. If he is always driving through the business of the day, he will be so in harness as not to observe the road he is going.

He must place perfect standards before his eyes. Every man has his favourite notions; and,

therefore, no man is a proper standard. The perfect standard is only to be found in Scripture. Elijah meets Ahab, and holds up the perfect standard before his eyes, till he shrinks into himself.* I have found great benefit in being sickened and disgusted with the false standards of men. I turn, with stronger convictions, to the perfect standards of God's Word.

He should also commune with his own heart upon his bed-"How did I fall, at such or such a time, into my peculiar humours! Had any other man done so, I should have lost my patience with him."

Above all, he must make his defects matter of constant prayer-Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

MEN are to be estimated, as Johnson says, by the MASS OF CHARACTER. A block of tin may have a grain of silver, but still it is tin; and a block of silver may have an alloy of tin, but still it is silver. The mass of Elijah's character was excellence; yet he was not without the alloy. The mass of Jehu's character was base: yet he had a portion of zeal which was directed by God to great ends. Bad men are made the same use of as scaffolds: * 1 Kings xviii. 17, &c.

they are employed as means to erect a building, and then are taken down and destroyed.

WE must make great allowance for constitution. I could name a man, who, though a good man, is more unguarded in his tongue than many immoral persons shall I condemn him? he breaks down here, and almost here only. On the other hand, many are so mild and gentle, as to make one wonder how such a character could be formed without true grace entering into its composition.

GOD has given to every man a peculiar constitution. No man is to say "I am such or such a man, and I can be no other-such or such is my way, and I am what God made me." This is true, in a sound sense; but, in an unsound sense, it has led men foolishly and wickedly to charge their eccentricities, and even their crimes, on God. It is every man's duty to understand his own constitution; and to apply to it the rein or the spur, as it may need. All men cannot do, nor ought they to do, all things in the same way, nor even the same things. But there are common points of duty, on which all men of all habits are to meet. The free horse is to be checked, perhaps, up-hill, and the sluggish one to be urged: but the same spirit, which would have exhausted itself before,

shews itself probably in resistance down-hill, when he feels the breeching press upon him behind-but he must be whipped out of his resistance.

school.

THERE is a large class of Christians, who want discrimination in religion. They are sound and excellent men, but they are not men of deep experience. They are not men of Owen's, Gilpin's, Rutherford's, Adam's, or Brainerd's They have a general, but not a minute acquaintance, with the combat between Sin and Grace in the heart. I have learnt not to bring deeply experimental subjects before such persons. They cannot understand them, but are likely to be distressed by them. This difference between persons of genuine piety arises from constitution-or from the manner in which the grace of God first met them or from the nature and degree of temptation through which God has led them. A mind finely constituted, or of strong passions-a mind roused in its sins, rather than one drawn insensibly--a mind trained in a severe school for high services-is generally the subject of this deeply interior acquaintance with religion.

THERE is a great diversity of character among real Christians. Education, Constitution, and Circumstances will fully explain this diversity.