naked and half starved around them, to whom the charity of this evening may carry warmth, and clothing, and comfort. Let us, then, before we retire to our own pleasant apartments and happy firesides, before we lie down upon our pillows in chambers where want and discomfort are unknown, let us send our messages of sympathy, through these ladies, to those who are unacquainted with our blessings. Let us do it as an offering of brotherly love; because nature pleads for them in our hearts. Let us do it as an offering of gratitude to Him who has appointed to us a more desirable lot. We shall feel the happier, as we lay ourselves to rest, and commit our spirits to the Protector of the night, in the reflection that this portion, both of our time and of our substance, have been usefully employed.

SERMON XIII.

SOURCES OF MORAL WEAKNESS AND MORAL

STRENGTH.

PSALM XXXI. 10.

MY STRENGTH FAILETH BECAUSE OF MINE INIQUITY.

IN nothing, perhaps, are the differences among men more striking than in the degree of moral strength and weakness which distinguishes their character. With the same natural elements, and in circumstances greatly similar, they present the most astonishing contrasts as creatures of moral power; some being strong, self-possessed, resolute, undaunted; some feeble, timid, vacillating, inefficient; some with a manliness that goes on to bear and do, without hesitation; some retreating from action, shrinking from suffering, unmanned by every difficulty, and yielding to every threat.

It were a great knowledge to know the cause of all these differences, and a great wisdom to make personal use of that knowledge. It is his moral strength which is to carry a man safely and triumphantly through life, bring him out right at every turn, and make him complete in the end. It is in proportion to his want of this, that he falters in the emergencies of duty, is prostrated under distress or misfortunes, and fails, if he fails, in the great result.

Let us avail ourselves of a few moments of reflection to look at a matter of so much consequence to the prospects of our future life. Let us, before we go farther on our way, ascertain the causes of moral weakness, and seek the sources of moral strength.

First, we are to look at our nature and constitution. The original cause exists in the natural imperfection of man. There is a native weakness. Man is not an angel. How often, accordingly, do we hear, amid the misdoings or misfortunes of men, the exclamation, Poor human nature! sometimes in pity, sometimes in derision, sometimes in malignity; its acknowledged constitutional infirmities being thought adequate to account for all the follies, failures, and inconsistencies, which mark the history of the race. It has within itself an innate love of ease, and of self-indulgence, which predisposes it to an effeminate shrinking from hardship. It has a cowardly fear of pain, and dislike of suffering, which makes fortitude difficult. With these traits, it becomes an easy prey to temptation; it quails before trial; it avoids effort. So that the whole history of our race, wherever we find it recorded, exhibits a downward tendency, a proneness to degeneracy, which it has required perpetual effort on the part of the greatest minds to counteract. History tells always of the struggle of civilization and virtue to sustain themselves against the proneness of the many to sink down into inaction, self-indulgence, barbarism, and crime. Every man experiences in himself this proneness; his own life is a continual struggle to maintain the better principles of duty, against the inclinations to ease and self-indulgence, which would bear him down. He feels that, through this weakness of his nature, he should sink, if he did not make effort against it. So true is this,

that no proverbial saying is more common or more easily assented to than this:

"I know the right, and I approve it too;

I know the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue."

Or, as it is in Scripture, "For what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do."

We are to look, then, to our natural constitution for one source of the weakness we are speaking of. It was intended that it should be so. Therefore we are not made angels. We are only men. And we shall never learn how to avoid the evils and sins that do so easily beset us, unless we justly look on that feeble and erring nature from which they spring. If we are not aware of these unnerving tendencies in our constitutional dispositions, if we are ignorant of, or choose not to see, this liability of man to degeneracy when left to himself, · then we shall fail to make that provision for a fundamental remedy, without which all partial expedients must be vain.

2. Early education is another cause; and this in various ways. A right education would be employed, from the earliest moments, in strengthening the natural weakness, counteracting the downward tendencies, and bringing out the dispositions and faculties in which the vigor of the character must lie. But, unhappily, too often it is not so. The early training tends to foster the weakness, to pamper the wrong desire, to make habitual the selfish and self-indulgent temper, and to confirm the reluctance at effort. The mistaken fondness of parents acts with the weakness of the child, instead of against it, and pampers the evil by injudicious softness, which it should have crushed by a rational severity. Hence the fact, so familiarly observed, that, of those men whose sturdy manliness is the vigor and glory of a generation, the great majority were trained amid early

privation and the rigid straits of a self-aenying hardship; while the infancy which has been rocked in affluence and tenderness, is generally followed by inefficient manhood and imbecile age. Let him, therefore, that would know himself thoroughly, in order to form himself thoroughly, look back to his early training, and learn what are the effeminacies that may have been nurtured in his cradle.

3. Certain habits of mind, of temper, and of life, are also to be noticed as tending to create or confirm a moral weakness. And these are of more importance to be noticed than the others, not only because they are more within our control, but because they are in their nature more detrimental. The infelicities of natural constitution and early education may be counteracted by the diligent cultivation of right habits, of temper and life; whereas the indulgence of wrong habits would destroy the happiest nature, and pervert the most judicious education.

(1.) One of these is delay a habit that by necessity enfeebles. Let a man be prompt, always doing what he sees ought to be done the moment that he perceives it ought to be done, and he is a man of energy. Will and act are with him simultaneous. To propose and to do are the same thing. His purpose and his will wax stronger by being never tampered with, and he is felt to be a man of power. But let him put off the execution, let him accustom himself to delay in carrying out his plans, let the ardor of the purpose cool, and every body knows that he grows to be less and less efficient. He comes to the act after he has ceased to be strongly interested in it; therefore he acts with less vigor, after other purposes have begun to share his attention; therefore with less singleness. This grows upon him, till, by and by, it is not at all certain, because he approves and resolves on a certain course, that he will ever summon the