a chapter in regular course, "the Spirit of wisdom and revelation" can steadily fix your thoughts (too often apt to wander) on some truths of vital importance; he can extend, and correct, and elevate your views, and deepen your impressions of those truths which you knew but imperfectly before; he can give a new direction and a wider range to your ideas, and a new and glowing impulse to the best affections of your hearts. When, at the next return of the hour of retired devotion, you resume the study of the sacred book, some other truths, of no inferior interest, may be similarly unfolded to your view, and rendered equally influential in awakening the purest affections of

the soul. Suppose this to be the history of every day; and suppose the truth into which you have been thus guided, in the commencement of every day, to be held in remembrance throughout the course of the day; will there not be acquired more and more of an invaluable facility in the right government of the thoughts? And is the expectation of this extravagant, or unreasonable? Is it too lofty an expectation for a mind which has already become a temple of the Holy Spirit? And "know ye not that (if Christians) ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" Will not, then, the very consideration of the cha

racter and influence of the divine

inhabitant, become an incentive to purity of thought? Surely vain thoughts cannot be permitted or tolerated in the temple of the indwelling Deity! Let there be poured forth, then in importunate prayer, the most fervent petitions, that "the thoughts of the heart may be cleansed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

Fourthly, There must be the diligent culture of all holy affections. While it is true, that the thoughts give excitement to the affections, it is equally true, that the affections give excitement to the thoughts. affections are the wings on which the intellect itself is sustained, in the soaring elevation of its flight, above the regions of sense. Even in the

The

pursuits of literature and of science, it would be vain to expect a rapid or a pleasurable progress, without the stimulus arising from a predilection of taste, and a feeling of powerful attachment. How much more is that incentive required in the application of the mind to subjects decidedly spiritual! Would you, then, acquire an aptitude for the employment of the thoughts on things unseen and eternal? Would you attain an increasing degree of facility, in disengaging the powers of thought from all earthsprung cares and entanglements? Would you rise, as on the wings of eagles, to a region more pure and serene, that you may contemplate, in an unclouded atmosphere, "the things

which are above? Be it your solicitous care, to " keep your hearts in the love of God,” by “praying in the Holy Ghost." Be assured, that when most deeply "rooted and grounded in love," you will be able to put forth the best energies of your minds, in endeavoring to comprehend what is the breadth and the length and depth and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge!

Fifthly, We must habitually realize the divine inspection of our thoughts. Suppose that your unexpressed and most secret thoughts could be ascertained by a fellow-creature, as soon as they found a place in your mind. Suppose that some one individual had certain means of knowing your