Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/145

Rh crazy man may converse quite rationally upon certain topics; but, so soon as you approach some particular subject, he reasons no longer. Thus it is with man. Place before him his temporal interests, and he acts like a reasonable being. Bend his mind upon the various sciences, and the deep researches of his reasoning powers, demonstrate his near relation to superior beings. But lay before him the all-important subject of religion, and immediately you perceive the change. However eminent he may be as a scholar, a statesman, a philosopher; however wise and prudent he may be in his affairs as a farmer, mechanic or merchant, with regard to  'the one thing needful,' he gives little, or no signs of reason. Some are totally unconcerned about the things that belong to their present and everlasting peace. Others have a feeble sense of the importance of this subject, but put off the due consideration of it to a more convenient