Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/146

142 season. Another class, with more energetic folly than the former, make the attempt to serve both God and Mammon—to give half the heart to the Lord, the other half to the world. Others again, merely put on the garb of religion, the form of godliness, while they are destitute of its life and power. In this way, the great majority of mankind are acting as it relates to their spiritual and eternal welfare. Man thus suffers his precious moments to pass away unimproved, till, alas! in an hour when he thinks not death comes: "he giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" Is this a rational mode of acting? What would be thought of any set of persons who acted thus, when they had some great temporal interest at stake, in danger of losing all their property by fire? If the most of them were seen to be totally unconcerned; others putting off their exertions to save their effects, to a more convenient season;