Page:Some Reflections on the Importance of a Religious Life.djvu/23

, to be abstracted from worldly cares and cogitations, to worship God in spirit and in truth. May you guard against indolence, carelessness, or irreverence as to the things of religion, and strive to know your thoughts brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. So great is the goodness of our Heavenly Father, that he at times grants to those who thus present themselves before him, an inward sense of his continued mercy and providence. And when he, the Lord Almighty, confers upon our souls an evidence of his love and of his watchful care,—which whilst we accept it in humility, we feel that it would be ingratitude not to believe to come from him—what more can we desire; is it not worth patiently, perseveringly, labouring after?

I know from painful experience, that the state of which I have written is not always arrived at, so that I can feelingly address myself to others. The wanderings and imaginations of the mind, thoughtlessness, and a want of due reverence to that gracious Being in whose presence we are more especially assembled, may divert the attention from the true object of worship; but as the soul is again turned unto him in humiliation and prostration, he graciously regards it for good, and answers the prayer of the penitent and the humble.

An individual earnestness of soul before the Lord