Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/153

 His promises, must be the motive both of our labours and our gifts. And this love we must of course maintain, by seeking continually His presence in every devotional exercise, in public ordinances, in private prayers, in heavenly meditations, in the study of Holy Scripture, and more especially in contemplating the perfect example of our Lord and Master, set before us in the Gospels. In these things is our hidden strength; in them is the source and spring, though not the whole course of a Christian life. To action, indeed, they must continually lead, or they will degenerate into a morbid, dreaming religion, transplanting to holy ground the sickly plants of a romantic imagination. Our love to our Lord, if it be untried and unpractical, will become as unreal as our interest in some imaginary character of poetical fiction. Yet the active part of a Christian life is not less dangerous, if we neglect to feed the flame of devotion, by frequent retirement into the immediate presence of our God and Saviour. The society and the praise of men may tempt us to compare ourselves with others, and to regard with complacency our offerings to the service of God; but vanity, which shoots up with a rapid growth in the glare and sunshine of the world, is checked and blighted by the still shade of retirement and solitude. We can hardly think much of our sacrifices for Christ's sake, when we are fresh from our closets, from meditating on His sufferings, and