Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/415

 after day in the enjoyment of success, or the vexation of disappointment.

Nor is it true only of men who are engaged in enterprises of hazard, which restrain the faculties to the utmost, and keep attention always upon the stretch. Religion is not only neglected by the projector and adventurer, by men who suspend their happiness on the slender thread of artifice, or stand tottering upon the point of chance. For, if we visit the most cool and regular parts of the community, if we turn our eye to the farm, or to the shop, where one year glides uniformly after another, and nothing new or important is either expected or dreaded; yet still the same indifference about eternity will be found. There is no interest so small, nor engagement so slight, but that, if it be followed and expanded, it may be sufficient to keep religion out of the thoughts. Many men may be observed, not agitated by very violent passions, nor overborn by any powerful habits, nor depraved by any great degrees of wickedness; men who are honest dealers, faithful friends, and inoffensive neighbours; who yet have no vital principle of religion; who live wholly without self-examination: and indulge any desire that happens to arise, with very little resistance or compunction; who hardly know what it is to combat a temptation, or to repent of a fault; but go on, neither self-approved, nor self-condemned; not endeavouring after any excellence, nor reforming any vitious practice, or irregular desire. They have no care of futurity; neither is God in all their thoughts; they direct none of their actions to his glory, they do nothing with the hope of pleasing, they avoid nothing for the fear of offending him. Those men want not much of being religious; they have nothing more than casual views to reform, and, from being peaceable and temperate heathens, might, if they would once awaken to their eternal interest, become pious and exemplary Christians. But let them not be deceived; they cannot suppose that God will accept him who never wished to be accepted by him, or made his will the rule of action.