I will reform in future.  But who has told me that I shall ever desire to be converted?  Do not habits become confirmed in proportion as they are indulged?  And is not an inveterate evil very difficult to cure?  If I can not bear the excision of a slight gangrene, how shall I sustain the operation when the wound is deep?

I will reform in future!  But who has told me that I shall live to a future period?  Does not death advance every moment with gigantic strides?  Does he not assail the prince in his palace and the peasant in his cottage?  Does he not send before him monitors and messengers:  acute pains, which wholly absorb the soul; deliriums, which render reason of no avail; deadly stupors, which benumb the brightest and most piercing geniuses?  And what is still more awful, does He not daily come without either warning or messenger?  Does He not snatch away this man without allowing him time to be acquainted with the essentials of religion; and that man, without the restitution of riches ill acquired; and the other, before he is reconciled to his enemy?

Instead of saying “Go thy way for this time” we should say, Stay for this time.  Stay, while the Holy Spirit is knocking at the door of my heart; stay, while my conscience is alarmed; stay, while I yet live; “while it is called to-day.”  The arguments confounded my conscience:  no matter.  “Thy hand is heavy upon me”:  no matter still.  Cut, strike, consume; provided it procure my salvation.

But, however criminal this delay may be, we seem desirous to excuse it.  “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.”  It was Felix’s business then which induced him to put off the apostle.  Unhappy business!  Awful occupation!  It seems an enviable situation, my brethren, to be placed at the head of a province; to speak in the language of majesty; to decide on the fortunes of a numerous people; and in all cases to be the ultimate judge.  But those situations, so happy and so dazzling in appearance, are in the main dangerous to the conscience.  Those innumerable concerns, this noise and bustle, entirely dissipate the soul.  While so much engaged on earth, we can not be mindful of heaven.  When we have no leisure we say to St. Paul, “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.”

Happy he who, amid the tumult of the most active life, has hours consecrated to reflection, to the examination of his conscience, and to insure the “one thing needful.”  Or, rather, happy he who, in the repose of the middle classes of society,—­places between indigence and affluence, far from the courts of the great, having neither poverty nor riches according to Agur’s wish,—­can in retirement and quietness see life sweetly glide away, and make salvation, if not the sole, yet his principal, concern.