but being angry when we are reproved for it, we will not acknowledge it at all, and cheat our consciences, by dwelling upon the supposed wrong that has been done to us in some over-severity of reproof or punishment, instead of confessing and repenting of the original wrong which we ourselves did.  But is it not true, that a hard temper towards man is very often, even consciously, a hard temper towards God?  Does it never happen, that if conscience presents to us the thought of God, whether as a God of judgment to terrify us, or as a God of love to melt us, we repel it with impatience, or with sullenness?  Does not the heart sometimes almost speak aloud the language of blasphemy:  Who is God, that I should mind him?  I do not care what may happen, I will not be softened.  Do not all sorts of unbelieving thoughts pass rapidly through the mind at such moments; first in their less daring form, whispering, as the serpent did to Eve, that we shall not surely die; that we shall have time to repent by and by; that God will not be so strict a judge as to condemn us for such a little; that by some means or other, we shall escape?  But then they come, also, in their bolder form:  What do I or any man know about another world, or God’s judgments? may it not be all a fiction, so that I have, in reality, nothing to fear?  In short, under one form or another, is it not true, that our hearts have sometimes displayed actually hardness towards God; that the thought of God has been actually presented to our minds, but that we have turned it aside, and have not suffered it to make any impression upon us?  And thus, we have not only not watched with Christ according to his command, but have actually told him that we would not.  But this has been in our worst temper, certainly; it may not have happened,—­I trust that it has not happened often.  More commonly, I dare say, the fault has been carelessness.  We have gone out of this place; sacred names have ceased to sound in our ears; sights in any degree connected with, holy things have been all withdrawn from us.  Other sounds and other sights have been before us, and our minds have yielded to them altogether.  There are minds, indeed, which have no spring of thought in themselves; which are quiet, and in truth empty, till some outward objects come to engage them.  Take them at a moment when they are alone, or when there is no very interesting object before them, and ask them of what they are thinking.  If the answer were truly given, such a mind would say, “Of nothing.”  Certain images may be faintly presented to it; it may be that it is not altogether a blank; yet it could not name anything distinctly.  No form had been vivid enough to produce any corresponding resolution in us; we were, as it were, in a state between sleeping and waking, with neither thoughts nor dreams definite enough to affect us.  This state finds exactly all that it desires in the presence or the near hope of outward objects; the mind lives in its daily pursuits, and companions, and amusements.  What impressions have been once produced are soon worn away; and in a soil so shallow nothing makes a durable impression:  everything can, as it were, scratch upon its surface, while nothing can strike deeply down within.