These are some of the intellectual views and obligations which should be systematized in the mind, forming both inducements to, and a constituent part of, systematic beneficence.  They should lie like blazing fuel on the heart, kindling their appropriate feelings and affections.  I have briefly unfolded them, as a specimen of that process of reasoning and personal application, which, according to our mental laws, when attended by the Holy Spirit, is fitted to soften and harmonize the mind preparatory to benevolent action; a process which all, as rational beings, are bound to engage in and carry out.  I know this part of the system requires unpleasant work.  Most are willing to feel, but they would feel without principle; and if they act, they would act only from the impulse of the moment.  They shrink from introspection; from working on their own hearts through the laborious operations of the intellect, so that the affections may be at once both right and rational.  But if we would see the gorgeous palace towering in symmetry and grandeur, unpleasant work must be done; the rubbish must be removed, the soil excavated, the marble chiselled into form, and the unsightly timbers erected.  Without these, though it might glitter in the sunbeams, it would be but a gossamer tissue.  So this mental part is the bone and sinew, the life, of a system of beneficence.  Confined to resolutions and conduct, its movements would be like the effects of galvanism on the muscles of the dead—­unnatural and spasmodic.  The truth is, there can be no system of action without some system both of intellectual views and of the moral sensibilities.  All inconsistency among Christians arises from defects in one or other of these respects.  The fountain is not invariably at the same height, and therefore the stream alternately swells and sinks.

Resolutions are proverbially frail; and they are so, because they rest not on a mind consolidated by principles, and a heart glowing like a furnace with corresponding feelings.  When resting on such a mind and heart, resolutions are not frail; but invincible as adamant.

Our purposes of charity, therefore, must rest on an unshaken foundation; and in order to this, the principles and considerations fitted to promote benevolent sentiments and feelings must be pressed on the mind, till in view of them the bosom warms, and throbs, and swells, and bursts forth in high and determined resolves.  It is not enough that they pass like a burning ray across the mind, producing a single flash of benevolence.  What is needed is a continuation of the same effect; and for this, the same cause must continue to operate.  It is important, therefore, that these truths be systematically applied.  Seasons should be set apart for daily meditating and reasoning upon them, attended by earnest supplication for the impressing influences of the Holy Spirit.  The mind must thus be drilled to reflection upon them till they become principles of action, so vital and permanent, that a shape and inflexibility shall be given to the moral sensibilities, which no wear of time or circumstances shall change or efface.