love is gratified, and our own happiness se cured. Is the satisfaction arising from "doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly kefore God," less than that arising from the pursuit of riches, honor, or power? Indeed, can there be any true and permanent happiness from any pursuits which are inconsistent with justice, truth, and mercy? An approving conscience is the universal condition of all solid peace and enjoyment; and this can be had only by doing right to others as well as to ourselves.

5. Prudence requires self-control.-Prudence, being wise action as far as we ourselves are concerned, requires coolness, deliberation, forethought. The prudent man must not act rashly, but stop and think. Now, the great obstacle in the way of deliberation is the excitability and violence of passion. As already stated, feeling of some sort is excited by almost every mental perception; and it is excited on the very moment of the perception. It does not wait for different perceptions to be

compared, and a wise conclusion to be reached, but is developed instantly, like the explosion of powder by the spark, and tends to precipitate the individual into immediate action. At the same time, it is blind as well as furious. It bears no light with it, but only force. We can have no prudence, therefore, unless our passions are under control. The man who rushes this way and that, and catches at this pleasure and that as feeling or passion prompts, is the mere sport of circumstances, and a thousand-fold more likely to act against his own interest than for it; indeed, if he acts for his own interest at all, it is only by accident. The fop, the glutton, the drunkard, the debauchee, the violent man, are as far from prudence in their conduct as they are from right. It is only when our passions are so under control that we can stop and think calmly, and act according to our best convictions, that our conduct becomes truly wise. fence it is as important for ourselves as for

others that our passions should be under due control.

6. Prudence requires self-improvement. Prudence, being the fruit of self-love, must require of us progress in whatever is for our real good. Progress is the law of our being. The right exercise of the various powers which God has given us necessarily leads to progress. Progress, improvement, advantage of some kind, is the very end of prudence. Wise action is wise with reference to some end. Prudence in business is such a management of our af fairs as is calculated to lead to the accumulation of wealth; prudence in conduct towards others is such an ordering of our conduct in public as is calculated to secure the respect, the honor, or the suffrages of our fellowcitizens. But the ground of all other improvements is the improvement of the mind and heart. Whether we consider it in itself or in its fruits, this is the chief good. A mind fully developed in its various powers, and a heart properly chastened and purified

in its sensibilities, are the greatest of all blessings. As the one enables us to understand the true and the good, so the other places us in full sympathy and communion with them. Self-culture, therefore, is demanded by prudence, as clearly as it is prompted by curiosity.

CHAPTER X.

ACTS OF PIETY ARE RIGHT IF DIRECTED TO THE TRUE GOD.

1. What piety is. To the four cardinal virtues, Justice, Veracity, Benevolence, and Prudence, may be added Piety, which is a virtue, indeed, and something more than a virtue. In general terms, the sentiment of piety may be described as a disposition to reverence a Supreme Being. All men have some notion of a Supreme Being as the Maker and Preserver of the universe. This wondrous frame of things, these bodies so fearfully and wonderfully made, these souls with such astonishing powers, this mysterious principle of life running through nature, and this grand procession of things moving on with such