Coelebs In Search of a Wife

by Hannah More

There is a higher and surer way to prevent the solicitude, which is, by correcting the principle; to get the heart set right; to be jealous over ourselves; to be careful never to venture to the edge of our lawful limits; in short, and that is the only infallible standard, to live in the conscientious practice of measuring all we say, and do, and think, by the unerring rule of God's word."

"The impossibility of reaching the perfection which that rule requires," said Sir John, "sometimes discourages well-meaning men, as if the attempt were hopeless."

Dr. Barlow replied, "That is, sir, because they take up with a hearsay Christianity. Its reputed pains and penalties drive them off from inquiring for themselves. They rest on the surface. If they would go deeper, they would see that the Spirit which dictated the Scriptures is a Spirit of power, as well as a Spirit of promise. All that he requires us to do, he enables us to perform. He does not prescribe 'rules' without furnishing us with 'arms.'"

In answer to some further remarks of Sir John, who spoke with due abhorrence of any instance of actual vice, but who seemed to have no just idea of its root and principle, Dr. Barlow observed: "While every one agrees in reprobating wicked actions, few, comparatively, are aware of the natural and habitual evil which lurks in the heart. To this the Bible particularly directs our attention. In describing a bad character, it does not say that his actions are flagitious, but that 'God is not in all his thoughts.' This is the description of a thoroughly worldly man. Those who are given up completely to the world, to its maxims, its principles, its cares, or its pleasures, can not entertain thoughts of God. And to be unmindful of his providence, to be regardless of his presence, to be insensible to his mercies, must be nearly as offensive to him as to deny his existence. Excessive dissipation, a supreme love of money, or an entire devotedness to ambition, drinks up that spirit, swallows up that affection, exhausts that vigor, starves that zeal, with which a Christian should devote himself to serve his Maker.

"Pray observe," continued Dr. Barlow, "that I am not speaking of avowed profligates, but of decent characters; men who, while they are pursuing with keen intenseness the great objects of their attachment, do not deride or even totally neglect religious observances, yet think they do much and well, by affording some odd scraps of refuse time to a few weary prayers, and sleepy thoughts, from a mind worn down with engagements of pleasure, or projects of accumulation, or schemes of ambition. In all these several pursuits, there may be nothing which, to the gross perceptions of the world, would appear to be moral turpitude. The pleasure may not be profligacy, the wealth so cherished may not have been fraudulently obtained, the ambition, in human estimation, may not be dishonorable; but an alienation from God, an indifference to eternal things, a spirit incompatible with the spirit of the gospel, will be found at the bottom of all these restless pursuits."

"I am entirely of your opinion, Doctor," said Mr. Stanley; "it is taking up with something short of real Christianity; it is an apostacy from the doctrines of the Bible; it is the substitution of a spurious and popular religion for that which was revealed from heaven; it is a departure from the faith once delivered to the saints, that has so fatally sunk our morality; and given countenance to that low standard of practical virtue which prevails. If we lower the principle, if we obscure the light, if we reject the influence, if we sully the purity, if we abridge the strictness of the divine law, there will remain no ascending power in the soul, no stirring spirit, no quickening aspiration after perfection, no stretching forward after that holiness to which the beatific vision is specifically promised. It is vain to expect that the practice will rise higher than the principle which inspires it; that the habits will be superior to the motives which govern them."

"Selfishness, security, and sensuality," said the Doctor, "are predicted by our Saviour, as the character of the last times. In alluding to the antediluvian world, and the cause of its destruction, eating, drinking, and marrying could not be named in the gospel as things censurable in themselves, they being necessary to the very existence of that world which the abuse of them was tending to destroy. Our Saviour does not describe criminality by the excess, but by the spirit of the act. He speaks of eating, not gluttony; of drinking, not intoxication; of marriage, not licentious intercourse. This seems a plain intimation, that carrying on the transactions of the world in the spirit of the world, and that habitual deadness to the concerns of eternity, in beings so alive to the pleasures or the interests of the present moment, do not indicate a state of safety, even where gross acts of vice may be rare."

Mr. Stanley said it was his opinion that it is not by a few, or even by many, instances of excessive wickedness, that the moral state of a country is to be judged, but by a general averseness and indifference to real religion. "A few examples of glaring impiety," said he, "may furnish more subject for declamation, but are not near so deadly a symptom. It is no new remark, that more men are undone by an excessive indulgence in things permitted, than by the commission of avowed sins."

"How happy," said Sir John, "are those who by their faith and piety are delivered from these difficulties!"

"My dear Belfield," replied Mr. Stanley, "where are those privileged beings? It is one sad proof of human infirmity, that the best men have continually these things to struggle with. What makes the difference is, that those whom we call good men struggle on to the end, while the others, not seeing the danger, do not struggle at all."