indolence,

 indolence, whose reign, when once established, is generally for life; and the lamentable condition of whose unhappy votaries is thus described in a vision, by an elegant and masterly pen: “There were some whose crime it was rather to “neglect reason than to disobey her; and who retreated from the heat and tumult of the way, not “to the bowers of intemperance, but to the maze of “indolence. They had this peculiarity in their condition, that they were always in sight of the road, “always wishing to return, and always resolving to “return to-morrow. In these was most eminently “conspicuous the subtlety of habit, who hung imperceptible shackles upon them, and was every moment leading them farther from the road, which “they always imagined they had the power of reaching. They wandered on from one double of the “labyrinth to another, with the chains of habit “hanging secretly upon them, till, as they advanced, “the flowers grew paler, and the scents fainter. “They proceeded in their dreary march without “pleasure in their progress, yet without power to “return; and had this aggravation above all others, “that they were criminal, but not delighted. The “drunkard for a time laughed over his wine; the “ambitious man triumphed in the miscarriage of “his rival: but the captives of indolence had neither “superiority nor merriment. Discontent lowered “in their looks, and sadness hovered round their “shades; yet they crawled on reluctant and gloomy, “ till they arrived at the depth of the recess, varied “only with poppies and night-shade, where the dominion of indolence terminates, and the hopeless “wanderer is delivered up to melancholy; the chains “of habit are rivet ted for ever; and melancholy, “having tortured her prisoner for a time, consigns “ him at last to the cruelty of despair.”—But let us arise and go hence; let us leave the shocking scene; let us never forget that the Christian life is a state of activity, that we are to strive, to run: and let us proceed to consider, George Horne