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    to value . When the soul is sick with apprehension , or weaned with the effort of endurance , an oblivion of care more complete than that of sleep , a safe and welcome refreshment , may be found in intellectual activity . Where the power of attention has been duly cultivated , the advantages it confers are never more sensibly felt than when it is necessary for our repose to lay the memory to rest , to restrain the imagination , and to seek , in the exercise of the reasoning powers , a refuge from afflicting remembrance and mournful anticipation . While the feeble mind makes continual efforts at submission

    till it sinks wearied with the struggle , he who is master of his faculties as well as of his passions , derives strength from the intermission of his suffering ; and , without presumptuous confidence in his own resources , without undervaluing the aids of faith and the consolations of religious hope , finds a subordinate assistance and solace in the exercise of reason . The pleasures which reward that exercise are never more welcome than when other pleasures fail . The perception of order and of wise arrangement , which supplies

    continual satisfaction to the reasoning mind , becomes more rather than less vivid amidst the changes of external circumstances ; and the opportunity which those circumstances afford for the exercise of observation , the test which they offer for the proof of principles , are received as substantial alleviations by the well-disciplined mind . Faith , however blind , and religious hope , however vague , afford a sufficient support to the mind under any infliction ; while without them the exercise of the intellect affords no

    effectual consolation . But when faith ennobles the intellect , and the intellect enlightens and guides the efforts of faith , the mind is furnished with an , inexhaustible store of consolations , and becomes possessed of power to overcome the world , —not only its temptations , but its sorrows , —not only to withstand the conflict of the passions , but to endure the wounds of the tenderest sympathies .

    But as the object of enlightened self-discipline is less to secure happiness in the present life than to prepare for another , it is of greater importance to regard the prospects of the future world than to consider how the transient interests of our mortal existence may be affected by the neglect or culture of the intellect . How different must be the entrance upon another world of the enlightened from that of the perverted intellect ! The one has been taught to discern the spiritual essence which resides in ail material forms , and is therefore prepared to recognize them in the new heavens and the new earth ; while to the other , whose views have been confined to

    sensible images , all will appear strange and unintelligible . The one has gradually strengthened his visual powers by loftier ascents towards the sun of truth , and is therefore prepared to encounter its unclouded lustre ; while the other , on reaching the threshold of heaven , will sink down overpowered with the blaze . The one has been accustomed to interpret the melodies which breathe from the planets as they roll , and from the revolutions of all

    earthly things , and will therefore respond with delight to the music of the angelic choir , while the other will listen with apathy to that warbling in an unknown tongue . The one will find , in every mansion of his Father ' s house , brethren with whom he may hold sweet converse , while the other ¦ wi ll wander solitary through the courts , unconscious of delight , incapable of sympathy , and at length be compelled to seek in its remotest bounds some who will instruct him in the language of truth , and prepare him for the perception of realities . He looks round for familiar objects , and finds them not ; he recalls the ideas in which he most delighted , and sees that they bear no relation to his present state . He Jongs for the changing light of the

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    Essays on the Art of Thinking . 821

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1829, page 821, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2579/page/5/