which renders the smallest change conspicuous; and we are afraid lest, like so many others, we act a part that will not be lasting, and consequently will leave us only the ridicule without the merit of devotion.
You dread, my dear hearer, the being able to go through with it? What! in delaying your conversion, you promise yourself that God shall one day touch you; and, in being converted at present, you dare not promise yourself that he will sustain you? You depend upon his mercies while insulting him, and you dare not trust them when glorifying him? You believe that you have nothing to risk, on his part, in continuing to offend him, and you have no confidence in him when beginning to serve him? O man! where is here that reason and that rectitude of judgment which thou vauntest so much? And must it be, that in the business of thy salvation alone thou art a sink of contradiction and an incomprehensible paradox?
Besides, might we not with reason say to you, Make a beginning at least; try if, in effect, you shall be unable to sustain yourself in the service of God? Is it not worth the trouble of being tried? Does a man, precipitated by the tempest into the sea, and who finds himself on the point of drowning, not strain every nerve, in the first place, to gain the shore by swimming, before he resigns himself to the mercy of the waves? Would he say to himself, as an excuse for making no effort to save himself, " I shall perhaps be unable to go through with it; my strength will most likely fail me by the way? " Ah! he tries, he makes every effort, he struggles against the danger, he labours to the last moment of his strength, and only gives way at last when, overpowered by the violence of the waves, he is forced to yield to the evil of his destiny. You perish, my dear hearer, the waves gain upon you, the torrent sweeps you away, and you hesitate whether you shall try to extricate yourself from the danger; you waste, in calculating your strength, the only moments left to provide for your safety; and you sacrifice, in deliberating, the little time that is left to you for the sole purpose of disengaging yourself from the (peril, which is imminent, and in which so many others are continually perishing before your eyes!
But, lastly, even granting that in the end the various hardships of virtue tire out your weakness, and that you find yourself under the necessity of retreating; at any rate, you will always have passed some little time without offending your God; you will always have made some efforts toward appeasing him; you will always have devoted some days to the praise of his holy name; at any rate, it will be a portion cut off from your criminal life, and from that treasure of iniquity which you amass for the terrible day of vengeance; you will have acquired, at least, the right of representing your weakness to God, and of saying to him, "Lord, thou beholdest my desires and my weakness; why, O my God I have I not a heart more constant to thee, more determined in the cause of truth, more callous to the world, and more difficult to be led astray? Put
