The Wilmingtonian, And Delaware Advertiser

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS.

EXTRACT.

Who has not felt the workings of a rivalry within him between the power of conscience and the power of temptation? Who does not remember those seasons of retirement, when the calculations of eternity had gotten a momentary command over the heart; and time with all its vexations had dwindled into insignificance before them? And who does not remember how upon his actual engagement with the objects of time, they resumed a control as great and omnipotent as if all the importance of eternity adhered to them—how they emitted from them such an impression upon his feelings, as to fix and to fascinate the whole man into a subserviency to their influence?

Oh! how comes it, that in the face of all this experience, the whole elevation of purpose convinced in this hour of his better understanding, should be dissipated and forgotten? Whence the night, and whence the mystery of the spell, which so blinds and so infatuates us to the world? What prompts us to embark the whole strength of our eagerness and our desires in pursuit of interests which we know a few years will bring to utter annihilation? Who is it that imparts to them all the colour of an unfading durability? Who is it that throws such an air of subtlety over these earthy tabernacles or makes them look to the fascinated eye of man like resting places for eternity? Who is it that so pictures out the objects of sense, and so magnifies the range of their future enjoyment, and so dazzles the fond and deceived imagination, that in looking onward through our earthly career, it appears like the vista, or the prospective of innumerable ages? He who is called the god of this world. He who can dress the idleness of its waking dreams in the garb of reality. He who can pour a seducing brilliancy over the panorama of its fleeting pleasures and vain anticipations. He who can turn it into an instrument of deceitfulness; and make it wield such an absolute ascendency over all the affections, that man becomes the poor slave of its idolatries and its charms, puts the authority of conscience and the warning of the word of God, and the offered instigations of the Spirit of God, and all the wisdom of his own sound and sober experience away from him.

But this wondrous contest will come to a close. Some will return to their loyalty and others will keep by their rebellion: and in the day of winding up the drama of this world's history, there will be made manifest to the myriads of the various orders of creation, both the mercy and the vindicated majesty of the Eternal.

Chalmers.