riders delight to display themselves, and on the other side pedestrians
and perambulators enjoy the sun. And then there are still other roads
with such a sweet and gentle incline upon them that it is a positive
pleasure both to man and beast to set their foot upon them. And so it is
with the minds and the hearts of the men and the women who crowd these
roads. Just as the various roads are, so are the ears and the
understandings, the affections and the inclinations of those who walk and
ride and drive upon them. Some of those men's ears are impassably
stopped up by self-love, self-interest, party-spirit, anger, envy, and
ill-will,--impenetrably stopped up against all the men and all the truths
of earth and of heaven that would instruct, enlighten, convict or correct
them. Some men's minds, again, are not so much shut up as they are
crooked, and warped, and narrow, and full of obstruction and opposition.
Whereas here and there, sometimes on horseback and sometimes on foot;
sometimes a learned man walking out of the city to take the air, and
sometimes an unlettered countryman coming into the city to make his
market, will have his ear hospitably open to every good man he meets, to
every good book he reads, to every good paper he buys at the street
corner, and to every good speech, and report, and letter, and article he
reads in it. And how happy that man is, how happy his house is at home,
and how happy he makes all those he but smiles to on his afternoon walk,
and in all his walk along the roads of this life. Never see an I
incline' on a railway or on a driving or a walking road without saying on
it before you leave it, 'I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined
His ear unto me and heard my cry. Because He hath inclined His ear unto
me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. Incline not my
heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with them that work
iniquity. Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies, and not to
covetousness. I have inclined mine heart to perform Thy statutes alway,
even unto the end.'