object of contempt. He may be vulgar, ignorant, visionary,
extravagant; but he will do and suffer things which it is for her
interest that somebody should do and suffer, yet from which calm
and sober-minded men would shrink. She accordingly enlists him in
her service, assigns to him some forlorn hope, in which
intrepidity and impetuosity are more wanted than judgment and
self-command, and sends him forth with her benedictions and her
applause.

In England it not unfrequently happens that a tinker or coal-
heaver hears a sermon or falls in with a tract which alarms him
about the state of his soul. If he be a man of excitable nerves
and strong imagination, he thinks himself given over to the Evil
Power. He doubts whether he has not committed the unpardonable
sin. He imputes every wild fancy that springs up in his mind to
the whisper of a fiend. His sleep is broken by dreams of the
great judgment-seat, the open books, and the unquenchable fire.
If, in order to escape from these vexing thoughts, he flies to
amusement or to licentious indulgence, the delusive relief only
makes his misery darker and more hopeless. At length a turn takes
place. He is reconciled to his offended Maker. To borrow the fine
imagery of one who had himself been thus tried, he emerges from
the Valley of the Shadow of Death, from the dark land of gins and
snares, of quagmires and precipices, of evil spirits and ravenous
beasts. The sunshine is on his path. He ascends the Delectable
Mountains, and catches from their summit a distant view of the
shining city which is the end of his pilgrimage. Then arises in
his mind a natural and surely not a censurable desire, to impart
to others the thoughts of which his own heart is full, to warn
the careless, to comfort those who are troubled in spirit. The