“Forenoon and afternoon and night;—forenoon
And afternoon and night;—forenoon and—what!
The empty song repeats itself. No more?
Yea, that is life: make this forenoon sublime
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer,
And time is conquered, and thy crown is won.”
Some conscientious people are anxious because their religious life has become such a matter of habit that they are not conscious of any voluntary efforts to live right. They feel that their acts and services cannot be pleasing to God when rendered without any conscious desire to honor him. They are oppressed with the fear that their comfortable religion is really only formality. They pray at certain hours, and go to church at certain times, and they go through regular routines of duties, and they seem to be good and to do good by routine rather than from the heart. The methodicalness of their piety frightens them when they think seriously about it: it seems to them, that, in all their acts of devotion and service, there should be a spontaneous feeling, ever fresh and sweet.
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