piously is quite nauseous; and though there be nothing of this, yet men will easily be disgusted at the too great frequency or length of these occasional admonitions. But a word of God and religion dropped sometimes in conversation, gently, and without anything severe or forbidding in the manner of it; this is not unacceptable. It leaves an impression, is repeated again by the hearers, and often remembered by plain well-disposed persons longer than one would think. Particular circumstances, too, which render men more apt to receive instruction, should be laid hold of to talk seriously to their consciences. For instance, after a man's recovery from a dangerous sickness, how proper is it to advise him to recollect and ever bear in mind, what were his hopes or fears, his wishes, or resolutions, when under the apprehension of death: in order to bring him to repentance, or confirm him in a course of piety, according as his life and character has been. So likewise the terrible accidents which often happen from riot and debauchery, and indeed almost every vice, are occasions providentially thrown in your way, to discourse against these vices in common conversation, as well as from the pulpit, upon any such accidents happening in your parish, or in a neighbouring one. Occasions and circumstances of the like kind to some or other of these occur often, and ought, if I may so speak, to be catched at, as opportunities of conveying instruction, both public and private, with great force and advantage.
Public instruction is also absolutely necessary, and can in no sort be dispensed with. But, as it is common to all who are present, many persons strangely neglect to appropriate what they hear to themselves, to their own heart and life. Now, the only remedy for this in our power is a particular personal application. And a personal application makes a very different impression from a common general one. It were therefore greatly to be wished that every man should have the principles of Christianity, and
