rival God in our affections, whatever it may be, is only " a broken cistern." Who will venture to say that he has ever found solid and permanent satisfac- tion in the creature ? Who has lived any considerable time in the world without learning, by his own expe- rience, the truth of Solomon's observation, that " all below the sun is vanity ?" Yet, whatever our expe- rience has been, we still follow our own delusions, and run after a phantom, which, while we think to apprehend it, eludes our grasp. We think that the pleasures of the world will make us happy : we fol- low them, and for a moment dream that we are happy ; but we awake, and find that it was but a dream. We next try wealth or honour : we run the race ; we attain the prize ; and find at last that we have been following a shadow. We imagine, perhaps, that science and philosophy, being so much more elevated in their nature than the common concerns of life, will form a kind of Paradise for us : we labour, we press forward, we become distinguished for high attainments, but are as far off from solid happiness as ever ; and are constrained to join our testimony to that of the wisest of men, after he had " sought out all things that are done under the heaven," that even wisdom, with all its high attainments, is only " vanity and vexation of spirit."
Such is the charge which God has exhibited against us ; and we appeal to every man's conscience for the truth of it. Is there so much as one amongst us whose conscience does not tell him, " Thou art the man?" We are God's people, as much as the Jews of old were : " He hath nourished and brought us up, and yet we have rebelled against him : The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consi- der." Notwithstanding a secret conviction that God was the only source of real happiness, we could not prevail upon ourselves to seek after him : and not- withstanding our daily experience of the insufficiency of the creature to make us happy, we could not re- linquish the vain pursuit. We have hewn out one