the natural inconstancy of the heart will bring these about; yet,
nevertheless, tho detached from sin by incapability, you are no nearer
your God. According to the world you are become more prudent, more
regular, to a greater extent what it calls men of probity, more exact
in fulfilling your public or private duties. But you are not penitent.
You have ceased your disorders but you have not expiated them. You are
not converted: this great stroke, this grand operation on the heart,
which regenerates man, has not yet been felt by you. Nevertheless,
this situation, so truly dangerous, does not alarm you. Sins which
have never been washed away by sincere repentance, and consequently
never obliterated from the book of life, appear in your eyes as no
longer existing; and you will tranquilly leave this world in a state
of impenitence, so much the more dangerous as you will die without
being sensible of your danger.

What I say here is not merely a rash expression, or an emotion of
zeal; nothing is more real, or more exactly true: it is the situation
of almost all men, even the wisest and most esteemed of the world.
The morality of the younger stages of life is always lax, if not
licentious. Age, disgust, and establishment for life, fix the
heart and withdraw it from debauchery: but where are those who are
converted? Where are those who expiate their crimes by tears of sorrow
and true repentance? Where are those who, having begun as sinners, end
as penitents? Show me, in your manner of living, the smallest trace of
penitence! Are your graspings at wealth and power, your anxieties
to attain the favor of the great--and by these means an increase of
employments and influence--are these proofs of it? Would you wish
to reckon even your crimes as virtues?--that the sufferings of your
ambition, pride, and avarice, should discharge you from an obligation
which they themselves have imposed? You are penitent to the world, but