influences to its most trifling details.

The power of thought, which I have so earnestly recommended you to
cultivate, is even still more practical, and still more useful, when
considered relatively to the most important business of life--that of
religion. Prayer and meditation, and that communion with the unseen
world which imparts a foretaste of its happiness and glory, are enjoyed
and profited by in proportion to the power of controlling the thoughts
and of exercising the mind. Having a firm trust, that to you every other
object is considered subordinate to that of advancement in the spiritual
life, it must be a very important consideration whether, and how far,
the self-education you may bestow on yourself will help you towards its
attainment. In this point of view there can be no doubt that the mental
cultivation recommended in this letter has a much more advantageous
influence upon your religious life than any other manner of spending
your time. Besides the many collateral tendencies of such pursuits to
favour that growth in grace which I trust will ever remain the principal
object of your desires, experience will soon show you that every
improvement in the reflective powers, every additional degree of control
over the movements of the mind, may find an immediate exercise in the
duties of religion.

The wandering thoughts which are habitually excluded from your hours of
study will not be likely to intrude frequently or successfully during
your hours of devotion; the habit of concentrating all the powers of
your mind on one particular subject, and then developing all its
features and details, will require no additional effort for the pious
heart to direct it into the lofty employments of meditation on eternal
things and communion with our God and Saviour: at the same time, the
employments of prayer and meditation will in their turn react upon your