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shall correct me in mercy, and shall reprove me; but let not the oil of the 
sinner fatten my head (Ps. cxl., 5). 
But, alas! as a poet says so truthfully 
“The love of praise, howe’er concealed by art, 
Reigns, more or less, and glows in every heart; 
The proud to gain it, toils on toils endure; 
The modest shun it but to make it sure.” 
—Y oung. 
“Oh, that men’s ears should be 
To counsel deaf, but not to Flattery!” 
— Shakespeare. 
Y/ice’^ 
“. So sensitive, 
It catches each rover that doth touch its leaves.” 
Delusive Pleasures. 
S HO SOEVER drinketh of this water shall thirst again. The more 
we drink of the corrupt ivaters of the world , the more shall we 
thirst. In proportion as we yield to evils, are our hearts dissatisfied. 
Avarice and ambition experience more anxiety for those things that they, 
do not possess, than they desire pleasure from what they have. 
Pleasure enervates the soul; and, in particular, base sensual pleasure 
corrupts the heart and renders it insatiable ; the more we yield, the more 
we desire to yield. “It is easier/’ says a pious writer, “to preserve our 
heart in a state of holiness, Christian feeling, and self-denial, than to 
restore it or control it, when it has once got into the vortex of pleasure and 
self-indulgence.” 
