Every one who has attended to the workings of his own mind, must be aware, that it is much easier, to do a thing which he has done before, than a thing he has never previously attempted.

The mind falls with peculiar readiness, into trains of thought it had previously pursued; and the hands repeat with peculiar facility, acts they have previously performed. If we have thought much on any one subject, if our minds have thus been much filled with one class of thoughts, such thoughts arise in the mind more readily than any other, and are excited in ways very unlikely, and by objects very dissimilar. From this cause, it happens, that different individuals are very differently affected by the same occurrences: and the self-same objects lead their minds to remarkedly dissimilar reflections. Of this, an instructive illustration is furnished by the effect produced by the solemn scene of death. Death is an event, which might be expected to lead every one witnessing it, to reflect on his own feebleness before the stroke of the last enemy, and on the account, which he has himself to render to God. But who that has ever been at a funeral, does not know that these are not the topics, about which, those present generally converse or think? One talks, of the effect of particular forms of disease on the human body; another reviews the history and character of the departed; and another discusses the state of his worldly affairs, and the probable consequences of his removal, to those who are left behind; scarcely one seems to reflect seriously, that death is the wages of sin, and that now the condition of a fellow creature is fixed for eternity.

Another illustration of the same fact in the philosophy of human nature might be found in the remarks made by the different individuals of a mixed company, amid one of our fairest Australian scenes. One man would measure its beauties, solely by its capability to support flocks and herds; another, by its fitness for yielding waving crops of yellow grain; a third would mark the arrangement of its rocks, and speculate on the agencies which have operated to place them as they are; a fourth would be marking the different combinations, of light and shade, of the fair and grand, and considering how the landscape would look when transferred to canvas: a fifth, would busy himself, discovering resemblances between the scenes now before him, and the scenes of other lands; whilst perhaps a sixth, whose mind has been much occupied with political and politico-economical contemplations, would luxuriate in imagining the population, who at some future day will occupy these solitudes, and prove themselves worthy off-shoots of the free and enterprizing Anglo-Saxon race.

Now, all these diversified emotions, excited by the same objects, bear a relation to the thoughts, to which these various minds have been familiar, and the contemplations to which they have been accustomed. It is the power of Habit, which has led these individuals to feel and muse in ways so diverse, under the same outward influences.

Habit, which thus affects so powerfully the trains of thought in the mind, affects equally powerfully, the actions of the life. Men do easily, what they have done before; and the oftener they have done a thing, the more easily does the repetition of it become: and by and bye, a force is developed, which becomes resistless. Thus it comes to pass, that long continued practices cannot be abandoned, old habits cannot be broken off, by any human power. This is painfully exemplified in the case of every class of evil doers. As an instance, let us take the case of the drunkard. This wretched being, has been accustomed to a criminal and ruinous indulgence, which he will purchase, at almost any price. For the sake of it, the husband and father will leave his wife and children in hunger and rags, will outrage all the feelings of nature, and violate obligations the most sacred. And in this sad career, the resistless power of habit is distinctly observable. The sight of a place where the soul-destroying draught is sold, is sufficient to rouse the desire to quaff it, and drag him to the fatal spot, whence he cannot depart, till he has degraded the human form divine, to a condition, lower than that of the beasts that perish. Meeting accidentally with an old companion in sin, is enough to excite the same fell longings, and lead to the same results. The notes of an air, to which he has been accustomed in his orgies; the smell of the accursed liquor, so loathsome to every taste that is unvitiated, will do the same thing.

Profane swearers, in like manner, - speakers of falsehood, Sabbath breakers, and every other class of transgressors of God's law, grow gradually worse and worse, till their evil habits become so inveterate, that they sin unconciously, and without the slightest apparent motive or reason. They began probably, with comparatively small deviations from the path of rectitude; the first sin, perhaps, was committed, with some compunction; it made the second easy, and the compunction was less; but "the career of sin is ever a career of headlong degeneracy," and he who enters on it, cannot stop; he who has yielded once, is almost sure to yield again, and again, and again. This goes on, till the soul becomes so hardened, and the habits so confirmed, that men sin most heinously, for no other perceivable reason, than that they have been accustomed to it. Many of the lowest classes in this country, utter the grossest untruths, without any apparent motive, solely as it would seem, from the influence of habit. The men who take God's name in vain, and imprecate curses on their fellows, often excuse themselves, when reproved for their wickedness, by saying that they meant no harm by it. And in reality, they have seldom any deliberate intention to insult the Majesty of the Most High, or any formed desire to see a withering blight fall on other men; they express themselves as if they so intended and desired, from the force of habit. They act and speak, in the guilty way they do, because they have been accustomed to it.

This feature in human nature, this fact in the economy of the human mind, is distinctly recognised in Scripture, when the inspired prophet asks the sinners of the House of Israel, (Jeremiah xiii. 23,) "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then, may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." They who have accustomed themselves to do evil, cannot do good. There is a moral impossibility, that they should act otherwise, than they have done. And this passage suggests another circumstance worthy of being attended to; namely, that practices long indulged in, obtain a hold on the affections. Men love to do, as they have done, and become averse to everything of an opposite kind. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor would he, if he could. In his native regions, the radiant realms beneath the burning zone, he admires only the dark hue that is familiar to him, and looks with contempt on the pale skins of colder climes. The African mother, regards with thorough distaste, the white children of another race, and considers them quite inferior, in point of loveliness, to her sable offspring. This is a matter of historical certainty: and strange as it may seem, to those who have not reflected on the subject, it is not more strange, than the eagerness with which the slave of sinful habit, rushes into his favourite indulgences, and persists in his favourite practices; nor is it at all more a matter of certainty, than the distaste with which he regards the worship and service of God, the ways of holiness, and everything that is pure, and lovely, and of good report. Thus, there is not only the power of habit to be overcome, before they can do good, who have been accustomed to do evil; but there is also, the aversion, the unwillingness, the distaste, to be rooted out, before the attempt will be made. As the Ethiopian prefers the hue of his own skin to every other, so does the sinner his evil ways, to any and all besides.

This subject is one of the greatest practical importance. To one or two inferences which it suggests, we would now bespeak the reader's earnest attention.

1. Since habit is so powerful, and since habits once formed are so tenaciously persisted in, it must be of the utmost consequence, to train the young in habits which are good.

In what we have said, we have adverted chiefly to the force of evil habits, and the readiness with which they are acquired. Blessed be God, the same tendency in the human mind, that is so often potent in leading to sin, and eternal ruin, may be taken advantage of, to lead to that which is good. It is, no doubt, most true, and would to God we could make every reader feel duly the truth, that the human soul requires an influence more potent, than can be wielded by man, even the influence of the Spirit of God Himself, to purify it, and make it fit for heaven; yet, we are not to infer from this, that God has left no place for human skill and human care. On the contrary, he requires means to be used, and he hath said, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." The parent cannot convert his children, any more than he can convert himself; but he can do much towards forming them, and moulding them, to righteous habits. He can tell them their duty to God, and the guilt of sinning against Him. He can tell them of God's goodness, and of God's all-seeing eye, and of coming judgement. He can tell them of the love of Christ, who died for their sins. He can pray with them for the Spirit's renewing grace, and teach them to seek this grace for themselves. He may, and he should, watch the expansion of their minds, and the development of their affections, and check every outbreak of the native corruption of the heart; he should reprove, warn, and, if need be, punish: and he should study to teach by example. Children copy the habits of their parents; they follow their practices, through the instinctive operation of the principle of imitation. Oh that all parents into whose hands this may come, would be watchful and circumspect as to their own habits, were it only for the sake of their children! Oh that they would keep them from every sight, and every sound, and every companionship, that tends to rouse into activity the latent corruption of their natures, and draw them towards evil in any of its forms!

2. On the same grounds, we may infer the necessity of continued watchfulness over ourselves.

It is easy to fall into evil habits: but difficult, most difficult, to lay them aside. Once afloat on the current of evil, we are in the greatest danger of being hurried on, and on, till precipitated into the gulf of eternal perdition. We should therefore resist resolutely the beginnings of evil, and watch against its very appearance, remembering that our "hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." We should study by God's help, to form good habits; so to accustom ourselves to the discharge of duty, that it may become easy to us: and if we do so, every effort to do good will render the next easier; every step taken in the right way, will render the next easier; and every victory gained over sin, will prepare the way for further and greater conquests.

Should this fall into the hands of any one who has been accustomed to do evil, and cannot do good, but yet feels a desire to shake off his evil bondage, we would not have him to despair. A change in him, is not so hopeless as a change in the Ethiopian's skin. He cannot himself renovate his nature, and change his habits, any more than the Ethiopian can, his colour. But the Holy Spirit can change him, and transform him, and turn him from the power of Satan unto God. Sinner, pray that He may enable thee to break thy chains, that He himself may burst thy fetters. Ask and thou shalt receive, for the Lord knoweth to give His Holy Spirit unto them that ask Him. - Rev. James Forbes.

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