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"Negligent, lazy, and partial visiting of the sick. If they be poor we go once, and only when
sent for; if they be rich and of better note, we go oftener and unsent for. Not knowing how to
speak with the tongue of the learned a word in season to the weary, and exercised in
conscience; nor to such as are under the loss of husband, wife, children, friends, or goods, for
the improving of these trials to their spiritual advantage; nor to dying persons. In visiting,
wearying or shunning to go to such as we esteem graceless. Not visiting the people from
house to house; nor praying with them at fit opportunities (2 Timothy 4:1-5)."

"Lazy and negligent in catechising. Not preparing our hearts before, nor wrestling with God
for a blessing to it, because of the ordinariness and apprehended easiness of it; whereby the
Lord's name is much taken in vain, and the people little profited. Looking on that exercise
as a work below us, and not condescending to study a right and profitable way of instructing
the Lord's people. Partial in catechising, passing by those that are rich and of better quality,
though many of such stand ordinarily in great need of instruction. Not waiting upon and
following the ignorant but often passionately upbraiding them (Galatians 4:11 -20)."

These are solemn confessions—the confessions of men who knew the nature of that
ministry on which they had entered, and who were desirous of approving themselves to
Him who had called them, that they might give in their account with joy and not with grief.

Let us, as they did, deal honestly with ourselves. Our confessions ought to be no less ample
and searching.

1. We have been unfaithful. The fear of man and the love of his applause have often made us
afraid. We have been unfaithful to our own souls, to our flocks, and to our brethren;
unfaithful in the pulpit, in visiting, in discipline, in the church. In the discharge of every one
of the duties of our stewardship there has been grievous unfaithfulness. Instead of the special
particularization of the sin reproved, there has been the vague allusion. Instead of the bold
reproof, there has been the timid hint. Instead of the uncompromising condemnation, there
has been the feeble disapproval. Instead of the unswerving consistency of a holy life whose
uniform tenor should be a protest against the world and a rebuke of sin, there has been such
an amount of unfaithfulness in our walk and conversation, in our daily deportment and
intercourses with others, that any degree of faithfulness we have been enabled to manifest on
the Lord's Day is almost neutralized by the want of circumspection which our weekday life
exhibits.

Few men ever lived a life so busy and so devoted to God as Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh.
His learning, habits of business, Station, friends, all contributed to keep his hands every
moment full; and then his was a soul that seemed continually to hear a voice saying:
"Redeem the time,

for the days are evil." Early, too, did he begin, for at ten years of age he was hopefully
converted by a sermon preached on Romans 12:1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by