408 VAIN EXCUSES FOR poses on himself, with the belief that there can be no harm in substituting a moral for a religious exercise ; for he has learned to think highly of morality, while he assigns to religion only an inferior degree in his scale of duties. He usually goes to church once on the Sunday ; but it does not at all infringe on his religious system to examine his accounts, to give a great dinner, or to begin a journey on that day. Now it is a serious truth, that there is no man to whom prayer is more impe- ratively a duty, or more obviously a necessity, than the man of business ; whether in the higher or the middle classes of society. There is no man who more stands in need of quieting his anxieties, regulating his tempers, cooling his spirits by a devout application for the blessing of God ; none to whom it is more necessary to implore the divine protection for the duties, or preservation from the dangers, of the scene in which he is about to engage ; none to whom
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