The Refining Power of Religion.
It expands the mind of its possessor and purifies his taste. It is a great mistake to confound riches and refinement, just as it is a great mistake to fancy that, because a man is poor, he must be coarse and vulgar. There was no vulgarity about James Ferguson, though herding sheep, whilst his eye watched Arcturus and the Pleiades, and his wistful spirit wandered through immensity; and though seated at a stocking loom, there was no vulgarity in the youth who penned the "Star of Bethlehem;" the weaver-boy, Henry Kirke White, was not a vulgar lad. And so, if you surrender your minds to the teaching of God's Word and Spirit, they will receive the truest, deepest refinement. There may be nothing in your movements to indicate the training of the school, nor anything in your elocution which speaks of courtly circles or smooth society; but there will be an elevation in your tastes, and a purity in your feelings, as of men accustomed to the society of the King of kings. The religion which is at last to lift the beggar from the dunghill, and set him with nobles of the earth, will even now give the toiling man the elevated aims, the enlarged capacity, the lofty tastes, and bearing, which princes have often lacked.