YOUNG LADY'S GUIDE. CHAPTER I. TRUE RELIGION ESSENTIALLY PROGRESSIVE. THE great moral and spiritual change, which the Scriptures declare to be necessary to salvation, is compared by Christ and the apostles to a new birth, because it is the beginning of spiritual life. The term regeneration, however, only applies to this change in its commencement, which is instantaneous. The young convert, therefore, is very properly called by the apostle Peter a "new-born babe." It is a great mistake, then, to suppose that a true Christian, who is in a right state of mind, is to look back to the period of his conversion for his most lively and vigorous exercises of grace, or for his principal evidences of being in a gracious state. It may, indeed, be at that time more perceptible, because the change from a state of nature to a state of grace is very great. Yet this change is imperfect, and the greater part of the work of "putting off the old man,” — of “bringing under the body and keeping it in subjection," remains yet to be done; while the new man" must grow up from the feebleness of |