a term used in opposition to holy; and in general is applied to all persons who have not the sacred character, and to things which do not belong to the service of religion.

PROFESSION means a calling, vocation, or known employment. In Knox's Essays, vol. i. page 234, we find an excellent paper on the choice of a profession, which that elegant writer concludes thus: "All the occupations of life (says he) are found to have their advantages and disadvantages admirably adapted to preserve the just equilibrium of happiness. This we may confidently assert, that, whatever are the inconveniences of any of them, they are all preferable to a life of inaction; to that wretched little life, which is constrained to pursue pleasure as a business, and by rendering it the object of severe and unvaried attention, destroys its very essence."

Among the Romanists profession denotes the entering into a religious order, whereby a person offers himself to God by a vow of inviolably observing obedience, chastity, and poverty.