same nature, which has not yet appeared in print, and may be acceptable to my readers. When all thy mercies, O my God, Transported with the view, I'm lost O how shall words with equal warmth That glows within my ravish'd heart? Unnumber'd comforts to my soul When in the slippery paths of youth Thine arm unseen convey'd me safe, Through hidden dangers, toils, and deaths, And through the pleasing snares of vice, When worn with sickness, oft hast thou Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss And in a kind and faithful friend Has doubled all my store. Ten thousand thousand precious gifts My daily thanks employ ; Nor is the least a cheerful heart, That tastes those gifts with joy. Through every period of my life And after death in distant worlds When nature fails, and day and night Thy mercy shall adore. Through all eternity to thee Spectator No. 465. The confirmation of faith. * * The Supreme Being has made the best arguments for his own existence in the formation of the heavens and earth; and these are arguments which a man of sense cannot forbear attending to, who is out of the noise and hurry of human affairs. Aristotle says, that should a man live under ground, and there converse with works of art and mechanism, and should afterwards be brought up into the open day, and see the several glories of the heaven and earth, he would immediately pronounce them the works of such a being as we define God to be. The psalmist has very beautiful strokes of poetry to this purpose in that exalted strain, "The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament sheweth his handy-work. One day telleth another: and one night certifieth another. There is neither speech nor language: but their voices are heard among them. Their sound is gone out into all the lands: and their words unto the ends of the world." As such a bold and sublime manner of thinking furnished very noble matter for an ode, the reader may see it wrought into the following one: Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil, Think, O my soul, devoutly think, Confusion dwelt in every face, And fear in every heart: When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs, O'ercame the pilot's art. Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord, Whilst in the confidence of prayer My soul took hold on thee. For though in dreadful whirls we hung I knew thou wert not slow to hear, The storm was laid, the winds retired, The sea that roar'd at thy command, In midst of dangers, fears, and death, And praise thee for thy mercies past, My life, if thou preserv'st my life, Thy sacrifice shall be; And death, if death must be my doom, Spectator No. 513. A thought in sickness. * When, rising from the bed of death, If yet, while pardon may be found, My heart with inward horror shrinks, When thou, O Lord, shalt stand disclosed, In majesty severe, And sit in judgment on my soul, O how shall I appear! But thou hast told the troubled mind, Who does her sins lament, The timely tribute of her tears Shall endless woe prevent. Then see the sorrows of my heart, Ere yet it be too late; And hear my Saviour's dying groans, For never shall my soul despair Who knows thine only Son has died |