unless thuongh his own fault. "profitable unto all things."

"Religion is," in general,

8. Vitae, diligence, and industry, joined with good temper and prudence, have ever been found the surest road to prosperity; and where men fail of attaining it, their want of success is far oftener owing to their having deviated from that road, than to their having encountered insuperable bars is it. Some, by being too artful, forfeit the reputation of probity. Some, by bring too opou, are accounted, to fail in prudence. Others, by being ückle and changeable, are distrusted by all.

9. The case commonly is, that men seek to ascribe their disappointments, to any cause, rather than to their own misconduct; and when they can devise uo other cause, they lay them to the charge of Providence. Their folly leads them into vices; their vices into misfortunes; and in their misfortunes they "murmur against Providence.”

10. They are doubly unjust towards their Creator. In their prosperity, they are apt to ascribe their success to their own diligence, rather than to his blessing, and in their adversity, they impute their distresses to his providence, not to their own misbehaviour. Whereas the truth is the very reverse of this. "Every good and every perfect gift cometh from above," and of evil and misery, man is the author to himself.

11. When from the condition of individuals, we look abroad to the public state of the world, we meet with more proof of the truth of this assertion. We see great societies of men torn in pieces by intestine dissentions, tumults, and civil commotions. We see mighty armies go

ing forth, in formidable array, against each other, to cov er the earth with blood, and to fill the air with the cries of widows and orphans. Sad evils these are, to which this miserable world is exposed.

12. But are these evils, I beseech you, to be imputed to God? Was it he who sent forth slaughtering armies into the field, or who filled the peaceful cities with massacres and blood? Are these miseries any other than the bitter fruit of men's violent and disorderly passions? Are they not clearly to be traced to the ambition and vices, of princes, to the quarrels of the great, and to the turbulence of the people? Let us lay them entirely out of the account

in thinking of providence, and let us think only on the "foolishness of man."

13.

Did man controul his passions, and form his conduct according to the dictates of wisdom, humanity, and virtue, the earth would no longer be desolated by cruelty, and human societies would live in order, harmony and peace. In those scenes of mischief and violence which fill the world, let man behold, with shame, the picture of his vices, his ignorance and folly. Let him be humble by the mortifying view of his own perverseness, but let not his heart fret against the Lord."

Blair.

SECTION I.

On Disinterested Friendship.

3. I AM informed that certain Greek writers (philetophers, it seems, in the opinion of their countrymen) have advanced some very extraordinary positions relating to friendship, as, indeed what subject is there, which these subtle gentuses have not tortured with their soplustry?

2.

The authors to whom I refer, dissuade their disciples from entering into any strong attachments, as creating supernumerary disquietudes to those who engage in them, and, as every man has more than sufficient to call forth his solicitude, in the course of his own affairs, it is a weakness, they contend, anxiously to involve himself in the concerns of others.

3. They recommend it also, in all connections of this kind, to hold the bands of union extremely loose, so as always to have it in one's power to strain and relax them, as circumstances and situations shall render most expedient. 'They add, as a capital article of their doctrine, that, "to live exempt from cares, is an essential ingredient to constitute human happiness: but an ingredient, however, which he who voluntarily distresses himself with cares, in which he has no necessary and personal interest, must never hope to possess."

4. I have been told, likewise, that there is another set of pretended philosophers, of the same country, whose tenets, concerning this subject, are of a still more illiberal and ungenerous cast.

5.

The proposition they attempt to establish, is, that friendship is an affair of self-interest entirely; and that the proper motive for engaging in it, is, not in order to gratify the kind and benevolent affections, but for the benefit of that assistance and support which are to be derived from the connexion."

6. Accordingly they assert, that those persons are most disposed to have recourse to auxiliary alliances of this kind, who are least qualified by nature or fortune, to depend upon their own strength and powers: the weaker sex, for instance, being generally more inclined to engage in frienships, than the male part of our species; and those who are depressed by indigence, or labouring under mis-fortunes, than the wealthy and the prosperous.

7. Excellent and obliging sages, these, undoubtedly! To strike out the friendly affections from the moral world, would be like extinguishing the sun in the natural; each of them being the source of the best and most grateful satisfactions, that heaven has conferred on the sons of men. But I should be glad to know, what the real value of this boasted exemption from care, which they promise their disciples, justly amounts to? An exemption flattering to self-love, I confess; but which, upon many occurrences in human life, should be rejected with the utmost disdain.

3. For nothing, surely, can be more inconsistent with a well poised and manly spirit, than to decline engaging in any laudable action, or to he discouraged from persevering in it by an apprehension of the trouble and solicitude, with which it may probably be attended.

9. Virtue herself, indeed, ought to be totally renounced, if it be right to avoid every possible means that may be productive of uneasiness; for who, that is actuated by her principles, can observe the conduct of an opposite character, without being affected with some degree of secret dissatisfaction.

10. Are not the just, the brave, and the good, necessarily exposed to the disagreeable emotions of dislike and aversion, when they respectively meet with instances of frand, of cowardize or of villany? It is an essential property of every well constituted mind, to be affected with pain or pleasure, according to the nature of those moral appearances that present themselves for observation.

11. If sensibility, therefore, be not incompatible with true wisdom, (and it surely is not, unless we suppose that philosophy deadens every finer feeling of our nature,) what just reason can be assigned, why the sympathetic sufferings which may result from friendship, should be a #ufficient inducement for banishing that generous affection from the human breast?

12. Extinguish all emotions of the heart, and what dif ference will remain, I do not say between man and brute, but between man and a mere inanimate clod; away then with those austere philosophers, who represent virtue as hardening the soul against all the softer impressions of humanity!

13. The fact, certainly, is much otherwise. A truly good man is, upon many occasions, extremely susceptible. of tender sentiments; and his heart expands with joy, or shrinks with sorrow, as good or ill fortune accompanies his friend. Upon the whole, then, it may fairly be concluded that, as in the case of virtue, so in that of friendship, those painful sensations, which may sometimes be produced by the one, as well as by the other, are equally insufficient grounds for excluding either of them from taking possession of our bosoms.

14. They who insist that "utility is the first and prevailing motive, which induces mankind to enter into particular friendships" appear to me to divest the association of its most amiable and engaging principle. For, to a mind rightly disposed, it is not so much the benefits received, as the affectionate zeal from which they flow, that gives them their best and most valuable recommendation.

15. It is so far indeed from being verified by fact, that a sense of our wants is the original cause of forming these amiable alliances; that, on the contrary, it is observable, that none have been more distinguished in their friendships then those, whose power and opulence, but, above all, whose superior virtue, (a much firmer support,) have raised them above every necessity of having recourse to the assistance of others.

16. The true distinction then, in this question, is, that "although friendship is certainly productive of utility, yet utility is not the primary motive of friendship." Those selfish sensualists, therefore, who lulled in the lap of luxury, presume to maintain the reverse have surely no claim

17.

to attention; as they are neither qualified by reflection. nor experience, to be competent judges of the subject. Is there a man upon the face of the earth, who would deliberately accept of all the wealth, and all the affluence this world can bestow, if offered him upon the severe terms of his being unconnected with a single mortal whom he could love, or by whom he should be beloved? This would be to lead the wretched life of a detested tyrant, who, amidst perpetual suspicions and alarms, passes his miserable days a stranger to every tender sentiment; and utterly precluded from the heartfelt satisfaction of friendship. Melmoth's translation of Cicero's Lælius.

SECTION. VI.

On the Immortality of the Soul.

1, I was yesterday walking alone, in one of my friends' woods; and lost myself in it very agreeably, as I was running over in my mind, the several arguments that establish this great point; which is the basis of morality, and the source of all the pleasing hopes, and secret joys, that can arise in the heart of a reasonable creature. I considered those several proofs drawn--First, from the nature of the soul itself, and particularly its immateriality; which, though not absolutely necessary to the eternity of its du ration, has, I think been evinced to almost a demonstration.

2. Secondly, from its passions and sentiments; as particularly, from its love of existence; its horror of annihilation; and its hopes of immortality; with that secret satisfaction which it finds in the practice of virtue, and that uneasiness which follows upon the commission of vice.Thirdly, from the nature of the Supreme Being, whose justness, goodness, wisdom, and veracity, are all concerned in this point.

3. But among these, and other excellent arguments for the immortality of the soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to its perfection, without a possibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improv ed by others, who have written on this subject, though i seems to me to carry a very great weight with it.