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and spirits rife - how foon, and infensibly, they are got above the pitch and first bounds which cooler hours would have marked.

When the gay and smiling aspect of things has begun to leave the passages to a man's heart thus thoughtlessly unguarded-when kind and caressing looks of every object without that can flatter his fenfes, have confpired with the enemy within to betray him, and put him off his defence - when music likewise has lent her aid, and tried her power upon his paffions - when the voice of singing men, and the voice of finging women with the found of the viol and the lute have broke in upon his foul, and in some tender notes have touched the fecret springs of rapture that moment let us diffect and look into his heart - fee how

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vain! how weak! how empty a thing it is! Look through its several recesses, those pure manfions formed for the reception of innocence and virtue - fad spectacle! Behold those fair inhabitants now difpoffeffed - turned out of their facred dwellings to make room - for what? at the best for levity and indifcretion- perhaps for folly - it may be for more impure guests, which poffibly in so general a riot of the mind and senses may take occafion to enter unfuspected at the fame time.

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In a scene and disposition thus decan the most cautious fay thus far shall my defires go - and no farther? or will the coolest and most cir cumspect fay, when pleasure has taken full poffeffion of his heart, that no thought nor purpose shall arife there, which he

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would have concealed ?- In those loose and unguarded moments the imagination is not always at command - in spite of reason and reflection, it will forceably carry him sometimes whither he would not - like the unclean spirit, in the parent's fad description of his child's cafe, which took him, and oft times caft him into the fire to destroy him, and wherefoever it taketh him, it teareth him, and hardly departeth from him.

But this, you'll fay, is the worst account of what the mind may suffer here.

Why may we not make more favourable suppositions ? that numbers by exercise and custom to such encounters, learn gradually to despise and triumph over them; that the minds of many are not so fufceptible of warm impreffions, or fo badly fortified against them,

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that pleasure should easily corrupt or foften them; - that it would be hard to suppose, of the great multitudes which daily throng and press into this house of feafting, but that numbers come out of it again, with all the innocence with which they entered; and that if both fexes are included in the computation, what fair examples shall we fee of many of so pure and chaste a turn of mindthat the house of feasting, with all its charms and temptations, was never able to excite a thought, or awaken an inclination which virtue need to blush at or which the most scrupulous confcience might not support. God forbid we should fay otherwise: - no doubt, numbers of all ages escape unhurt, and get off this dangerous sea without shipwreck. Yet, are they not to be reckoned amongit the more fortunate adventurers? - and D 3

though though one would absolutely prohibit the attempt, or be so cynical as to condemn every one who tries it, since there are so many I suppose who cannot well do otherwise, 'and whose condition and situation in life unavoidably force them upon it yet we may be allowed to describe this fair and flattering coaft we may point out the unsuspected dangers of it, and warn the unwary passenger, where they lay. We may shew him what hazards his youth and inexperience will run, how little he can gain by the venture, and how much wiser and better it would be [as is implied in the text] to seek occafions rather to improve his little stock of virtue than incautioufly expose it to so unequal a chance, where the beft he can hope is to return safe with what treasure he carried out - but where probably, he may be so unfortunate as to lofe

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