repetition, defectiveness, and in age, short duration, are unable to satisfy, we must aid their natural by a moral pleasure; we must season them with a spice of religion, to make them more palatable; we must consider that 'tis God's will that we should be content and pleased with them: And, thus the thinness of the natural pleasure, by our sense of joining an obedience to Heaven, to it, will become much more substantial and satisfactory. We shall find great account in considering content, not only as a prudence, but as a duty too. Religion is all; and (happy for us!) it is all-sufficient too in our last extremities, a full proof of which I will steal from yourself. So all-sufficient is religion, that you could not draw, in Clarissa, the strongest object of pity, without giving us in it (thanks to her religion) an object of envy too. Pray my love and service to all, and Mr. Groves among the rest, who has lately much obliged, Dear Sir, Your truly affectionate humble Servant, And Clarissa's admirer, E. YOUNG. TO MR. RICHARDSON. MY DEAR SIR, July, 17, 1746. AFTER long absence, (long I mean to my feeling) I yesterday returned home, as to a pillow, which gives me that joy in rest, of which you will not be able to entertain any idea these twenty years. You convince me, every day, more and more of the singularity of your character; your heart is, I find, set on doing good offices, and to those who are least capable of returning them. If there is any such thing as virtue, it consists in such a conduct; and if there is any such thing as wisdom, it consists in virtue! What else can furnish either joy or peace? For when a man has had years, reflexion, and experience enough to take off the mask from men and things, it is impossible for him to propose to himself any true peace, but peace of conscience; or any real joy, but joy in the Holy Ghost, This another might call preaching; but you, Sir, must either condemn the whole tenor of our life, or allow it to be common sense. On his travels, a very old man dines with me this day, the Rev. Mr. Watty, whose character may be briefly given by comparing him to a frosty night. There are many thoughts in him that glitter through the dominion of darkness. Though it is night, it is a star-light night; and if you (as you have promised) should succeed him in our little hemisphere, I should welcome Richardson, as returning day. In a word, I love you, and delight in your conversation, which permits me to think of something more than what I see! a favour which the conversation of very few others will indulge to, Dear Sir, Your affectionate and obliged humble servant, E. YOUNG. THE DIFFERENCE OF ACTIONS. [From Bishop HALL'S Soliloquies.] HERE is great difference in sins and actions, whether truly or seemingly offensive; there are gnats and there are camels; neither is there less difference in consciences: There are consciences so wide and vast, that they can swallow a camel; and there are consciences so strait, as that they strain at a gnat: yea, which is strange to observe, those very consciences which one while are so dilated that they strain not at a camel, another while are so drawn together by an anxious scrupulousness, that they are ready to be choaked with a gnat. How palpably was this seen in the chief priest and pharisees and elders of the Jews; the small gnat of entering into the judgment hall of the Roman governor, would by no means down with them; that heinous act would defile them, so as they should not eat the passover; but in the meantime the huge camel of the murther of the Lord passed down glib and easily through their throats :They are ready to choak with one poor ear of corn pulled on a Sabbath, by an hungry passenger; yet whole houses of widows, the whiles, pass down their gorges with ease: An unwashed hand or cup was piacular; whiles within, their hearts are full of extortion and excess. I wish the present age did not abound with instances: It is the Vol. VII. Churchm. Mag. Sept. 1804. Ee fashion fashion of hypocrites to be seemingly scrupulous in small things, whiles they make no conscience at all of the greatest; and to be so much less conscionable of greater matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith; as they are more sumptously punctual in their mint, anise and cummin. O God! I would not make more sins than thou hast made; I desire to have an heart wisely tender, not fondly scrupulous; let my soul endure no fetters but thine; if indifferent things may be my gnats, let no known sin be other than a camel to me; and let me rather choak in the passage, than let down such a morsel. PROPOSAL FOR FEMALE COLLEGES. [From a Spital Sermon, by GEORGE HICKES, D. D. Dean of Worcester, 4to. 1684.] I WILL also put you in mind of establishing a fund for endowing of poor maids, who have lived so many years in service, and of building schools, or colleges for the education of young women, much like unto those in the universities, for the education of young men, but with some alteration in the discipline and economy, as the nature of such an institution would require. Such colleges might be so ordered, as to become security to your daughters against all the hazards to which they are exposed in private schools, and likewise a security to the government, that the daughters of the land should be bred up according to the religion now established in it, to the unconceivable advantage of the public, in rooting Out ENTHUSIASM, with her daughter SCHISM; both which are upheld by nothing among us so much, as by the women, who are so silly and deceivable, for want of ingenious and orthodox education. Methinks the rich and honourable ladies of the Church of England, the elect ladies of her Apostolical communion, should be zealous to begin, and carry on such a work as this, which upon more accounts than I have mentioned, would make the daughters of Israel be glad, and the daughters of Judah and Jerusalem rejoice. THOUGHTS TH THOUGHTS ON A CHURCH ORGAN. BY THE LATE REV. WILLIAM JONES. HE structure of this instrument is not unlike that of my bodily frame, with its different powers and faculties; the marvellous work of GOD who buildeth all things. The materials of which it is composed were taken from the earth. When the work was compleat, it left the world, and was brought hither, to be dedicated, as long as it lasts, to the service of GoD. And here it remains abstracted from all earthly concerns, and inclosed within the walls of this sacred building. It keeps company with none but those who come to worship Gon, together with the departed, who in the days of their flesh did the same; and never refuses to join in the sound of his praise, either by day or night. But yet of itself it is a machine dead and silent, incapable of acting till it be first acted upon; for it hath no voice, unless the air supplies it with breath; of which men hear the sound, but see not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. Such, O my soul, is every one that is born of the spirit, God hath taken thee out of the world, and given thee a place in his Holy Catholic Church, the temple of the new Jerusalem, whose walls are called Salvation, and her gates praise. This organ, by its situation, is become Christian. It might have been appropriated, like many others, to a profane use; it might have been fixed in some garden of pleasure, to bear its part in nightly songs of praise to the God of this world. And it might have been thy lot, but for God's grace, to have stood in the way of sinners, de voted to the pleasures of this world, the paradise of fools, where thou wouldest have yielded all thy members servants of iniquity, and nought but filthy communication would have proceeded out of thy mouth. There is not a pipe of this organ that spends its breath in boasting of its privileges. It came not hither of itself; neither doth the organ sanctify the temple, but the temple sanctifieth that. Do thou practise the like humility, For it is no honour to the Church of Christ that thou hast taken up a place in it: thou camest not hither of thyself; it was the grace of God that brought thee to this place and state of salvation; and all the honour thou hast is borrowed from the Lord's mystical body, whereof thou art a member. E e g In In this station be not useless to him who hath chosen thee as an instrument fitted for his service. The pattern thou seest here before thee is always prepared to answer, when the master touches it. O mayest thou be as ready to join at all times with the great congregation in uttering the voice of-Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power unto the Lamb that hath redeemed thee from the world by his own blood When thy master, calls upon thee, be it in the evening, in the morning, at noon-day, or at mid-night, do thou answer, O God, my heart is ready, my heart is ready, I will sing and give praise. Awake up my glory, awake lute and harp; I myself, in whose words and works all their music is to be accomplished, I myself will awake right early. But the organ sounds not till the wind communicates a voice to it. Every thing that hath breath may praise the Lord: nothing that is without breath can do it. Yet such is the organ of man's body; an instrument dumb and lifeless, till God, that formed it, breathes into it the breath of life. Look down therefore, O Lord, with compassion on the emptiness of my nature. Come, Holy Ghost, eternal God, Both from the Father and the Son, According to thy promise made Thus prepared, assisted, and fixed in the Church of the living God, O my soul, it is good for thee to be here, and mayest thou go no more out for any profane purposes. The only way to keep thy place, is to preserve thy use; to be serviceable in returning to God the praises he puts into thy mouth, and leading others forward to do the same. Thou must be content to do this by intervals with the Church that is below, till thy voice shall sound in that other congregation, where they rest not day and night. N. B. It is but too notorious, that in many, not to say most congregations, the time of the voluntary, is a time of trifling, chat, and dissipation. It is to be wished, that o ganists would always play such short and solemn pieces. |