SECTION II.

Virtue and Piety, Man's higheft Intereft.

I FIND myself exifting upon a little fpot, furrounded every way by an immenfe unknown expanfion. Where am I? What fort of a place do I inhabit? Is it exactly accommodated in every instance to my convenience? Is there no excefs of cold, none of heat, to offend me? Am I never annoyed by animals, either of my own, or a different kind? Is every thing fubfervient to me, as though I had ordered all myfelf? No; nothing like it; the farthest from it poffible. The world appears not, then, originally made for the private convenience of me alone? It does not. But is it not poffible fo to accommodate it, by my own particular industry? If to accommodate man and beast, heaven and earth, if this be beyond me, it is not poffible. What confequence then follows; or can there be any other than this? If I feek an intereft of my own, detached from that of others, I seek an interest which is chimerical, and which can never have existence.

How then must I determine? Have I no interest at all? If I have not, I am ftationed here to no purpose. But why no intereft? Can I be contented with none but one feparate and detached? Is a focial intereft, joined with others, fuch an abfurdity as not to be admitted? The bee, the beaver, and the tribes of herding animals, are fufficient to convince me, that the thing is fomewhere at least poffible. How, then, am I affured that this is not equally true of man? Admit it; and what follows? If so, then honour and justice are my intereft; then the whole train of moral virtues are my intereft; without fome portion of which, not even thieves can maintain fociety.

But, farther ftill; I ftop not here; I purfue this focial interest as far as I can trace my feveral relations. I pafs from my own stock, my own neighbourhood, my own nation, to the whole race of mankind, as difperfed throughout the earth. Am I not related to them all, by the mutual aids of commerce, by the general intercourfe of arts and letters, by that common nature of which we all participate?

Again; I must have food and clothing. Without a proper genial warmth, I inftantly perifh. Am I not related, in this view, to the very earth itself? to the distant fun, from whose beams I derive vigour? to that stupendous courfe and order of the infinite host of heaven, by which the times and feafons ever uniformly pafs on? Were this

order once confounded, I could not probably survive a moment; fo abfolutely do I depend on this common general welfare. What, then, have I to do, but to enlarge virtue into piety? not only honour and juftice, and what I owe to man, is my intereft; but gratitude alfo, acquiefcence, refignation, adoration, and all I owe to this great polity, and its great Governor, our common Parent.

SECTION III.

The Injustice of an uncharitable Spirit.

HARRIS,

A SUSPICIOUS, uncharitable spirit, is not only inconfiftent with all focial virtue and happiness, but it is also, in itself, unreasonable and unjuft. In order to form found opinions concerning characters and actions, two things are especially requifite, information and impartiality. But fuch as are moft forward to decide unfavourably, are commonly deftitute of both. Inftead of poffeffing, or even requiring, full information, the grounds on which they proceed are frequently the most flight and frivolous. A tale, perhaps, which the idle have invented, the inquifitive have liftened to, and the credulous have propagated; or a real incident which rumour, in carrying it along, has exaggerated and disguised, fupplies them with materials of confident affertion, and decifive judgment. From an action they prefently look into the heart, and infer the motive. This fuppofed motive they conclude to be the ruling principle; and pronounce at once concerning the whole character.

Nothing can be more contrary both to equity and to found reafon, than this precipitate judgment. Any man who attends to what paffes within himself, may easily discern what a complicated fyftem the human character is; and what a variety of circumstances must be taken into the account, in order to eftimate it truly. No fingle inftance of conduct whatever is sufficient to determine it. As from one worthy action, it were credulity, not charity, to conclude a perfon to be free from all vice; fo from one which is cenfurable, it is perfectly unjust to infer that the author of it is without confcience, and without merit. If we knew all the attending circumftances, it might appear in an excufable light; nay, perhaps, under a commendable form. The motives of the actor may have been entirely different from thofe which we afcribe to him; and where we fuppofe him impelled by bad defign, he may have been prompted by confcience and mistaken principle. Admit

ting the action to have been in every view criminal, he may have been hurried into it through inadvertency and furprise. He may have fincerely repented; and the virtuous principle may have now regained its full vigour. Perhaps this was the corner of frailty; the quarter on which he lay open to the incurfions of temptation; while the other avenues of his heart were firmly guarded by conscience.

It is therefore evident, that no part of the government of temper deserves attention more, than to keep our minds pure from uncharitable prejudices, and open to candour and humanity in judging of others. The worlt confequences, both to ourselves and to fociety, follow from the opposite spirit.

SECTION IV.

BLAIR.

The Misfortunes of Men moftly chargeable on Themselves. We find man placed in a world, where he has by no means the disposal of the events that happen. Calamities fometimes befall the worthieft and the best, which it is not in their power to prevent, and where nothing is left them, but to acknowledge, and to fubmit to the high hand of Heaven. For fuch vifitations of trial, many good and wife reafons can be affigned, which the prefent fubject leads me not to difcufs. But though thofe unavoidable calamities make a part, yet they make not the chief part, of the vexations and forrows that diftress human life. A multitude of evils befet us, for the fource of which we muft look to another quarter. No fooner has any thing in the health or in the circumftances of men, gone crofs to their wifh, than they begin to talk of the unequal diftribution of the good things of this life; they envy the condition of others; they repine at their own lot, and fret against the Ruler of the world.

Full of these fentiments, one man pines under a broken conftitution. But let us ask him, whether he can fairly and honeftly, affign no cause for this but the unknown decree of Heaven? Has he duly valued the bleffing of health, and always obferved the rules of virtue and fobriety? Has he been moderate in his life, and temperate in all his pleafures? If now he is only paying the price of his former, ,perhaps his forgotten indulgencies, has he any title to complain, as if he were fuffering unjustly? Were we to furvey the chambers of fickness and diftrefs, we fhould often find them peopled with the victims of intemperance and fenfuality, and with the children of vicious indolence and floth.

Among the thousands who languish there, we should find the proportion of innocent fufferers to be fmall. We fhould fee faded youth, premature old age, and the profpect of an untimely grave, to be the portion of multitudes, who, in one way or other, have brought thofe evils on themselves; while yet these martyrs of vice and folly have the affurance to arraign the hard fate of man, and to "fret against the Lord.'

:

But you, perhaps, complain of hardships of another kind-of the injuftice of the world; of the poverty which you fuffer, and the difcouragements under which you labour of the croffes and difappointments of which your life has been doomed to be full. Before you give too much scope to your difcontent, let me defire you to reflect impartially upon your past train of life. Have not floth, or pride, or ill temper, or finful paffions, misled you often from the path of found and wife conduct? Have you not been wanting to yourselves in improving thofe opportunities which Providence offered you, for bettering and advancing your ftate? If you have chofen to indulge your humour, or your taste, in the gratification of indolence or pleasure, can you complain because others, in preference to you, have obtained thofe advantages which naturally belong to useful labours, and honourable purfuits? Have not the confequences of fome falfe fteps, into which your paffions, or your pleasures, have betrayed you, purfued you through much of your life; tainted, perhaps, your characters, involved you in embarraffments, or funk you into neglect? It is an old faying, that every man is the artificer of his own fortune in the world. It is certain that the world feldom turns wholly against a man, unless through his own fault. "Religion is," in general, "profitable unto all things.". Virtue, diligence, and industry, joined with good temper and prudence, have ever been found the fureft road to profperity; and where men fail of attaining it, their want of fuccefs is far oftener owing to their having deviated from that road, than to their having encountered infuperable bars in it. Some, by being too artful, forfeit the reputation of probity. Some, by being too open, are accounted to fail in prudence. Others, by being fickle and changeable, are diftrufted by all. The cafe commonly is, that men feek to afcribe their disappointments, to any caufe, rather than to their own misconduct; and when they can

devife no other caufe, 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." They are doubly unjuft towards their Creator. In their profperity, they are apt to afcribe their fuccefs to their own diligence, rather than to his bleffing; and in their adverfity, they impute their diftreffes 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 mifery, man is the author to himself.

When, from the condition of individuals, we look abroad to the public flate of the world, we meet with more proofs of the truth of this affertion. We fee great focieties of men torn in pieces by inteftine diffenfions, tumults, and civil commotions. We fee mighty armies going forth, in formidable array, against each other, to cover the earth with blood, and to fill the air with the cries of widows and orphans. Sad evils thefe are, to which this miferable world is expofed. But are thefe evils, I befeech you, to be imputed to God? Was it he who fent forth flaughtering armies into the field, or who filled the peaceful city with maffacres and blood? Are these miferies any other than the bitter fruit of men's violent and diforderly paffions? 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 of the "foolishness of man." Did man control his paffions, and form his conduct according to the dictates of wisdom, humanity, and virtue, the earth would no longer be defolated by cruelty; and human focieties would live in order, harmony and peace. In those scenes of mischief and violence, which fill the world, let man behold, with fhame, the picture of his vices, his ignorance, and folly. Let him be humbled by the mortifying view of his own perverfenefs: but let not his "heart fret againft the Lord."

SECTION V.

On Difinterefted Friendship.

BLAIR.

I AM informed that certain Greek writers (philofophers, it feems, in the opinion of their countrymen) have advanced fome very extraordinary pofitions relating to friend