THE CONCLUSION. T may not be amifs to conclude this little Book with a fhort View of the unfpeakable Advantages of Reading and Writing. The Knowledge of Letters is one of the greatest Bleffings that ever God bestowed on the Children of Men. By this means we preserve for our own Ufe, through all our Lives, what our Memory would have loft in a few Days, and lay up a rich Treafure of Knowledge for those that shall come after us. By the Arts of Reading and Writing, we can fit at home and acquaint ourselves what is done in all the diftant Parts of the World, and find what our Fathers did long ago in the firft Ages of Mankind. By this means P 3 a Briten holds Correfpondence with his Friend in America or Japan, and manages all his Traffick. We learn by this means how the old Romans lived, how the Jews worfhipped: We learn what Mofes wrote, what Enoch prophefied, where Adam dwelt, and what he did foon after the Creation; and those who fhall live when the Day of Judgment comes, may learn by the fame means what we now fpeak, and what we do in Great-Britain, or in the Land of China. In short, the Art of Letters does, as it were, revive all the paft Ages of Men, and fet them at once upon the Stage; and brings all the Nations from afar, and gives them, as it were, a general Interview: fo that the moft diftant Nations, and diftant Ages of Mankind, may converfe together, and grow into Acquaintance. But the greatest Bleffing of all, is the Knowledge of the Holy Scripture, wherein God has appointed his Servants in antient Times to write down the Difcoveries which he has made of his Power and Justice, his Providence and his Grace, that we who live near the end of Time may learn the way to Heaven and everlafting Happiness. Thus Letters give us a fort of Immorta, lity in this World, and they are given us in the Word of God to fupport our immortal Hopes in the next. Those Those therefore who wilfully neglect this fort of Knowledge, and defpife the Art of Letters, need no heavier Curfe or Punithment than what they chufe for themfelves, (viz.) To live and die in Ignorance both of the Things of God and Man. If the Terror of fuch a Thought, will not awaken the Slothful to feek fo much acquaintance with their Mother Tongue, as may render them capable of fome of the Advantages here defcribed; I know not where to find a Perfuafive that fhall work upon Souls, that are funk down fo far into brutal Stupidity, and fo unworthy of a reafonable Nature. The CONTENTS of the CHAPTERS. Page II. Of Letters changing their Nature, of double Confonants and Diphthongs. III. Of Confonants changing their Sound. IV. Of Confonants that lose their Sound. V. Of the feveral Sounds of Vowels. 4 XXII Particular Rules for Writing and Spel- 1987 |