amufe him, nor always fhield him from diftrefs. There will be many hours of vacuity, and many of dejection, in his life. If he be a stranger to God and to devotion, how dreary will the gloom of folitude often prove! With what oppreffive weight will fickness, disappointment, or old age, fall upon his fpirits! But for those penfive periods, the pious man has a relief prepared. From the tirefome repetition of the common vanities of life, or from the painful corrosion of its cares and forrows, devotion tranfports him into a new region; and furrounds him there with fuch objects, as are the most fitted to cheer the dejection, to calm the tumults, and to heal the wounds of his heart. If the world has been empty and delusive, it gladdens him with the profpect of a higher and better order of things, about to arife. If men have been ungrateful and bafe, it difplays before him the faithfulness of that Supreme Being, who, though every other friend fail, will never forfake him. Let us confult our experience, and we fhall find, that the two greatest sources of inward joy, are, the exercise of love directed towards a deferving object, and the exercife of hope terminating on fome high and affured happiness. Both thefe are fupplied by devotion; and therefore we have no reafon to be surprised, if, on fome occafions, it fills the hearts of good men with a fatisfaction not to be expreffed.

The refined pleasures of a pious mind, are, in many refpects, fuperior to the coarfe gratifications of fenfe. They are pleasures which belong to the higheft powers and best affections of the foul; whereas the gratifications of fenfe refide in the lowest region of our nature. To the latter, the foul ftoops below its native dignity. The former, raise it above itfelf. The latter, leave always a comfortlefs, often a mortifying, remembrance behind them. The former, are reviewed with applaufe and delight. The pleasures of fenfe resemble a foaming torrent, which, after a diforderly course, speedily runs out, and leaves an empty and offenfive channel. But the pleasures of devotion refemble the equable current of a pure river, which enlivens the fields through which it paffes, and diffufes verdure and fertility along its banks. To thee, O Devotion! we owe the higheft improvement of our nature, and much of the enjoyment of our life. Thou art the fupport of our vir

tue, and the rest of our fouls, in this turbulent world. Thou compofeft the thoughts. Thou calmeft the paffions. Thou exalteft the heart. Thy communications, and thine only are imparted to the low, no less than the high; to the poor, as well as to the rich. In thy prefence, worldly diftinctions ceafe; and under thy influence, worldly forrows are forgotten. Thou art the balm of the wounded mind. Thy fanctuary is ever open to the miferable; inacceflible only to the unrighteous and impure. Thou beginneft on earth the temper of heaven. In thee, the hosts of angels and bleffed fpirits eternally rejoice.

SECTION XIV.

BLAIR

THE PLANETART AND TERRESTRIAL WORLDS COMPARATIVELY CONSIDERED.

To us, who dwell on its furface, the earth is by far the most extensive orb that our eyes can any where behold: it is alfo clothed with verdure, diftinguished by trees, and adorned with a variety of beautiful decorations; whereas, to a fpectator placed on one of the planets, it wears a uni form afpect; looks all luminous; and no larger than a fpot. To beings who dwell at ftill greater diftances, it entirely disappears. That which we call alternately the morning and the evening ftar, as in one part of the orbit fhe rides foremost in the proceffion of night, in the other ufhers in and anticipates the dawn, is a planetary world, which, with the four others that fo wonderfully vary their mistic dance, are in themselves dark bodies, and fhine only by reflection; have fields and feas, and fkies of their own; are furnished with all accommodations for animal fubfiftence, and are fuppofed to be the abodes of intellectual life; all which, together with our earthly habitation, are dependent on that grand difpenfer of divine munificence, the fun; receive their light from the distribution of his rays, and derive their comfort from his benign agency.

The fun, which seems to perform its daily stages through the sky, is in this refpect fixed and immoveable: it is the great axle of heaven, about which the globe we inhabit, and other more spacious orbs, wheel their ftated courses. The fun, though feemingly smaller than the dial it illuminates, is abundantly larger than this whole earth, on which fo many lofty, mountains rife, and fuch vaft oceans roll. A line extending from fide to fide through the centre of

that refplendent orb, would meafure more than eight hundred thousand miles: a girdle formed to go round its circumference, would require a length of millions. Were its folid contents to be estimated, the account would overwhelm our understanding, and be almost beyond the power of language to exprefs. Are we startled at these reports of philofophy? Are we ready to cry out in a transport of furprise, "How mighty is the Being who kindled fuch a prodigious fire; and keeps alive, from age to age, fuch an enormous mass of flame!" let us attend our philosophic guides, and we shall be brought acquainted with speculations more enlarged and more inflaming.

This fun with all its attendant planets, is but a very little part of the grand machine of the univerfe; every star, though in appearance no bigger than the diamond that glitters upon a lady's ring, is really a vaft globe, like the fun in fize and in glory; no less fpacious, no lefs luminous, than the radiant fource of day. So that every star is not Barely a world, but the centre of a magnificent fyftem; has a retinue of worlds, irradiated by its beams, and revolving round its attractive influence, all which are loft to our fight in unmeasurable wilds of ether. That the stars appear like fo many diminutive, and fcarcely diftinguifhable points, is owing to their immenfe and inconceivable distance. Immenfe and inconceivable indeed it is, fince a ball, fhot from the loaded cannon, and flying with unabated rapidity, must travel, at this impetuous rate, almost feven hundred thou fand years, before it could reach the nearest of these twinkling luminaries.

While beholding this vaft expanfe, I learn my own extreme meannefs, I would alfo difcover the abject littleness of all terrestrial things. What is the earth, with all her oftentatious fcenes, compared with this aftonishing grand furniture of the fkies? What, but a dim fpeck, hardly perceiv able in the map of the univerfe? It is obferved by a very judicious writer, that if the fun himself, which enlightens this part of the creation, were extinguished, and all the hoft of planetary worlds, which move about him, were annihilat ed, they would not be miffed by an eye that can take in the whole compafs of nature, any more than a grain of fand pon the fea fhore. The bulk of which they confift, and the fpace which they occupy, are fo exceedingly little in compa

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ison of the whole, that their lofs would scarcely leave a blank in the immenfity of God's works. If then, not our globe only, but this whole system, be fo very diminutive, what is a kingdom or a country? What are a few lordships, or the fo much admired patrimonies of those who are styled wealthy? When I meafure them with my own little pittance, they fwell into proud and bloated dimenfions: but when I take the universe for my standard, how fcanty is their fize, how contemptible their figure! They fhrink into pompous nothings.

SECTION XV.

ADDISON.

ON THE POWER OF CUSTOM, AND THE USES TO WHICH IT may be appliED.

THERE is not a common faying, which has a better turn of sense in it, than what we often hear in the mouths of the vulgar, that "Custom is a fecond nature." It is indeed able to form the man anew; and give him inclinations and capacities altogther different from thofe he was born with. A perfon who is addicted to play or gaming, though he took but little delight in it at first, by degrees contracts fo ftrong an inclination towards it, and gives himself up fo entirely to it, that it feems the only end of his being. The love of a retired or bufy life will grow upon a man infenfibly, as he is converfant in the one or the other, till he is utterly unqualified for relifhing that to which he has been for fome time difufed. Nay, a man may smoke, or drink, or take fnuff, till he is unable to pafs away his time without it; not to mention how our delight in any particular ftudy, art, or science, rifes and improves, in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercife, becomes at length an entertainment. Our employments are changed into diverfions. The mind grows fond of those actions it is accustomed to; and it is drawn with reluctancy from those paths in which it has been used to walk.

If we attentively confider this property of human nature, it may instruct us in very fine moralities. In the fire place, I would have no man difcouraged with that kind of life, or series of action, in which the choice of others, or his own neceffities, may have engaged him. It may perhaps be very difagreeable to him, at firft; but ufe and application will certainly render it not only lefs painful, but pleafing and fatisfactory.

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In the fecond place, I would recommend to every one, the admirable precept, which Pythagoras is faid to have given to his difciples, and which that philofopher must have drawn from the obfervation I have enlarged upon: "Pitch upon that courfe of life which is the most excellent, and custom will render it the most delightful." Men, whofe circumstances will permit them to choose their own way of life, are inexcufable if they do not pursue that which their judgment tells them is the most laudable. The voice of reason is more to be regarded, than the bent of any prefent inclination; fince, by the rule abovementioned, inclination will at length come over to reason, though we can never force reafon to comply with inclination.

In the third place, this obfervation may teach the most fenfual and irreligious man, to overlock thofe hardships and difficulties, which are apt to difcourage him from the profecution of a virtuous life. "The Gods," said Hefiod, "have placed labour before virtue; the way to her is at first rough and difficult, but grows more smooth and easy the farther we advance in it." The man who proceeds in it with steadiness and refolution, will, in a little time, find · that her " ways are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace."

To enforce this confideration, we may further obferve, that the practice of religion will not only be attended with that pleasure which naturally accompanies thofe actions to which we are habituated, but with thofe fupernumerary joys of heart, that rife from the confcicufnefs of fuch a pleafure; from the fatisfaction of acting up to the dictates of reafon; and from the profpect of a happy immortality.

In the fourth place, we may learn from this obfervation, which we have made on the mind of man, to take particular care, when we are once fettled in a regular courfe of life, how we too frequently indulge ourfelves in even the most innocent diverfions and entertainments; fince the mind may infenfibly fall off from the relifh of virtuous actions, and, by degrees, exchange that pleafure which it takes in the performance of its duty, for delights of a much inferior and an unprofitable nature.

The laft ufe which I fhall make of this remarkable property in human nature, of being delighted with those actions to which it is accustomed, is, to fhow how abfo