beyond the grave, where it can be reached only by virtue and devotion. Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religious hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and forrows inceffantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulph of bottomlefs mifery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper, and where he finds only new gradations of anguish and precipices of horrour. NUMB. 70. SATURDAY, November 17, 1750. -Argentea proles, Auro deterior, fulvo pretiofior are. Succeeding times a filver age behold, OVID DRYDEN. HESIOD in his celebrated diftribution of man kind, divides them into three orders of intellect. "The first place," fays he, " belongs to " him that can by his own powers discern what is ❝right and fit, and penetrate to the remoter mo❝tives of action. The fecond is claimed by him "that is willing to hear instruction, and can per"ceive right and wrong when they are shewn him "by another; but he that has neither acuteness nor "docility, who can neither find the way by himself, "nor will be led by others, is a wretch without use ❝or value." If we furvey the moral, world, it will be found, that the fame divifion may be made of men, with regard to their virtue. There are some whose. principles are fo firmly fixed, whose conviction. is fo conftantly prefent to their minds, and who have raised in themselves fuch ardent wifles for the approbation of God, and the happiness with which he has promifed to reward obedience and perfeverance, that they rise above all other cares and confiderations, and uniformly examine every action and defire, by comparing it with the divine commands. There are others in a kind of equipoife between good and ill; who are moved on the one part by riches or pleafure, by the gratifications of paffion and the delights of fenfe; and, on the other, by laws of which they own the obligation, and rewards of which they believe the reality, and whom a very fmall addition of weight turns either way. The third clafs confifts of beings-immerfed in pleasure, or abandoned to paffion, withdefire of higher good, or any effort to extend their thoughts beyond immediate and grofs fatisfactions. out any The fecond class is so much the most numerous, that it may be confidered as comprising the whole body of mankind. Those of the laft are not very many, and those of the first are very few; and neither the one nor the other fall much under the confideration of the moralift, whofe precepts are intended chiefly for those who are endeavouring to go forward up the fteeps of virtue, not for thofe who have already reached the fummit, or those who are refolved to stay for ever in their present fituation. To a man not versed in the living world, but accustomed to judge only by fpeculative reason, it is fcarcely credible that any one fhould be in this ftate of indifference, or ftand undetermined and unengaged, ready to follow the first call to either fide. It seems certain, that either a man must believe that virtue will make him happy, and refolve therefore to be virtuous, or think that he may be happy without virtue, and therefore caft off all care but for his present intereft. It seems impoffible that conviction fhould be on one fide, and practice on the other; and that he who has feen the right way, fhould voluntarily shut his eyes, that he may quit it with more tranquillity. Yet all thefe abfurdities are every hour to be found; the wifeft and best men deviate from known and acknowledged duties, by inadvertency or surprise; and most are good no longer than while temptation is away, than while their paffions are without excitements, and their opinions are free from the counteraction of any other motive. Among the fentiments which almost every man changes as he advances into years, is the expectation of uniformity of character. He that without acquaintance with the power of defire, the cogency of diftrefs, the complications of affairs, or the force of partial influence, has filled his mind with the excellence of virtue, and having never tried his refolution in any encounters with hope or fear, believes it able to ftand firm whatever fhall oppofe it, will be always clamorous against the smallest failure, ready to exact the utmoft punctualities of right, and to confider every man that fails in any part of his duty, as without confcience and without merit; unworthy of trust or love, of pity or regard; as an enemy whom all fhould join to drive out of fociety, as a pest which all should avoid, or as a weed which all fhould trample. It is not but by experience, that we are taught the poffibility of retaining fome virtues, and rejecting others, or of being good or bad to a particular degree. For it is very easy to the folitary reafoner to prove that the fame arguments by which the mind is fortified against one crime are of equal force against all, and the confequence very naturally follows, that he whom they fail to move on any occafion, has either never confidered them, or has by fome fallacy taught himself to evade their validity; and that, therefore, when a man is known to be guilty of one crime, no farther evidence is needful of his depravity and corruption. Yet fuch is the state of all mortal virtue, that it is always uncertain and variable, sometimes extending to the whole compass of duty, and fometimes fhrinking into a narrow space, and fortifying only a few avenues of the heart, while all the reft is left open to the incurfions of appetite, or given up to the dominion of wickedness. Nothing therefore is more unjuft than to judge of man by too fhort an acquaintance and too flight inspection; for it often happens, that in the loofe, and thoughtlefs, and diffipated, there is a fecret radical worth, which may shoot out by proper cultivation; that the spark of heaven, though dimmed and obftructed, is yet not extinguished, but may by the breath of counsel and exhortation be kindled into flame. To imagine that every one who is not completely good is irrecoverably abandoned, is to suppose that all are capable of the fame degrees of excellence; it is indeed to exact, from all, that perfection which none ever can attain. And fince the pureft virtue is confiftent with fome vice, and the virtue of the greatest greatest number with almost an equal proportion of contrary qualities, let none too hastily conclude, that all goodness is loft, though it may for a time be clouded and overwhelmed; for most minds are the flaves of external circumftances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them, roll down any torrent of custom in which they happen to be caught, or bend to any importunity that bears hard against them. It may be particularly obferved' of women, that they are for the most part good or bad, as they fall among those who practife vice or virtue; and that neither education nor reafon gives them much fecurity against the influence of example. Whether it be that they have lefs courage to ftand against oppofition, or that their defire of admiration makes them facrifice their principles to the poor pleasure of worthlefs praife, it is certain, whatever be the cause, that female goodness feldom keeps its ground against laughter, flattery, or fashion. For this reafon, every one fhould confider himfelf as entrusted, not only with his own conduct, but with that of others; and as accountable, not only for the duties which he neglects, or the crimes that he commits, but for that negligence and irregularity which he may encourage or inculcate. Every man, in whatever ftation, has, or endeavours to have, his followers, admirers, and imitators, and has therefore the influence of his example to watch with care; he ought to avoid not only crimes but the appearance of crimes, and not only to practise virtue, but to applaud, countenance, and fupport it. For it is poffible that for want of attention we may teach others faults from which ourselves are free, or by a cowardly defer |