deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that human lise is the journey os a day. We rise in the morning of youth, full of vigour and sull of expectation; we set forward with spirit and hope, with gaiety and with diligence, and travel on a while in the straight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we remit our servor, and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolve never to touch. We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repofe in the shades of security. Here the heart softens, and vigilance subsides; we are then willing to enquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not, at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens os pleasure. We approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without lofing the road of virtue, which we, for a while, keep in our sight, ar.d to which we propofe to return. But temptation fucceeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us sor another; we in time lofe the happiness of innocence, and solace our disouie: with sensual gratisications. By degrees we

tiie remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through, the labyrinths of inconstancy, till the darkness 5 "of ■' of old age begins to invade us, and disease and t' anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back <c upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with "repentance; and wish, but too often vainly wish, "that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. "Happy are they, my son, who shall learn from "thy example not to despair, but shall remember, "that though the day is past, and their strength is "wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; "that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere en"deavours ever unassisted, that the wanderer may '* at length return aster all his errors, and that he "who implores strength and courage from above, "shall find danger and difficulty give way before "him. Go now, my son, to thy repofe, commit tc thyself to the care of Omnipotence, and when the '* morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy jour • "ney and thy lise."

Numb. 66. Saturday, November 3, 1750,

Erroris nebula.

How sew

Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue?

How void of reason arc our hopes and sears? Drydejc.

HE folly of human wishes and pursuits has al

X ways been a standing subject of mirth and declamation, and has been ridiculed and lamented from age to age; till perhaps the fruitless repetition of complaints and censures may be justly numbered among the subjects of censure and complaint.

Some of these instructors of mankind have not contented themselves with checking the overflows of passion, and lopping the exuberance of desire, but have attempted to destroy the root as well as the branches; and net only to consine the mind within bounds, but to smooth it for ever by a dead calm. They have employed their reason and eloquence to persuade us, that nothing is worth the wish os a wife man, have represented all earthly good and evil as indifferent, and counted among vulgar errors the dread os pain, and the love of life.

It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant, to destroy his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or difsusing his propofition

to an indesensible extent. When we have heated our zeal in a cause, and elated our confidence with fuccess, we are naturally inclined to pursue the same train of reasoning, to establish some collateral truth, to remove some adjacent disficulty, and to take in the whole comprehension of our system. As a prince, in the ardour of acquisition, is willing to secure his first conquest by the addition of another, add fortress to fortress, and city to city, till despair and opportunity turn his enemies upon him, and he lofes in a moment the glory of a reign.

The philofophers having found an easy victory over thofe desires which we produce in ourselves, and which terminate in some imaginary state of happiness unknown and unattainable, proceeded to make surther inroads upon the heart, and attacked at last our senses and our instincts. They continue to war upon nature with arms, by which only folly could be conquered; they therefore lost the trophies of their former combats, and were considered no longer with reverence or regard.

Yet it cannot be with justice denied, that these men have been very usesul monitors, and have left many prooss of strong reason, deep penetration, and accurate attention to the affairs of lise, whjch it is now our business to separate from the foam of a • boiling imagination, and to apply judiciousiy to our own use. They have shewn that most of the conditions of lise, which raise the envy of the timorous, and rouse the ambition of the daring, are empty shows of selicity, which, when they become samiliar, lose their power of delighting; and that the most prosperous and exalted have very sew advantages over a

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