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quickly feel the thinness of a popular breath. Those that are so fond of applause while they pursue it, how little do they taste it when they have it! like lightning, it only flashes upon the face and is gone, and it is well if it does not hurt the man. But for greatness of place, though it is fit and necessary that some persons in the world should be in love with a splendid servitude, yet certainly they must be much beholding to their own fancy, that they can be pleased at it.*

THE PLEASURE OF AMUSEMENT COMPARED WITH THE PLEASURE FROM INDUSTRY IN OUR CALLINGS.

NOR is that man less deceived, that thinks to maintain a constant tenure of pleasure, by a continual pursuit of sports and recreations. The most

* Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. Certainly great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy; for if they judge by their own feeling they cannot find it; but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contrary within; for they are the first that find their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults. Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind: Illi mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi."-BACON.

voluptuous and loose person breathing, were he but tied to follow his hawks and his hounds, his dice and his courtships every day, would find it the greatest torment and calamity that could befall him; he would fly to the mines and galleys for his recreation, and to the spade and the mattock for a diversion from the misery of a continual unintermitted pleasure. But, on the contrary, the providence of God has so ordered the course of things, that there is no action, the usefulness of which has made it the matter of duty and of a profession, but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it, without loathing and satiety. The same shop and trade, that employs a man in his youth, employs him also in his age. Every morning he rises fresh to his hammer and anvil;* he passes the day singing; custom has naturalized his labour to him; his shop is his element, and he cannot with any enjoyment of himself live out of it.+

* See ante, 142.

+ With what hard toil, with what uneasy cares,
The woodpecker his scanty meal prepares :
Tho' small the feast that must reward his pains,
Sweet is that meal which honest labour gains.

Johnson thought the happiest life was that of a man of business, with some literary pursuits for his amusement: and that in general no one could be virtuous or happy, that was not completely employed. "Be not solitary; be not idle," is the conclusion of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. See Search's Light of Nature, vol. x. where there is a chapter on employment of Time.

THE PLEASURE OF MEDITATION

HAS been sometimes so great, so intense, so ingrossing all the powers of the soul, that there has been no room left for any other pleasure. Contemplation feels no hunger, nor is sensible of any thirst, but of that after knowledge. How frequent and exalted a pleasure did David find from his meditation in the divine law? all the day long it was the theme of his thoughts. The affairs of state, the government of his kingdom, might indeed employ, but it was this only that refreshed his mind.

How short of this are the delights of the epicure? how vastly disproportionate are the pleasures of the eating and of the thinking man? indeed as different as the silence of an Archimedes in the study of a problem, and the stillness of a sow at her wash.

PLEASURE OF RELIGION.

For

Its object is no less than the great God himself, and that both in his nature and his works. the eye of reason, like that of the eagle, directs itself chiefly to the sun, to a glory that neither admits of a superior, nor an equal. Religion carries the soul to the study of every divine attribute. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.t

↑ Serm. i. vol. 1.

It was now the middle of May, and the morning was remarkably serene, when Mr. Allworthy walked forth on the terrace, where the dawn opened every minute that lovely prospect we have before described to his eye. And now, having sent forth streams of light, which ascended the blue firmament

HUMAN PERFECTION:

OR ADAM IN PARADISE.

So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God created he him.

ANALYSIS OF THE SERMON.

1. The mind.

The Understanding.

The Will.

The Passions.

2. The Body.

PERFECTION IN GENERAL.

THE image of God in man is that universal rectitude of all the faculties of the soul, by which they stand apt and disposed to their respective offices and operations.

PERFECTION OF UNDERSTANDING.

AND first for its noblest faculty the understanding: it was then sublime, clear, and aspiring, and, as it were, the soul's upper region, lofty and serene, free from the vapours and disturbances of the inferior affections. It was the leading, con

before him as harbingers preceding his pomp, in the full blaze of his majesty, up rose the sun than which one object alone in this lower creation could be more glorious, and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented-a human being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator, by doing most good to his

creatures.-FIELDING.

trolling faculty; all the passions wore the colours of reason; it did not so much persuade, as command; it was not consul but dictator. Discourse was then almost as quick as intuition; it was nimble in proposing, firm in concluding; it could sooner determine than now it can dispute. Like the sun it had both light and agility; it knew no rest but in motion; no quiet but in activity. It did not so properly apprehend as irradiate the object; not so much find, as make things intelligible. It did arbitrate upon the several reports of sense, and all the varieties of imagination; not like a drowsy judge, only hearing, but also directing their verdict. In sum, it was vegete, quick, and lively; open as the day, untainted as the morning, full of the innocence and sprightliness of youth; it gave the soul a bright and a full view into all things.

SPECULATIVE UNDERSTANDING.*

For the understanding speculative, there are some general maxims and notions in the mind of man, which are the rules of discourse, and the basis of all philosophy. Now it was Adam's happiness in the state of innocence to have these clear and unsullied. He came into the world a philosopher.

That understanding is in a perfect state for the acquisition of knowledge, which is capable, at any time, to acquire any sort of knowledge. The defects therefore are either, 1st. An inability at particular times to acquire knowledge: or, 2ndly. An inability to acquire particular sorts of knowledge.

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