The refined pleasures of a pious mind are, in many respects, fuperior to the coarfe gratifications of fenfe. They are pleasures which belong to the highest powers, and best affections of the foul; whereas the gratifications of sense reside in the lowest region of our nature. To the latter, the foul stoops below its native dignity. The former, raise it above itself. The latter, leave always a comfortless, often a mortifying, remembrance behind them. The former, are reviewed with applaufe and delight. The pleasures of sense resemble a foaming torrent, which, after a diforderly course, speedily runs out, and leaves an empty and offenfive channel. But the pleasures of devotion resemble the equable current of a pure river, which enlivens the fields through which it passes, and diffuses verdure and fertility along its banks. To thee, O Devotion! we owe the highest improvement of our nature, and much of the enjoyment of our life. Thou art the fupport of our virtue, and the rest of our fouls, in this turbulent world. Thou compofest the thoughts. Thou calmest the passions. Thou exaltest the heart. Thy communications, and thine only, are imparted to the low, no less than to the high; to the poor, as well as to the rich. In thy presence, worldly diftinetions cease; and under thy influence, worldly forrows are forgotten. Thou art the balm of the wounded mind. Thy fanctuary is ever open to the miferable; inaccefsible only to the unrighteous and impure. Thou beginnest on earth, the temper of heaven. In thee, the hofts of angels and blessed fpirits eternally rejoice.

BLAPR

SECTION XIV.

The planetary and terrestrial Worlds comparatively
confidered.

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 also clothed with verdure, diftinguished by trees, and adorned with a variety of beautiful decorations; whereas, to a spectator placed on one of the planets, it wears a uniform afpect; looks all luminous; and no larger than a spot. To beings who dwell at still greater distances, it entirely disappears. That which we call alternately the morning and the evening star, as in one part of the orbit she rides foremost in the procession of night, in the other ushers in and anticipates the dawn, is a planetary world, which, with the four others that so wonderfully vary their mystic dance, are in themselves dark bodies, and shine only by reflection; have fields, and seas, and skies of their own; are furnished with all accommodations for animal subsistence, and are supposed 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 immovable: it is the great axle of heaven, about which the globe we inhabit, and other more spacious orbs, wheel their stated courses. The fun, though feemingly smaller than the dial it illuminates, is abundantly larger than this whole earth, on which so many lofty mountains rife, and fuch vast oceans roll. A line extending from fide to fide through the centre of that refplendent orb, would measure 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 express. Are we startled at these re ports 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, such an enormous mass of flame!" let us attend our philofophic 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 universe; every star, though in appearance no bigger than the diamond that glitters upon a lady's ring, is really a vast globe, like the fun in fize and in glory; no less spacious, no less luminous, than the radiant fource of day. So that every star, is not barely a world, but the centre of a magnificent system; 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 so many diminutive, and scarcely distinguishable points, is owing to their immenfe and inconceivable distance. Immense and inconceivable indeed it is, fince a ball, shot from the loaded cannon, and flying with unabated rapidity, must travel, at this impetuous rate, almost

seven hundred thousand years, before it could reach the nearest of these twinkling luminaries.

While, beholding this vast expanse, I learn my own extreme meanness, I would also discover the abject littleness of all terrestrial things. What is the earth, with all her oftentatious scenes, compared with this aftonishing grand furniture of the skies? What, but a dim speck, hardly perceivable in the map of the universe? It is observed 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 annihilated, they would not be missed by an eye that can take in the whole compass of nature, any more than a grain of fand upon the fea-shore. The bulk of which they consist, and the space which they occupy, are fo exceedingly little in comparison 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 so very diminutive, what is a kingdom or a county? What are a few lordships, or the so much admired patrimonies of those who are styled wealthy? When I measure them with my own little pittance, they swell into proud and bloated dimensions: but when I take the universe for my standard, how scanty is their fize, how contemptible their figure! They shrink into pompous nothings.

ADDISON.

SECTION XV.

On the Power of Custom, and the Ufes to which it may be applied.

THERE is not a common faying, which has a better turn of fenfe 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 altogether different from those he was born with. A person who is addicted to play or gaming, though he took but little delight in it at first, by degrees contracts so strong an inclination towards it, and gives himself up so 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 insensibly, as he is converfant in the one or the other, till he is utterly unqualified for relishing that to which he has been for fome time disused. Nay, a man may smoke, or drink, or take snuff, till he is unable to pass away his time without it; not to mention how our delight in any particular study, art, or science, rises and improves, in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise, becomes at length an entertainment. Our employments are changed into diverfions. The mind grows fond of thofe actions it is accustomed to and 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 first place, I would have no man discouraged with