of anguish, bidding those who are just expiring the last adieu.

Never adventure on too near an approach to what is evil. Familiarise not yourselves with it, in the flightest instances, without fear. Listen with reverence to every reprehenfion of confcience; and preserve the most quick and accurate sensibility to right and wrong. If ever your moral impressions begin to decay, and your natural abhorrence of guilt to lessen, you have ground to dread that the ruin of virtue is fast approaching.

By disappointments and trials the violence of our passions is tamed, and our minds are formed to fobriety and reflection. In the varieties of life, occafioned by the vicissitudes of worldly fortune, we are inured to habits both of the active and the fuffering virtues. How much foever we complain of the vanity of the world, facts plainly show, that if its vanity were less, it could not answer the purpose of falutary difcipline. Unfatisfactory as it is, its pleasures are still too apt to corrupt our hearts. How fatal then must the confequences have been, had it yielded us more complete enjoyment? If, with all its troubles, we are in danger of being too much attached to it, how entirely would it have seduced our affections, if no troubles had been mingled with its pleasures?

In seasons of distress or difficulty, to abandon ourselves to dejection, carries no mark of a great or a worthy mind. Instead of finking under trouble, and declaring "that his foul is weary of life," it becomes a wife and a good man, in the evil day, with firmness to maintain his post; to bear up against the storm; to have recourse to those advantages which, in the worst

4

of times, are always left to integrity and virtue; and never to give up the hope that better days may yet arife.

How many young persons have at first set out in the world with excellent dispositions of heart; generous, charitable, and humane; kind to their friends, and amiable among all with whom they had intercourse! And yet, how often have we seen all those fair appearances unhappily blasted in the progress of life, merely through the influence of loose and corrupting pleafures; and those very perfons, who promised once to be blessings to the world, funk down, in the end, to be the burden and nuisance of fociety!

The most common propenfity of mankind, is, to store futurity with whatever is agreeable to them; especially in those periods of life, when imagination is lively, and hope is ardent. Looking forward to the year now beginning, they are ready to promise themselves much, from the foundations of profperity which they have laid; from the friendships and connexions which they have fecured; and from the plans of conduct which they have formed. Alas! how deceitful do all these dreams of happiness often prove! While many are faying in fecret to their hearts, "To-morrow shall be as this day, and more abundantly," we are obliged in return to fay to them; "Boast not yourselves of tomorrow, for you know not what a day may bring forth!"

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CHAPTER II.

NARRATIVE PIECES.

SECTION I

No Rank or Possessions can make the guilty Mind happy.

DIONYSIUS, the tyrant of Sicily, was far from being happy, though he possessed great riches, and all the pleasures which wealth and power could procure. Damocles, one of his flatterers, deceived by these spe. cious appearances of happiness, took occafion to compliment him on the extent of his power, his treafures, and royal magnificence; and declared that no monarch had ever been greater or happier than Dionyfius. "Haft thou a mind, Damocles," says the King, "to taste this happiness; and to know, by experience, what the enjoyments are, of which thou haft fo high an idea?" Damocles, with joy, accepted the offer. The King ordered that a royal banquet should be prepared, and a gilded fofa, covered with rich embroidery, placed for his favourite. Side-boards, loaded with gold and filver plate of immenfe value, were arranged in the apartment. Pages of extraordinary beauty were ordered to attend his table, and to obey his commands with the utmost readiness, and the most profound fubmifsion. Fragrant ointments, chaplets of flowers, and rich per. fumes, were added to the entertainment. The table was loaded with the most exquifite delicacies of every kind. Damocles, intoxicated with pleasure, fancied

C

himself amongst fuperior beings. But in the midft of all this happiness, as he lay indulging himself in state, he fees let down from the ceiling, exactly over his head, a glittering sword hung by a fingle hair. The fight of impending destruction puta speedy end to his joy and revelling. The pomp of his attendance, the glitter of the carved plate, and the delicacy of the viands, cease to afford him any pleasure. He dreads to stretch forth his hand to the table. He throws off the garland of roses. He hastens to remove from his dangerous fituation; and earnestly entreats the king to restore him to his former humble condition, having no defire to enjoy any longer a happiness so terrible.

By this device, Dionyfius intimated to Damocles, how miferable he was in the midst of all his treasures; and in possession of all the honours and enjoyments which royalty could bestow.

CICERO.

SECTION 11.

Change of external Condition often adverse to Virtue.

In the days of Joram, King of Ifrael, flourished the prophet Elisha. His character was so eminent, and his same so widely spread, that Benhadad the King of Syria, though an idolater, sent to confult him, concerning the issue of a distemper which threatened his life. The meffenger employed on this occafion was Hazael, who appears to have been one of the princes, or chief men, of the Syrian court. Charged with rich gifts from the king, he presents himself before the prophet; and accosts him in terms of the highest respect. During the conference which they held together, Elisha fixed his eye

Aedfaftly on the countenance of Hazael; and difcerning, by a prophetic spirit, his future tyranny and cruelty, he could not contain himself from bursting into a flood of tears. When Hazael, in surprise, inquired into the cause of this fudden emotion, the prophet plainly informs him of the crimes and barbarities, which he forefaw that hereafter he would commit. The foul of Hazael abhorred, at this time, the thoughts of cruelty. Uncorrupted, as yet, by ambition or greatness, his in. dignation rofe at being thought capable of fuch savage actions, as the prophet had mentioned; and, with much warmth, he replies; "But what? is thy fervant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" Elisha makes no return, but to point out a remarkable change, which was to take place in his condition; "The Lord hath shown me that thou shalt be king over Syria." In course of time, all that had been predicted came to pass. Hazael afcended the throne, and ambition took possession of his heart. "He fmote the children of Ifrael in all their coasts. He oppressed them during all the days of king Jehoahaz:" and, from what is left on record of his actions, he plainly appears to have proved what the prophet foresaw him to be, a man of violence, cruelty, and blood.

In this passage of history, an object is presented, which deferves our ferious attention. We behold a man who, in one state of life, could not look upon certain crimes without surprise and horror; who knew so little of himself, as to believe it impofsible for him ever to be concerned in committing them; that fame man, by a change of condition, and an unguarded state of mind, transformed in all his fentiments; and as he rofe in greatness rifing also in guilt; till at last he com