short time, to the great. But become familiar, they are soori forgotten. Custom effaces their impression. They sink into the rank of those ordinary things which daily recur, without raising any sensation of joy. - Let us cease, therefore, froma looking up with discontent and envy to those, whom birth fortune has placed above us. Let us adjust the balance of happiness fairly. When we think of the enjoyments we want, we should think also of the troubles from which we are free. If we allow their just value to the comforts we possess, we shall find reason to rest satisfied, with a very moderate, though not an opulent and splendid, condition of fortune. Often, did we know the whole, we should be inclined to pity the state of those whom we now envy.

SECTION XIII.

BLAIR.

Patience under Provocations our Interest as well as Duty.

THE wide circle of human society is diversified by an endless variety of characters, dispositions, and passions. Uniformity is in no respect, the genius of the world. Every man is marked by some peculiarity which distinguishes him from another; and no where can two individuals be found who are exactly and in all respects alike. Where so much diversity obtains, it cannot but happen, that in the intercourse which men are obliged to maintain, their tempers will often be ill adjusted to that intercourse; will jar, and interfere with each other. Hence, in every station, the highest as well as the lowest, and in every condition of life, publick, private, and domestic, occasions of irritation frequently arise. We are provoked, sometimes, by the folly and levity of those with whom we are connected; sometimes, by their indifference or neglect; by the incivility of a friend, the haughtiness of a superior, or the insolent behaviour of one in lower station. Hardly a day passes without somewhat or other occurring, which serves to ruffle the man of impatient spirit. Of course, such a man lives in a continual storm. He knows not what it is to enjoy a train of good humour. Servants, neighbours, friends, spouse, and children, all, through the unrestrained violence of his temper, become sources of disturbance and vexation to him. In vain is affluence; in vain are health and prosperity. The least trifle is sufficient to discompose his mind, and poison his pleasures. His very amusements are mixed with turbulence and passion.

I would beseech this man to consider, of what small moment the provocations which he receives, or at least

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imagines himself to receive, are really in themselves; but of what great moment he makes them, by suffering them to deprive him of the possession of himself. I would beseech him,

to consider, how many hours of happiness he throws away, which a little more patience would allow him to enjoy: and how much he puts it in the power of the most insignif icant persons to render him miserable. "But who can expect," we hear him exclaim, "that he is to possess the insensibility of a stone? How is it possible for human nature I to endure so many repeated provocations? or to bear calmly with so unreasonable behaviour ?" - My brother! if thou canst bear with no instances of unreasonable behaviour. withdraw thyself from the world. Thou art no longer fit to live in it. Leave the intercourse of men. Retreat to the mountain, and the desert; or shut thyself up in a cell. For here, in the midst of society, offences must come. We might as well expect, when we behold a calm atmosphere, and a clear sky, that no clouds were ever to rise, and no winds to blow, as that our life were long to proceed, without receiving provocations from human frailty. The careless and the imprudent, the giddy and the fickle, the ungrateful and the interested, every where meet us. They are the briers and thorns, with which the paths of human life are beset. He only, who can hold his course among them with patience and equanimity, he who is prepared to bear what he must expect to happen, is worthy of the name of a man.

If we preserved ourselves composed but for a moment, we should perceive the insignificancy of most of those provocations which we magnify so highly. When a few suns more have rolled over our heads, the storm will, of itself, have subsided; the cause of our present impatience and disturbance will be utterly forgotten. Can we not then, anticipate this hour of calmness to, ourselves; and begin to enjoy the peace which it will certainly bring? If others have behaved improperly, let us leave them to their own folly, without becoming the victim of their caprice, and punishing ourselves on their account.-Patience, in this exercise of it, cannot be too much studied by all who wish their life to flow in a smooth fream. It is the reason of a man, in opposition to the pas sion of a child. It is the enjoyment of peace, in opposition to uproar and confusion.

SECTION XIV.

Moderation in our Wishes recommended.

BLAIR.

THE active mind of man seldom or never rests satisfied. with its present condition, how prosperous soever. Originally

formed for a wider range of objects, for a higher sphere of enjoyments, it finds itself, in every situation of fortune straitened and confined. Sensible of deficiency in its state, it is ever sending forth the fond desire, the aspiring wish after something beyond what is enjoyed at present. Hence, that restlessness which prevails so generally among mankind. Hence, that disgust of pleasures which they have tried; that passion for novelty; that ambition of rising to some degree of eminence or felicity, of which they have formed to them selves an indistinct idea. All which may be considered as indications of a certain native, original greatness in the human soul, swelling beyond the limits of its present con dition; and pointing, to the higher objects for which it was made. Happy, if these latent remains of our primitive state served to direct our wishes towards their proper destination and to lead us into the path of true bliss.

But in this dark and bewildered state, the aspiring ten dency of our nature unfortunately takes an opposite direction and feeds a very misplaced ambition. The flattering appear ances which here present themselves to sense; the distinc tions which fortune confers; the advantages and pleasure which we imagine the world to be capable of bestowing, fil up the ultimate wish of most men. These are the object which engross their solitary musings, and stimulate thei active labours; which warm the breasts of the young, animat the industry of the middle aged, and often keep alive th passions of the old, until the very close of life.

Assuredly, there is nothing unlawful in our wishing to b freed from whatever is disagreeable, and to obtain a fulle enjoyment of the comforts of life. But when these wishes ar not tempered by reason, they are in danger of precipitatin us into much extravagance and folly. Desires and wishe are the frst springs of action. When they become exorbitan the whole character is likely to be tainted. If we suffer ou fancy to create to itself worlds of idle happiness, we shal discompose the peace and order of our minds, and fomer many hurtful passions. Here, then, let moderation begi its reign; by bringing within reasonable bounds the wishe that we form. As soon as they become extravagant, let u check them by proper reflections on the fallacious nature o those objects, which the world hangs out to allure desire. You have strayed, my friends, from the road which conduct to felicity; you have dishonoured the native dignity of you souls, in allowing your wishes to terminate on nothing higher than worldly ideas of greatness or happiness. You

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imagination roves in a land of shadows. Unreal forms deceive you. It is no more than a phantom, an illusion of happiness, which attracts your fond admiration; nay, an illusion of happiness which often conceals much real misery. Do you imagine that all are happy, who have attained to those summits of distinction, towards which your wishes 1 aspire? Alas! how frequently has experience shown, that where roses were supposed to bloom, nothing but briers and thorns grew? Reputation, beauty, riches, grandeur, nay, royalty itself, would, many a time, have been gladly ex

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+ changed by the possessors, for that more quiet and humble station, with which you are now dissatisfied. With all that is splendid and shining in the world. It is decreed that there should mix many deep shades of wo. On the elevated situations of fortune, the great calamities of life chiefly fall. There, the storm spends its violence, and there the thunder breaks: while safe and unburt, the inhabitants of the vale 1 remain below; -Retreat, then, from those vain and perniIcious excursions of extravagant desire. Satisfy yourselves with what is rational and attainable. Train your minds ta moderate views of human life and humau happiness. Remem1 ber, and admire, the wisdom of Agur's petition: "Remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me: lest Ibe full and leny thee; and say, who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal; and take the name of my God in vain."

SECTION XV.

BLAIR.

Omniscience and Omnipresence of the DEITY, the source of

Consolation to good Men.

I was yesterday, about sunset walking in the open fields, ill the night insensibly fell upon me. I at first amused nyself with all the riches and variety of colours, which appeared in the western parts of heaven. In proportion As they faded awa away and went out, several stars and planets appeared one after another, till the whole firmament was in glow. The blueness of the ether was exceedingly heightened and enlivened, by the season of the year, and the rays of all hose luminaries that passed through it. The galaxy appeared in its most beautiful white. To complete the scene, he full-moon rose, at length in that clouded majesty, which Milton takes notice of; and opened to the eye a new picture of nature, which was more finely shaded and disposed among softer lights than that which the sun had before discovered

As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, and taking her progress among the constellations, a thought trose in me, which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs nen of serious and contemplative natures. David himself ell into it, in that reflection: "when I consider the heavens, he work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars which thou ast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him, nd the son of man that thou regardest him!" In the same anner, when I considered that infinite host of stars, or to peak more philosophically, of suns which were then shining on me; with those innumerable sets of planets or worlds, hich were moving round their respective suns; when I still larged the idea, and supposed another heaven of suns and orlds, rising still above this which we discovered; and ese still enlightened by a superior firmament of luminaries hich are planted at so great a distance that they may pear to the inhabitants of the former, as the stars do to

in short, while I pursued this thought, I could not but reet on that little insignificant figure which, I myself bore midst the immensity of God's works.

Where the sun, which enlightens this part of the creation, ith all the hosts of planetary worlds that move above him terly extinguished and annihilated, they would not be misd, more than a grain of sand upon the sea-shore. The ace they possess is so exceedingly little in comparison of the hole, it would scarcely make a blank in the creation. The asın would be imperceptible to an eye, that could take in e whole compass of nature, and pass from one end of the eation to the other; as it is possible there may be such a use in ourselves hereafter, or in creatures which are at esent more exalted than ourselves. By the help of glasses, see many stars, which we do not discover with our naked es; and the finer our telescopes are, the more still are discoveries.-Huygenius carries this thought so far, that does not think it impossible there may be stars, whose ht has not yet travelled down to us, since their first creation. here is no question that the universe has certain bounds to it; but when we consider that it is the work of Infinite wer, prompted by Infinite Goodness, with an infinite space exert itself in, how can our imagination set any bounds

it.

To return, therefore, to my first thought, I could not but k upon myself with secret horror, as a being that was worth the smallest regard of one who had so great a under his care and superintendance. I was afraid of

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