and angelic ministers of grace thicken unseen the region of mortality. She promotes love and good will among men, lifts up the head that hangs down, heals the wounded fpirit, diffipates the gloom of forrow, fweetens the cup of affiction, blunts the fting of death, and wherever feen, felt and enjoyed, breathes around her an everlasting spring.

2. Religion raifes men above themselves; irreligion finks them beneath the brutes; the one makes them angels, the other makes them evil fpirits; this binds them down to a poor pitiable fpeck of perishable earth; that opens up a vifta to the skies, and lets loofe all the principles of an immortal mind, among the glorious objects of an eternal world.

3 Lift up thy head, O Chriftian, and look forward to yon, calm unclouded regions of mercy, unfullied by va pours, unruffled by ftorms; where celestial friendship, the loveliest form in heaven, never dies, never changes, never cools! Soon thou shalt burft this brittle earthly prifon of the body, break the fetters of mortality, fpring to endless life, and mingle with the skies.

4. Corruption has but a limited duration. Happiness is just now in the bud; a few days, weeks, or years, at moŵy and that bud fhall be in full bloom. Here virtue droops under a thousand preffures; but, like the earth with returning fpring fhall then renew her youth, renew her ver dure, rife and reign in never fading undiminished lustre.

5. It does not fignify what thy profpects now are; or what thy fituation now is. In the prefent world, thy heart indeed may fob, and bleed its last, before thou shalt meet with one, who has either the generofity to relieve, or hu manity to pity thee. Thou haft, however, in the compaffionate parent of creation, a moft certain refource in the deepest extremity.

6. Caft thine eyes but a little beyond this ftrange, myf. terious, and perplexing fcene, which at prefent intercepts thy views of futurity. Behold a bow ftamped in the darkeft clouds that lowers in the face of heaven, and the whole furrounding hemifphere brightening as thou approachest! Say, does not yon bleffed opening which overlooks the dark dominions of the grave, more than compenfate all the fighs and fufferings, which chequer the prefent intervening fcene?

7. Lo! there thy long loft friend, who still lives in thy

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remen brance, whofe prefence gave thee more delight than all that life could afford, and whofe abfence colts thee more groans and tears than all that death can take awaybeckons thee to him, that where he is thou mayeit be alfo. "Here," fays he, "dwell unmingled pleasures, unpolluted joys, inextinguishable love, immortal, unbounded, and unmolested friendship.

8. "All the forrows and imperfections of mortality are to us as though they had never been; and nothing lives in heaven, but pure, unadulterated devotion. Our hearts, fwelled with rapture, ceafe to murmur; our bréafts, warm with gratitude, to figh; our eyes, charmed with celestial vifions, to shed tears; our hands, enriched with palms of victory, to tremble; and our heads, encircled with glory, to ache.

9. "We are just as fafe as infinite power, as joyful as infinite fullnefs, and as happy as infinite goodness can make us. Ours is peace without moleftation, plenty with out want, health without fickness, day without night, pleafure without pain, and life without the leaft mixture or dread of diffolution."

10. Happy thou, to whom the prefent life has no charm, for which thou canst wish it to be protracted! Thy troubles will foon vanish like a dream, which mocks the power of memory; and what fignify all the fhocks which thy delicate and feeling fpirit can meet with in this tranfitory world? A few moments longer, and thy com. plaints will be for ever at an end; thy diseases of body and mind fhall be felt no more; the ungenerous hints of churlish relations fhall diftrefs, fortune frown, and futurity intimidate no more.

11. Then fhall thy voice, no longer breathing the plaintive ftrains of melancholy, but happily attuned to fongs of gladness, mingle with the hofts of heaven, in the laft and fweeteft anthem that ever mortals or immortals fung, "O Death! where is thy fling? O Grave! where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jefus Christt;-bieffing and honour, glory and pow. er, be unto Him that fits on the throne, and unto the lamb, for ever and ever."

E &

1.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CHOICE OF RELIGION.

OULD you wish, amidst the great variety of religious fyftems in vogue, to make a right ditinction, and prefer the best? Recollect the character of Chrift; keep a steady eye on that univerfal and permanent good will to men, in which he lived, by which he suffered, and for which he died. What now would you expect from a mind fo purely and habitually benign? Is it poffible to suppose, that a heart thus warm and wide could harbour a narrow wish, or utter a partial fentiment? Moft luckily, in this point, the fulleft fatisfaction is in every man's power.

2. Go, search the religion he has left, to the bottom; not in those artificial theories, which have done it the moft effential injury; nor in their manner who affume his name, but overlook his example, and who are for ev. er talking about the merits of his death, at the expense of thofe virtues which adorn his life; not in thofe wild and romantic notions, which, to make us christians, would make us fools; but in those inspired writings, and in those alone, which contain his genuine hiftory and his bleffed gofpel; and which, in the most peculiar and extenfive fenfe, are the words of eternal life.

3. Read the fcriptures then as you would read the LAST WILL of fome deceafed friend, in which you expected a large bequeft; and tell me in the fincerity of your foul, what you fee there to circumfcribe the focial affections, to crufh the rifings of benevolence, or to check the generous effufions of humanity. Littleness of mind and narrowness of temper were certainly no parts of our Saviour's character; and he enjoins nothing which he did not uniformly and minutely exemplify.

4. Strange! that an inftitution, which begins and ends in benignity, fhould be prostituted to countenance, the workings of malevolent paffions, fhould produce animofities among thofe whom it was intended to unite! but there is not a corruption in the human heart, which has not fometimes borrowed the garb of religion. Christianity however is not lefs precious to the honest, because knaves and fools have abufed her; and let bigots and fceptics fay what they please, she softens and enlarges the heart, warms and impregnates the mind of man, as certainly, and effentially, as the fun does the earth.

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True

5. This criterion is as obvious as it is decifive. humility and benevolence are always acceptable, and always known. Whoever would be thought pious, with out these genuine fignatures of piety; be his behaviour as formal, and his face as fad and fanctimonious as he will, mark him down for nothing but a hypocrite. He alone whose bofom swells with the milk of human kindnefs, who would not fay or do any thing to hurt another for a world; whofe daily aim and difpofition is to live foberly, righteously, and godlily, whatever fyftem he may adopt, lives under the vifible influence of true goodness. Efteem him as a brother, and kinfman; the fame fpirit which lives in you, lives in him; the divine image is stamped on him, as well as upon you; and he copies that amiable pattern and example, which leads all its followers to immortality and everlasting blifs.

V

You

CHAPTER XXI.

AN ADDRESS TO YOUTH.

OUTH is the feafon proper to cultivate the benevolent and humane affections. As a great part of your happiness is to depend on the connexions which you form with others, it is of high importance, that you acquire betimes the temper and the manners which will render fuch connexions comfortable. Let a fenfe of justice be the foundation of all your focial qualities.

2. Engrave on your mind that facred rule, of "doing in all things to others as you with they would do unto you." For this end, imprefs yourselves with a deep fenfe of the original and natural equality. of men. Whatever

advantages of birth or fortune you poffefs, never difplay them with an oftentatious fuperiority. Leave the fubordinations of rank, to regulate the intercourse of more advanced years. At prefent it becomes you to act among your companions as a man with man.

3. Kemember how unknown to you are the viciffitudes of the world; and how often they, on whom ignorant and contemptuous young men once looked down with fcorn, have rifen to be their fuperiors in future years. Compaffion is an emotion of which you ought never to be atham

ed. Graceful in youth is the tear of sympathy, and the heart that melts at the tale of woe.

4. Let not eafe and indulgence contract your affec tions, and wrap you up in felfish enjoyment. Accustom yourselves to think of the diftreffes of human life; of the folitary cottage, the dying parent, and the weeping orphan. Never fport with pain and diftress in any of your amuse. ments, nor treat even the meaneft infect with wanton cruelty.

CHAPTER XXII.

CONTENTMENT-OR THE HERMIT OF THE MOUNTAINS.

I. HE fun had long fince funk behind the adjacent

1.TH mountains, and the fage Ibrahim was returning to

reft, when a kocking at the door of his hermitage drew him thither; he opened it, and there ftood before him a youth, whofe care-marked vifage spoke him to be the child of grief."Sire," faid the youth, "permit a ftrang. er to pafs the night beneath your friendly roof, till the returning morn enables him to purfue his way with_fafety." The hermit bid him welcome to his cot, and spread his homely board before him.

2. Roots fupplied the place of coftly viands, and water from a neighbouring fpring, the place of blood in flaming wine. The figh the starting tear, and all the behaviour of his gueft. filled the fage with emotions of compassion; and defiring, if poffible to alleviate the pains of the fran ger, he thus addreffed him.

3. "In a face fo young, in a breaft fo untutored in this world's cares, it seems to me a wonder that forrow is a gueft; and might it not be thought a bold intrufion, I would know the fpring of thefe your cares; perhaps you mourn the pangs of disappointed love, the lofs of fome dear friend or earthly joy. Say, if your grief be of the common courfe, perchance my riper years may speak the wished for comfort." "Sire," said the youth, "your kind intentions demand at once my thanks and my compliance."

4. My father was a merchant; in point of wealth, Bagdat held not his equal; early he left me to poffefs his fortunes; the lofs of my father was foon forgotten amidst