the relater. How many may a man of diffufive conversation count among his acquaintances, whofe lives have been fignalized by numberlefs efcapes; who never cross the river but in a storm, or take a journey into the country without more adventures than befel the knight-errants of antient times in pathlefs forefts or enchanted caftles! How many must he know, to whom portents and prodigies are of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is hourly working wonders invifible to every other eye, only to fupply them with fubjects of conversation!

Others there are that amuse themselves with the diffemination of falsehood, at greater hazard of detection and difgrace; men marked out by fome lucky planet for univerfal confidence and friendship, who have been confulted in every difficulty, entrusted with every fecret, and fummoned to every transaction: it is the fupreme felicity of thefe men, to ftun all companies with noify information; to fill doubt, and overbear oppofition, with certain knowledge or authentic intelligence. A liar of this kind, with a strong memory or brifk imagination, is often the oracle of an obfcure club, and, till time difcovers his impoftures, dictates to his hearers with uncontrouled authority; for if a public question be started, he was prefent at the debate; if a new fashion be mentioned, he was at court the firft day of its appearance; if a new performance of literature draws the attention of the public, he has patronifed the author, and feen his work in manufcript; if a criminal of eminence be condemned to die, he often predicted his fate, and endeavoured his reformation: and who that lives at a distance from the scene of action, will dare to contradict a man, who reports from his own eyes and ears, and to whom all perfons and affairs are thus intimately known?

This kind of falfehood is generally fuccefsful for a time, because it is practifed at firft with timidity and caution; but the profperity of the liar is of fhort duration; the reception of one ftory, is always an incitement to the forgery of another lefs probable; and he goes on to triumph over tacit credulity, till pride or

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reafon rifes up against him, and his companions will no longer endure to see him wiser than themselves.

It is apparent, that the inventors of all these fictions intend fome exaltation of themselves, and are led off by the pursuit of honour from their attendance upon truth: their narratives always imply fome confequence in favour of their courage, their fagacity, or their activity, their familiarity with the learned, or their reception among the great; they are always bribed by the present pleasure of feeing themfelves fuperior to thofe that furround them, and receiving the homage of filent attention and envious admiration.

But vanity is fometimes excited to fiction by lefs vifible gratifications: the prefent age abounds with a race of liars who are content with the consciousness of falfehood, and whose pride is to deceive others without any gain or glory to themselves. Of this tribe it is the fupreme pleasure to remark a lady in the playhouse or the park, and to publish, under the character of a man fuddenly enamoured, an advertisement in the news of the next day, containing a minute description of her perfon and her drefs. From this artifice, however, no other effect can be expected, than perturbations which the writer can never fee, and conjectures of which he can never be informed: fome mifchief, however, he hopes he has done; and to have done mischief, is of fome importance. He fets his invention to work again, and produces a narrative of a robbery, or a murder, with all the circumftances of time and place accurately adjusted. This is a jeft of greater effect and longer duration: if he fixes his fcene at a proper diftance, he may for feveral days keep a wife in terror for her husband, or a mother for her fon; and pleafe himself with reflecting, that by his abilities and address fome addition is made to the miferies of life.

There is, I think, an antient law in Scotland, by which LEASING-MAKING was capitally punished. I am, indeed, far from defiring to increase in this kingdom the number of executions; yet I cannot but think, that they who deftroy the confidence of fociety, weaken the credit of intelligence, and interrupt the fecurity of

life;

life; harrafs the delicate with fhame, and perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly be awakened to a fenfe of their crimes, by denunciations of a whipping poft or pillory: fince many are fo infenfible of right and wrong, that they have no standard of action but the law; nor feel guilt, but as they dread punish

ment.

How far the precept to love our Enemies is practicable.

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[Advent. No. 48.]

O LOVE AN ENEMY, is the diftinguishing characteristic of a religion, which is not of man bu of GOD. It could be delivered as a precept only by HIM, who lived and died to establish it by his example.

At the clofe of that season, in which human frailty has commemorated fufferings which it could not fuflain, a feason in which the most zealous devotion can only fubftitute a change of food for a total abftinence of forty days; it cannot, furely, be incongruous to confider, what approaches we can make to that divine love which thefe fufferings expreffed, and how far man, in imitation of his SAVIOUR, can bless those who curfe him, and return good for evil.

We cannot, indeed, behold the example but at a diftance; nor confider it without being ftruck with a fenfe of our own debility: every man who compares his life with this divine rule, inftead of exulting in his own excellence, will fmite his breaft like the publican, and cry out, "GOD be merciful to me a finner!" Thus to acquaint us with ourselves, may, perhaps, be one ufe of the precept; but the precept cannot, furely, be confidered as having no other.

I know it will be faid, that our paffions are not in our power; and that, therefore, a precept, to love or to hate, is impoffible; for if the gratification of all our wishes was offered us to love a ftranger as we love a child, we could not fulfil the condition, however we might defire the reward.

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But admitting this to be true, and that we cannot love an enemy as we love a friend, it is yet equally certain, that we may perform thofe actions which are produced by love from a higher principle: we may, perhaps, derive moral excellence from natural defects, and exert our reafon inftead of indulging a paffion. If Our enemy hungers we may feed him, and if he thirsts we may give him drink: this, if we could love him, would be our conduct; and this may ftill be our conduct, though to love him is impoffible. The CHRISTIAN will be prompted to relieve the neceffities of his enemy, by his love to GOD: he will rejoice in an opportunity to exprefs the zeal of his gratitude and the alacrity of his obedience, at the fame time that he appropriates the promifes and anticipates his reward.

But though he who is beneficent upon thefe principles, may in the fcripture fenfe be faid to love his enemy; yet fomething more may ftill be effected: the paffion itfelf in fome degree is in our power; we may rife to a yet nearer emulation of divine forgiveness, we may think as well as act with kindness, and be fanctified as well in heart as in life.

Though love and hatred are neceffarily produced in the human breast, when the proper objects of thefe paffions occur, as the colour of material fubftances is neceffarily perceived by an eye before which they are exhibited; yet it is in our power to change the paffion, and to caufe either love or hatred to be excited, by placing the fame object in different circumstances; as a changeable filk of blue and yellow may be held fo as to excite the idea either of yellow or blue.

No act is deemed more injurious, or refented with greater acrimony, than the marriage of a child, efpecially of a daughter, without the confent of a parent: it is frequently confidered as a breach of the ftrongest and tendereft obligations; as folly and ingratitude, treachery and rebellion. By the imputation of these vices, a child becomes the object of indignation and refentment: indignation and refentment in the breast, therefore, of the parent are neceffarily excited; and there can be no doubt, but that these are fpecies of hatred.

hatred. But if the child is confidered as ftill retaining the endearing foftness of a filial affection, as ftill longing for reconciliation, and profaning the rites of marriage with tears; as having been driven from the path of duty, only by the violence of paffions which none have always refifted, and which many have indulgedwith much greater turpitude; the fame object that before excited indignation and refentment, will now be regarded with pity, and pity is a fpecies of love.

Thofe, indeed, who refent this breach of filial duty with implacability, though perhaps it is the only one of which the offender has been guilty, demonftrate that they are without natural affection; and that they would have proftituted their offspring, if not to luft, yet to affections which are equally vile and fordid, the thirst of gold, or the cravings of ambition: for he can never be thought to be fincerely interested in the felicity of his child, who when fome of the means of happiness are loft by indifcretion, fuffers his refentment to take away the reft.

Among friends, fallies of quick refentment are extremely frequent. Friendship is a conftant reciprocation of benefits, to which the facrifice of private intereft isfometimes neceffary: it is common for each to set too much value upon those which he bestows, and too little upon those which he receives; this mutual mistake in fo important an estimation, produces mutual charges of unkindness and ingratitude; each, perhaps, profeffes himfelf ready to forgive, but neither will condefcend to be forgiven. Pride, therefore, ftill increases the enmity which it began; the friend is confidered as / felfish, affuming, injurious and revengeful; he confequently becomes an object of hatred; and while he is thus confidered, to love him is impoffible. But thus to confider him, is at once a folly and a fault: each ought to reflect, that he is, at least in the opinion of the other, incurring the crimes that he imputes; that the foundation of their enmity is no more than a mistake; and that this mistake is the effect of weakness or vanity, which is common to all mankind; the character of both would then assume a very different afpect, love would again..

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