age: and

Consider how uncommon it is to live to old take care to hold yourself in constant readiness for death.. The unthinking bulk of mankind are ever amusing themselves with some pursuit foreign to themselves. Ă wise man is ever looking inward.

It is no wonder if he who reads, converses, and meditates, improves in knowledge. By the first, a man converses with the dead; by the second, with the living; and by the third, with himself. So that he appropriates to himself all the knowledge which can be got from those who have lived, and from those now alive.

Let no man refuse a pardon to others but he who does not need it for himself.

A very ignorant man may have a very learned library. A very learned man may be a very contemptible creature. If it were safe to put off repentance and reformation to the very last day of life, how do you know this is not it?

Endeavour to do all the good in your power. Be as active with prudence as if you was sure of success. When you meet a disappointment, let it not abate your diligence, nor put you out of humour. And when you have done all, remember you have only done your duty.

The Dutch will not suffer the smallest breach in their dykes for fear of an inundation. Do not you suffer the smallest passage for vice into your heart, lest you find your virtue quite overflowed.

Do not be unhappy if you have not married a professed beauty. They generally admire themselves so much they have no love left for their husbands. Besides, it might not perhaps have been very agreeable to you to see every fellow, as you went into public places, look at your wife as if he could devour her with his eyes.

Take no counsel with flesh and blood, if you aspire at what is truly great.

A foolish youth makes a crazy old age.

Take care of natural biasses, as self-love, pleasure, &c. be sure, you will always incline enough toward the biass side. Therefore you need have no guard upon yourself that way.

The angels are said in Scripture to desire to look into the Christian scheme, as if to learn somewhat. Do not you

then think it beneath you to learn, while you are so much inferior to them. The most knowing are the most desirous of knowledge. The most virtuous the most desirous of improvement in virtue. On the contrary, the ignorant think themselves wise enough; the vicious are, in their own opinion, good enough.

In bestirring yourself for the public advantage, remember, that if you should not accomplish all that you propose, you will however have employed yourself to good purpose, and will not fail of your reward, if you should of success.

Let no man complain of the shortness of life but he who can say he has never mispent one hour.

Make sure first, and principally, of that knowledge which is necessary for you as a man, and a member of society: next, of what is necessary in your particular way of life afterwards, improve yourself in all useful and ornamental knowledge, as far as your capacity, leisure, and fortune will allow.

If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches.

Never cast your eye upon a good man without resolving to imitate him. Whenever you see an instance of vice or folly in another, let it be a warning to you to avoid them.

Where is yesterday now? With the years before the flood: but if you have employed it well, it stands recorded above, to your eternal honour and advantage: if you have mispent or neglected it, it will appear against you at the last day.

Would you have one general universal remedy for all diseases, study religion. The only rational ground for consolation in the various distresses of life, is the consideration that religion proposes a positive reward for bearing with dignity, and improving by affliction; and that afflictions are, in truth, our greatest blessings, and proofs of the Divine favour.

If you unhappily fall into some fatal miscarriage, which wounds your conscience, and makes your life a burden, confess it, with all its circumstances, to some judicious and tender hearted person, in whose fidelity you can confide,

and whose advice may be of service to you. If it be of such a peculiar nature, that you do not think it prudent to confess yourself guilty of such a thing, send a full account of it, written in a disguised hand, desiring an answer in writing. When you have the opinion of a judicious person upon the heinousness of your crime, which you may find you have, either through self-love, thought too slightly of, or through an excessive tenderness of conscience, blamed yourself too much for, impress your mind properly with a sense of your fault : humble yourself deeply before God; and resolve bravely no more to be guilty of such folly. When you have done so, and find you can keep to your resolutions, it is not necessary that you continue to afflict yourself without end for what is irrecoverably past. The principal part of repentance is reformation.

I know no way of laying out a few shillings to more advantage, either for profit or pleasure, than upon an entertaining and instructing book: but this expense is greatly overdone by some, and ill laid out by others.

While you are unhappy because your tailor has not cut your coat to your mind, many an honest man would be glad to have one that would only keep out the cold, and cannot. While you are in a passion with your cook, because he has spoiled you one dish among six, many a poor family, who are fellow-creatures, and your fellow Christians, are at a loss for bread to supply the wants of nature : think of this, and give over, with shame, your foolish and impious complaints against that goodness of Providence which has placed you in circumstances so much above persons of equal merit with yourself.

It is the unhappiness of human life, that in every man's conduct there has always been some miscarriage, or some misfortune in his circumstances, which has prevented his carrying his improvements in knowledge and virtue the length which might have been wished or imagined. To make the most of life, such a number of concurrences are necessary, that it is no wonder they seldom all fall to the share of any one person. Health, long life, fortune; great and various natural abilities, and a good disposition; an extensive education, begun early; indefatigable diligence to carry on improvements; a set of acquaintance capable

of assisting in the pursuit of knowledge, and of encouraging in virtue; and happening to live in an age favourable to freedom of inquiry. If we consider the improvements some towering geniuses have made in knowledge, and the lengths gone in exemplary virtue, by many who have laboured under innumerable disadvantages, we cannot help lamenting that they were not favoured by Providence with the others, nor imagining what immense heights they must in some circumstances have reached. The most remarkable concurrence of all kinds of advantages that ever was; and the most stupendous effects in consequence of it, will probably, as long as this world lasts, be the admiration and delight of all who are judges of the sublime labours of the greatest of philosophers, and best of men, the glory of our country, and of Human Nature. Yet even in him (though a sort of superior being, when compared with the rest of the species) it is possible to imagine some circumstances different, and to the advantage. To what heights then may our nature rise in future states, when every possible advantage shall concur!

Do not pretend to neglect or trifle with your duty, unless you have found out unquestionable and demonstrative proof, that the general sense of mankind, in all ages and nations, that virtue is the perfection of Human Nature, and the sure way to happiness, and vice the contrary, is a gross absurdity and falsehood; that the Bible is a forgery; and that the belief of a judgment to come is a dream. If you be not as sure of all this, as that twice two are four, if there be the smallest possibility that it may be otherwise, it is the very desperation of madness to run the least hazard of the destruction of your soul by living a wicked life.

Death-bed repentance, and death-bed charity, are much of a kind. Men give up their vices and their money when they can keep them no longer.

Can any person seriously think that he was formed capable of reason, virtue, and religion, only to eat, drink, divert himself, and die?

Accustom yourself to the strict observance of your duty in all respects, and it will in time be as troublesome to omit, or to violate it, as it is to many people to practise it.

Study to grow every day wiser and better: For every day brings you nearer to death.

It is strange to hear unthinking people discant upon the actions of men of universally acknowledged abilities, and to see them take it for granted, that they have acted a part entirely inconsistent with their known characters; which people very rarely do, and which it is therefore very unreasonable to suppose. If you were told of a miser's having done a generous thing, would you not be apt either to doubt the fact, or to conclude that it must have appeared to him a likely way of getting somewhat? If you were told of a very passionate man's bearing an insult with exemplary patience, would you not be surprised? Why then should you rashly give into the belief, that a person, whose good understanding you are apprized of, has played the fool? on one whose integrity is known to you, has acted a treacherous part? hear the accused before you condemn. Value learning as much as you please: but remember, a judicious thinker is incomparably superior to a great reader.

What can be more monstrous than the common excuses for unfaithfulness to the marriage bed? People give their vows to one another in the most solemn manner; and then their first work is to think how to break them. They marry, for better for worse; for richer or poorer, younger or older; handsomer or plainer: and then, when they come to repent of their rash choice, they pretend to excuse the breach of solemn vows by the pretext of defects they find in one another; of which it is wholly their own fault if they were not sufficiently apprized before their coming together.

To defeat calumny, 1. Despise it. To seem disturbed about it, is the way to make it believed. And stabbing your defamer will not prove you innocent. 2. Live an exemplary life, and then your general good character will overpower it. 3. Speak tenderly of every body, even of your defamers, and you will make the whole world cry, shame on them who can find in their hearts to injure one so inoffensive.

You say your misfortunes are hard to bear. Your vices are likewise hard to be forgiven. It is terrible to think of your suffering pain, sickness, poverty, or the loss of dear friends or relations? It is more terrible to think of your 13

VOL. II.