The soul is placed in the body to sojourn there for a short time. She knows that this is only the prelude to an eternal progress, to prepare for which, she has but the short period of this present life. Of this the mere necessities of nature engross a large portion, and the remainder which she might use, is small indeed. Yet this little is such a trouble to her, and the source of such strange perplexity, that she only studies how to throw it away. To live with herself, and to think of herself, is a burden quite insupportable. Hence all her care is to forget herself, and to let this period, short and precious as it is, flow on without reflection, whilst she is busied with things that prevent her from thinking of it.

This is the cause of all the bustling occupations of men, and of all that is called diversion or pastime, in which they have really but one object-to let the time glide by without perceiving it, or rather without perceiving self, and to avoid, by the sacrifice of this portion of life, the bitterness and disgust of soul which would result from self-inspection during that time. The soul finds in herself nothing gratifying. She finds nothing but what grieves her when she thinks of it. This compels her to look abroad, and to seek, by a devotion to external things, to drown the consciousness of her real condition. Her joy is in this oblivion; and to compel her to look within, and to be her own companion, is to make her thoroughly wretched.

Men are burdened from their infant years with the care of their honour and their property, and even of the property and the honour of their relations and friends. They are oppressed with the study of languages, sciences, accomplishments, and arts. They are overwhelmed with business, and are taught to believe that they cannot be

happy unless they manage, by their industry and attention, that their fortune and reputation, and the fortune and reputation of their friends, be flourishing; and that a failure in any one of these things would make them miserable. And hence they are engaged in duties and businesses which harass them from morning till night. "A strange method this," you would say, "to make men happy; what could we do more effectually to make them miserable?" Do you ask what we could do? Alas! we have but to release them from these cares, for then they would see and consider themselves; and this is unbearable. And in proof of this we see, that with all this mass of cares, if they have yet any interval of relaxation, they hasten to squander it on some amusement that shall completely fill the void, and hide them from themselves.

On this account, when I have set myself to consider the varied turmoil of life; the toil and danger to which men expose themselves at courts, in war, and in the pursuit of their ambitious projects, which give rise to so much quarrelling and passion, and to so many desperate and fatal adventures: I have often said that all the misfortunes of men spring from their not knowing how to live quietly at home, in their own rooms. If a man, who has enough to live on, did but know how to live with himself, he would never go to sea, or to besiege a city, merely for the sake of occupation; and he whose only object is to live, would have no need to seek such dangerous employments.

But when I have looked into the matter more closely, I have found that this aversion to repose, and to the society of self, originates in a very powerful cause, namely, in the natural evils of our weak and mortal state,-a state so completely wretched, that whenever nothing

hinders us from thinking of it, and we thoroughly survey ourselves, we are utterly inconsolable. Of course, I speak only of those who meditate on themselves without the aid of religion. For most assuredly it is one of the wonders of the Christian religion, that it reconciles man to himself, in reconciling him to his God; that it makes selfexamination bearable, and solitude and silence more interesting than the tumults and the busy intercourse of

men.

But religion does not produce this mighty change by confining man to the survey of himself. It does this enly by leading him up to God, and sustaining him, even in the consciousness of his present misery, with the hope of another existence, in which he shall be freed from it for ever.

But as for those who act only according to the impulse of those natural motives, that they find within them, it is impossible that they can live in that tranquillity which favours self-examination, withont being instantly the prey of chagrin and melancholy. The man who loves nothing but self, dislikes nothing so much as being with himself only. He seeks nothing but for himself; yet he flies from nothing so eagerly as self; for when he sees himself, he is not what he wishes; and he finds in himself an accumulation of miseries that he cannot shun, and a vacuity of all real and substantial good which he cannot fill.

Let a man choose what condition he will, and let him accumulate around him all the goods and all the gratifications seemingly calculated to make him happy in it; if that man is left at any time without occupation or amusement, and reflects on what he is, the meagre languid felicity of his present lot will not bear him up. He will turn necessarily to gloomy anticipations of the fu

ture; and except, therefore, his occupation calls him out of himself, he is inevitably wretched.

But is not royal dignity sufficient of itself to make its possessor happy, by the mere contemplation of what he is as a king? Must he too be withdrawn from this thought the same as other men? I see plainly that it makes a man happy to turn him away from the thought of his domestic sorrows, and to engage all the energy of his mind in the attaining of some light accomplishments, even such as dancing: but is it so with a king? Would he be happier in a devotion to these vain amusements, than in the thought of his own greatness? What object more satisfying can be given to him? Would it not be thwarting his joy, to degrade his mind to the thought how to regulate his steps by the cadence of a fiddle, or how to strike a billiard ball; instead of leaving him to enjoy in tranquillity, the contemplation of the glory and the majesty with which he is invested? Try it leave a king to himself without any delight accruing to him through the senses; leave him without any care upon his mind, and without society, to think at his leisure of himself, and you will see that a king who looks within, is a man equally full of miseries, and equally alive to them, with other men. Hence they carefully avoid this; and there is always about the person of kings, a number of menials, whose concern it is to provide diversion when business is done, and who watch for their hours of leisure to supply them with pleasures and sports, that they may never feel vacuity; that is, in fact, they are surrounded by persons who take the most scrupulous care, that the king shall not be left alone to be his own companion, and in a situation to think of himself; because they know that if he does, with all his royalty, he must be wretched.

The principal thing which bears men up under those weighty concerns, which are, in other respects, so oppressive, is that they are thus perpetually kept from thinking of themselves.

For instance: What is the being a governor, a chancellor, a prime minister, but the having a number of attendants flocking on every side to prevent them from having a single hour in the day in which they can think of self? And when such men are out of favour, and are banished to their country-seats, where they have no want of either money or servants to supply their real wants, then indeed they are wretched, because then they have leisure to think of self without hindrance.

Hence it is that so many persons fly to play or to field sports, or to any other amusement which occupies the whole soul. Not that they expect happiness from any thing so acquired, or that they suppose that real bliss centres in the money that they win, or the hare that they catch. They would not have either as a gift. The fact is, they are not seeking for that mild and peaceful course which leaves a man leisure to speculate on his unhappy condition, but for that incessant hurry which renders this impracticable.

Hence it is, that men love so ardently the whirl and the tumult of the world; that imprisonment is so fearful a punishment; and that so few persons can endure solitude.

This, then, is all that men have devised to make themselves happy. And those who amuse themselves by shewing the emptiness and the poverty of such amusements, have certainly a right notion of a part of human misery; for it is no small evil to be capable of finding pleasure in things so low and contemptible; but they do not yet