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cabinet for his own use, or secure to himself the gentle and benign influence of any one constellation? Are not his subiects' fields bedewed with the same showers that water his gardens of pleasure?

Nay, those things which he esteems his ornament and the singularity of his possessions, are they not of more use to others than to himself? For suppose his garments splendid and shining, like the robe of a cherub, or the clothing of the fields-all that he that wears them enjoys, is, that they keep him warm, and clean, and modest: and all this is done by clean and less pompous vestments; and the beauty of them, which distinguishes him from others, is made to please the eyes of the beholders: the fairest face or the sparkling eye cannot perceive or enjoy its own beauties, but by reflection. It is I that am pleased with beholding his gayety; and the gay man, in his greatest bravery, is only pleased because I am pleased with the sight: so borrowing his little and imaginary complacency from the delight that I have, not from any inherency in his own possession.

The poorest artisan of Rome, walking in Cæsar's gardens, had the same pleasures which they ministered to their lord; and although, it may be, he was put to gather fruits to eat from another place, yet his other senses were delighted equally with Cæsar's: the birds made him as good music, the flowers gave him as sweet smells; he there sucked as good air, and delighted in the beauty and order of the place, for the same reason, and upon the same perception, as the prince himself; save only that Cæsar paid, for all that pleasure, vast sums of money, the blood and treasure of a province, which the poor man had for nothing.

And so it is if the whole world should be given to any man. He knows not what to do with it; he can use no more but according to the capacities of a man; he can use nothing but meat, and drink, and clothes. He to whom the world can be given to any purpose greater than a private estate can minister, must have new capacities created in him: he needs the understanding of an angel to take the accounts of his estate; he had need have a stomach like fire or the grave, for else he can eat no more than one of his healthful subjects; and unless he hath an eye like the sun, and a motion like that of a thought, and a bulk as big as one of the orbs of heaven, the pleasures of his eye can be no greater than to behold the beauty of a little prospect from a hill, or to look upon a heap of gold packed up in a little room, or to dote upon a cabinet of jewels;

better than which, there is no man that sees at all, but sees every day. For, not to name the beauties and sparkling diamonds of heaven, a man's, or a woman's, or a hawk's eye, is more beauteous and excellent than all the jewels of his crown. Understanding and knowledge are the greatest instruments of pleasure; and he that is most knowing, hath a capacity to become happy, which a less knowing prince, or a rich person, hath not; and in this only a man's capacity is capable of enlargement. But then, although they only have power to relish any pleasure rightly who rightly understand the nature, and degrees, and essences, and ends of things; yet they that do so, understand also the vanity and unsatisfyingness of the things of this world: so that the relish, which could not be great but in a great understanding, appears contemptible, because its vanity appears at the same time: the understanding sees all, and sees through it.

XIV.-CHRISTIAN LOVE.-Archbishop Whately.

NECESSARILY associated with the exercise of universal love, will be the other virtues, graces, and endowments of the Christian character;-all blending into a soft and harmonious combination, and all flowing forth as so many streams, from that spring of living waters which the Divine Spirit has opened in the heart. There, joy, mingled with gratitude and elevated by hope, arising in part from the consideration of miseries escaped, and in part from the anticipation of felicities to be enjoyed-from a sense of the privileges now possessed, and of the blessedness still in reserve, triumphs as in its natural element. There, peace, meek, gentle, and serene,resulting from the subjugation of the appetites and passions, from the banishment of vain and irregular desires, from a soothing persuasion of being in a state of reconciliation with God, through the death and righteousness of his Son,-diffuses a calm and delightful composure through all the powers of the soul. There, forbearance under every species of provocation, resignation to the divine will, under the most trying dispensations of Providence and amidst the most afflictive scenes of human life, will check the first risings of anger, and silence the voice of complaint. There, faith, in all the variety of its operations, will act with energy and vigour, reposing an unhesitating trust in all the declarations of Jehovah-confiding, with unshaken reliance, in the meritorious life and

atoning death of the Redeemer, as the sole and all-sufficien ground of its hope of salvation-looking forward, with a realizing eye, to the glories of a future world, amid the clouds and darkness of present sufferings, and directing, as a primary power, the whole movements of the conduct. There, the flame of devotion burns, prayer delights to make known its request, praise to offer up its incense of thanksgiving, holy contemplation to unfold its pinions, and to soar amid scenes yet remote. There, also, the duties of temperance and selfdenial, the rigid restraint, within their due and appropriate bounds, of the several faculties and affections of the soul, will meet with the requisite share of attention. There, in short, goodness, in all its constituent principles, whether it regards God or man, whether it relates to the understanding, the heart, or the life, to the habits of the mind, or the regulation of the conduct, proves its existence, vindicates its character, and evinces its celestial origin.

XV.-ON THE UNCERTAINTY OF LIFE.-Kirwan.

EVERY thing human admits of change and vicissitude; states and empires, arts and sciences, customs and manners, laws and governments, feel, without ceasing, this inevitable principle acting upon them. God, from the throne of his immutability, sports with all the works and enterprises of man; and, willing to show us the little value we should set on things perishable, has decreed that there should be nothing permanent on the face of the earth, but the very vicissitude that marks and agitates it.

My brethren, the true source of all our delusion is a false and deceitful security of life. Thousands pass their accounts around us, and we are not instructed: some are struck in our very arms-our parents, our children, our friends; and yet we stand as if we had shot into the earth an eternal root. Even the most sudden transitions from life to dust, produce but a momentary impression on the dust that breathes. No examples, however awful, sink into the heart. Every instant we see health, youth, beauty, titles, reputation, and fortune, disappear like a flash. Still do we pass gaily on in the broad and flowery way-the same busy, thoughtless, irreclaimable beings; panting for every pleasure as before; thirsting for riches and pre-eminence; rushing on the melancholy ruins of one another; intriguing for the employments of those whose ashes are scarce cold; nay, often, I fear, keeping an eye on

the very expiring, with the infamous view of seizing the earliest moment to solicit their spoils.

Great God! as if the all-devouring tomb, instead of solemnly pronouncing on the vanity of all human pursuits, on the contrary emitted sparks to rekindle all our attachment to a perishable world! Let me suppose, my brethren, that the number of man's days were inscribed on his brow! Is it not clear that an awful certainty of that nature must necessarily beget the most profound and operative reflection? Would it be possible to banish, even for a moment, the fatal term from his thought? The nearer he approached it, what an increase of alarm! what an increase of light on the folly of every thing but immortal good! Would all his views and aspirings be confined, as they now are, to the little space that intervenes between his cradle and his grave; and care, and anxiety, and miserable agitations, be his lot, merely to die overwhelmed with riches, and blazing with honours?

There is some allowance, perhaps, to be made for youththat boiling season of life, when all the passions are impetuous, and the attractions of the world so intimately felt, and so naturally obeyed. But to see men, as they decline from their meridian, burning fiercer and fiercer for that world; shocking the wrinkles on their brow by an insatiable desire for more wealth and distinction; sacrificing their glorious reversionary hopes for acquisitions and attainments that are on the point of being torn from them; promising themselves a kind of immortality here, as long as they behold a single being one step nearer to the grave, is such a horrible perversion of reason and religion, as places it out of the ordinary exertion of the power of God to enlighten and save them.

This much we all know, that, whatever length of days we promise ourselves, go we must; and, what is perhaps equally certain, at the moment we least expect it. Even examples of instant death in all the vigour of health, in the very bosom of security, are far from being uncommon. The scythe is suspended over our heads by a slender and imperceptible thread, which many causes, internal and external, often dissever without allowing us a breath for recollection. But, admitting that a misfortune so terrible is the lot of the fewer number are we, therefore, more secure from surprise? There is not one individual in ten thousand, when obliged to lie down under illness, however alarming, who can bring himself to believe it will prove fatal.

No! wedded to this miserable scene of existence, our hopes

are afloat to the last; our eyes are opened, only when they are ready to close for ever. Perhaps an instant of reflection to be made the most of; perhaps to be divided between the disposition of worldly affairs, and the business of eternity! An instant of reflection!-just God!-to bewail an entire life of disorder! to inspire faith the most lively, hope the most firm, love the most pure! An instant of reflection, when reason is half eclipsed, and all the faculties palsied by the strong grasp of death. Oh, my brethren, terrible is the fate of those, who are only roused from a long and criminal security, by the sword of Divine Justice already gleaming in their eyes!

But if no danger is to be apprehended while the thunder-of aeaven rolls at a distance, believe me, when it collects over our heads, we may be fatally convinced that a well-spent life is the only conductor that can avert the bolt. Let us reflect that time waits for no man. Sleeping or waking, our days are on the wing. If we look to those that are past, they are but as a point; the great feature of all nature is rapidity of growth, and of declension. Ages are renewed, but the figure of the world passeth away. God only remains the same. The torrent that sweeps along, runs at the base of his immutability; and he sees, with indignation, wretched mortals, as they pass, insulting him by the visionary hope of sharing that attribute which belongs to Him alone.

It is to the incomprehensible oblivion of our mortality, that the world owes all its fascination. Observe for what man toils. Observe what it often costs him to become rich and great;— dismal vicissitudes of hope and disappointment-often all that can degrade the dignity of his nature, and offend his God! Study the matter of the pedestal, and the instability of the statue. Scarce is it erected,-scarce presented to the stare of the multitude-when death, starting like a massy fragment from the summit of a mountain, dashes the proud colossus into dust! Where, then, is the promised fruit of all his toil? Where the wretched and deluded being, who fondly promised himself that he had laid up much goods for many years?Gone, my brethren, to his account!-a naked victim, trembling in the hands of the living God! Yes, my brethren, the final catastrophe of all human passions is rapid as it is awful. Fancy yourselves on that bed from which you never shall rise; and the reflection will exhibit, like a true and faithful mirror, what shadows we are and what shadows we pursue. Happy they who meet that great, inevitable transition, full of days!

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