taking in bitterness and death with the waters of them. I will speak without a metaphor. Mankind too often seek their principal pleasure, their whole felicity, in what is called the great world, in numerous and brilliant companies, in diftracting and fascinating amusements, in extenfive connections with fuch perfons as are diftinguished by their rank, their train, their opulence, their luxuries, and their magnificence, and live fumptuously every day, or rather seem as if they lived. Too often do they run from one fuch glittering circle to another, from one fuch company of counterfeit freedom and joy to another, in hopes of affuaging their thirst for pleasure and happiness. But how feldom do they there find what they feek! How much feldomer do they find it fo pure, fo complete, as they expected! How oft do they there mistake the fhadow for the fubftance, appearance for reali ty, and find themselves lamentably and fhamefully deceived in their most flattering expectations! And how much more eafily and fatisfactorily, how much more fincerely and completely might they have found and enjoyed this pleasure and happiness, if they had been contented to look for it, not fo far off, but nearer at hand; not in noife, but in quiet; not in what depends on mere accident, but is in their own power; in fhort, if they had fought for it in domeftic life?

Yes, in this little unrenowned circle, there is far more real, folid joy, than in grand and brilliant companies;

VOL. II.

H

companies; more happiness and greater variety of it is to be found in this fmall round of occupations and pleasures than on the vaft theatre of glaring fhows and tumultuous diverfions. Here, in the enjoyment of domestic happiness, it is that the wife man, the christian, principally feeks and finds refrefament, recreation and pleasure. Here even our lord, whofe taste and fentiments were in all refpects fo humane and generous, fought and found them. Wearied by the labours of the day, and the contradictions of his enemies, he left them, as our text informs us, and went out of the city into Bethany, there to participate in the peace and comfort of a family united together by the tenderest affection, the family of Lazarus and his fifters, and to increase their fatisfactions by his presence and converfe. This humble abode of domestic happiness he preferred to the lofty palaces of the great, to the feftivities of the rich and the riotous mirth of the voluptuous. Happy they, who in this refpect likewife are fo minded as Jefus was! They can never be deficient in real felicity.

Yes, my dear friends, great, uncommonly great, is the value of domestic happiness! But infinitely greater to them who know it by experience, than to fuch as are only acquainted with it from defcription. May I be enabled to do justice to it at least in my representation! In order to this, let us enter upon two inquiries. The firft, how fhould domeftic life be conftituted, that it may have a great

value? The other, what gives it this value; or, wherein does it confift?

Domestic life, like all other external goods, is not neceffarily and of itself, but only under certain conditions, in particular circumstances, a real advantage and a fource of true felicity. Home is but too frequently rendered the feat of tirefomcnefs and difguft; the scene of low and ungoverned paffions; the abode of vexation, of ill-humour, of various diffentions, of petulance and malice; not feldom an actual place of torment. This is always more or less the cafe, where wisdom and virtue are not of the party, and do not animate the occupations and pleasures of domeftic life. Only there where wisdom and virtue dwell, where intelligent, well-meaning perfons live together, only there dwell peace, fatisfaction and joy; it is they alone that make either a cottage or a palace the receptacle of pleasure; only by their means is any family, whether great or fmall, rendered capable of happiness. For only the intelligent and good can tell what folid happiness implies; none but they have either the taste or fentiment proper for it; it is they alone that estimate things by their real value, and know how to enjoy above all things what is true and beautiful and good, unesteemed and unknown as it may be in the great world, and among fuch as are not fufceptible of the more delicate fenfations. To them a word that overflows from the fulness of the heart, a look that indicates the foul,

an instance of tender affiduity, an inconfiderable but guileless action, an unimportant act of kindness but performed from real affection, a calm and filent fentiment of friendship, a free effufion of a man's thoughts and fentiments into the bofom of his family, is of more worth than the reiterated proteftations of civility and regard, than all the flattering encomiums and blandishments, than all the friendly fmiles and gestures, than all the fplendid entertainments in which the glory and happiness of the generality of large companies confift.

Wherever domeftic happiness is found, it fhews us perfons who are connected together by real, intrinfic love and friendfhip, who live entirely by each other, and who feek their happiness, their honour, and their force, in the mutual union of their hearts. Whatever each has and fays and does and enjoys, how he is inclined, and whatever befalls him can and must be of importance only to perfons of this defcription. They alone know how to confider the advantages of one with undeviating complacency; to obferve the infirmities and failings of another without diflike; to reprove the indifcretions of a third with inoffenfive gentleness; to understand the looks of each; to prevent the wants and wifhes of all; mutually to comply with the defigns of each other; to harmonize with the feelings of the reft; and to rejoice heartily in all the fucceffes, even the most inconfiderable, that happen to each other. Wherever frigidity of temper

and

and untractablenefs, where jealoufy and envy prevail, there no real happiness is poffible, in the narrow circle of daily intercourfe.

Laftly, domestic happiness fuppofes a taste for truth, for nature, for graceful fimplicity, for ferene repose; as they are in contraft with error and art, ftudied and forced pleafures, and the more oftentatious and poignant diverfions. That pure and generous taste alone can give any value to the comforts of domeftic life, and, to fach as underftand and enjoy it, render all its concerns important and delightful, as the fources of fatisfaction and pleasure. For, in this cafe, they arife, not fo much from the objects, as from the eye that beholds them and the heart that feels them; not fo much from the importance of the tranfactions and incidents themselves, as from the natural and spontaneous manner in which they arife, and the pleafing intereft taken in them. To perfons of a found judgment and an uncorrupted heart, the cheerful countenance of the fpoufe, the lifping of the infants, the mirthful sports of the children, the fight of reafon in its bud and in its bloom; to them the earnest curiofity of one, the innocent vivacity of another, the growth and improvement of a third, the contentedness of all, is a fcene far preferable, with all its privacy and fimplicity, to any other however intricately conducted or fplendidly performed; to them the filent and placid existence in a fociety of open affection, of unrestrained and unobtrufive benevolence

H 3