value which renders it worthy of our high efteem and participation. And what are then the good properties, the virtues, we are to bring with us into focial life and there exercise; what the faults we have to avoid, if we would have it of great value to us?

Honesty and openness of heart is the first good property, the first virtue we should introduce with us and exercise in focial life; deftitution of all restraint and all circumfpection, is on the other hand the first fault we fhould avoid, and therewith the groffness which is its infeparable attendant. To be fociable implies to communicate to one another our thoughts, our fentiments, to compare together our opinions and views, to barter them against each other, and to rectify and improve them, by each other. Would you reap this benefit from it, my pious hearers? Then must truth be in your dif courses, in your gestures, in your looks, in the tone of your voice, and in your whole carriage and behaviour; then muft you actually think and feel what you pretend to think and to feel, be that in reality. for which you are defirous to be taken. Then must you therefore not lock up your thoughts within own breafts, and not reject every reflection and fentiment, every opinion which is not yet marked with the stamp of the mode, or the prevailing fafhion of the day, and is not thoroughly and univerfally current; then must you not fedulously strive to conceal yourfelf from others; not torment yourself with that hefitation that kills all the vivacity and sprightli

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aefs of converfation, at every word you utter, every sentiment that arises in your bofom, every feature of your face, every gesture of your body, as if you were afraid of betraying the true state of your mind ; then must you neither regard focial life as an intercourse of impostures, nor use it as a school of diffi mulation. This would not be a fair, honourable and obliging commutation of what we are and have, but an artful, and fraudulent intercourse, imposing upon others what we are not and do not poffefs, and yet would appear to be and to have. By this means focial life would be turned into a low farce; and what value could it then be of to thinking and fenfible men?

Beware however of imagining that honefty and franknefs are incompatible with circumfpection and prudence. Though you communicate freely and honeftly with others, you have no need on that ac count to repofe a blind confidence in all you meet; to disclose to every one the inmoft thoughts and fentiments of heart. Though you your Though you do not diffemble, do not give yourself out for better than you are, you are not therefore unneceffarily to reveal all infirmities and failings. Though you fay to others nothing but what you think and feel, you need not therefore directly tell everybody whatever you think and whatever you feel. Though you fhun the anxiety of exceffive fcrupulofity about whatever you say and do, you need not therefore speak and act without prudence and circumfpection.

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Otherwife you will injure many, give offence to many, keep numbers of weak but well-intentioned perfons aloof from you, prevent many good defigns, but not yet ripe for execution, from coming to effect, caufe the truth to be fufpected which is not comprehenfible to everybody, and bring contempt on your ill-timed expreffions of fentiment. Your frank nefs will become folly, and your fincerity degenerate into rudeness.

The use of a generous freedom is another good property, another virtue, which we fhould take with us and display in focial life; abfolute licentioufnefs and effrontery on the other hand is another fault we should avoid. Would you run no risk of finding focial life burdenfome to you; would you have it to be not fo much labour and toil as refreshment and recreation: then by all means you fhould breathe freely, think freely, judge freely, act freely; you should venture, in moft cafes, to follow your own innocent humour and your irreproachable inclinations; you should not scruple to appear what you are, and to do what you find agreeable; you fhould not think yourself bound to comply with the felf-conceit and the humour of others, to model yourself by other perfons in all things, and abfolutely to fay and to do nothing but what has been heretofore received and tranfmitted down, or what everybody fays and does. This would be introducing an infipid uniformity and an oppreffive languor into focial life.

But

But on the other fide if you would have it as little burdenfome and difagreeable to your company as to yourself; then you must not pretend to prefide alone, not conftantly lay down the law, not always affume the right to determine and controul the amufements and affairs and connections of others; you fhould allow others the fame liberty you use yourself and they allow, make them the fame little facrifices of complaifance and indulgence which they at other times make you; and therefore interchangeably direct and obey, now follow others, then be followed. In fhort, you must fet bounds to the use of your liberty, whenever it would be injurious to others, or they might reasonably take offence at it; particularly whenever it might have a tendency to lead the younger members of fociety into error or fin. The unlimited use of one's liberty in focial intercourse is criminal licentiousness, is actual tyranny and disgusting arrogance.

Graceful, polite and agreeable manners are a third requifite which we should carry into focial life, and attend to the observance of; artificial conftraint on the contrary and a stiff formal carriage, is a third fault we are to avoid; and even the christian, who in every respect ought to be the most accomplished as well as the best of men, fhould not imagine that matters of this kind are indifferent to him, or unworthy of his attention. To be agreeable to others, and even to please by the exterior, is a purpose of focial life, and one of the principal fources of the pleasures

pleasures it procures us. The eye must not there be hurt by anything repulfive and fhocking in mien, geftures, or in apparel; no harsh, discordant, fhrieking tones must grate upon the ear; the tafte for the beautiful muft be fatisfied and entertained, by the natural, the becoming, the proper, the captivating, in the figure, the posture, the voice, the garments, and the whole demeanor. Would you, my pious hearers, attain and promote these views; adorn your perfons, but overload them not with borrowed ornaments: follow the fafhion fo far as is confiftent with propriety and a cultivated tafte; but run not into the extravagant or ridiculous; let a graceful eafe and a noble freedom, not an artificial formality, a childish levity, or an offensive ferocity, be the rule of your movements and outward appearance. Let the tone of your voice be natural and true and foft, and fuitably modulated to the fubject of your discourse, but never so as to become inaudible by an exceffive modefty, or disgusting by an affected fuavity: study to acquire elegant and complacent manners, but let them be your own, and not a close, fervile, and thereby a ridiculous imitation of extraneous behaviour. Whatever relates to decorum and outward address fhould not be the effect of affectation and grimace, but the genuine expreffion of an inward sense of the beautiful and becoming, and receive animation from that fentiment alone; and even the outward deportment, the very garb of wisdom and virtue, fhould add a

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