of virtue, and thereby of all the true hap piness we have here to expect.

To charge religion with the mischief occasioned by mistakes about it, I think full as impertinent, as to decry reason for the wrong use that has been made of it; or government, for the bad administration of every kind of it, in every part of the world. What shall prove to the advantage of mankind, will, in all cases, depend upon themselves that which is, confessedly, most for it, in every instance you can think of, you see, occasionally, abused; and by that abuse becoming as hurtful, as it would, otherwise, have been beneficial. Controversy I hate; and to read books of it as ill suits my leisure as my inclination: yet I do not profess a religion, the grounds of which I have never considered. And upon the very same grounds that I am convinced of the truth of religion in general, I am so of the truth of Christianity. The good of the world is greatly promoted by it. If we would take Christianity for our guide throughout, we could not have a better-we could not have a surer to all the happiness of which our present state admits. Its simplicity may have been disguised-its intention perverted-its doctrines misrepresented, and conclusions drawn, suiting rather the interest or ambition of the expositor, than the directions of the text: but when I resort to the rule itself; when I find it asserting that the whole of my duty is to love God above all things, and my neighbour as myself--to live always mindful by whom I am sent into, and preserved in, the world, and always disposed to do in it the utmost good in my power; I can no more doubt, whether this is the voice of my Creator, than I can doubt, whether it must be his will, that, when he has made me a reasonable creature, I should act like one. But I will drop a topic on which I am sure your father must have sufficiently enlarged: I can only speak to it more generally: difficulties and objections I must leave him to obviate; yet thus much confidently affirming, that if you won't adopt an irreligious scheme, till you find one clear of them, you will continue as good a Christian, as it has been our joint care to make you. I pray God you may do so. He that would corrupt your principles, is the enemy you have most to fear; an enemy who means you worse, than any you will draw your sword against.

When you are told, that the soldier's religion is his honour, observe the practice of

them from whom you hear it; you'll soon then have proof enough, they mean little more by honour, than what is requisite to keep or advance their commissions-that they are still in their own opinion men of nice honour, though abandoned to the grosses: sensuality and excess though chargeable with acts of the foulest perfidy and injustice that the honour by which they govern themselves differs as widely from what is truly such, as humour from reason. True humour is to virtue what good breeding is to good-nature, the polishing, the refinement of it. And the more you think of Christianity, the more firmly you will be persuaded, that in its precepts the strictest rules of honour are contained. By these I, certainly, would have you always guided, and, on that very account, have reminded you of the religion which not only shews you them, but proposes the reward likeliest to attach you to them. I have done. Take care of yourself. You won't fly danger, don't court it. If the one would bring your courage into question, the other will your sense. The rash is as ill qualified for command, as the coward. May every blessing attend you! And to secure your happiness, live always attentive to your duty; reverence and obey him to whom you owe your being, and from whom must come whatever good you can hope for in it. Adieu. I can't say it would sufficiently comfort me for your loss, that you died with honour; but it would infinitely less afflict me to hear of you among the dead, than among the profligate.

What has been the issue of instructions like these from both parents? Scipio, for so we will call the worthy man, from the time he received his commission, has alike distinguished himself by his courage and conduct. The greatest dangers have not terrified, the worst examples have not corrupted him. He has approved himself disdaining by cowardice to keep life, and ahhorring to shorten it by excess: the bravery with which he has hazarded it, is equalled by the prudence with which he passes it.

$ 149. On the Employment of Time.

ESSAY THE SECOND.

Cum animus, cognitis perceptisque virtutibus, a corporis obsequio, indulgentiaque discesserit, voluptatemque, sicut labem aliquam decoris oppresserit, omnemque mortis dolorisque timorem effugerit, societatemque caritatis colerit

cum suos, oinnesque naturâ conjunctos, suos duxerit, cultumque deorum, et puram religionem susceperit-quid eo, dici aut excogitari poterit beatius? Tull. de Legibus.

Among the Indians there is an excellent set of men, called Gymnosophists: these I greatly admire, not as skilled in propagating the vine-in the arts of grafting or agriculture. They apply not themselves to till the ground-to search after gold-to break the horse-to tame the bull -to shear or feed sheep or goats. What is it then that engages them? One thing preferable to all these. Wisdom is the pursuit as well of the old men, the teachers, as of the young, their disciples. Nor is there any thing among them that I so much praise as their aversion to sloth and idleness. When the tables are spread, before the meat is set on them, all the youth, assembling to their meal, are asked by their masters-In what useful task they have been employed from sun-rising to that time.-One represents himself as having been chosen an arbitrator, and succeeded by his prudent management in composing a difference in making them friends who were at variance. A second had been paying obedience to his parent's commands. A third had made some dis. covery by his own application, or learned something by another's instruction. The rest gave an account of themselves in the

Dipping into Apuleius for my after Boon's amusement, the foregoing passage Was the last I read before I fell into a slumber, which exhibited to me a vast concourse of the fashionable people at the court-end of the town, under the examination of a Gymposophist, how they had passed their morning. He began with the men.

Many of them acknowledged, that the morning, properly speaking, was near gone, before their eyes were opened.

Many of them had only risen to dress→→ to visit to amuse themselves at the draw ing-room or coffee-house.

Some had by riding or walking been Consulting that health at the beginning of the day, which the close of it would wholly pass in impairing.

Some from the time they had got on their own clothes, had been engaged in steing others put on theirs in attending leyees-in endeavouring to procure,

by their importunity, what they had disqualified themselves for by their idle

ness.

Some had been early out of their beds, but it was because they could not, from their ill-luck the preceding evening, rest in them; and when risen, as they had no spirits, they could not reconcile themselves to any sort of application.

Some had not had it in their power to do what was of much consequence; in the former part of the morning, they wanted to speak with their tradesmen ; and in the latter, they could not be denied to their friends.

Others, truly, had been reading, but reading what could make them neither wiser nor better; what was not worth their remembering, or what they should wish to forget.

It grieved me to hear so many of eminent rank, both in the sea and land service, giving an account of themselves that levelled them with the meanest under their command.

Several appeared with an air expressing the fullest confidence that what they had to say for themselves would be to the philosopher's entire satisfaction. They had been employed as virtuosi should be-had been exercising their skill in the liberal arts, and encouraging the artist. Medals, pictures, statues, had undergone their examination, and been their purchase. They had been inquiring what the literati of France, Germany, Italy, had of late published; and they had bought what suited their respective tastes.

When it appeared, that the completing a Roman series had been their concern, who had never read over, in their own language, a Latin historian-that they who grudged no expense for originals, knew them only by hearsay from their worst copies-that the very persons who had paid so much for the labour of Rysbrack, upon Sir Andrew's judgment, would, if they had followed their own, have paid the same sum for that of Bird's-that the bookbuyers had not laid out their money on what they ever proposed to read, but on what they had heard commended, and what they wanted to fit a shelf, and fill a library that only served them for a breakfast-room; this class of men the sage pronounced the idlest of all idle people, and doubly blameable, as wasting alike their time and their fortune.

The follies of one sex had so tired the

philosopher, that he would suffer no account to be given him of those of the other. It was easy for him to guess how the females must have been employed, where such were the examples in those they were to honour and obey.

For a short space there was a general silence. The Gymnosophist at length expressed himself to this effect: You have been represented to me as a people who would use your own reason-who would think for yourselves--who would freely inquire, form your opinions on evidence, and adopt no man's sentiments merely because they were his. A character, to which, for aught I can find, you are as ill entitled as, perhaps, most nations in the universe. The freedom with which great names are opposed, and received opinions questioned by some among you, is, probably, no other than what is used by some of every country in which liberal inquiries are pursued. The difference is, you safely publish your sentiments, on every subject; to them it would be penal to avow any notions that agree not with those of their superiors. But when you thus pass your days, as if you thought not at all, have you any pretence to freedom of thought? Can they be said to love truth, who shun consideration? When it seems your study to be useless, to be of no service to others or yourselves when you treat your time as a burthen, to be eased of which is your whole concern-when that situation, those circumstances of life are accounted the happiest, which must tempt you to be idle and insignificant; human nature is as much dishonoured by you, as it is by any of those people, whose savageness or superstition you have in the greatest contempt.

First, By our present state and condition;

Secondly, By the relation we bear to each other;

Thirdly, By that in which we stand towards the Deity.

If we are raised above the brutes-if we are undeniably of a more excellent kind, we must be made for a different purpose; we cannot have the faculties they want, but in order to a life different from theirs ; and when our life is not such-when it is but a round of eating, drinking, and sleeping, as theirs is-when, by our idleness and inattention, we are almost on a level with them, both as to all sense of duty, and all useful knowledge that we possess, our time must have been grievously misemployed; there is no surer token of its having been so, than that we have done so little to advance ourselves above the herd, when our Creator had vouchsafed us so far superior a capacity.

The creatures below us are wholly intent on the pleasures of sense, because they are capable of no other: but as man is capable of much higher and nobler, he must have this privilege, that his pursuits may be accordingly-that his better nature should be better employed.

Were we born only to satisfy the appetites we have in common with the brute kind, we should, like it, have no higher principle to direct us- to furnish us with other delights. All the distinction between us that this principle can make, was, undoubtedly, intended by our Creator to be made; and the less any appears, our abuse of this principle, and consequently our opposition to our Maker's will, is the more

notorious and blameable.

The Sage here raising his arm with his voice, I concluded it advisable not to stand quite so near him. In attempting to remove I awoke, and hastened to commit to writing a dream that had so much truth in it, and therefore expressed how seasonable it will be to consider to what use of our time we are directed.

cording to the powers that we have, and the creatures below us want. How industrious we should be to improve each opportunity for this, we may learn by attending, in the next place, to our uncertain and, at all events, short continuance on earth.

We are fully apprised, that by the pains of a few hours or days no progress can be made in any thing, that has the slightest pretence to commendation. Those accomplishments, that are confined to our fingers' ends, what months, what years of application do they cost us! And, alas! what trifles are the most admired of them,

in

in comparison of a great number of others for which we are qualified; and which, as they are so infinitely preferable to these, ought to be so much the more earnestly sought! When, therefore, the whole term allowed for gaining and using them, is thus precarious and short, we can have but a very small portion of it to dispose as we please-to pass entirely as mere fancy or humour suggests. If much is to be done in a very short time, the good husbandry of it must be consulted: and there is no one, who considers what we, universally, may effect-in how many particulars we may be of service to ourselves-how much depends upon our endeavours-how necessary they are for our attaining what should be most valued by us, what is of greatest consequence to us; there is, I say, no one, who considers these things, but must admit, that we have much to do, and therefore, that the scanty term we have for it ought to be carefully managed can only by a prudent management suffice for the dispatch of such a task.

And our opportunities for making at tainments thus desirable, should be so much the more diligently watched and readily embraced, as they meet with many unavoid. able interruptions even in our short life.

How great a part of our time is necessarily lost to us-is consumed by, that shorter death, our sleep! We are really better economists than ordinary in this instance, if only a third part of our life thus passes: and on the rest of it what a large demand is made by our meals-by our justifiable recreations--by the forms and civilities, to which a proper correspondence with our fellow-creatures obliges us! Add to these necessary deductions, the many casual ones with which we all unavoidably meet, and it will soon appear, what an exceeding small part of our short continuance on earth, we have to bestow on such purposes of living, as alone can be of credit to us.

We are further to reflect, that in the small part of our life, in which we can be employed like reasonable creatures, opportunities, for doing what may be of greatest moment, do not always serve us: and with some of them, if lost, we never again meet.

We depend very much on things without as, and over which we have no so't of ommand. There may be an extraordinary advantage derived to us from them; but, if the first offer of this be neglected, we may never have a second.

Nor is it only the dependence we have on things without us, that requires us so carefully to watch our opportunities; we have a still more awakening call, if possible, to this from within ourselves-from the restraints to which the exercise of our powers is subjected. We cannot use these when and as we please-we cannot chuse the time of life wherein to avail ourselves of our natural endowments, and to reap all the advantage designed us in them.

When we are in our youth, our bodies easily receive whatever mien or motion can recommend us: where is the sound so difficult, which our tongue cannot be then taught to express? To what speed may our feet then be brought, and our hands to what dexterity! But it we are advanced to manhood before the forming us in any of these ways is attempted, all endeavours after it will then either be quite fruitless, or, probably, less successful than it would have been in our earlier years; nd whatever is success be, a much greater might have formerly been obtained with half the pains.

The very same is it with our understanding, with our will and our passions. There is a certain season when our minds may be enlarged-when a vast stock of useful truths may be acquired-when our passions will readily submit to the government of reason--when right principles may be so fixed in us, as to influence every important action of our future lives: but the season for this extends neith-r to the whole, nor to any considerable length of our continuance upon earth; it is limited to a few years of our term; and, if through. out these we neglect it, error or ignorance are, according to the ordinary course of things, entailed upon us. Our will becomes our law our lusts gain a strength that we afterwards vainly oppose-wrong inclinations become so confirmed in us, that they defeat all our endeavours to correct them.

II. Let me proceed to consider what directions are furnished us for the employment of our time, by the relation we bear to each other.

ocity is manifestly upheld by a circula on of kindness: we are all of us, in some way or other, wanting as i tance, and in like manner, qualified to give it. None are in a state of ind. pendency on their fellow-cre. cures. The most sienderly endow ed are not a me burthen on their kind; even they can contribute their share to the

M

common

common good, and may be to the political body, what those parts of us, in which we least pride ourselves, are to the natural, not greatly indeed its ornaments,

but much for its real use.

We learn what are justly our natural claims, from this mutual dependency: that on its account, as well as for other reasons, our life is not to pass in a round of pleasure, or idleness, or according to the suggestions of mere humour or fancy, or in sordid or selfish pursuits.

There can be nothing more evidently my duty than that I should return the kindness I receive-than that, if many are employed in promoting my interest, I should be as intent on furthering theirs.

All men are by nature equal. Their common passions and affections, their common infirmities, their common wants give such constant remembrances of this equality, even to them who are most disposed to forget it, that they cannot, with all their endeavours, render themselves wholly unmindful thereof they cannot become insensible, how unwilling soever they may be to consider, that their debt is as large as their demands that they owe to others, as much as they can reasonably expect from them.

But are all then upon a level-must those distinctions be thrown down, which, being the chief support of the order and peace of society, are such of its happiness; and which nature herself may be judged to appoint, by the very dispositions and abilities with which she forms us; qualifying some for rule, and fitting some for subjection?

That, in many instances, we are all upon a level, none can deny, who regard the materials of our bodies-the diseases and pain to which we are subject-our entrance into the world, the means of preserving us in it-the length of our continuance therein our passage out of it. But then as it will not follow, that, because we are made of the same materials-are liable to the same accidents and end, we, therefore, are the same throughout; neither is it a just conclusion, that, because we are levelled in our dependence, we should be so in our employments.

Superiority will remain-distinctions will be preserved, though all of us must serve each other, while that service is differently performed.

Superiority has no sort of connexion with idleness and uselessness: it may exempt us from the bodily fatigue of our in

feriors, from their confinement and hardships-it may entitle some to the deference and submission of those about them; but it by no means exempts any of us from all attention to the common good, from all endeavours to promote it by no means does it entitle any of us to live, like so many drones, on the industry of others, to reap all the benefit we can from them, and be of none to them.

The distinctions of prince and subject— noble and vulgar-rich and poor, consist not in this, that the one has a great deal to do, and the other nothing-that the one must be always busied, and the other may be always taking his pleasure, or enjoying his ease. No, in this they consist, that these several persons are differently busied assist each other in different ways.

The sovereign acquaints himself with the true state of his kingdom-directs the execution of its laws-provides for the exact administration of justice-secures the properties of his people-preserves their peace. These are his cares; and that they may be the more assured of success, and have their weight more easily supported, his commands find the readiest obedience -a large revenue is assigned him—the highest honours are paid him. It is not, in any of these instances, the man who is regarded, but the head of the commu nity; and that for the benefit of the community-for the security of its quiet, and the furtherance of its prosperity.

The nobility have it their task, to qualify themselves for executing the more honourable and important offices of the commonwealth, and to execute these offices with diligence and fidelity. The very station, to which they are advanced, is supposed either the recompense of great service done the public, or of the merit of an uncommon capacity to serve it.

The richer members of the state, as they have all the helps that education can give them-as in their riper age they have all the opportunity they can wish for to improve upon these helps as their circumstances exempt them from the temptations, to which poverty is exposed; to them is committed the discharge of those offices in the commonwealth, which are next to the highest, and sometimes even of these-they either concur in making laws for the society, or are chiefly concerned in executing them-commerce, arts, science, liberty, virtue, whatever can be for the credit and peace-for the ease and prosperity of a na