thee," faid St. Peter to his mafter, "

yet will I not deny thee." That very night, notwithstanding this boafted fecurity, he repeated the crime three feveral times. And can we fuppofe, that prefumption, which occafioned an apoftle's fall, shall not ruin un unexperienced youth? The ftory is recorded for our inftruction: and fhould be a standing leffon against prefuming upon our own ftrength.

In conclufion, fuch as the dangers are, which arife from bad company, fuch are the advantages which accrue from good. We imitate, and catch the manners and fentiments of good men, as we do of bad. Cuftom, which renders vice lefs a deformity, renders virtue more lovely. Good examples have a force beyond inftruction, and warm us into emulation beyond precept; while the countenance and converfation of virtuous men encourage, and draw out into action every kindred difpofition of Our hearts.

Befides, as a fenfe of fhame often prevents our doing a right thing in bad company; it operates in the fame way in preventing our doing a wrong one in good. Our character becomes a pledge; and we cannot, without a kind of dishonour, draw back.

It is not poffible, indeed, for a youth, yet unfurnished with knowledge (which fits him for good company) to chufe his companions as he pleafes. A youth must have fomething peculiarly attractive, to qualify him for the acquaintance of men of eftablished reputation. What he has to do, is, at all events, to avoid bad company; and to endeavour, by improving his mind and morals, to qualify himfelf for the best.

Happy is that youth, who, upon his entrance into the world, can chufe his company with difcretion. There is often in vice, a gaiety, an unreferve, a freedom of manners, which are apt at fight to engage the unwary: while virtue, on the other hand, is often modeft, referved, difident, backward, and eafily difconcerted. That freedom of manners, however engaging, may cover a very corrupt heart: and this aukwardness, however unpleafing, may veil a thousand virtues. Suffer not your mind, therefore, to be eafily either engaged, or difgufted at firft fight. Form your intimacies with referve: and if drawn unawares into an acquaintance you difapprove, immediately retreat. Open not your hearts to every profeflion of friendship. They, whofe friendship is worth accepting, are, as

X

you ought to be, referved in offering it. Chufe your companions, not merely for the fake of a few outward accomplishments for the idle pleasure of fpending an agreeable hour; but mark their difpofition to virtue or vice; and, as much as poffible, chufe thofe for your companions, whom you fee others refpect: always remembering, that upon the choice of your company depends in a great measure the fuccefs of all you have learned; the hopes of your friends; your future characters in life; and, what you ought above all other things to value, the purity of your hearts. Gilpin.

$111. Religion the best and only Support in Cafes of real Stress.

There are no principles but thofe of religion to be depended on in cafes of real ftrefs; and thefe are able to encounter the worft emergencies; and to bear us up under all the changes and chances to which our life is fubject.

Confider then what virtue the very firft principle of religion has, and how wonderfully it is conducive to this end: That there is a God, a powerful, a wife and good Being, who firft made the world, and continues to govern it;-by whofe goodnefs all things are defigned-and by whofe providence all things are conducted to bring about the greatest and best ends. The forrowful and penfive wretch that was giving way to his misfortunes, and mournfully finking under them, the moment this doctrine comes in to his aid, hufhes all his complaints-and thus fpeaks comfort to his foul,-" It is the Lord, let him do what feemeth him good. Without his direction, I know that no evil can befal me,-without his permif fion, that no power can hurt me ;--it is impoffible a Being fo wife fhould mistake my happinefs-or that a Being fo good fhould contradict it.-If he has denied me riches or other advantages-perhaps he forefees the gratifying my withes would undo me, and by my own abuse of them be perverted to my ruin.-If he has denied me the requeft of children-or in his providence has thought fit to take them from me-how can I fay whether he has not dealt kindly with me, and only taken that away which he forefaw would embitter and fhorten my days?It does fo to thoufands, where the difobedience of a thanklefs child has brought down the parents grey hairs with forrow to the grave. Has he vifited me with ficknefs, poverty, or

other

is of that price, that it cannot be had at too great a purchase; fince without it, the beft condition of life cannot make us happy; and with it, it is impoffible we should be miferable even in the worst. Sterne's Sermons.

Things are great or fmall by comparifon-and he who looks no further than this world, and balances the accounts of his joys and fufferings from that confideration, finds all his forrows enlarged, and at the close of them will be apt to look back, and caft the fame fad reflection upon the whole, which the Patriarch did to Pharoah, "That few and evil had been the days of his pilgrimage," But let him lift up his eyes towards heaven, and ftedfaftly behold the life and immortality of a future ftate, he then wipes away all tears from off his eyes for ever; like the exiled captive, big with the hopes that he is returning home, he feels not the weight of his chains, or counts the days of his captivity; but looks forward with rapture towards the country where his heart is fled before.

These are the aids which religion offers us towards the regulation of our spirit under the evils of life, but like great cordials, they are seldom ufed but on great occurrences,-In the leffer evils of life, we feem to ftand unguarded-and our peace and contentment are overthrown, and our happiness broke in upon, by a little impatience of fpirit, under the crofs and untoward accidents we meet with. Thefe ftand unprovided for, and we neglect them as we do the flighter indifpofitions of the bodywhich we think not worth treating seriously, and fo leave them to nature. In good habits of the body, this may do, and I would gladly believe, there are fuch good habits of the temper, fuch a complexional eafe and health of heart, as may often fave the patient much medicine.-We are fill to confider, that however fuch good frames of mind are got, they are worth preferving by all rules:-Patience and contentment,which like the treasure hid in the field for which a man fold all he had to purchase

Religion.

The unbounded freedom and licentiouf

nefs of raillery and ridicule, is become of late years fo fashionable among us, and hath already been attended with fuch fatal and deftructive confequences, as to give à reafonable alarm to all friends of virtue. Writers have rose up within this laft century, who have endeavoured to blend and confound the colours of good and evil, to laugh us out of our religion, and undermine the very foundations of morality. The character of the Scoffer hath, by an unaccountable favour and indulgence, met not only with pardon, but approbation, and hath therefore been almost universally fought after and admired. Ridicule hath been called (and this for no other reason but becaufe Lord Shaftesbury told us fo) the teft of truth, and, as fuch, has been applied indifcriminately to every subject.

But in oppofition to all the puny followers of Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, all the laughing moralifts of the last age, and all the fneering fatyrifts of this, I shall not fcruple to declare, that I look on ridicule as an oppreffive and arbitrary tyrant, who like death throws down all distinction; blind to the charms of virtue, and deaf to the complaints of truth; a bloody Moloch, who delights in human facrifice; who loves to feed on the flesh of the poor, and to drink the tear of the afflicted; who doubles the weight of poverty by fcorn and laughter, and throws the poifon of contempt into the cup of distress to embitter the draught.

Truth, fay the Shaftefburians, cannot poffibly be an object of ridicule, and therefore cannot fuffer by it:-to which the anfwer is extremely obvious: Truth, naked, undifguifed, cannot, we will acknowledge. with them, be ridiculed; but Truth, like every thing elfe, may be mifreprefented: it is the bufinefs of ridicule therefore to difguife her; to drefs her up in a strange and fantastic habit; and when this is art fully performed, it is no wonder that the crowd should smile at her deformity.

The noblest philofopher and the best G4 moralist

moralist in the heathen world, the great and immortal Socrates, fell a facrifice to. this pernicious talent: ridicule first mifreprefented, and afterwards deftroyed him: the deluded multitude condemned him, not for what he was, but for what he appeared to be, an enemy to the religion of his country.

The folly and depravity of mankind will always furnifh out a fufficient fund for ridicule; and when we confider how vaft and fpacious a field the little fcene of human life affords for malice and ill-nature, we fhall not fo much wonder to fee the lover of ridicule rejoicing in it. Here he has always an opportunity of gratifying his pride, and fatiating his malevolence: from the frailties and abfurdities of others, he forms a wreath to adorn his own brow; gathers together, with all his art, the failings and imperfections of others, and offers them up a facrifice to felf-love. The loweft and most abandoned of mankind can ridicule the most exalted beings; thofe who never could boaft of their own perfection,

Nor raise their thoughts beyond the earth they

tread,

Even thefe can cenfure, thofe can dare deride
A Bacon's avarice, or a Tully's pride.

It were well indeed for mankind, if ridicule would confine itfelf to the frailties and imperfections of human nature, and not extend its baleful influence over the few good qualities and perfections of it: but there is not perhaps a virtue to be named, which may not, by the medium through which it is feen, be diflorted into a vice. The glafs of ridicule reflects things not only darkly, but falfely alfo: it always difcolours the objects before it ventures to reprefent them to us. The pureft metal, by the mixture of a bafe alloy, fhall feem changed to the meaneft. Ridicule, in the fame manner, will cloath prudence in the garb of avarice, call courage rafhncfs, and brand good-nature with the name of prodigality; will laugh at the compaffionate man for his weaknefs, the ferious man for his precifenefs, and the pious man for his hypocrify.

Modefty is one of virtue's beft fupports; and it is obfervable, that wherever this amiable quality is most eminently confpicuous, ridicule is always ready to attack and overthrow it. The man of wit and humour is never fo happy as when he can raite the bluth of ingenuous merit, or itamp

the marks of deformity and guilt on the features of innocence and beauty. Thus may our perfections confpire to render us both unhappy and contemptible!

The lover of ridicule will, no doubt, plead in the defence of it, that his defign is to reclaim and reform mankind; that he is lied in the fervice of Virtue, and engaged in the caufe of Truth ;-but I will venture to aflure him, that the allies he boasts of difclaim his friendfhip and defpife his afiiftance. Truth defires no fuch foldier to fight under his banner; Virtue wants no fuch advocate to plead for her. As it is generally exercited, it is too great a punifhment for fall faults, too light and inconfiderable for great ones: the little foibles and blemishes of a character deferve rather pity than contempt; the more atrocious crimes call for hatred and abhorrence. Thus, we fee, that in one cafe the medicine operates too powerfully, and in the other is of no effect.

I might take this opportunity to add, that ridicule is not always contented with ravaging and deflroying the works of man, but boldly and impiouly attacks thofe of God; enters even into the fanctuary, and prophanes the temple of the Most High. A late noble writer has made ufe of it to afperfe the characters and deftroy the validity of the writers of both the Old and New Teilament; and to change the folemn truths of Chriftianity into matter of mirth and laughter. The books of Mofes are called by him fables and tales, fit only for the amufement of children: and St. Paul is treated by him as an enthufiaft, an idiot, and an avowed enemy to that religion which he profeffed. One would not furely think that there was any thing in Chriflianity fo ludicrous as to raife laughter, or to excite contempt; but on the contrary, that the nature of its precepts, and its own intrinfic excellence, would at leaft have fecured it from fuch indignities.

Nothing gives us a higher opinion of thofe ancient heathens whom our modern bigots are fo apt to defpife, than that air of piety and devotion which runs through all their writings; and though the Pagan theolcgy was full of abfurdities and inconfiftencies, which the more refined fpirits among their poets and philofophers muft have doubtlefs defpifed, rejected, and contemned; fuch was their refpect and veneration for the established religion of their country, fuch their regard to decency and

ferioufnefs

seriousness, such their modefty and diffidence in affairs of fo much weight and importance, that we very feldom meet with jeft or ridicule on fubjects which they held thus facred and refpectable.

The privilege of publicly laughing at religion, and the profeffion of it, of making the laws of God, and the great concerns of eternity, the objects of mirth and ridicule, was referved for more enlightened ages; and denied the more pious heathens, to reflect difgrace and ignominy on the Chriflian æra.

It hath indeed been the fate of the beft and pureft religion in the world, to become the jeft of fools; and not only, with its Divine Founder, to be fcourged and perfecuted, but with him to be mocked and fpit at, trampled on and defpifed. But to confider the dreadful confequences of ridicule on this occafion, will better become the divine than effayift; to him therefore I fhall refer it, and conclude this effay by obferving, that after all the undeferved encomiums fo lavishly beftowed on this child of wit and malice, fo univerfally approved and admired, I know of no fervice the pernicious talent of ridicule can be of, unless it be to raise the blush of modefty, and put virtue out of countenance; to enhance the miseries of the wretched, and poifon the feaft of happiness; to infult man, affront God; to make us, in fhort, hateful to our fellow-creatures, uneafy to ourfelves, and highly difpleafing to the Almighty. Smollet.

§ 113. On Prodigality.

It is the fate of almost every paffion, when it has paffed the bounds which nature prescribes, to counteract its own purpose. Too much rage hinders the warrior from circumfpection; and too much eagerness of profit hurts the credit of the trader. Too much ardour takes away from the lover that eafinefs of addrefs with which ladies are delighted. Thus extravagance, though dictated by vanity, and incited by voluptuoufnefs, feldom procures ultimately either applaufe or pleasure.

If praise be justly estimated by the character of thofe from whom it is received, little fatisfaction will be given to the fpendthrift by the encomiums which he purchases, For who are they that animate him in his purfuits, but young men, thoughtlefs and abandoned like himself, unacquainted with all on which the wifdom of nations has im

prefied the ftamp of excellence, and de

void alike of knowledge and of virtue? By whom is his profufion praifed, but by wretches who confider him as fubfervient to their purposes; Syrens that entice him to fhipwreck; and Cyclops that are gaping to devour him?

Every man whofe knowledge, or whose virtue, can give value to his opinion, looks with fcorn or pity (neither of which can afford much gratification to pride) on him whom the panders of luxury have drawn into the circle of their influence, and whom he fees parcelled out among the different minifters of folly, and about to be torn to pieces by tailors and jockies, vintners and attornies; who at once rob and ridicule him, and who are fecretly triumphing over his weakness, when they prefent new incitements to his appetite, and heighten his defires by counterfeited applause.

Such is the praife that is purchased by prodigality. Even when it is yet not difcovered to be falfe, it is the praife only of thofe whom it is reproachful to pleafe, and whofe fincerity is corrupted by their intereft; men who live by the riots which they encourage, and who know, that whenever their pupil grows wife, they shall lofe their power. Yet with fuch flatteries, if they could laft, might the cravings of vanity, which is feldom very delicate, be fatisfied: but the time is always haftening forward, when this triumph, poor as it is, fhall vanish, and when thofe who now furround him with obfequiousness and compliments, fawn among his equipage, and animate his riots, fhall turn upon him with infolence, and reproach him with the vices. promoted by themselves.

And as little pretenfions has the man, who fquanders his eftate by vain or vicious expences, to greater degrees of pleafure than are obtained by others. To make any happiness fincere, it is necessary that we believe it to be lafting; fince whatever we fuppofe ourselves in danger of lofing, must be enjoyed with folicitude and uneafinefs, and the more value we set upon it, the more muft the prefent poffeffion be im bittered. How can he, then, be envied for his felicity, who knows that its continuance cannot be expected, and who is confcious that a very fhort time will give him up to the gripe of poverty, which will be harder to be borne, as he has given way to more exceffes, wantoned in greater abundance, and indulged his appetite with more profufenefs.

It appears evident, that frugality is neceffar