Imatges de pàgina
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is to excel ourselves;—it is pleasant to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is victory; it is pleasant to command our appetites and passions, and to keep them in due order, within the bounds of reason and religion,-because-that is empire.

26. Homer* was the greater genius;-Virgil the better artist. In the one, we most admire the man ;-in the other, the work. Homer hurries us with a commanding impetuosity -Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion ;-Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden overflow;-Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a constant stream. And when we look upon their machines, Homer seems, like his own Jupiter|| in his terrors, shaking Olympus,scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; -Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods,-laying plans for empires, and ordering his whole creation.

LESSON LXXXVII.

Happiness is founded in rectitude of conduct.-HARRIS.

1. ALL men pursue good, and would be happy, if they knew how; not happy for minutes, and miserable for hours; but happy, if possible, through every part of their existence.Either, therefore, there is a good of this steady, durable kind, or there is not. If not, then all good must be transient and uncertain; and if so, an object of the lowest value, which can little deserve our attention or inquiry.

2. But if there be a better good, such a good as we are seeking, like every other thing, it must be derived from some cause; and that cause must either be external, internal, or mixed; in as much as, except these three, there is no other possible. Now, a steady, durable good, cannot be derived from an external cause; since all derived from externals must fluctuate as they fluctuate.

3. By the same rule, it cannot be derived from a mixture of the two; because the part which is external, will proportionably destroy its essence. What then remains but the cause internal? the very cause which we have supposed, when we place the sovereign good in mind,-in rectitude of conduct.

+ A Latin poet.

A Grecian poet.
Nile, the great river of Egypt, which annually overflows its banks.
Jupiter, the supreme deity among the Greeks and Romans.
Olympus, a mountain in Greece.

LESSON LXXXVIII.

Virtue and Piety Man's highest Interest.-HARRIS.

1. I FIND myself existing upon a little spot, surrounded every way by an immense, unknown expansion.-Where am I? What sort of a place do I inhabit? Is it exactly accommodated in every instance to my convenience? Is there no excess of cold, none of heat, to offend me? Am I never annoyed by animals either of my own, or a different kind? Is every thing subservient to me, as though I had ordered all myself? No-nothing like it-the farthest from it possible.

2. The world appears not, then, originally made for the private convenience of me alone ?—It does not. But is it not possible so to accommodate it, by my own particular industry? If to accommodate man and beast, heaven and earth, if this be beyond me, it is not possible. What consequence then follows? or can there be any other than this! If I seek an interest of my own detached from that of others, I seek an interest which is chimerical, and which can never have existence.

3. How then must I determine? Have I no interest at all? If I have not, I am stationed here to no purpose. But why no interest? Can I be contented with none but one separate and detached? Is a social interest, joined with others, such an absurdity as not to be admitted? The bee, the beaver, and the tribes of herding animals, are sufficient to convince me, that the thing is somewhere at least possible.

4. How, then, am I assured that it is not equally true of man? Admit it; and what follows? If so, then honor and justice are my interest; then the whole train of moral virtues are my interest; without some portion of which, not even thieves can maintain society.

5. But, farther still-I stop not here I pursue this social interest as far as I can trace my several relations. I pass from my own stock, my own neighborhood, my own nation, to the whole race of mankind, as dispersed throughout the earth. Am I not related to them all, by the mutual aids of commerce, by the general intercourse of arts and letters, by that common nature of which we all participate?

6. Again I must have food and clothing. Without a proper genial warmth, I instantly perish. Am I not related, in this view, to the very earth itself; to the distant sun, from whose beams I derive vigor? To that stupendous course and order of the infinite host of heaven, by which the times and seasons ever uniformly pass on?

7. Were this order once confounded, I could not probably survive a moment; so absolutely do I depend on this common general welfare. What, then, have I to do, but to enlarge virtue into piety? Not only honor and justice, and what I owe to man, is my interest; but gratitude also, acquiescence, resignation, adoration, and all I owe to this great polity, and its great Governor, our common Parent.

LESSON LXXXIX.

Importance of Virtue.-PRICE.

1. VIRTUE is of intrinsic value, and good desert, and of indispensable obligation; not the creature of will, but necessary and immutable; not local or temporary, but of equal extent and antiquity with the Divine mind; not a mode of sensation, but everlasting truth; not dependent on power, but the guide of all power.

2. Virtue is the foundation of honor and esteem, and the source of all beauty, order, and happiness, in nature. It is what confers value on all the other endowments and qualities of a reasonable being, to which they ought to be absolutely subservient; and without which, the more eminent they are, the more hideous deformities, and the greater curses, they become.

3. The use of it is not confined to any one stage of our existence, or to any particular situation we can be in, but reaches through all the periods and circumstances of our being. Many of the endowments and talents we now possess, and of which we are too apt to be proud, will cease entirely with the present state; but this will be our ornament and dignity, in every future state, to which we may be removed.

4. Beauty and wit will die, learning will vanish away, and all the arts of life be soon forgot; but virtue will remain for ever. This unites us to the whole rational creation; and fits us for conversing with any order of superior natures, and for a place in any part of God's works. It procures us the approbation and love of all wise and good beings, and renders them our allies and friends.

5. But what is of unspeakably greater consequence, is, that it makes God our friend, assimilates and unites our minds to his, and engages his Almighty power in our defence. Superior beings of all ranks are bound by it, no less than ourselves.It has the same authority in all worlds that it has in this.

6. The further any being is advanced in excellence and per fection, the greater is his attachment to it, and the more he is under its influence. To say no more, it is the law of the whole universe, it stands first in the estimation of the Deity; its original is his nature, and it is the very object that makes him lovely.

7. Such is the importance of virtue. Of what consequence, therefore, is it that we practise it? There is no argument or motive, in any respect fitted to influence a reasonable mind, which does not call us to this. One virtuous disposition of soul is preferable to the greatest natural accomplishments and abilities, and of more value than all the treasures of the world.

8. If you are wise, then study virtue, and contemn every thing that can come in competition with it. Remember that nothing else deserves one anxious thought or wish. Remember that this alone is honor, glory, wealth, and happiness. Secure this, and you secure every thing. Lose this, and all is lost.

LESSON XC.

The Folly of Inconsistent Expectations.-AIKIN.

1. THIS world may be considered as a great mart of commerce, where fortune exposes to our view various commodities; riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Every thing is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labor, our ingenuity, is so much ready money, which we are to lay out to the best advantage.

2. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your own judgment; and do not, like children, when you have purchased one thing, repine that you do not possess another, which you did not purchase. Such is the force of well regulated industry, that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will generally insure success.

3. Would you, for instance, be rich? Do you think that single point worth the sacrifice of every thing else? You may then be rich. Thousands have become so from the lowest beginnings, by toil, and patient diligence, and attention to the minutest articles of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free unsuspicious temper.

4. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals, which you brought with you from the schools, must be consider

ably lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and worldly minded prudence.

5. You must learn to do hard, if not unjust things; and as for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. You must shut your heart against the Muses, and be content to feed your understanding with plain household truths.

6. In short, you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas, or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep on in one beaten track, without turning aside, either to the right hand or to the left.—“ But I cannot submit to drudgery like this-I feel a spirit above it." It is well; be above it then; only do not repine that you are not rich.

7. Is knowledge the pearl of price? That, too, may be purchased-by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and reflection.-Bestow these, and you shall be learned. “But, says the man of letters," what a hardship it is, that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe the motto of the arms on his coach, shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have little more than the common conveniencies of life !"

8. Was it in order to raise a fortune, that you consumed the sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich, that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman spring? You have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry.

9. "What reward have I then for all my labors?" What reward! a large, comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man-of God. A rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, pregnant with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and reflection. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heaven! and what reward can you ask besides?

10. "But is it not some reproach upon the Economy of Providence, that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation!" Not in the least. He made himself a mean dirty fellow for that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, his liberty, for it; and will you envy his bargain? Will you hang your head and blush in his presence, because he outshines you in equipage and show?

11. Lift up your brow, with a noble confidence, and say to yourself, "I have not these things, it is true; but it is because 1 have not sought, because I have not desired them; it is because

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