Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

That wonderful faculty, which we call the memory, is perpetually looking back, when we have nothing prefent to entertain us. It is like thofe repofitories in feveral animals, that are filled with ftores of their former food, on which they may ruminate when their prefent pasture fails.

As the memory relieves the mind in her vacant moments, and prevents any chafms of thought by ideas of what is paft, we have other faculties that agitate and employ her upon what is to come. These are the paffions of hope and fear.

By these two paffions we reach forward into futurity, and bring up to our prefent thoughts, objects that lie hid in the remoteft depths of time. We suffer misery, and enjoy happiness before they are in being; we can set the fun and stars forward, or lofe fight of them by wandering into thofe retired parts of eternity when the heavens and earth fhall be no more.

By the way; who can imagine that the existence of a creature is to be circumfcribed by time, whose thoughts are not? But I fhall, in this paper, confine myself to that particular paffion which goes by the name of hope.

Our actual enjoyments are fo few and transient, that man would be a very miserable being, were he not endued with this paffion, which gives him a taste of those good things that may poffibly come into his poffeffion. "We fhould hope for every thing that is good, fays the old poet Linus, because there is nothing which may not be hoped for, and nothing but what the gods are able to

give us." Hope quickens all the still parts of life, and keeps the mind awake in her most remifs and indolent hours. It gives habitual ferenity and good huinor. It is a kind of vital heat in the foul, that cheers and gladdens her, when she does not attend to it. It makes pain easy, and labor pleasant.

Befide these several advantages which rise from hope, there is another which is none of the least, and that is, its great efficacy in preserving us from setting too high a value on prefent enjoyments. The faying of Cæfar is very well known. When he had given away all his estate in gratuities among his friends, one of them afked, what he had left for himself? to which that great man replied, Hope. His natural magnanimity hindered him from prizing what he was certainly poffeffed of, and turned all his thoughts upon fomething more valuable that he had in view. I question not but every reader will draw a moral from this ftory, and apply it to himself without my direction.

The old ftory of Pandora's box, (which many of the learned believe was formed among the Heathens, upon the tradition of the fall of man) fhows us how deplorable a state they thought the prefent life, without hope: To fet forth the utmost condition of misery, they tell us, that our forefather, according to the Pagan theology, had a great veffel presented him by Pandora: Upon his lifting up the lid of it, fays the fable, there flew out all the calamities and diftempers incident to men, from which, till that time, they had been altogether exempt. Hope, who had been inclosed in the

7

cup with so much bad company, instead of flying off with the reft, ftuck fo close to the lid of it, that it was fhut down upon her.

I fhall make but two reflections upon what I have hitherto faid. First, that no kind of life is so happy as that which is full of hope, especially when the hope is well grounded, and when the object of it is of an exalted kind, and in its nature proper to make the person happy who enjoys it. This propofition must be very evident to those who confider how few are the present enjoyments of the most happy man, and how infufficient to give him an entire fatisfaction and acquiefcence in them.

My next obfervation is this, that a religious life is that which most abounds in a well-grounded hope, and fuch an one as is fixed on objects that are capable of making us entirely happy. This Hope in a religious man, is much more fure and certain than the hope of any temporal bleffing, as it is ftrengthened not only by reason, but by faith. It has at the fame time its eye perpetually fixed on that state, which, implies, in the very notion of it, the most full and the most complete happinefs.

I have before shown how the influence of hope in general sweetens life, and makes our present condition fupportable, if not pleafing; but a religious hope has ftill greater advantages. It does not only bear up the mind under her fufferings, but makes her rejoice in them, as they may be the inftruments of procuring her the great and ultimate end of all her hope.

Religious hope has likewise this advantage obove any other kind of hope, that it is able to revive the dying man, and to fill his mind not only with fecret comfort and refreshment, but fometimes with rapture and tranfport. He triumphs in his agonies, whilft the foul fprings forward with delight to the great object which fhe has always had in view, and leaves the body with an expectation of being reunited to her in a glorious and joyful refurrec

tion.

I fhall conclude this essay with those emphatical expreffions of a lively hope, which the Pfalmist made use of in the midft of those dangers and adversities which furrounded him; for the following paffage had its present and perfonal, as well as its future and prophetic fenfe. "I have fet the Lord always before me : because he is at my right hand I fhall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flefh alfo fhall reft in hope. For thou wilt not leave my foul in hell, neither wilt thou fuffer thine holy one to fee corruption. Thou wilt fhow me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

It has been usual to remind perfons of rank, on great occafions in life, of their race and quality, and to what expectations they were born; that, by confidering what is worthy of them, they may be withdrawn from mean purfuits, and encouraged to laudable undertakings. This is turning nobility

into a principle of virtue, and making it productive of merit, as it is understood to have been originally a reward of it.

It is for the like reason, I imagine, that you have in fome of your fpeculations, afferted to your readers the dignity of human nature. But you cannot be infenfible that this is a controverted doctrine; there are authors who confider human nature in a very different view, and books of maxims have been written to fhow the falfity of all human virtues. The reflections which are made on this fubject ufually take some tincture from the tempers and characters of those who make them. Politicians can refolve the most shining actions among men into artifice and defign; others, who are foured by difcontent, repulfes, or ill ufage, are apt to miftake their spleen for philofophy; men of profligate lives, and fuch as find themfelves incapable of rifing to any distinction among their fellow-creatures, are for pulling down all appearances of merit, which feem to upbraid them: and Satirists describe nothing but deformity. From all thefe hands we have fuch draughts of mankind as are represented in thofe burlefque pictures, which the Italians call Caricaturas; where the art confifts in preferving, amidst distorted proportions and aggravated features, fome diftinguifhing likenefs of the person, but in fuch a manner as to transform the most agreeable beauty into the moft odious monfter.

It is very difingenuous to level the best of mankind with the worst, and for the faults of particulars to degrade the whole fpecies. Such methods

« AnteriorContinuar »