tend not only to remove a man's good opinion of others, but to destroy that reverence for himself, which is a great guard of innocence, and a spring of virtue.

It is true indeed, that there are surprising mixtures of beauty and deformity, of wisdom and folly, virtue and vice in the human make; such a disparity is found among numbers of the fame kind; and every individual, in fome inftances, or at fome times, is fo unequal to himself, that man feems to be the most wavering and inconfiftent being in the whole creation. So that the queftion in morality, concerning the dignity of our nature, may at first fight appear like fome difficult questions in Natural Philosophy, in which the arguments on both fides feem to be of equal ftrength. But as I began with confidering this point, as it relates to action, I fhall here borrow an admirable reflection from Monfieur Pascal, which I think sets it in its proper light.

It is of dangerous confequence, fays he, to represent to man how near he is to the level of beafts, without showing him at the fame time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him fee his greatness without his meannefs. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both. Whatever imperfections we may have in our nature, it is the business of religion and virtue to rectify them as far as is confiftent with our present ftate. In the mean time, it is no fmall encouragement to generous minds to confider that we fhall put them

all off with our mortality. That fublime manner of falutation with which the Jews approached their kings,

O King, live for ever!

may be addreffed to the lowest and most despised mortal among us, under all the infirmities and diftreffes with which we fee him furrounded. And whoever believes the immortality of the foul, will not need a better argument for the dignity of his nature, nor a stronger incitement to actions fuitable to it.

I am naturally led by this reflection to a subject I have already touched upon in a former letter, and cannot without pleasure call to mind the thoughts of Cicero to this purpose, in the close of his book concerning old age. Every one who is acquainted with his writings will remember, that the elder Cato is introduced in that discourse as the speaker, and Scipio and Lelius are his auditors. This venerable person is represented looking forward as it were from the verge of extreme old age, into a future ftate, and rifing into a contemplation on the unperishable part of his nature, and its existence after death. I fhall collect part of his discourse; and, as you have formerly offered fome arguments for the foul's immortality, agreeable both to reason and the Chriftian doctrine, I believe your readers will. not be displeased to see how the fame great truth fhines in the pomp of Roman eloquence.

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This, fays Cato, is my firm persuasion, that fince the human foul exerts itself with fo great

activity, fince it has fuch a remembrance of the paft, fuch a concern for the future, fince it is enriched with so many arts, fciences and difcoveries, it is impoffible but the being which contains all these must be immortal."

The elder Cyrus, juft before his death, is reprefented by Xenophon speaking after this manner: "Think not, my dearest children, that when I depart from you, I fhall be no more, but remember, that my foul, even while I lived among you, was invifible to you; yet by my actions you were fenfible it existed in this body. Believe it therefore exifting ftill, though it be ftill unfeen. How quickly would the honors of illuftrious men perifh after death, if their fouls performed nothing to preferve their fame? For my own part, I could never think that the foul, while in a mortal body, lives; or when departed out of it, dies; or that its consciousness is loft when it is discharged out of an unconfcious habitation. But when it is freed from all corporeal alliance, then it truly exifts. Further, fince the human frame is broken by death, tell us what becomes of its parts? It is visible whither the materials of other beings are translated, namely, to the fource from whence they had their birth. The foul alone, neither prefent nor departed, is the object of our eyes."

Thus Cyrus. But to proceed. No one fhall perfuade me, Scipio, that your worthy father, or your grandfathers, Paulus and Africanus, or Africanus his father, or uncle, or many other excellent men whom I need not name, performed

fo many actions to be remembered by posterity, without being fenfible that futurity was their right. And, if I may be allowed an old man's privilege, to speak of myself, do you think I would have endured the fatigue of fo many wearifome days and nights both at home and abroad, if I imagined that the fame boundary which is fet to my life muft terminate my glory? Were it not more defirable to have worn out my days in ease and tranquillity, free from labor, and without emulation ? But I know not. how, my foul has always raised itself, and looked forward on futurity, in this view and expectation, that when it shall depart out of life, it fhall then live for ever: and if this were not true, that the mind is immortal, the fouls of the moft worthy would not, above all others, have the strongest impulfe to glory.

What befides this is the cause that the wifeft men die with the greatest equanimity, the ignorant with the greatest concern? Does it not feem, that those minds which have the most extensive views, foresee they are removing to a happier condition, which those of a narrow fight do not perceive? I, for my part, am transported with the hope of feeing your ancestors, whom I have honored and loved, and am earnestly defirous of meeting not only those excellent perfons whom I have known, but those too of whom I have heard and read, and of whom I myself have written nor would I be detained from so pleasing a journey. O happy day! when I fhall escape from this crowd, this heap of pollution, and be admitted

to that divine affembly of exalted spirits! when I fhall go not only to those great perfons I have named, but to my Cato, my fon, than whom a better man was never born, and whofe funeral rites I myself performed, whereas he ought rather to have attended mine. Yet has not his foul deserted me, but feeming to caft back a look on me, is gone before to thofe habitations to which it was fenfible I fhould follow him. And though I might appear to have borne my lofs with courage, I was not unaffected with it; but I comforted myself in the affurance that it would not be long before we fhould meet again, and be divorced no more.

A lewd young fellow feeing an aged hermit go by him bare-foot, "Father, fays he, you are in a very miferable condition, if there is not another world. True, son, said the hermit; but what is thy condition if there is?" Man is a creature defigned for two different ftates of being, or rather for two different lives. His firft life is fhort and tranfient; his fecond permanent and lafting. The question we are all concerned in, is this; In which of these two lives is it our chief intereft to make

ourselves happy? Or in other words, Whether

we fhould endeavour to fecure to ourselves the pleasures and gratifications of a life which is uncertain and precarious, and at its utmost length, of a very inconfiderable duration; or to secure to ourselves the pleasures of a life which is fixed and fettled, and will never end? Every man, upon