grave. While the funeral is attended by a numerous unconcerned company, who are difcourfing with one another about the news of the day, or the ordinary affairs of life, let our thoughts rather follow to the houfe of mourning, and represent to themselves what is paffing there. There we fhould fee a difconfolate family, fitting in filent grief, thinking of the fad breach that is made in their little fociety; and, with tears in their eyes, looking to the chamber that is now left vacant, and to every memorial that prefents itself of their departed friend. By fuch attention to the woes of others, the felfifh hardness of our hearts will be gradually foftened, and melted down into humanity.

Another day, we follow to the grave, one who, in old age, and after a long career of life, has in full maturity funk at last into reft. As we are going along to the manfion of the dead, it is natural for us to think, and to dif courfe, of all the changes which fuch a perfon has feen during the courfe of his life. He has paffed, it is likely, through varieties of fortune. He has experienced profperity, and adverfity. He has feen families and kindreds rife and fall. He has feen peace and war fucceeding in their turns; the face of his country undergoing many alterations ; and the very city in which he dwelt, rifing, in a manner, new around him. After all he has beheld, his eyes are now clofed forever. He was becoming a ftranger in the midft of a new fucceffion of men. A race who knew him not, had arifen to fill the earth. Thus paffes the world away. Throughout all ranks and conditions, "one generation paffeth, and another generation cometh ;" and this great inn is by turns evacuated, and replenished, by troops of fucceeding pilgrims. O vain and inconftant world! O fleeting and tranfient life! When will the fons of men learn to think of thee as they ought? When will they learn humanity from the afflictions of their brethren? or moderation and wifdom, from the fenfe of their own fugitive ftate?

SECTION V.

BLAIR.

Exalted Society, and the Renewal of virtuous Connections, to Sources of future Felicity.

BESIDES the felicity which fprings from perfect love, there are two circumftances which particularly enhance the bleffednefs of that "multitude who ftand before the throne ;" thefe are, accefs to the moft exalted fociety, and

The former is

renewal of the moft tender connections. pointed out in the Scripture, by "joining the innumerable company of angels, and the general affembly and church of the firstborn; by fitting down with Abraham, and Ifaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" a promife which opens the fublimeft profpects to the human mind. It allows good men to entertain the hope, that, feparated from all the dregs of the human mafs, from that mixed and polluted crowd in the midft of which they now dwell, they fhall be permitted to mingle with prophets, patriarchs, and apoftles, with all thofe great and illuftrious spirits who have fhone in former ages as the fervants of God, or the benefactors of men; whofe deeds we are accuftomed to celebrate; whofe fteps we now follow at a diftance; and whofe names we pronounce with veneration.

United to this high affembly, the bleffed, at the fame time, renew thofe ancient connections with virtuous friends, which had been diffolved by death. The profpect of this awakens in the heart, the moft pleafing and tender fentiment that perhaps can fill it, in this mortal state. For of all the forrows which we are here doomed to endure, none is fo bitter as that occafioned by the fatal stroke which feparates us, in appearance forever, from thofe to whom either nature or friendship had intimately joined our hearts. Memory, from time to time, renews the anguish; opens the wounds which feemed once to have been clofed; and, by recalling joys that are paft and gone, touches every fpring of painful fenfibility. In these agonizing moments, how relieving the thought, that the feparation is only temporary, not eternal that there is a time to come of reunion with thofe with whom our happiest days were fpent; whofe joys and forrows once were ours; whofe piety and virtue cheered and encouraged us; and from whom, after we fhall have landed on the peaceful fhore where they dwell, no revolutions of nature fhall ever be able to part us more? Such is the fociety of the bleed above. Of fuch are the multitude compofed, who "ftand before the throne."

SECTION VI.

BLAL

The Clemency and amiable Character of the Patriarch Jofeph. No human character, exhibited in the records of Scrip ture, is more remarkable and inftructive than that of the patriarch Jofeph. He is one whom we behold tried in the viciffitudes of fortune; from the condition of a flave,

within him.

five of thofe emotions of repentance and fhame, which, on this amazing discovery, filled their breafts, and ftopped their utterance, as the few words which Jofeph fpeaks, are expreffive of the generous agitations which ftruggled for vent No painter could feize a more ftriking moment for difplaying the characteristical features of the human heart, than what is here prefented. Never was there a fituation of more tender and virtuous joy, on the one hand; nor, on the other, of more overwhelming confufion and confcious guilt. In the fimple narration of the facred hiftorian, it is fet before us with greater energy and higher effect, than if it had been wrought up with all the colouring of the most admired modern eloquence.

SECTION VII.

ALTAMONT.

The following Account of an affecting, mournful Exit, is related by Dr. Young, who was prefent at the melancholy Scene.

THE fad evening before the death of the noble youth, whofe laft hours fuggefted the moft solemn and awful reflection, I was with him. No one was prefent, but his phyfician, and an intimate whom he loved, and whom he had ruined. At my coming in, he faid, "You and the phyfician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You both aim at miracles. You would raife the dead!" Heav en, I faid, was merciful-" Or," exclaimed he, "I could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to blefs, and to fave me! I have been too ftrong for Omnipotence ! I have plucked down ruin." I faid, the bleffed Redeem"Hold! hold you wound me! That is the rock on which I fplit: I denied his name!"'

er;

Refufing to hear any thing from me, or take any thing from the phyfician, he lay filent, as far as 'fudden darts of pain would permit, till the clock ftruck: Then with vehemence he exclaimed; "Oh! time! time! it is fit thou fhouldft thus ftrike thy murderer to the heart! How art thou fled forever! A month! Oh for a fingle week! 1 ask not for years; though an age were too little for the much I have to do." On my faying, We could not do too much That heaven was a bleffed place, "So much the worfe. 'Tis loft! 'tis loft! Heaven is to me the fevereft part of hell!"

66 Pray you

Soon after, I propofed prayer;
er wayed. I cannot pray, nor need I.

that can. ls not heaver

on my fide already? It clofes with my confcience. Its fevereft ftrokes but fecond my own." Obferving that his friend was much touched at this, even to tears, (who could forbear? I could not) with a moft affectionate look, he faid, 66 Keep thofe tears for thyfelf. I have undone thee. Doft thou weep for me? that is cruel. What can pain me more?" Here his friend, too much affected, would have left him." No, ftay-thou ftill mayeft hope; therefore hear me. How madly have I talked! how madly haft thou liftened and believed! but look on my prefent state, as a full anfwer to thee, and to myfelf. This body is all weaknefs and pain but my foul, as if ftung up by torment to greater ftrength and fpirit, is full powerful to reafon : full mighty to fuffer. And that which thus triumphs within the jaws of immortality, is doubtlefs immortal-And, as for a Deity, nothing lefs than an Almighty could inflict what I feel.'

I was about to congratulate this palive, involuntary confeffor, on his afferting the two prime articles of his creed, extorted by the rack of nature, when he thus, very paffionately exclaimed:"No: no! let me fpeak on, I have not long to fpeak.-My much injured friend! my foul, as my body, lies in ruins; in fcattered fragments of broken thought-Remorfe for the paft, throws my thought on the future. Worfe dread of the future, ftrikes it back on the paft. I turn, and turn, and find no ray. Didit thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldst truggle with the martyr for his ftake; and blefs Heaven for the flames !-that is not an everlafting flame; that is not an unquenchable fire"

With

How were we ftruck! yet foon after, ftill more. what an eye of distraction, what a face of defpair, he cried out!"My principles have poifoned my friend; my extravagance has beggared my boy! my unkindness has murdered my wife and is there another hell? Oh, thou blafphemed, yet indulgent LORD GOD! Hell itfelf is a refuge, if it hide me from thy frown!" Soon after his underftanding failed. His terrified imagination uttered horrors not to be repeated, or ever forgotten. And ere the fun, (which, I hope, has feen few like him) arofe, the gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and moft wretched Altamont, expired!

If this is a man of pleasure, what is a man of pain?

quick, how total, is the tranfit of fuch perfons! In a lave,

difmal gloom they fet forever! How fhort, alas! the day of their rejoicing-For a moment they glitter-they dazzle! In a moment, where are they? Oblivion covers their memories. Ah! would it did! Infamy fnatches them from oblivion. In the long living annals of infamy, their triumphs are recorded. Thy fufferings, poor Altamont ! ftill bleed in the bofom of the heart ftricken friend-for Altamont had a friend. He might have had many. His tranfient morning might have been the dawn of an immortal day. His name might have been glorioufly enrolled in the records of eternity. His memory might have left a fweet fragrance behind it, grateful to the furviving friend, falutary to the fucceeding generation. With what capacity was he endowed? With what advantages for being greatly good! But, with the talents of an angel, a man may be a fool. If he judges amifs in the tupreme point, judging right in all elfe, but aggravates his folly; as it shows him wrong, though bleffed with the beft capacity of being right.

CHAP. VII.

DIALOGUES.

SECTION I.

DEMOCRITUS AND HERACLITUS.*

DR. YOUNG.

The Vices and Follies of Men fhould excite Compaffion rather than Ridicule.

Democritus. I FIND it impoffible to reconcile myfelf to a melancholy philofophy.

Heraclitus. And I am equally unable to approve of that vain philofophy, which teaches men to defpife and ridicule one another. To a wife and feeling mind, the world appears in a wretched and painful light.

Dem. Thou art too much affected with the ftate of . things, and this is a fource of mifery to thee.

Her.

And I think thou art too little moved by it. Thy mirth and ridicule befpeak the buffoon, rather than he philofopher. Does it not excite thy compaffion, to fee nkind fo frail, fo blind, fo far departed from the rules of

?

ocritus and Heraclitus were two ancient philosophers, the whom laughed, and the latter wept, at the errors and mankind.