RELIANCE ON THE DEITY

THE

BEST SOURCE OF PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE.

THERE are few instances of particular virtue more engaging than those of this heroic cast, and if we may take the testimony of a heathen philosopher upon it, there is not an object in the world which God can be supposed to look down upon with greater pleasure than that of a good man involved in misfortunes, surrounded on all sides with difficulties,-yet cheerfully bearing up his head, and struggling against them with firmness and constancy of mind. Certainly, to our conceptions, such objects must be truly en. gaging, and the reason of so exalted an encomium from this hand is easily to be guessed: no doubt, the wisest of the heathen philosophers had found, from observation upon the life of man, that the many troubles and infirmities of his nature, the sicknesses, disappointments, sorrow for the loss of children or property, with the numberless other calamities and cross accidents to which the life of man is subject, were in themselves so great;-and so little solid comfort to be administered from the mere refinements of philosophy in such emergencies, that there was no virtue which required greater efforts, or which was found so difficult to be achieved upon moral principles, upon moral principles, which had no foundation to sustain this great weight which the infirmities of our nature laid upon it:-and,

for this reason, it is observable that there is no subject upon which the moral writers of antiquity have exhausted so much of their eloquence, or where they have spent such time and pains, as in this of endeavouring to reconcile men to these evils; insomuch that from thence in most modern languages, the patient enduring of affliction has, by degrees, obtained the name of philosophy, and almost monopolized the word to itself, as if it was the chief end or compendium of all the wisdom which philosophy had to offer. And indeed, considering what lights they had, some of them wrote exceedingly well; yet, as what they said proceeded more from the head than the heart, it was generally more calculated to silence a man in his troubles than to convince and teach him how to bear them; and, therefore, however subtle and ingenious their arguments might appear in the reading, it is to be feared they lost much of their efficacy when tried in the application. If a man was thrust back in the world by disappointments, or, as was Job's case, had suffered a sudden change in his fortunes, and from an affluent condition was brought down by a train of cruel accidents, and pinched with poverty,philosophy would come in and exhort him to stand his ground;-it would tell him that the same greatness and strength of mind which enabled him to behave well in the days of his prosperity, should equally enable him to behave well in the days of his adversity ;-that it was the property of only weak and base spirits, who were insolent in the one, to be dejected and overthrown by the other; whereas, great and generous souls

were at all times calm and equal: as they enjoyed the advantages of life with indifference, they were able to resign them with the same temper ;and, consequently, were out of the reach of fortune. All which, however fine, and likely to satisfy the fancy of a man at ease, could convey but little consolation to a heart already pierced with sorrow; nor is it to be conceived how an unfortunate creature should any more receive relief from such a lecture, however just, than a man racked with an acute fit of the gout or stone could be supposed to be set free from torture by hearing from his physicians a nice dissertation upon his case. The philosophic consolations in sickness, or in afflictions for the death of friends and kindred, were just as efficacious;—and were rather, in general, to be considered as good sayings than good remedies;-so that, if a man was bereaved of a promising child, in whom all his hopes and expectations centred,—or a wife was left destitute to mourn the loss and protection of a kind and tender husband; Seneca or Epictetus would tell the pensive parent and disconsolate widow, that tears and lamentations for the dead were fruitless and absurd!—that to die was the necessary and unavoidable debt of nature ;—and, as it could admit of no remedy, 'twas impious and foolish to grieve and fret themselves upon it. Upon such sage counsel, as well as many other lessons of the same stamp, the same reflection might be applied, which is said to have been made by one of the Roman emperors to one who administered the same consolations to him on a like occasion; to whom advising him to be com

forted, and make himself easy, since the event had been brought about by fatality, and could not be helped, he replied, “That this was so far from lessening his trouble, that it was the very circumstance which occasioned it." So that, upon the whole, when the true value of these, and many more of their current arguments, have been weighed and brought to the test, one is led to doubt whether the greatest part of their heroes, the most renowned for constancy, were not much more indebted to good nerves and good spirits, or the natural happy frame of their tempers, for behaving well, than to any extraordinary helps which they could be supposed to receive from their instructors: and, therefore, I should make no scruple to assert, that one such instance of patience and resignation as this, which the Scripture gives us in the person of Job, not of one most pompously declaiming upon the contempt of pain and poverty, but of a man sunk in the lowest condition of humanity, to behold him when stripped of his estate, his wealth, his friends, his children, cheerfully holding up his head, and entertaining his hard fortune with firmness and serenity, and that not from a stoical stupidity, but a just sense of God's providence, and a persuasion of his justice and goodness in all his dealings; such an example, I say, as this is of more universal use, speaks truer to the heart than all the heroic precepts which the pedantry of philosophy has to offer.

STERNE.

THE WISDOM OF PERSEVERING IN

OUR ACTIVE DUTIES.

EVERY man of understanding acknowledges some obligation to apply our talents to the business of human life, or to the ends of our probation for the world to come, as long as we are capable of exercising them. It is impossible seriously to doubt that our personal duties must be indispensable, as long as we have the means of fulfilling them.

But when the doctrine is applied to practice, we are apt to take very different views of the subject. Though it is a truth fully established by experience, that it is best for every man, in the present life, and most for his advantage as an immortal being, to persevere in the active duties of his condition, as long as it is possible for him to discharge them; there is nothing which men more generally allow to dwell on their thoughts through life, than the idea, that a time shall come, long before they die, when they shall be able to relinquish their usual or professional occupations, and to spend the rest of their time, without labour or exertion, in the enjoyment of their private or domestic situations. Few in comparison are ever permitted to realize an idea which so many allow to occupy their imaginations. Of those who are enabled to relinquish their labours, if their lives are prolonged, the greater part have reason to repent what they have done. By the change produced on their habits, and by want of use, their faculties are gradually impaired, as the sources of their activity are diminished; and