so much in her style of expression, of disappointment and disgust, that I could not help suspecting her to be one of those hidden treasures which are only safe because nobody looks after them; and begged to be permitted to express my sense of the subject before the society, through the medium of a pleasant story I had somewhere met with.

Pluto, perceiving that his Furies were beginning to grow old and worn in the service, called Mercury to him, and desired him to go to the upper world, and seach the globe over, to find him three maids, such as were every way proper for the duty in which they were to be engaged. Mercury set off on his errand. It happened, at the same time, that Juno was in want of three handmaids, being obliged to turn away those she had, for their intrigues with Ju. piter. Iris was accordingly dispatched to look in every corner of the earth, till she could meet with three virgins of such severe chastity, that they were never known to smile upon a man. After a consi

derable time spent in the search, Iris returned out of breath and alone. "What!" cried her mistress, "have you not succeeded then? Is it possible? O chastity! O virtue !"-"Goddess," returned Iris, "I have indeed found three rigid maidens, that neither Jove nor Mars himself could ever have subdued; but, alas! I arrived too late."-" Too late! "Yes, too late; Mercury had already engaged them for Pluto."- "For Pluto! for what purpose? "To make three Furies of them."--- My story had such an effect, that no attention was paid to the representation contained in the paper before them.

N° 52. SATURDAY, MAY 11.

Good with bad

Expect to hear; supernal grace contending
With sinfulness of men; thereby to learn
True patience, and to temper joy with fear
And pious sorrow; equally inur'd
By moderation either state to bear,
Prosperous or adverse; so shalt thou lead
Safest thy life, and best prepar'd endure
Thy mortal passage when it comes.

ONLY five papers have yet been consecrated to the subject which ought to be the nearest to every man's heart. This is the greatest satire I have yet pronounced upon my countrymen; for my age, my profession, and my predilection, would naturally have bent my thoughts continually to this object, had I judged that the religious frame of the public mind was sufficiently solid to endure so much grave deduction and inquiry. The more rational and thinking part of my readers will forgive me this ill compliment to the many: sensible of the regard that must be had, in these delicate times, to the slight constitution of our minds, they will wish me to imitate our fashionable physicians in mixing up together in such unequal proportions the nauseous and the nice, as to make of the whole what they term an elegant preparation.

The object of my last speculation on this subject was to prove the moral government of God; a state

of probation is included almost under the same idea. The notion of a general righteous judgement hereafter, implies some sort of temptation to do what is wrong; but as the word probation is more particularly and distinctly expressive of allurements to wrong, and the danger of miscarriages, than the words moral government, in this view it may deserve a separate consideration.

If we turn our attention from the moral government of God, to his natural government over us, we shall perceive that the whole course and procedure of it plainly indicates a state of trial, in a similar sense, in regard to the present world.

The natural government of God consists in his placing us in a balance between right and wrong, with a power of choice, and an anticipation of the consequences of that choice. Present fruition and subsequent sorrow, present forbearance and succeeding enjoyment, mark out to us plainly a sort of conditional covenant which God has made with us in respect to our career through this present world. So far as men are under temptations to any course of action which will probably occasion them greater temporal uneasiness than satisfaction, so far their temporal interest is in danger from themselves, or they are in a state of trial with respect to it. That which constitutes our trial in our temporal capacity, does also constitute it in our religious capacity; and the description of the one will be a description of the other, if only what we call temporal interest in one place, we call future in another, and substitute virtue for prudence in speaking of the trial for a future life. If we contemplate the behaviour of man under his trial in these different capacities, we may observe him proceeding in the same neglect or defiance of the consequences of his actions in both cases.

Men

will persevere in a course of dissolute extravagance with no remorse, and with little dread, with the certain foreknowledge in their minds, that it will end in their temporal ruin, and some of us under the apprehension of the consequences in another state. Thus, our trials of difficulties and dangers in our temporal and our religious capacities, as they proceed from the same causes, and have the same effect upon our behaviour, are evidently analogous and correspondent.

Without this experience, afforded us in the natural constitution of things, we might, perhaps, with some speciousness urge, that it is inconsistent with the character of Infinite Mercy to involve us in any hazards which he foresees must end in confusion and misery. Indeed, why any sort of danger or hazard should be imposed on such mortals as we are, may well be thought a difficulty in speculation, and ever will be so till we are furnished with a higher degree of intelligence, and are admitted to more comprehensive views of things than it is the lot of our natures to enjoy. But whatever the vanity of our reason may suggest with respect to the moral government of God, the course of the natural world affords a complete, decisive, and awful answer to all our presumptuous inquiries.

That the same thing exists in the constitution of nature, experience proves; let our inquiries therefore begin here; and if they can obtain no solution here, here let them end. All reasoning, therefore, against a state of trial from its speculative difficulties, and our inability to accommodate it to any righteous scheme according to our notions of justice, is defeated in the point of fact by our own daily experience, and by the testimony of our senses.

Considering the difficulties and hazards of our

probationary state, it might be natuaal enough to inquire how we came to be placed in it. This curiosity, however, can never be satisfied, as it is directed to a subject which we are not competent to understand, without much higher degrees of knowledge and capacity. "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say unto him that fashioneth him, What maketh thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?" If we make the question, "What is your business here?" which must be acknowledged to be a frame of inquiry more important, as it is more humble; not only religion affords us an answer, but a view of the course of the world in which we live will convince us that our present condition is no way inconsistent with the perfect moral government of God. If our religion teach us that we are placed here in a state of so much hazard and affliction for our improvement in virtue and piety, as the requisite qualification for a future state of happiness and security, we shall also find, upon inquiry, that the same plan and the same gradation is observed in the conduct of nature, and the rest of God's government and dispensations.

We must again consider man under a religious and temporal capacity; and in this double view of him, the beginning of life, considered as an education for mature age, appears plainly at first sight analogous to our general trial for a future life. This analogy may be pushed to a great extent, and is certainly well worth the pains of investigation.

To be capable of enjoying any state of existence, we must have a frame of mind within us correspondent to the order of things around us. Without determining what will be the employment and the hap