his confideration of the nature of man C with the addition of reafon, in the subfequent difcourfe, impreffes upon the mind a strong satisfaction in it felf, and gratitude towards him who bestowed that fuperiority over the brute world. Thefe thoughts had fuch an effect up' on the author himself, that he has ended his difcourfe with a prayer. This 'adoration has a fublimity in it befitting 'his character, and the emotions of his heart flow from wisdom and know

ledge. I thought it would be proper for a Saturday's paper, and have tranflated it, to make you a prefent of it. I have not, as the tranflator was obliged to do, confined my felf to an exact verfion from the original, but have endeavoured to express the fpirit of it, by taking the liberty to render his thoughts in fuch a way as I fhould have uttered them if they had been my own. It has been obferved, that the private letters of great men are the best pictures of their fouls, but certainly their 'private devotions would be still more: 'inftructive, and I know not why they 'fhould not be as curious and entertain-. ❝ing.

If you infert this prayer, I know not but I may fend you, for another occafion, one ufed by a very great wit of the laft age, which has allufions to the errors of a very wild life, and I believe you will think is written with an uncommon fpirit. The perfon whom I mean was an excellent writer, and the publication of this prayer of his may be, perhaps, fome kind of antidote against the infection in his other writings. But this fupplication of the Bishop has in it a more happy and untroubled fpirit; it is (if that is not faying fomething too fond) the worship of an Angel concerned for those who had fallen, but himself still in the ftate of glory and innocence. The book ends with an act of devotion, to this • effect.

J

"O my God, if the greater number " of mankind do not difcover thee in that glorious fhow of nature, which thou haft placed before our eyes, it is not because thou art far from every one of us; thou art prefent to us more than any one object which we touch with our hands; but our, fenfes, and the paffions which they produce in us,turn

our

our attention from thee. Thy light fhines in the midit of darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not. Thou, O Lord, doft every where difplay thy felf. Thou fhineft in all thy works, but art not regarded by heedlefs and ' unthinking man. The whole creation 'talks aloud of thee, and echo's with 'the repetitions of thy holy name. But fuch is our infenfibility, that we are deaf to the great and univerfal voice of nature. Thou art every where about us, and within us; but we wander 'from our felves, become ftrangers to our own fouls, and do not apprehend

thy prefence. O thou," who art the 'eternal foundation of light and beauty, 'who art the ancient of days, without beginning and without end: O thou, who art the life of all that truly live, 'thofe can never fail to find thee, who 'feek for thee within themfelves.

But

alas, the very gifts which thou beftoweft upon us, do fo employ our thoughts, that they hinder us from perceiving the hand which conveys them to us. We live by thee, and yet we live without thinking of thee; but, O Lord, what is life in the ignorance of thee? A dead

unactive piece of matter, a flower that withers, a river that glides away, a palace that haftens to its ruin, a picture 'made up of fading colours, a mass of fhining oar, ftrike our imaginations, and make us fenfible of their Exiftence. We regard them as objects • capable of giving us pleasure, not confidering that thou conveyeft through them all the pleasure which we ima gine they give us. Such vain empty ८ objects that are only the fhadows of Being, are proportioned to our low and groveling thoughts. That beauty which thou haft poured out on thy creation, is as a veil which hides thee from our eyes. As thou art a Being too pure and exalted to pass through our fenfes, thou art not regarded by men, who have debased their nature, and have 'made themselves like the beafts that perish. So infatuated are they, that, notwithstanding they know what is wisdom and virtue, which have neither found, nor colour, nor fmell, nor tafte, nor figure, nor any other fenfible quality, they can doubt of thy Exiftence, because thou art not apprehended by the groffer organs of fenfe. • Wretches

Wretches that we are! we confider 'fhadows as realities, and truth as a phantome. That which is nothing is all to us, and that which is all appears to us nothing. What do we fee in all 'nature but thee, O my God! thou, and only thou, appeareft in every thing. When I confider thee, O Lord, I am fwallowed up and loft in contempla tion of thee. Every thing befides thee, even my own exiftence, vanishes and difappears, in the contemplation of thee, I am loft to my felf, and fall into nothing, when I think on thee. The 'man who does not fee thee, has beheld nothing; he who does not taste thee, has a relish of nothing. His Being is vain, and his life but a dream. Set up thy felf, O Lord, fet up thy felf that we may behold thee. As wax con'fumes before the fire, and as the smoke is driven away, fo let thine enemies vanifh out of thy prefence. How unhappy is that Soul who, without the fense of thee, has no God, no hope, no comfort to fupport him? but how happy the man who fearches, fighs,and thirfts after thee! but he only is fully happy on whom thou lifteft up the