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pany, nor increase his power of self enjoyment. On the contrary, they cross all these desirable ends, stupify the understanding, harden the heart, obscure the fancy, and sour the temper. In short, you have but to recollect, what was lately to have been seen among the Carthusians, and the more wretched brothers of La Trappe, even in France, and which undeniably proved the existence of an ignorant and bigotted order of men, who crept through one continued gloom of miserable superstition.

Institutions may be laudable, though their fruits may not always be salutary. The original fault, in the present case, was, that men approved only in cool and general terms of the social duties, but extolled, as the acmé of perfection, the monastic discipline. Even some savage saints of both sexes, have been admired, whose naked bodies, we are told, were only covered by their long hair. They aspired to reduce themselves to the rude and miserable state, in which the human brute is scarcely to be distinguished above his kindred animals. And a number of Anchorites derived their name from the humble practice of grazing, in the fields of Mesopotamia, with the common herd. The great St. Ephrem com

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posed a panegyric on these Borno, or grazing

monks,*

We frequently fancy well, though we do not always act justly. Almost all men's thoughts, while they are general, are right; and most hearts are pure, while temptation is out of the way. It is easy for example to awaken generous sentiments in privacy; to despise death, when there is no danger; and to glow with benevolence, when there is nothing to be given. While such ideas are formed, they are felt, and self love does not suspect the gleam of virtue to be the meteor of fancy. But, of things that terminate in this life, the world, or what is the same thing, common sense must be the proper and the only judge. No fallacy can long charm us into absurdity. It is not possible for a sane mind, for any continuance, to look upon mankind, either as emmets, below his serious attention, or as monsters, more worthy of his hatred than his regard.

There have been philosophers, melancholy moralists, indeed, who have perpetually reproached us with our happiness, while so many of our brethren are in misery, who have regarded as impious,

* Tillemont.

impious, the natural joy of prosperity, which does not think of the many wretches that are at every instant labouring under all sorts of calamities, in the languor of poverty, in the agony of disease, in the horrors of death, and under the insults and oppression of their enemies. Commiseration for those miseries which we never saw, which we never heard of, but which, we may be. assured, are at all times infesting such numbers of our fellow creatures, ought, they think, to damp the pleasures of the fortunate, and to ren der a certain melancholy dejection common to all men.

But, first of all, this extreme sympathy with misfortunes, of which we know nothing, seems altogether absurd and unreasonable. Take the whole earth at an average, for one man who suf fers pain or misery, you will find twenty in prosperity and joy, or at least in tolerable circum stances. No reason then surely can be assigned, why we should rather weep with the with the one, than rejoice with the twenty. This artificial commiseration, besides, is not only absurd, but seems altogether unattainable; and those who affect this character, have commonly nothing but a certain hypocritical sadness, which, without, reachjpg the heart, serves only to render tne counte

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nance and conversation impertinently dismal and disagreeable. And last of all, I cannot but think, that this disposition of mind, even if it could be attained, would be perfectly useless, and could serve no other purpose, than to render miserable the person who possessed it. For to what purpose, let me ask, should we trouble ourselves about the world in the moon? *

It must proceed from a total misapprehension of the design of the Christian dispensation, or from a very ignorant interpretation of the particular injunctions, forbidding us to make riches or honours our primary pursuit, or the prompt gratification of revenge our first principle of action, to infer, that an individual Christian is obliged, by his religion, to offer his throat to an assassin, and his property to the first plunderer. Nor do I know of any principles in the gospel, which debar a man from the possession of domestic comforts, or deaden the activity of his private friendships, or prohibit the exertion of his utmost ability in the service of the public. The nisi quietum nihil beatum, is no part of the Christian's creed; his virtue is an active vir tue. And we justly refer to the school of Epicurus the doctrine concerning abstinence from marriage,

* Adam Smith.

marriage, from the cultivation of friendship, from the management of public affairs, as suited to that selfish indolence, which was the favourite tenet of that philosophy. *

It is difficult, indeed, to rise to that elevation of character, which is not supported by the flattery of self-love, but alone exists by the firmness of consistency. It was a severe and a just reproach to the Pharisees, that "they said, but did not." They sat in the seat of Moses, and expounded the moral law; but they wore the mask of hypocrisy, and listened not to the cry of the supplicating widow. The philosophers of Paganism thus adorned the dictates of wisdom with the graces of eloquence; but, they often sullied the purity of their schools. with the stains of immorality. In the Christian character, however, the opposite extremes of torpid apathy, and boundless gratification, are readily to be avoided: in this school the Stoic may learn to relax his principles with decorum; and the Epicurean, to find pleasure in the pursuit of virtue. Temperance, justice, benevolence, and piety, are the qualities which shed the most soft and pleasing lustre over the scenes of domestic, as well as public life; which refine

*Bishop Watson.

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