you would the peftilence. To take pleafure in fuch things is a mark of as great corruption of mind, and ought to be accounted as difhonourable, as to keep company with pickpockets, gamblers, and atheists. Study the evidence of your religion, fo as to be able to give a reason to those who may have a right to question you concerning your faith; and fteadily, though calmly, defend your principles, if you should have the misfortune to fall into the company of those who controvert them: but do not rafhly engage in this fort of altercation; nor choose for your friend or companion the man who takes pleasure in the books of infidelity. Such a man you will hardly convert by reafoning, as his unbelief is founded not in reafon but in prejudice; and you need not expect to receive from him much useful information in thefe matters, as you will find, (at least I have always found), that he has attended to one fide only of the question. 390. Games of chance, where money is the object, are dangerous in the extreme. They They cherish evil paffions without number; as avarice, anger, felfishness, difcontent; and give rife to altercation and quarrelling, and fometimes, as I am well informed, to the moft fhocking impiety: they occafion, as long as they continue, a total lofs of time and of all the rational pleasures of focial life: they are generally detrimental to health, by keeping the body inactive, and encroaching on the hours of reft: they produce a feverish agitation of the fpirits as hurtful to the mind, as habitual dram-drinking would be to the body: they level all distinctions of sense and folly, vice and virtue; and bring together, on the fame footing, men and women of decent and of the most abandoned manners. Persons who take pleasure in play feldom fail to become immoderately attached to it; and neglect of bufinefs, and the ruin of fortune, family, and reputation, are too frequently the confequence. Savages are addicted to gaming; and, in this respect, whatever difference there may be in the drefs, or colour of the skin, the characters of the gentleman gambler gambler and gambling favage are not only fimilar, but the fame. The favage at play will lofe his wife and children and perfonal liberty; the other will throw away in the fame manner what should support his wife and children, and keep himfelf out of a jail; and it is well if he stop fhort of self-murder. Is it poffible to keep at too great distance from fuch enormities? and can the man, who once engages in this dreadful business, fay when he will ftop, or how far he may go? LET NO SUCH MAN BE TRUSTED. 391. Our thoughts, as well as the real occurrences of life, may draw forth our paffions; and one may work one's mind into a ferment of anger, or fome other violent difcompofure, without having been exposed to any temptation, and merely by ruminating on certain objects. When we find this to be the cafe, let us inftantly give a new, and if poffible an oppofite, direction to the current of our thoughts. If any evil paffion get hold of us, and will not yield to reafon, if for example we be very angry with an injurious neighbour, let us ceafe to think of him, and employ ourselves in some other interesting and more agreeable recollection; let us call to mind fome happy incident of our past life; let us think of our Creator, and of his goodness to mankind and to us in particular; let us meditate on the importance of our prefent conduct, and of that tremendous futurity which is before us: or, if we be not at this particular time well prepared for ferious thought, let us apply to fome book of harmlefs amusement, or join in fome entertaining converfation: and thus we shall get rid of the paffion that haunts us, and forget both its object and its caufe. SECT. VII. Of the Paffions, as they difplay themselves in the Look and Gesture. 392. PASSIONS being commotions of the body as well as of the mind, it is no wonder that they fhould display them felves in the looks and behaviour. If they did not, our intercourfe with one another would be much more difficult and dangerous than it is; because we could not fo readily discover the characters of men, or what is paffing in their minds. But the outward expreffion of the paffions is a fort of univerfal language; not very extensive indeed, but fufficiently fo to give us information of many things which it concerns us to know, and which otherwife we could not have known. When a man is even at pains to conceal his emotions, his eyes, features, complexion, and voice will discover them to a difcerning obferver and when he is at no pains to hide or difguife what he feels, the outward indications will be fo fignificant, that hardly any perfon can miftake their meaning: his anger, for example, though he fhould not utter a word, will contract his brows, flash in his eyes, make his lips quiver, and give irregular motions to his limbs. Salluft fays of Catiline, that his eyes had a difagreeable glare, that his complexion was pale, his walk fometimes quick and fometimes Y y 2 ; |