ther, transgressed by too great nicety, about our food-by much solicitude and eagerness to procure what we most relish-by frequently eating to satiety.

In thus describing intemperance, let me not be understood to censure, as a failure therein, all regard to the food that best pleases us, when it is equally wholesome with other kinds—when its price is neither unsuitable to our circumstances, nor very great-when it may be conveniently procured-when we are not anxious about itwhen we do not frequently seek after it-when we are always moderate in its use.

The dissuasives from intemperate eating that appear of greatest weight, are these :

It is the grossest abuse of the gifts of Providence.

It is the vilest debasement of ourselves.

Our bodies owe to it the most painful diseases, and, generally, a speedy decay.

It frequently interrupts the use of our nobler faculties, and is sure, at length, greatly to enfeeble them.

The straits to which it often reduces us, occasion our falling into crimes, which would, otherwise, have been our utter abhorrence.

Life, as we have been wisely taught to consider it, is more than meat. Man could not be sent into the world but for quite different purposes than merely to indulge his palate. He has an understanding given him, which he may greatly improve! many are the perfections which he is qualified to attain; much good to his fellow-creatures he has abilities to do; and all this may be truly said of all mankind; all of us may improve our reason, may proceed in virtue, may be useful to our fellow-creatures. There are none, therefore, to whom it is not a foul reproach, that their belly is their God-that they are more solicitous to favour, and thereby to strengthen, the importunity of

their appetite, than to weaken and master it, by frequent resistance and restraint.

Let me, also, consider intemperance in what we eat, as frequently interrupting the use of our nobler faculties; and sure, at length, greatly to enfeeble them. How long is it before we are really ourselves, after our stomach has received its full load! Under it, our senses are dulled, our memory clouded, heaviness and stupidity possess us : some hours may pass before our vivacity returns, before reason can again act with its full vigour. The man is not seen to advantage, his real abilities are not to be discovered, till the effects of his gluttony are removed, till his constitution has thrown off the weight that oppressed it."

The hours preceding a plentiful meal, or those which succeed its entire digestion, are, we all find, such, in which we are fittest to transact our affairs, in which all the acts of the understanding are best exerted.

How small a part of his time is therefore the luxurious man himself? What between the length of his repasts— the space during which he is, as it were, stupified by his excess in them-the many hours of sleep that he wants to refresh, and of exercise to strengthen him; within how small a compass is that portion of his life brought, in which his rational powers are fitly displayed!

In the vigour of youth, in the full strength of manhood, an uncontroled gratification of appetite allows only short intervals of clear apprehension, of close attention, and the free use of our judgment: but if, either through an uncommonly firm constitution, or by spending all those hours in exercise, which are not passed at our tables or in our beds, we are enabled, notwithstanding such gratification, to reach a more advanced age; what a melancholy spectacle do we then frequently afford ! our memory, our wit, our sense, almost wholly destroyed,—there remains, scarce allowing a conjecture to be formed thence, what they have

been-the ruins of the man hardly furnishing a trace of his former ornaments.

Most of those diseases which luxury brings upon our bodies are, indeed, a gradual impairing of our intellectual faculties the mind shares the disorder of its companion, acts as that permits, discovers a greater or less capacity, according to the other's more or less perfect state. And as the body, when dead, is totally unfit to be acted upon by the soul; so the nearer it is brought to death by our gluttony, the more we increase its unfitness to display, by how noble a principle it is actuated, what the extent of those abilities is, which the bounty of our infinitely good and powerful Creator has afforded.

LESSON, VII.

The Balance of Happiness Equal

AN extensive contemplation on human affairs, will lead us to this conclusion, that among the different conditions and ranks of men, the balance of happiness is preserved in a great measure equal, and that the high and the low, the rich and the poor, approach, in point of real enjoyment, much nearer to each other than is commonly imagined, In the lot of man, mutual compensations, both of pleasure and of pain, universally take place. Providence never intended, that any state here should be either completely happy, or entirely miserable. If the feelings of pleasure are more numerous, and more lively, in the higher departments of life, such also are those of pain. If greatness flatters our vanity, it multiplies our dangers. If opulence increases our gratifications, it increases, in the same proportion, our desires and demands. If the poor

are confined to a more narrow circle, yet within that circle lie most of the natural satisfactions, which, after all the refinements of art, are found to be the most genuine and true. In a state therefore, where there is neither so much to be coveted on the one hand, nor to be dreaded on the other, as at first appears, how submissive ought we to be to the disposal of Providence! How temperate in our desires and pursuits! How much more attentive to preserve our virtue and to improve our minds, than to gain the doubtful and equivocal advantages of worldly prosperity!

LESSON VIII.

On Music.

THERE are few who have not felt the charms of music, and acknowledged its expressions to be intelligible to the heart. It is a language of delightful sensations, that is far more eloquent than words: it breathes to the ear the clearest intimations; but how it was learned, to what origin we owe it, or what is the meaning of some of its most affecting strains, we know not.

We feel plainly that music touches and gently agitates the agreeable and sublime passions; that it wraps us in melancholy, and elevates in joy; that it dissolves and inflames; that it melts us in tenderness, and rouses to rage but its strokes are so fine and delicate, that, like a tragedy, even the passions that are wounded please; its sorrows are charming, and its rage heroic and delightful; as people feel the particular passions with different degrees of force, their taste of harmony must proportionably vary. Music then is a language directed to the passions; but the rudest passions put on a new nature and become

pleasing in harmony: let me add, also, that it awakens some passions which we perceive not in ordinary life. Particularly the most elevated sensation of music arises from a confused perception of ideal or visionary beauty and rapture, which is sufficiently perceivable to fire the imagination, but not clear enough to become an object of knowledge. This shadowy beauty the mind attempts, with a languishing curiosity, to collect into a distinct object of view and comprehension: but it sinks and escapes, like the dissolving ideas of a delightful dream, that are neither within the reach of memory, nor yet totally fled. The noblest charm of music then, though real and affecting, seems too confused and fluid to be collected into a distinct idea. Harmony is always understood by the crowd, and almost always mistaken by musicians; who are, with hardly any exception, servile followers of the taste of mode, and who, having expended much time and pains on the mechanic and practical part, lay a stress on the dexterities of hand, which yet have no real value, but as they serve to produce those collections of sound that move the passions.

LESSON IX.

The Fruits of Industry and Innocence.

LOOK at the character of those people who most frequently make complaint of the load of life-how rarely will you hear it from innocence and active industry? How often from indolence, dissipation and vice? Peace must begin at home. He who receives from his own heart, when he first awakes in the morning, the salutation of an approving smile, will, when he rises and goes forth,