in a heart determined never to commit it more !— Upon that altar only could I offer up my wrongs. "Cruel is the punishment which an ingenuous mind will take upon itself, from the remorse of so hard a trespass against me; and if that will not balance the account, just God! let me forgive the rest. 'Mercy well becomes the heart of all thy creatures! —but most of thy servant, a Levite, who offers up so many daily sacrifices to thee, for the transgressions of thy people.

But to little purpose,' he would add, have I served at thy altar, where my business was to sue for mercy, had I not learnt to practise it.'

Peace and happiness rest upon the head and heart of every man who can thus think!

"So he arose, and went after her, to speak friend❝ly unto her "in the original,-to speak to her heart; to apply to their former endearments,— and to ask, how she could be sa unkind to him, and so very unkind to herself?—

Even the upbraidings of the quiet and relenting are sweet: not like the strivings of the fierce and inexorable, who bite and devour all who have thwarted them in their way ;-but they are calm and courteous, like the spirit which watches over their character. How could such a temper woo the dam. sel, and not bring her back! or, how could the father of the damsel, in such a scene, have a heart open to any impressions but those mentioned in the text;"That when he saw him, he rejoiced to "meet him ;"urged his stay from day to day, with that most irresistible of all invitations, "Comfort thy heart, and tarry all night, and let "thine heart be merry."

If mercy and truth thus met together in settling this account, love would surely be of the party : great, great is its power in cementing what has been broken, and wiping out wrongs even from the memory itself! and so it was, for the Levite arose up, and with him his concubine and his servant, and they departed.

It serves no purpose to pursue the story further; the catastrophe is horrid, and would lead us beyond the particular purpose for which I have enlarged upon thus much of it; and that is, to discredit rash judgment, and illustrate from the manner of conducting this drama, the courtesy which the dramatis persona of every other piece may have a right to.. Almost one half of our time is spent in telling and hearing evil of one another ;-some unfortunate knight is always upon the stage ;-and every hour brings forth something strange and terrible to fill up our discourse and our astonishment, How people can be so foolish !'—and 'tis well if the compliment ends there; so that there is not a social virtue for which there is so constant a demand,-or, consequently, so well worth cultivating, as that which opposes this unfriendly current. Many and rapid are the springs which feed it; and various and sudden, God knows, are the guests which render it unsafe to us in this short passage of our life! Let us make the discourse as servicable as we can, by tracing some of the most remarkable of them up to their source.

And, first, there is one miserable inlet to this evil, and which, by the way, if speculation is supposed to precede practice, may have been derived, for aught I know, from some of our busiest enquirers after na

ture; and that is, when with more zeal than knowledge we account for phenomena before we are sure of their existence." It is not the manner of the "Romans to condemn any man to death" (much less to be martyred) said Festus ;" and doth our "law judge any man before it hear him, and know "what he doth ?" cried Nicodemus ; "and he that "answereth, or determineth a matter before he has “heard it,—it is folly, and a shame unto him.”We are generally in such a haste to make our own decrees, that we pass over the justice of these,and then the scene is so changed by it, that 'tis our own folly only which is real, and that of the accused which is imaginary through too much precipitancy it will happen so; and then the jest is spoiled,or we have criticised our own shadow.

A second way is, when the process goes on more orderly, and we begin with getting information ;— but do it from those suspected evidences, against which our Saviour warns us when he bids us" Not "to judge according to appearance."-In truth, 'tis behind these that most of the things which blind human judgment lie concealed ;-and, on the contrary, there are many things which appear to be,which are not "Christ came eating and drinking, "-behold a wine-bibber!"-he sat with sinners,― he was their friend :-in many cases of which kind, truth, like a modest matron, scorns art, and disdains to press herself forwards into the circle to be seen-ground sufficient for suspicion to draw up the libel, for malice to give the torture, or rash judgment to start up and pass a final sentence..

A third way is, when the facts which denote misconduct are less disputable, but are commented up

on with an asperity of censure, which a humane or a gracious temper would spare. An abhorrence against what is criminal, is so fair a plea for this, and looks so like virtue in the face, that in a sermon against rash judgment, it would be unseasonable to call it in question, and yet, I declare, in the fullest torrent of exclamations which the guilty can deserve, that the simple apostrophe, Who made me to differ?-why was not I an example?' would touch my heart more, and give me a better earnest of the commentators,—than the most corrosive period you could add. The punishment of the unhappy, I fear, is enough without it;-and were it not, 'tis piteous, the tongue of a christian (whose religion is all candour and courtesy) should be made the execu tioner! We find in the discourse between Abraham and the rich man, though the one was in heaven, and the other in hell, yet still the patriarch treated him with mild language :" Son! son, remember that "thou in thy life time," &c.-And in the dispute about the body of Moses, between the archangel and the devil (himself) St. Jude tells us, he durst not bring a railing accusation against him; 'twas unworthy his high character, and, indeed, might have been impol itick too; for if he had, (as one of our divines nutes upon the passage) the devil had been too hard for him at railing ;-'twas his own weapon;-and the basest spirits, after his example, are the most expert at it.

This leads me to the observation of a fourth cruel inlet to this evil; and that is, the desire of being thought men of wit and parts; and the vain expectation of coming honestly by the title, by shrewd and sarcastick reflections upon whatever is done in

the world. This is setting up trade upon the broken stock of other people's failings,-perhaps their misfortunes:-so much good may it do them with what honour they can get,-the furthest extent of which, I think, is to be praised, as we do some sauces, with tears in our eyes. It is a commerce most illiberal; and as it requires no vast capital, too many embark in it; and so long as there are bad passions to be gratified, and bad heads to judge,—with such it may pass for wit, or at least, like some vile relation whom all the family is ashamed of, claim kindred with it, even in better companies. Whatever be the degree of its affinity, it has helped to give wit a bad name; as if the main essence of it was satire :-certainly there is a difference between bitterness and saltness; that is,-between the ma lignity and the festivity of wit:-the one is a mere quickness of apprehension, void of humanity, and is a talent of the devil; the other comes from the Father of Spirits, so pure and abstracted from persons, that willingly it hurts no man; or, if it touches upon an indecorum, 'tis with that dexterity of true genius, which enables him rather to give a new colour to the absurdity, and let it pass.-He may smile at the shape of the obelisk raised to another's fame ;-but the malignant wit will level it at once with the ground, and build his own upon the ruins of it.

What then, ye rash censurers of the world! Have ye no mansions for your credit but those from whence ye have extruded the right owners? Are there no regions for you to shine in, that ye descend for it into the low caverns of abuse, and crimination? Have ye no seats but those of the scornful to sit