And, my fon, you fhall find them. I am now raised above this world, and all the pleasures it can produce. From this moment I break from my heart all the ties that held it down to earth, and will prepare to fit us both for eternity. Yes, my fon, I will point out the way and my foul fhall guide yours in the afcent, for we will take our flight together. I now fee and am convinced you can expect no pardon here, and I can only exhort you to feek it at that greatest tribunal where we both shall fhortly anfwer. But let us not be niggardly in our exhortation, but let all our fellow prifoners have a fhare good gaoler, let them be permitted to ftand here while I attempt to improve them.' Thus faying, I made an effort to rife from my ftraw but wanted ftrength, and was able only to recline against the wall. The prifoners affembled themselves according to my directions for they loved to hear my counfel; my fon and his mother fupported me on either fide; I looked and faw that none were wanting, and then addreffed them with the following exhortation. CHAP. XXIX. The equal dealings of Providence demonftrated with regard to the happy and the miferable here below. That from the nature of pleasure and pain, the wretched must be repaid the balance of their fufferings in the life hereafter. My friends, my children, and fellow fufferers, when I reflect on the diftribution of good and evil here below, I find that much has been given man to enjoy, yet ftill more to fuffer. Though we should examine the whole world, we fhall not find one man fo fo happy as to have nothing left to wifh for; but we daily fee thousands who by fuicide fhew us they have nothing left to hope. In this life then it appears that we cannot be entirely bleft, but yet we may be completely miferable. Why man fhould thus feel pain, why our wretchednefs fhould be requifite in the formation of univerfal felicity, why, when all other fyftems are made perfect by the perfection of their fubordinate parts, the great fyftem fhould require for its perfection parts that are not only fubordinate to others, but imperfect in themselves; thefe are queftions that never can be explained, and might be useless if known. On this fubject Providence has thought fit to elude our curiofity, fatisfied with granting us motives to confolation. In this fituation man has called in the friendly affiftance of philofophy, and heaven, feeing the incapacity of that to confole him, has given him the aid of religion. The confolations of philofophy are very amufing, but often fallacious. It tells us that life is filled with comforts, if we will but enjoy them; and on the other hand, that though we unavoidably have miseries here, life is fhort, and they will foon be over. Thus do thefe confolations deftroy each other; for if life is a place of comfort its fhortnefs must be misery, and if it be long our griefs are protracted. Thus philofophy is weak; but religion comforts in an higher ftrain. Man is here, it tells us, fitting up his mind, and preparing it for another abode. When the good man leaves the body and is all a glorious mind, he will find he has been making himself a heaven of happiness here, while the wretch that has been maimed and contaminated by his vices, fhrinks from his body with terror and finds that he has anticipated the vengeance of heaven. To religion then we muft hold in every circumftance of life for our trueft comfort; for if al ready ready we are happy, it is a pleasure to think that we can make that happinefs unending; and if we are miferable, it is very confoling to think that there is a place of reft. Thus to the fortunate religion holds out a continuance of blifs, to the wretched a change from pain. But though religion is very kind to all men, it has. promifed peculiar rewards to the unhappy; the fick, the naked, the houseless, the heavy-laden, and the prifoner have ever moft frequent promifes in our facred law. The author of our religion every where profeffes himself the wretch's friend, and unlike the falfe ones of this world, beftows all his careffes upon the forlorn. The unthinking have cenfured this as partiality, as a preference without merit to deferve it. But they never reflect that it is not in the power even of heaven itself to make the offer of unceafing felicity as great a gift to the happy as to the miferable. To the firft eternity is but a single bleffing, fince at most it but increafes what they already poffefs. To the latter it is a double advantage; for it diminishes their pain here, and rewards them with. heavenly blifs hereafter. But Providence is in another refpect kinder to the poor than the rich; for as it thus makes the life after death more defirable, so it smooths the paffage there. The wretched have had a long familiarity with every face of terror. The man of forrows lays himself quietly down, without poffeffions to regret, and but few ties to ftop his departure: he feels only nature's pang in the final feparation, and this is no way greater than he has often fainted under before; for after a certain degree of pain, every new breach that death opens in the conftitution, nature kindly covers with infenfibility. Thus Providence has given the wretched two advantages over the happy in this life, greater felicity in dying, and in heaven all that fuperiority of plea fure fure which arifes from contrafted enjoyment. And. this fuperiority, my friends, is no fmall advantage, and feems to be one of the pleasures of the poor man in the parable; for though he was already in heaven, and felt all the raptures it could give, yet it was mentioned as an addition to his happiness, that he had once been wretched, and now was comforted; that he had known what it was to be miferable, and now felt what it was to be happy. Thus, my friends, you fee religion does what philofophy could never do: it fhews the equal dealings of heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and levels all human enjoyments to nearly the fame ftandard. It gives to both rich and poor the fame happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to afpire after it; but if the rich have the advantage of enjoying pleasure here, the poor have the endlefs fatisfaction of knowing what it was once to be miferable, when crowned with endless felicity hereafter; and even though this fhould be called a fmall advantage, yet being an eternal one, it must make up by duration what the temporal happiness of the great may have exceeded by intenfenefs. These are therefore the confolations which the wretched have peculiar to themselves, and in which they are above the rest of mankind; in other respects they are below them. They who would know the miferies of the poor, muft fee life and endure it. To declaim on the temporal advantages they enjoy, is only repeating what none either believe or practife. The men who have the neceffaries of living are not poor, and they who want them must be miferable. friends we must be miserable. No vain efforts of a refined imagination can foothe the wants of nature, can give elaftic sweetness to the dark vapour of a dungeon, or eafe to the throbbings of a broken heart. Let the philofopher from his couch of foftnefs tell us that we can refift all these. Alas! the effort Yes my effort by which we refift them is ftill the greatest pain! Death is flight, and any man may fuftain it; but torments are dreadful, and these no man can - endure. To us then my friends the promises of happiness in heaven fhould be peculiarly dear; for if our reward be in this life alone, we are then indeed of all men the most miferable. When I look round these gloomy walls, made to terrify as well as to confine us; this light that only ferves to fhew the horrors of the place, thofe fhackles that tyranny has impofed or crime made neceflary; when I furvey thefe emaciated looks, and hear thofe groans, O! my friends what a glorious exchange would heaven be for these ! To fly through regions unconfined as air, to bafk in the funfhine of eternal blifs, to carol over endless hymns of praife, to have no mafter to threaten or in-. fult us, but the form of Goodnefs himself for ever in our eyes; when I think of these things, death becomes the meffenger of very glad tidings; when I think of these things his fharpeft arrow becomes the ftaff of my fupport; when I think of these things, what is there in life worth having? when I think of these things, what is there that fhould not be fpurned away? kings in their palaces fhould groan for fuch advantages; but we, humbled as we are, fhould yearn for them. And fhall these things be ours? Ours they will certainly be if we but try for them; and what is a comfort, we are fhut out from many temptations that would retard our purfuit. Only let us try for them and they will certainly be ours, and what is ftill a comfort, fhortly too; for if we look back on a paft life it appears but a very fhort fpan, and whatever we may think of the reft of life, it will yet be found of lefs duration; as we grow older the days feem to grow fhorter, and our intimacy with time ever leffens the perception of his ftay. Then let us take comfort |