better than to be obliged; though the act of generosity commands admiration; yet the humility of gratitude touches the heart, and is amiable in the sight both of God and man.

Mortality.

1. CHILD of mortality, whence comest thou? why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping? I have seen the rose in its beauty; it spread its leaves to the morning sun. I returned it was dying upon its stalk; the grace of the form of it was gone; its loveliness was vanished away; its leaves were scattered on the ground, and no one gathered them again.

2. A stately tree grew on the plain; its branches were covered with verdure; its boughs spread wide and made a goodly shadow; the trunk was like a strong pillar; the roots were like crooked fangs. I returned: the verdure was nipped by the east wind; the branches were lopped away by the axe; the worm had made its way into the trunk, and the heart thereof was decayed; it mouldered away, and fell to the ground.

3. I have seen the insects sporting in the sunshine, and darting along the streams; their wings glittered with gold and purple; their bodies shone like the green emerald; they were more numerous than I could count: their motions were quicker than my eye could glance. I returned: they were brushed into the pool; they were perishing with the evening breeze; the swallow had devoured them; the pike had seized them; there were none found of so great a multitude.

4. I have seen man in the pride of his strength; his cheeks glowed with beauty; his limbs were full of activity; he leap ed; he walked; he ran; he rejoiced in that he was more excellent than those. I returned he lay stiff and cold on the bare ground; his feet could no longer move, nor his hands stretch themselves out; his life was departed from him; and the breath out of his nostrils. Therefore do I weep, because death is in the world; the spoiler is among the works of God: all that is made, must be destroyed; all that is born, must die let me alone, for I will weep yet longer.

Immortality.

1. I HAVE seen the flower withering on the stalk, and its bright leaves spread on the ground. I looked again: it sprung forth afresh; its stem was crowned with new buds, and its sweetness filled the air.

2. I have seen the sun set in the west, and the shades of night shut in the wide horizon; there was no colour, nor shape, nor

beauty, nor music; gloom and darkness brooded around. I looked the sun broke forth again from the east, and gilded the mountain tops; the lark rose to meet him from her low nest, and the shades of darkness fled away.

3. I have seen the insect, being come to its full size, languish, and refuse to eat it spun itself a tomb, and was shrouded in the silken cone; it lay without feet, or shape, or power to move. I looked again: it had burst its tomb; it was full of life, and sailed on coloured wings through the soft air; it rejoiced in its new being.

4. Thus shall it be with thee, O man; and so shall thy life be renewed. Beauty shall spring up out of ashes, and life out of the dust. A little while shalt thou lie in the ground, as the seed lies in the bosom of the earth; but thou shalt be raised again; and thou shalt never die any more.

5. Who is he that comes to burst open the prison doors of the tomb; to bid the dead awake; and to gather his redeemed from the four winds of heaven? He descends on a fiery cloud; the sound of a trumpet goes before him; thousands of angels are on his right hand. It is Jesus, the Son of God; the Saviour of men; the Friend of the good. He comes in the glory of his Father; he has received power from on high.

6. Mourn not, therefore, child of immortality! For the spoiler, the cruel spoiler, that laid waste the works of God, is subdued. Jesus has conquered death; child of immortality, mourn no longer.

Heaven.

1. THE rose is sweet, but it is surrounded with thorns; the lily of the valley is fragrant, but it springs up amongst the brambles. The spring is pleasant, but it is soon past: the summer is bright, but the winter destroys its beauty. The rainbow is very glorious, but it soon vanishes away: life is good, but it is quickly swallowed up in death.

2. There is a land, where the roses are without thorns; where the flowers are not mixed with brambles. In that land there is eternal spring, and light without any cloud. The tree of life grows in the midst thereof; rivers of pleasure are there, and flowers that never fade. Myriads of happy spirits are there, and surround the throne of God with a perpetual hymn. The angels with their golden harps sing praises continually, and the cherubims fly on wings of fire! This country is Heaven: it is the country of those that are good; and nothing that is wicked must inhabit there. The toad must not spit its venom

amongst turtle-doves; nor the poisonous henbane grow amongst sweet flowers. Neither must any one that does ill, enter into that good land.

3. This earth is pleasant, for it is God's earth, and it is filled. with many delightful things. But that country is far better: there we shall not grieve any more, nor be sick any more, nor do wrong any more; there the cold of winter shall not wither us, nor the heats of summer scorch us. In that country there are no wars nor quarrels, but all dearly love one another.

4. When our parents and friends die, and are laid in the cold ground, we see them here no more; but there we shall embrace them again, and live with them, and be separated no more. There we shall meet all good men whom we read of in holy books. There we shall see Abraham the called of God, the father of the faithful; and Moses, after his long wanderings in the Arabian desert; and Elijah, the prophet of God; and Daniel who escaped the lions' den: and there the son of Jesse, the shepherd king, the sweet singer of Israel. They loved God on earth; they praised him on earth; but in that country they will praise him better, and love him more.

God.

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5. There we shall see Jesus, who is gone before us to that happy place and there we shall behold the glory of the high We cannot see him here, but we will love him here. We must be now on earth, but we will often think on Heaven. That happy land is our home; we are to be here but for a little while, and there forever, even for eternal ages.

The Folly of Pride.

1. If there be any thing which makes human nature appear ridiculous to beings of superiour faculties, it must be pride. They know so well the vanity of those imaginary perfections, that swell the heart of man, and of those little supernumerary advantages of birth, fortune, or title, which one man enjoys above another, that it must certainly very much astonish, if it does not very much divert them, when they see a mortal puffed up, and valuing himself above his neighbours, on any of these accounts, at the same time that he is liable to all the common foibles and calamities of the species.

2. To set this thought in its true light, we shall fancy, if you please, that yonder molehill is inhabited by reasonable creatures; and that every pismire (his shape and way of life only excepted) is endowed with human faculties and passions. How should we smile to hear one give an account of the pedigrees, distinctions, and titles, that reign among them! Observe how the

whole swarm divide, and make way for the pismire that passes along! You must understand he is an emmet of quality, and has better blood in his veins than any pismire in the molehill.

3. Do you not see how sensible he is of it, how slow he marches forward, how the whole rabble of ants keep their distance! Here you may observe one placed upon a little eminence, and looking down on a long row of labourers. He is the richest insect on this side the hillock: he has a walk of half a yard in length, and a quarter of an inch in breadth; he keeps one hundred menial servants, and has at least fifteen barley corns in his granary. He is now chiding and enslaving the emmet that stands before him, one who, for all that we can discover, is as good an emmet as himself.

4. But here comes an insect of rank! Do not you perceive the little white straw that he carries in his mouth? That straw, you must understand, he would not part with for the longest tract about the molehill: you cannot conceive what he has undergone to purchase it! See how the ants of all qualities and conditions swarm about him! Should this straw drop out of his mouth, you would see all this numerous circle of attendants follow the next that took it up; and leave the discarded insect, or run over his back to come to his successor.

5. If now you have a mind to see the ladies of the molehill, observe first the pismire that listens to the emmet on her left hand, at the same time that she seems to turn away her head from him. He tells this poor insect, that she is a superiour be ing; that her eyes are brighter than the sun; that life and death are at her.disposal. She believes him, and gives herself a thou sand little airs upon it. Mark the vanity of the pismire on her right hand. She can scarcely crawl with age; but you must know she values herself upon her birth; and, if you mind, spurns at every one that comes within her reach. The little nimble coquette that is running by the side of her, is a wit. She has broken many a pismire's heart. Do but observe what a drove of admirers are running after her.

6. We shall here finish this imaginary scene. But first of all, to draw the parallel closer, we shall suppose, if you please, that death comes down upon the molehill in the shape of a cocksparrow; and picks up, without distinction, the pismire of quality and his flatterers, the pismire of substance and his day-labourers, the white straw-officer and his sycophants, with all the ladies of rank, the wits, and the beauties of the molehill.

7. May we not imagine that beings of superiour natures and perfections regard all the instances of pride and vanity among

our own species, in the same kind of view, when they take a survey of those who inhabit this earth; or (in the language of an ingenious French poet) of those pismires that people this heap of dirt, which human vanity has divided into climates and regions?

The Swiftness of Time.

1. THE natural advantages which arise from the position of the earth which we inhabit, with respect to the other planets, afford much employment to mathematical speculation, by which it has been discovered, that no other conformation of the system could have given such commodious distributions of light and heat, or imparted fertility and pleasure, to so great a part of a revolving sphere.

2. It may be, perhaps, observed by the moralist, with equal reason, that our globe seems particularly fitted for the residence of a being, placed here only for a short time, whose task is to advance himself to a higher and happier state of existence, by unremitted vigilance of caution, and activity of virtue.

3. The duties required of man, are such as human nature does not willingly perform, and such as those are inclined to delay, who yet intend some time to fulfil them. It was, therefore necessary that this universal reluctance should be counteracted, and the drowsiness of hesitation wakened into resolve ; that the danger of procrastination should be always in view, and the fallacies of security be hourly detected.

4. To this end all the appearances of nature uniformly conspire. Whatever we see on every side, reminds us of the lapse of time, and the flux of life. The day and night succeed each other, the rotation of seasons diversifies the year, the sun rises, attains the meridian, declines and sets; and the moon every night changes its form.

5. The day has been considered as an image of the year, and a year as the representation of life. The morning answers to the spring, and the spring to childhood and youth; the noon corresponds to the summer, and the summer to the strength of manhood. The evening is an emblem of autumn, and autumn of declining life. The night, with its silence and darkness, shows the winter, in which all the powers of vegetation are benumbed; and the winter points out the time when life shall cease, with its hopes and pleasures.

6. He that is carried forward, however swiftly, by a motion equable and easy, perceives not the change of place but by the variation of objects. If the wheel of life, which rolls thus si