not only despised but despicable, not only unfortunate but unhappy, not only deferted by others but untrue to themselves, unfaithful to the better fentiments and wifer purposes they have at times entertained; I defire they would tell us, what fhall comfort them in this defolation of mind, as well as of condition? I repeat the question, What fhall comfort you then? You will perhaps expectation of better days. anfwer, The And is that all? Have you no other refuge than what has already failed you, and may fail you again? May, faid I? Alas! there will come a time, nor can that be very diftant, when it must fail. Beyond that, Sir, you dare not look; you know, you dare not. All beyond that is, to your guilty imagination, horror inconceivable, the blackness of darkness, and the depth of despair. For the truth of these remarks I appeal not to scripture only, but to observation, to hiftory, to poetry, to philosophy, to the united intelligence and accumulated wifdom of ages; all filled with the victories gained by the good over the fharpeft fufferings, over fickness and poverty, cenfure and obloquy, the infults. and perfecutions of enemies, the ingratitude and infidelity of friends; delighting to recount how the virtuous have in fuch conjunctures ftood their ground, preserved their chearfulness, afferted their integrity, proclaimed their trust in Providence, appeared to those about them great, superior, illuftrious-from what caufe? From the magnanimity and triumph of conscious worth: Whilft, on the other hand, we behold expofed to view the dejection, the despondence, the tremblings, the terrors, the unutterable and inevitable mifery, of the wicked, very often in prosperity itself, but in adversity almost always;—arifing from whence? From the dark abyfs, from the dreadful chaos, of a felf-condemning mind. So true is that declaration of Solomon; "The fpirit of a VOL I. G “man will fuftain his infirmity; but a "wounded fpirit who can bear?" When all is found and vigorous within, trials from without may be well borne: but when that which fhould fupport them is broken, how shall it be supported ? I cannot conclude this argument better than in those words of Milton, fo much to the purpose, and so wonderfully striking; He that hath light within his own clear breast, |