may fhew him, that his difcontent is unreasonable, but are by no means fufficient to relieve it. They rather give defpair than confolation. In a word, a man might reply to one of thefe comforters, as Auguftus did to his friend, who advised him not to grieve for the death of a person whom he loved, becaufe his grief could not fetch him again: It is for that very reason, faid the Emperor, that I grieve. On the contrary, Religion bears a more tender regard to human nature. It prescribes to a very miferable man the means of bettering his condition : nay, it fhews him that the bearing of his afflictions. as he ought to do will naturally end in the removal of them; it makes him eafy here, because it can make him happy hereafter. Upon the whole, a contented mind is the greatest blefling a man can enjoy in this world; and if in the prefent life his happiness arifes from the fubduing of his defires, it will arife in the next from the gratification of them. No. 575. MONDAY, AUGUST 2. Nec morti effe locum. No room is left for death. A VIRG. Georg. iv. ver. 226. DRYDEN. LEWD young fellow feeing an aged Hermit go by him barefoot, Father, fays he, you are in a very miferable condition if there is not another world. True fon, faid the Hermit, but what is thy condition if there is? Man is a creature defigned for two different ftates of being, or rather for two different lives. His firft life is fhort and tranfient; his fecond permanent and lafting. The queftion we are all concerned in is this, in which of thefe two lives is it our chief intereft to make ourselves happy? Or, in other words, whether we fhould endeavour to fecure to ourselves the pleafures and gratifications of a life which is uncertain and precarious, and at its utmoft length of a very inconfiderable duration; or to fecure to ourselves the pleafures of a life which is fixed and fettled, and will never end? Every man, upon the first hearing of this queftion, knows very well which fide of it he ought to clofe with. however right we are in theory, it is plain that in practice we adhere to the wrong fide of the queftion. We make provifions for this life as though it were never to have an end, and for the other life as though it were never to have a beginning. But Should a fpirit of fuperior rank, who is a stranger to human nature, accidentally alight upon the earth, and take a furvey of its inhabitants, what would his notions of us be? Would not he think that we are a fpecies of beings made for quite different ends and purposes than what we really are? Muft not he ima gine that we were placed in this world to get riches and honours? Would not he think that it was our duty to toil after wealth, and station, and itle? Nay, would not he believe we were forbidden poverty by threats of eternal punishment, and enjoined to purfue our pleafures under pain of damnation? He would certainly imagine that we were influenced by a scheme of duties quite oppofite to those which are indeed prefcribed to us. And truly, according to fuch an imagination, he muft conclude that we are a fpecies of the most obedient creatures in the univerfe; that we are conftant to our duty; and that we keep a fteady eye on the end for which we were fent hither.. But how great would be his aftonishment, when he learnt that we were beings not defigned to exift in this world above threefcore and ten years; and that the the greatest part of this bufy fpecies fall fhort even of that age? How would he be loft in horror and admiration, when he fhould know that this fet of creatures, who lay out all their endeavours for this life, which fcarce deferves the name of existence ; when, I fay, he fhould know that this fet of crea tures are to exift to all eternity in another life, for which they make no preparations? Nothing can be a greater difgrace to reason, than that men who are perfuaded of thefe two different ftates of being, fhould be perpetually employed in providing for a life of threefcore and ten years, and neglecting to make provifion for that, which after many myriads of years will be ftill new, and still beginning; efpecially when we confider, that our endeavours for making ourfelves great, or rich, or honourable, or whatever elfe we place our happiness in, may after all prove unfuccefsful; whereas, if we conftantly and fincerely endeavour to make ourselves happy in the Sther life, we are fure that our endeavours will fucceed, and that we fhall not be difappointed of our hope. The following queftion is ftarted by one of the fchoolmen: fuppofing the whole body of the earth were a great ball or mafs of the finest fand, and that a fingle grain or particle of this fand fhould be annihilated every thousand years. Suppofing then that you had it in your choice to be happy all the while this prodigious mafs of fand was confuming by this flow method, until there was not a grain of it left, on condition you were to be miferable for ever after; or, fuppofing that you might be happy for ever after, on condition you would be miserable until the whole mafs of fand was thus annihilated, at the rate of one fand in a thousand years; which of these two cafes would you make your choice? It must be confeffed in this cafe, fo many thousands of years are to the imagination as a kind of eternity, though in reality they do not bear fo great a proportion to that duration, which is to follow them, as an H 3 unis unit does to the greatest number which you can put together in figures, or as one of thofe fands to the fuppofed heap. Reason therefore tells us, without any manner of hesitation, which would be the better part in this choice. However, as I have before intimated, our reason might in such a case be so overfet by the imagination, as to difpofe fome perfons to fink under the confideration of the great length of the first part of this duration, and of the great diftance of that fecond duration, which is to fucceed it. The mind, I fay, might give itfelf up to that happiness which is at hand, confidering that it is fo very near, and that it would laft so very long. But when the choice we actually have before us is this, whether we will chufe to be happy for the space of only threefcore and ten, nay, perhaps of only twenty or ten years, I might fay of only a day or an hour, and miferable to all eternity; or, on the contrary, miferable for this fhort term of years, and happy for a whole eternity? what words are fufficient to exprefs that folly and want of confideration, which in fuch a cafe makes a wrong choice! I here put the cafe even at the worst, by fuppofing (what feldom happens) that a courfe of virtue makes us miferable in this life: but if we fuppofe (as it generally happens) that virtue would make us more happy even in this life than a contrary course of vice; how can we fufficiently admire the stupidity or mad. nefs of thofe perfons who are capable of making fo abfurd a choice? Every wife man, therefore, will confider this life only as it may conduce to the happiness of the other, and cheerfully facrifice the pleafures of a few years to thofe of an eternity. WEDNESDAY, I Nitor in adverfum; nec me, qui cætera, vincit I fteer against their motions, nor am I Born back by all the current of the fky. ADDISON. REMEMBER a young man of very lively parts, and of a sprightly turn in converfation, who had only one fault, which was an inordinate defire of appearing fashionable. This ran him into many amours, and confequently into many distempers. He never went to bed until two o'clock in the morning, because he would not be a queer fellow, and was every now and then knocked down by a conftable, to fignalize his vivacity. He was initiated into half a dozen clubs before he was one and twenty, and fo improved in them his natural gaiety of temper, that you might frequently trace him to his lodgings by a range of broken windows, and other the like monuments of wit and gallantry. To be fhort, after having fully established his reputation of being a very agreeable rake, he died of old age at five and twenty. There is indeed nothing which betrays a man into fo many errors and inconveniencies, as the defire of not appearing fingular; for which reafon it is very neceffary to form a right idea of fingularity, that we may know when it is laudable, and when it is vicious. In the first place, every man of sense will agree with me, that fingularity is laudable, when, in contradiction to a multitude, it adheres to the dictates of conscience, morality, and honour. In these cases we ought to confider, that it is not cuftom, but duty, which is the rule of |