" and casualties. Thou art now, indeed, "-most powerful and rich; and king over a

numerous people. Yet, with respect to "that which thou demandedst of me, I can

"

give no answer, until I shall have known "that thou hast ended thy life in happiness. "For he who has great riches, is not hap"pier than he who has only sufficient, "unless the same prosperity attends him to "the end of his career. If, to all thy present 66 prosperity, thou shalt add an happy death, "then art thou indeed he after whom thou

inquirest; the man who may truly be "pronounced happy. Until, however, a 66 man shall have reached his end, suspend "thy judgment; call him fortunate, but do "not yet venture to pronounce him happy. "He who unites the most numerous means "of happiness; who retains them to the "end; and who then departs from life tran"quilly, is alone entitled, in my estimation, "to be pronounced HAPPY. It is therefore

necessary that we should wait the end "of things, and observe their final issues."

How the truth of Solon's argument was

proved to Croesus, I shall not relate here, since it is known to every reader of ancient history.

38. If, upon this narrow ground of heathen argument, the proposition is undeniably true, that a life must be ended before we can pronounce positively of its value; how powerful and how awful does that proposition become, when it is placed upon Christian ground, with all the secrets of eternity laid open, in evidence of its truth? What Christian is there who needs to be taught, that the real value of his life cannot be taken until his death? And that, not merely with reference to the retrospect of what he has experienced, but with reference also to the prospect, of that which he shall thereafter experience throughout eternal ages? The truth of the proposition, therefore, requires no enforcement; neither that other which is so intimately connected with it; that the value of life does not, in any degree, consist in quantity of years. It is in the productiveness of the time we live, (whatever be its quantity,) to an end of value, which alone

sets a value upon the time we live. That end of value is assurance of eternal happiness; and every measure of life, which can produce that assurance, is equally valuable.

39. And here is a proper place for noticing an effort which has been lately made, under the title of " the Macrobiotic Art, or Art of prolonging Life," to attach a value upon the time, or quantity of life, considered in itself.

40." The bills of mortality," we are told,

convey some of the most important in"structions; by means of ascertaining THE "LAW, which governs the waste of human "life." Most interesting, indeed, would the discovery of that great law be to the human race. But what are those "important in"structions," which the teacher would deduce from the supposed discovery of that mysterious law?" The value of An-^ "nuities, dependent on the continuance of

any lives, or any survivorship between "them." Doubtless, this is an object, of a certain relative importance to some particular temporal circumstances of social

life; but when we view it in comparisonwith that sense of absolute importance, which the allegation of "the law which governs the "waste of human life," naturally and immediately awakens in the mind, how little and how ludicrous does its assumed solemnity appear!

41. No stronger ground could be laid for the most provident and extensive measures of final and eternal security, than a well considered view of the great "law which governs the waste of human life;" and yet it happens, that this sovereign law is contemplated in such a manner, as to fix and entomb the mind within the narrowest limits of that extensive" waste." A new average is sought for the length of human life; setting at naught the common agreement of mankind in all ages, and holding out a vain and pernicious encouragement to earthly views, by fallaciously extending that average from SEVENTY, to upwards of EIGHTY years; a vast importance is attached, to that small extension of the latter part of life beyond its ancient average;

and thence has arisen a presumptuous and spurious art, professing to "prolong life" beyond its averaged term.

42. And what is held forth to us, as the attractive object and end of that art? It is this: "That if any person, possessed of a "plain but sound understanding, and whose "health is not materially injured, will care"fully peruse its pages, and will apply the "facts therein contained to his own par"ticular life, occasionally calling in the "assistance of an enlightened medical "friend, when any important alteration "takes place in his constitution or bodily "functions, he can hardly fail (to do "what?) to add from ten to twenty, or " even thirty years, to his comfortable ex❝istence."

43. And in order to inspire an ambition for penetrating so far into those wintry regions of our nature, a portrait is presented of two aged objects, who are in the actual possession of all the privileges attainable in that northern pole of life; who have doubled their common average of years; and who