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Hypocrify.Human Degradation-Health.

HYPOCRISY.

137

LOOK out of your door,-take notice of that man: fee what difquieting, intriguing and fhifting, he is content to go through, merely to be thought a man of plain-dealing :three grains of honefty would fave him all this trouble-alas! he has them not.- Sterne.

A HYPOCRITE in fociety lives in the fame apprehenfion with a thief, who lies concealed in the midft of the family he is to rob; for this fancies himfelf perceived when he is leaft fo; every motion alarms him; he fears he is discovered, and is fufpicious that every one who enters the room knows where he is hid, and is coming to feize him. And thus, as nothing hates more violently than fear, many an innocent perfon, who fufpects no evil intended him, is detesled by him who intends it.Fielding.

THE hypocrite fhews the excellency of virtue by the neceffity he thinks himfelf under of feeming to be virtuous.--Rambler.

HUMAN DEGRADATION.

I SEE the noble nature of man fo cruelly debafed,-I fee the horse and the dog in fo many inftances raised to a rank far fuperior to beings whom I muft acknowledge as my fellowcreatures, and whom my heart cannot but embrace with a fraternal affection which muft increase with the infults I fee them fuffer, I fee the pride of power and of rank mounted to fo ungovernable a height in thofe whom accident has called to direct the affairs of nations,-I fee the faculty of reafon fo completely dormant in both thefe claffes, and morality, the indifpenfible bond of union among men, fo effectually banished by the unnatural combinations, which in Europe are called fociety, that I have been almoft determined to relinquifa the difagreeable talk which I had preferibed to myfeif, and, returning to my country, endeavor in the new world to forget the miferies of the old.- -Barlow.

HEALTH.

-HOW fweet is thy return, O health! then rofy cherub! -my foul leaps forward to meet thee, whofe true value thy abfence can only teach us!-When thou comel, with healing on thy wings; when every part, and nerve, and artery, are obedient to their office; and when this complicated machine

is fo perfectly harmonized, that we perceive not that we have any part, or nerve, or artery, belonging to us, how sweetly is the mind then attuned to receive pleafure from every inlet of fenfe!

-God of my life! who numbereft my days, teach me to meet with gratitude, or patience, the good or ill, which in the tide of time fhall float down with them! but never withdraw from me thofe native fpirits, which have been the cheering companions of my existence, and have spread a gilding upon every thing around me !-that I may continue to view with rapture, the inexhauftible volume of nature that is thrown open before me; on every page of which is charactered the impreffion of thy omnipotent hand!-Keate.

HUMAN LIFE.

LIKE as a damask rofe you fee,

Or like the bloffom on the tree;
Or like the dainty flower in May,
Or like the morning to the day;
Or like the fun, or like the fhade,
Or like the gourd which Jonah had;
E'en fuch is man, whofe thread is fpun,
Drawn out, and cut, and fo is done.
Withers the rofe; the bloffom blasts;
The flower fades; the morning haftes;
The fun doth fet; the fhadows fly;
The gourd confumes; and mortals die.
Like to the grafs that's newly fprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun;
Or like a bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearled dew of May;
Or like an hour, or like a fpan,
Or like the finging of a swan :

E'en fuch is man, who lives by breath,
Is here, now there. in life and death.
The grafs decays; the tale doth end;
The bird is flown; the dews afcend;
The hour is fhort; the fpan not long;
The fwan's near death; man's life is done
Like to the bubble in the brook,

Or in a glass much like a look;
Cr like the fhuttle in the hand,
Or like the writing in the fand;

Hiring Soldiers.-Hereditary Power.-Human Nature. 139

Or like
Or like the gliding of the stream;
E'en fuch is man, who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death;
The bubble's burft; the look's forgot;
The fhuttle's flung; the writing's blot;
The thought is paft; the dream is gone;
The water glides; man's life is done.

thought, or like a dream,

HIRING SOLDIERS.

GOD, we read, made man in his own image; and our Saviour taught us, that he was the heir of immortality. God made no distinction of perfons; but behold a being, born to a fceptre, though a poor, puny, fhivering mortal like the reft, prefumes to fell, and let out for hire, thefe images of God, to do the work of butchers, in any caufe, and for any paymaster, on any number of unoffending fellow creatures, who are standing up in defence of their hearthis, their altars, their wives, their children, and their liberty! Great numbers of men, trained to the trade of human butchery, are conftantly ready to be let to hire, to carry on the work of defpotism, and to fupport, by the money they earn in this hellish employment, the luxurious vices of the wretch who calls them his property. Can that state of human affairs be right and proper, which permits a mifcreant, fcarcely worthy the name of a man, funk in effeminacy, the flave of vice, often the most abominable kind of vice, ignorant and illiterate, debilitated with disease, weak in body as in mind, to have fuch dominion over hundreds of thousands, his fuperiors by nature, as to let them out for pay, to murder the innocent ftranger in cold blood?— Spirit of Defpotifm.

HEREDITARY POWER.

NO office or place whatsoever in government, shall be hereditary-the abilities and integrity requifite in all, not being tranfmiffible to pofterity or relations.-Conflitution of New-Hampshire.

HUMAN NATURE.

THERE is nothing which I contemplate with greater pleafure than the dignity of human nature, which often fhews itfelf in all conditions of life; for notwith landing the degeneracy and meannefs that is crept into it, there are a thousand

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occafions in which it breaks through its original corruption, and fhews what it once was, and what it will be hereafter. confider the foul of man as a ruin of a glorious pile of building; where, amidst great heaps of rubbish, you meet with noble fragments of sculpture, broken pillars and obelifks, and a magnificence in confufion. Virtue and wifdom are continually employed in clearing the ruins, removing thefe diforderly heaps, recovering the noble pieces that lie buried under them, and adjusting them as well as poffible according to their ancient fymmetry and beauty. A happy education, converfation with the fineft fpirits, looking abroad into the works of nature, and obfervations upon mankind, are the great affiftances to this neceffary and glorious work. But even among those who have never had the happiness of any of thefe advantages, there are fometimes fuch exertions of the greatness that is natural to the mind of man, as fhew capacities and abilities, which only want thefe accidental helps to fetch them out and fhew them in a proper light.-Spectator.

1DLENESS.

WHAT is man,

If his chief good, and market of his time
Be but to fleep and feed? A beast—no more.
Sure he that made us with fuch large difcourfe,
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reafon
To ruft in us unufed.-Shakespeare.

IT is in vain to put wealth within the reach of him who will not ftretch out his hand to take it.-Johnson.

INDOLENCE is one of thofe vices from which thofe, whom it once infects, are feldom reformed.--Rambler.

AS pride is fometimes hid under humility, idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty, and real employment, naturally endeavors to croud his mind with fomething that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly; and does any thing but what he ought to do, with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favor Idler.

PERHAPS every man may date the predominance of thofe defires that difturb his life, and contaminate his confcience, from fome unhappy hour when too much leifure expofed him to their incurfions; for he has lived with little obfervation, either on himfeif, or others, who does not know, that to be idle is to be vicious.-Rambler.

Improvement of our reafoning Faculty.

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NO man is so much open to conviction as the idler; but there is none on whom it operates fo little.-Idler.

IDLENESS can never fecure tranquility; the call of reafon and of confcience will pierce the clofeft pavilion of the fluggard, and, though it may not have force to drive him from his down, will be loud enough to hinder him from fleep. Thofe moments which he cannot refolve to make useful, by devoting them to the great bufinefs of his being, will still be ufurped by powers that will not leave them to his difpofal ; remorfe and vexation will feize upon them, and forbid him to enjoy what he is fo defirous to appropriate -Rambler.

IMPROVEMENT of OUR REASONING FACULTY. ACCUSTOM yourself to clear and diftinct ideas, to evident propofitions, to ftrong and convincing arguments. Converfe much with thofe men, and thofe books, and thofe parts of learning, where you meet with the greatest clearness of thought, and force of reafoning. The mathematical fciences, and particularly arithmetic, geometry, and mechanics, abound with these advantages: and if there were nothing valuable in them for the ufes of human life, yet the very fpeculative parts of this fort of learning are well worth our tudy; for by perpetual examples they teach us to conceive with clearnefs, to connect our ideas and propofitions in a train of dependence, to reafon with ftrength and demonftration, and to diftinguish between truth and falfhood. Something of thefe fciences fhould be ftudied by every man who pretends to learning, and that, as Mr. Locke expreffes it, not fo much to make us mathematicians, as to make us reasonable creatures."-Watts.

INTERCOURSE with MANKIND.

CONFINE not yourself always to one fort of company, or to perfons of the fame party or opinion, either in matters of learning, religion, or civil life, left, if you should happen to be nurfed up or educated in early mistake, you should be confirmed and established in the fame mistake, by converfing only with perfons of the fame fentiments. A free and general converfation with men of various countries, and of different parties, opinions, and practices (fo far as may be done fafely) is of excellent ufe to undeceive us in many wrong judgments which we may have framed, and to lead us into jufter thoughts. It is faid, when the king of Siam, near China, first converfed

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