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torted in all ages an univerfal complaint. The wifeft of men terminated all his experiments in fearch of happiness, by the mournful confeffion, that all is vanity;" and the ancient patriarchs lamented, that "the days of their pilgrimage were "few and evil."

There is, indeed, no topick on which it is more fuperfluous to accumulate authorities, nor any affertion of which our own eyes will more easily discover, or our fenfations more frequently imprefs the truth, than, that mifery is the lot of man, that our present 7 state is a state of danger and infelicity.

When we take the moft diftant profpect of life, what does it prefent us but a chaos of unhappiness, a confused and tumultuous fcene of labour and conteft, disappointment and defeat? If we view past ages in the reflection of hiftory, what do they offer to our meditation but crimes and calamities? One year is diftinguished by a famine, another by an earthquake;

kingdoms

kingdoms are made defolate, sometimes by wars, and fometimes by peftilence; the peace of the world is interrupted at one time by the caprices of a tyrant, at another by the rage of a conqueror. The The memory is ftored only with viciffitudes of evil; and the happinefs, fuch as it is, of one part of mankind, is found to arife commonly from fanguinary fuccefs, from victories which confer upon them the power, not fo much of improving life by any new enjoyment, as of inflicting mifery on others, and gratifying their own pride by comparative great

nefs.

But by him that examines life with a more clofe attention, the happiness of the world will be found ftill lefs than it appears. In fome intervals of publick profperity, or to ufe terms more proper, in fome intermiffions of calamity, a general diffufion of happiness may feem to overfpread a people; all is triumph and exultation, jollity and plenty; there are no public fears and dangers, and "no complain

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ings in the ftreets." But the condition of individuals is very little mended by this general calm : pain and malice and difcontent ftill continue their havock; the filent depredation goes inceffantly forward; and the grave continues to be filled by the victims of forrow.

He that enters a gay affembly, beholds the cheerfulnefs difplayed in every countenance, and finds all fitting vacant and difengaged, with no other attention than to give or to receive pleafure; would naturally imagine, that he had reached at laft the metropolis of felicity, the place facred to gladness of

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267 heart, from whence all fear and anxiety were irreverfibly excluded. Such, indeed, we may often find to be the opinion of thofe, who from a lower ftation look up to the pomp and gaiety which they cannot reach but who is there of thofe who frequent thefe luxurious affemblies, that will not confefs his own uneafiness, or cannot recount the vexations and diftreffes that prey upon the lives of his gay companions?

The world, in its beft ftate, is nothing more than a larger affembly of beings, combining to counterfeit happiness which they do not feel, employing every art and (contrivance to embellish life, life, and to hide their real condition from the eyes 6fone

another.

The fpecies of happiness moft obvious to the obfervation of others, is that which depends upon the goods of fortune; yet even this is often fictitious. There is in the world more poverty than is generally imagined; not only because many whofe poffeffions are large have defires ftill larger, and many measure their wants by the gratifications which others enjoy: but i great numbers are preffed by real neceflities which it is their chief ambition to conceal, and are forced to purchase the appearance of competence and cheerfulness at the expence of many comforts and conveniences of life.

Many, however, are confeffedly rich, and many more are fufficiently removed from all danger of real poverty but it has been long ago remarked, that money cannot purchase quiet; the highest of mankind can promife themselves no exemption from

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that difcord or fufpicion, by which the sweetness of domeftick retirement is deftroyed; and must always be even more expofed, in the fame degree as they are elevated above others, to the treachery of dependants, the calumny of defamers and the violence of opponents.

Affliction is infeparable from our prefent state; it adheres to all the inhabitants of this world, in different proportions indeed, but with an allotment which feems very little regulated by our own conduct. It has been the boaft of fome fwelling moralifts, that every man's fortune was in his own power, that prudence fupplied the place of all other divinities, and that happiness is the unfailing confequence of virtue. But, furely, the quiver of Omnipotence. is ftored with arrows, against which the fhield of human virtue, however adamantine it has been boasted, is held up in vain: we do not always fuffer by our crimes; we are not always protected by our innocence.

A good man is by no means exempt from the danger of fuffering by the crimes of others; even his goodness may raife him enemies of implacable malice and reftlefs perfeverance: the good man has never been warranted by Heaven from the treachery of friends, the difobedience of children, or the dishonesty of a wife; he may fee his cares made useless by profufion, his inftructions defeated by perverfeness, and his kindness rejected by ingratitude; he may languifh under the infamy of falfe accufations, or perish reproachfully by an unjuft fentence.

A good

A good man is fubject, like other mortals, to all the influences of natural evil; his harvest is not fpared by the tempeft, nor his cattle by the murrain; his houfe flames like others in a conflagration; nor have his fhips any peculiar power of refifting hurricanes his mind, however elevated, inhabits a body fubject to inumerable cafualtics, of which he muft always fhare the dangers and the pains; he bears about him the feeds of difeafe, and may linger away a great part of his life under the tortures of the gout or ftone; at one time groaning with infufferable anguish, at another diffolved in liftleffness and languor.

From this general and indifcriminate diftribution of mifery, the moralifts have always derived one of their strongest moral arguments for a future ftate; for fince the common events of the prefent life happen alike to the good and bad, it follows from the justice of the Supreme Being, that there must be another state of existence, in which a just retribution shall be made, and every man shall be happy and miferable according to his works.

The miseries of life may, perhaps, afford fome proof of a future ftate, compared as well with the mercy as the juftice of God. It is fcarcely to be imagined that Infinite Benevolence would create a being capable of enjoying fo much more than is here to be enjoyed, and qualified by nature to prolong pain by remembrance, and anticipate it by terror, if he was not defigned for fomething nobler and better than a ftate, in which many of his faculties.

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