No. 441. SATURDAY, JULY 26, 1712. Si fractus illabatur orbis, HOR. CAR. iii. 3. 7. Should the whole frame of nature round him break, He, unconcern'd, would hear the mighty crack, ANON. MAN, considered in himself, is a very helpless and a very wretched being. He is subject every moment to the greatest calamities and misfortunes. He is beset with dangers on all sides; and may become unhappy by numberless casualties which he could not foresee, nor have prevented had he foreseen them. It is our comfort, while we are obnoxious to so many accidents, that we are under the care of One who directs contingencies, and has in his hands the management of every thing that is capable of annoying or offending us; who knows the assistance we stand in need of, and is always ready to bestow it on those who ask it of him. The natural homage which such a creature bears to so infinitely wise and good a Being, is a firm reliance on him for the blessings and conveniences of life, and an habitual trust in him for deliverance out of all such dangers and difficulties as may befall us. The man who always lives in this disposition of mind, has not the same dark and melancholy views of human nature, as he who considers himself abstractedly from this relation to the Supreme Being. At the same time that he reflects upon his own weak ness and imperfection, he comforts himself with the contemplation of those divine attributes which are employed for his safety and his welfare. He finds his want of foresight made up by the Omniscience of Him who is his support. He is not sensible of his own want of strength, when he knows that his helper is almighty. In short, the person who has a firm trust on the Supreme Being is powerful in His power, wise by His wisdom, happy by His happiness. He reaps the benefit of every divine attribute, and loses his own insufficiency in the fulness of infinite perfection. To make our lives more easy to us, we are commanded to put our trust in Him, who is thus able to relieve and succour us; the divine goodness having made such a reliance a duty, notwithstanding we should have been miserable had it been forbidden us. Among several motives which might be made use of to recommend this duty to us, I shall only take notice of these that follow. The first and strongest is, that we are promised, He will not fail those who put their trust in Him. But, without considering the supernatural blessing which accompanies this duty, we may observe, that it has a natural tendency to its own reward, or, in other words, that this firm trust and confidence in the great Disposer of all things, contributes very much to the getting clear of any affliction, or to the bearing it manfully. A person who believes he has his succour at hand, and that he acts in the sight of his friend, often exerts himself beyond his abilities, and does wonders that are not to be matched by one who is not animated with such a confidence of success. I could produce instances from history, of generals, who, out of a belief that they were under the protection of some invisible assistant, did not F. včlects, and 32 What can suf DESI 2300, such fear. 2 PELLETSUES. but the casting & represented this steady f176 was very vautiful chance on God Almighty in his twenty-third psalm, which is a kind of pastoral hymn, and filled with He allusions which are usual in that kind of writ As the poetry is very exquisite, I shall present my reader with the following translation of it: N Those who cannot write, and those who can, POPE. I Do not know whether I enough explained myself to the world, when I invited all men to be assistant to me in this my work of speculation; for I have not yet acquainted my readers, that besides the letters and valuable hints I have from time to time received from my correspondents, I have by me several curious and extraordinary papers sent with a design, as no one will doubt when they are published, that they might be printed entire, and without any alteration, by way of Spectator. I must acknowledge also, that I myself being the first projector of the paper, thought I had a right to make them my own, by dressing them in my own style, by leaving out what would not appear like mine, and by adding whatever might be proper to adapt them to the character and genius of my paper, with which it was almost impossible these could exactly correspond, it being certain that hardly two men think alike; and, therefore, so many men so many Spectators. Besides, I must own my weakness for glory is such, that, if I consulted that only, I might be so far swayed by it, as almost to wish that no one could write a Spectator besides myself; nor can I deny, but upon the first perusal of those papers, I felt some secret inclinations of ill-will towards the persons who wrote them. This was the impression I had upon the first reading them; but upon a late review, more for the sake of entertainment than use, regarding them with another eye than I had done at first, for by converting them as well as I could to my own use, I thought I had utterly disabled them from ever offending me again as Spectators, I found myself moved by a passion very different from that of envy; sensibly touched with pity, the softest and most generous of all passions, when I reflected what a cruel disappointment the neglect of those papers must needs have been to the writers, who impatiently longed to see them appear in print, and who, no doubt, triumphed to themselves in the hopes of having a share with me in the applause of the public; a pleasure so great, that none but those who have experienced it can have a sense of it. In this manner of viewing those papers, I really found I had not done them justice, there being something so extremely natural and peculiarly good in some of them, |