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corrupt our hearts in the most recluse solitude with more pernicious and tyrannical appetites and wishes than the commerce of the world will generally produce; for we are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of selfdeceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favour, and reason by degrees submits to absurdity,

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is in time accommodated to darkness. In this disease of the soul, it is of the utmost importance to apply remedies to the beginning; and therefore I shall endeavour to show what thoughts are to be rejected or improved, as they regard the past, present, or future; in hopes that some may be awakened to caution and vigilance, who, perhaps, indulge themselves in dangerous dreams, so much the more dangerous, because, being yet only dreams,. they are concluded innocent.

T'he recollection of the past is only useful by way of provision for the future; and therefore, in reviewing all occurrences that fall under a religious consideration, it is proper that a man stop at the first thoughts to remark how he was led thither, and why he continues the reflection. If he is dwelling with delight upon a stratagem of successful fraud, a night of licentious riot, or an intrigue of guilty pleasure, let him summon off his imagination as from an unlawful pursuit, expel those passages from his remembrance, of which, though he cannot seriously approve them, the pleasure overpowers the guilt, and refer them to a future hour, when they may be considered with greater safety. Such an hour will certainly come; for the impressions of past pleasure are always lessening, but the sense of guilt which respects futurity continues the same. The serious and impartial retrospect of our con

duct is indisputably necessary to the confirmation or recovery of virtue, and is, therefore, recommended under the name of self-examination by divines, as the first act previous to repentance. It is, indeed, of so great a use that without it we should always

be to begin life, be seduced for ever by the same • allurements, and misled by the same fallacies. But

in order that we may not lose the advantage of our experience, we must endeavour to see every thing in its proper form, and excite in ourselves those sen, timents which the great Author of nature has decreed the concomitants or followers of good or bad actions.

Μηδ' υπνον μαλακoισιν επ' ομμασι προσδεξασθαι,
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Πριν των ημερινων ερλων τρις εκαστον επελθειν·
Πη παρεβην; τι δ' ερεξα; τι μοι δεον ουκ ετελεσθη;
'Αρξαμενος δ' απο πρωτου επεξιθι» και μετεπειτα,

Δειλα μεν εκπρηξας, επιπλησσεο, χρηστα δε, τερπου.
Let not sleep, says Pythagoras, fall upon thy eyes till
thou hast tħrice reviewed the transactions of the past
day. Where have I turned aside from rectitude ?
What have I been doing? What have I left undone,
which I ought to have done? Begin thus from the
first act, and proceed; and in conclusion, at the ill
which thou hast done be troubled, and rejoice for the
good.

Our thoughts on present things being determined by the objects before us, fall not under those indulgences or excursions which I am now considering. But I cannot forbear, under this head, to caution pious and tender minds, that are disturbed by the ir, ruptions of wicked imaginations, against too great dejection and too anxious alarms; for thoughts are only criminal when they are first chosen, and then voluntarily continued.

Evil into the mind of god orman
May come and go, so unapproved, and leave
No spot or stain behind.

Milton.

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In futurity chiefly the snares are lodged, by which the imagination is entangled. Futurity is the proper abode of hope and fear, with all their train and progeny and subordinate apprehensions and desires. In futurity events and chances are yet floating at large without apparent connexion with their causes, and we therefore easily indulge the liberty of gratifying ourselves with a pleasing choice. To pick and cull among possible advantages is, as the civil law terms it, in vacuum venire, to take what belongs to nobody; but it has this hazard in it, that we shall be unwilling to quit what we have seized though an owner should be found. It is easy to think on that which may be gained, till at last we resolve to gain it, and to image the happiness of particular conditions till we can be easier in no other.

We ought, at least, to let our desires fix upon nothing in another's

power for the sake of our quiet, or in another's possession for the sake of our innocence.

When a man finds himself led, though by a train of honest sentiments, to wish for that to which he has no right, he should start back as from a pitfall covered with flowers. He that fancies he should benefit the public more in a great station than the man that fills it will in time imagine it an act of virtue to supplant him; and as opposition readily kindles into hatred, his

eagerness to do that good, to which he is not called, will betray him to crimes, which in his original scheme were never proposed.

He therefore that would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason; he must keep guilt from the re- ; cesses of his heart, and remember that the pleasures of fancy, and the emotions of desire, are more dangerous as they are more hidden, since they escape the awe of observation, and operate equally in every situation, without the concurrence of external opportunities.,

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No. 9. TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1750.

Quod sis esse velis, nihilque malis.

MART. Choose what you are: no other state prefer. ELPHINSTON.

It is justly remarked by Horace, that howsoever every man may complain occasionally of the hardships of his condition, he is seldom willing to change it for any other on the same level; for whether it be that he who follows an employment made choice of it at first on account of its suitableness to his incli. nation, or that when accident, or the determination of others have placed him in a particular station, he, by endeavouring to reconcile himself to it, gets the custom of viewing it only on the fairest side; or whether every man thinks that class to which he belongs the most illustrious merely because he has honoured it with his name; it is certain that, whatever be the reason, most men have a very strong and active prejudice in favour of their own vocation, always working upon their minds and influencing their behaviour.

This partiality is sufficiently visible in every rank of the human species; but it exerts itself more frequently and with greater force among those who have never learned to conceal their sentiments for reasons of policy, or to model their expressions by the laws of politeness; and therefore the chief contests of wit among artificers and handicraftsmen arise from a mutual endeavour to exalt one trade by depreciating another.

From the same principle are derived many consolations to alleviate the inconveniences to which every calling is peculiarly exposed. A blacksmith was lately pleasing himself at his anvil with obsery

ing that, though his trade was hot and sooty, laborious and unhealthy, yet he had the honour of living by his hammer, he got his bread like a man, and if his son should rise in the world and keep his coach, nobody could reproach him that his father was a tailor,

A man truly zealous for his fraternity is never so irresistibly flattered as when some rival calling is mentioned with contempt. Upon this principle a linen-draper boasted that he had got a new customer whom he could safely trust, for he could have no doubt of his honesty, since it was known, from unquestionable authority, that he was now filing a bill in chancery to delay payment for the clothes which he had worn the last seven years; and he himself had heard him declare, in a public coffeehouse, that he looked upon the whole generation of woollen-drapers to be such despicable wretches that no gentleman ought to pay them.

It has been observed that physicians and lawyers are no friends to religion; and many conjectures have been formed to discover the reason of such a combination between men who agree in nothing else, and who seem less to be affected, in their own provinces, by religious opinions, than any other part of the community. The truth is, very few of them have thought about religion; but they have all seen a parson : seen him in a habit different from their own, and therefore declared war against him. A young student from the inns of court, who has often attacked the curate of his father's parish with such arguments as his acquaintances could furnish, and returned to town without success,

is now gone down with a resolution to destroy him : for he has learned at last how to manage a prig, and if he pretends to hold him again to syllogism, he has a catch in reserve, which neither logic nor metaphysics can resist.

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