There was a time, and a very long time, when in the Christianized world, it was thought a merit to torment and waste the corporeal part of our nature; when the body was considered as at utter enmity with the soul; when it was voluntarily subjected to cold, and nakedness, and to unmerciful scourging, in order to curb and break its rebellious propensities. We live, however, in a more rational age.

Blessed be the day of Martin Luther's birth, and blessed the work achieved by him! He gave the death-blow to this mummery, and brought the body again into favor with its superior in the partnership. But whether it be a relic of the old popish superstition, or to whatever cause it may be attributable, there are said to be ladies at this day, even protestant ladies, who mortify, distress, and consume their own precious bodies, by keeping them in irons! But this by the by.

It is no uncommon thing to anticipate the stroke of time. Often, very often, the vigorous and robust squander their health, and hasten the blow that levels them; while the feeble, by temperance and assiduous care, spin out life to an advanced age.

Many of our misfortunes, as we call them, spring from imprudence or neglect. Through the neglect of a small leak a ship is sunk, and its crew, perhaps, lost. The neglect of a few feet of fence may destroy a crop, and so may a few days' negligence or sloth in seed time or harvest. Angry lawsuits, and heavy pecuniary losses, not unfrequently might have been prevented, by a seasonable attention that would have required very little of time or labor. Some plunge themselves into inextricable embarrassment, which might have been avoided, had a portion of their leisure been devoted to the devising of a reasonable plan of liv

ing; and others, again, are impoverished by artificial wants, of which they might easily have prevented the intrusion. Indeed, of instances there is no end.

But that which is of the most importance by many degrees, is yet behind. There are means preventional of moral, as wel as of natural evil. Most of the vices that infest society, and bring utter ruin upon individuals, are more easy of prevention than of cure: and it is to be hoped that the time is coming when civil governments, blending Christian morals with state policy, will employ their power and influence fully as much to prevent crime as to punish it. That would be an era more happy than language can describe. But passing over what is remote and contingent, I will mention, and but mention, the actual and practicable powers of two kinds of government-Domestic and Personal.

Inconsiderate parents are apt to think that time will cure the faults of their children. This is a sad and fatal mistake. Not but that time, perchance, may cure the minor follies and -errors of the juvenile mind; such follies and errors as are peculiarly incidental to the inexperience, the imbecile judgment, and the eager vivacity, of childhood and immature youth; but immoral propensities are strengthened, rather than cured, by time, which matures them into fixed habits. The bias to lying, profaneness, defrauding, or whatever immorality else, is not so very hard to cure when it first appears in the child; but if it be neglected then, it grows into an inveterate habit in the man. It is of importance, however, to premise, that the inceptive immorality of childhood is to be cured chiefly by moral means,-by example; by exhibiting to the view its odious nature and direful conse

quences; by cogent and convincing appeals to the understanding, and affectionate appeals to the heart:-and not altogether, or chiefly, by the infliction of punishments.

One of the most important objects of domestic government, is so to train up children that they may have a due government of themselves. This is a point, on which the worth or worthlessness of character greatly depends; for discreet and well regulated self-government, is the surest prevention of the deplorable excesses of passion and appetite, since it keeps upon them a stronger and a more steady rein than any other human government does, or can keep. Neither is the science of self-government so hard to learn, nor the practice of it so very difficult, provided it be commenced as well in good season, as in good earnest. But the longer it is neglected, the greater is the difficulty; till, at last, it becomes next to impossible for one to rule his passions, or to restrain his appetites. Immoral habits, which might have been easily prevented by timely discipline, attain gigantic strength by long indulgence.

It is out of our power to alter the structure of our bodies: we must take them as they are, for better or for worse. We can

not change our complexions, or fashion our own features. We cannot add to our stature, or make even a single hair of our heads white or black. But it is not altogether so with the mind. We may, with the divine helps afforded us, improve and meliorate that. We may keep our passions and our appetites in subordination to our reason. And in this necessary and noble exercise, should every one be employed, day by day, who wishes to be wise, or hopes to be happy.

NUMBER CIII.

OF OUR PRONENESS TO GO FROM ONE EXTREME TO ANOTHER.

IT often happens, that when we set ourselves to straighten a crook, instead of making it quite straight, we crook it the contrary way, or carry things from one extreme to the other.

A youth of an ingenuous, liberal temper, is apt to be not regardful enough of his own interest. He esteems money as trash, and scorns to employ his cares about it. As it comes to him easily, it goes from him freely. He gives, he spends, he squanders, till at length, experiencing embarrassment, he resolves to become frugal and provident. But such a youth seldom stops at the true point, but leaps, at once, far beyond it. Heartily sick of extravagance, he makes a covenant with avarice, and becomes unfeeling, illiberal, and miserly.

The extreme of confidence often runs into the extreme of jealousy. Of those who live to a considerable age, very few, perhaps, leave the world, with as good an opinion of mankind as

they had when they began it. To the eye of the ingenuous but inexperienced youth, the world appears bright and charming. He looks to meet with justice, candor, and honor, in his intercourse with his fellow-beings. Fancy gilds the objects of his hopes, and whatever is promised him by hope, he regards as sure and certain. Presently, however, the illusion begins to vanish. He meets with disappointment; he encounters cold-blooded selfishness, deceit, fraud, and perfidy; his confidence in men turns to suspicion; the world, he concludes, is a cheat; he hastily says in his heart, that all men are rogues and liars; and he becomes sour and misanthropic. By how much his opinion of mankind was too favorable in his younger days, by so much is it too uncharitable in his advanced age.

Self-convicted credulity often runs into skepticism: and so, also, a zeal to free themselves from all shackles of superstition, is very apt to drive men upon the fatal rocks of infidelity and irreligion.

Gibbon, the historian, no less celebrated for talents and learning than notorious for infidelity, was, in his youth, an implicit believer in, and a zealot for, the nonsensical popish doctrine of transubstantiation. To the arguments and expostulations of his father, and other Protestant relatives and friends, he was utterly deaf. But happening, of himself, to find out an argument which convinced him of the monstrous absurdity of that doctrine, he rejected it, and, along with it, rejected the whole system of divine revelation; which he in the manner of Voltaire encountered with the weapons of sneer and contempt, rather than by fair and manly reasoning. Nor is it unlikely that the rank infidelity, so general, a few years ago, among the learned and the