wards the light, and finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly at the door, and obtained admiflion. The old man fet before him fuch provifions as he had collected for himself, on which Obidah fed with eagerness and gratitude. When the repaft was over, Tell me,' faid the hermit, by what chance thou hast been brought hither; I have been now twenty years an inhabitant of this wilderness, in which I never faw a man before.' Obidah then related the occurrences of his journey, without any concealment or palliation. 'Son,' faid the hermit, let the errors and follies, the dangers and escape of this day, fink deep into thy heart. Remember, my fon, that human life is the journey of a day. We rife in the morning of youth, full of vigour and full of expectation; we fet forward with fpirit and hope, with gaiety and diligence, and travel on a while in the ftraight road of piety towards the manfions of reft. In a fhort time we remit our fervour, and endeavour to find fome mitigation of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigour, and refolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own conftancy, and venture to approach what we refolve never to touch. We thus enter the bowers of eafe, and repofe in the fhades of fecurity. Here the heart foftens, and vigilance subsides; we are then willing to inquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not, at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure. We approach them with fcruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without lofing the road of virtue, which we, for a while, keep in our fight, and to which we propose to return. But temptation fucceeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happinefs of innocence, and folace our difquiet with fenfual gratifications. By degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate object of rational defire. We entangle ourfelves in bufinefs, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths of inconftancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obftruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with forrow, with repentance; and wifh, but too often vainly wifh, that we had not forfaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, my fon, who fhall learn from thy example not to defpair, but fhall remember, that though the day is past, and their strength is wafted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor fincere endeavours ever unaflifted; that the wanderer may at length return after all his errors; and that he who implores ftrength and courage from above, fhall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my fon, to thy repofe; commit thyfelf to the care of Omnipotence, and when the morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life." On Virtue. Do not remember to have read any discourse written exprefsly upon the beauty and loveliness of virtue, without confidering it as a duty, and as the means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I defign therefore this fpeculation as an effay upon that subject; in which I will confider virtue no farther than as it is in itself of an amiable nature, after having premised, that I understand by the word virtue fuch a general notion as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which by devout men generally goes under the name of religion, and by men of the world under the name of honour. Hypocrify itself does great honour, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at fo much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind. We learn from Hierocles, it was a common saying among the heathens, that the wife man hates nobody, but loves only the virtuous. Tully has a very beautiful gradation of thoughts to fhew how amiable virtue is. We love a virtuous man, fays he, who lives in the remoteft parts of the earth, though we are altogether out of the reach of his virtue, and can receive from it no manner of benefit; nay, one who died several years ago, raises a fecret fondness and benevolence for him in our minds, when we read his story: Nay, what is still more, one who has been the enemy of our country, provided his wars were regulated by juftice and humanity, as in the inftance of Pyrrhus, whom Tully mentions on this occafion in oppofition to Hannibal. Such is the natural beauty and loveliness of virtue ! It is a common observation, that the most abandoned to all fenfe of goodness, are apt to wish those who are related to them to be of a different character; and it is very obfervable, that none are more ftruck with the charms of virtue in the fair fex, than those who by their very admiration of it are carried to a defire of ruining it. A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms. As virtue in general is of an amiable and lovely nature, there are some particular kinds of it which are more so than others, and these are such as difpose us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abftinence, faith and devotion, are in themselves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues; but those which make a man popular and beloved, are justice, charity, munificence, and, in fhort, all the good qualities that render us beneficial to each other. For which reason even an extravagant man, who has nothing else to recommend him but a falfe generofity, is often more beloved and esteemed than a perfon of a much more finished character, who is defective in this particular. The two great ornaments of Virtue, which fhew her in the most advantageous views, and make her altogether lovely, are cheerfulness and good-nature. These generally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others who is not easy within himself. They are both very requifite in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy from the many ferious thoughts it is engaged in, and to hinder its natural hatred of vice from fouring into severity and cenforiousness. Remarks Remarks on the Swiftness of Time. THE tion of the earth which we inhabit, with respect to the other planets, afford much employment to mathematical speculation, by which it has been difcovered, that no other conformation of the fyftem could have given fuch commodious diftribution of light and heat, or imparted fertility and pleasure to so great a part of a revolving sphere. It may be perhaps obferved by the moralift, with equal reason, that our globe feems particularly fitted for the refidence of a being, placed here only for a short time, whose task is to advance himself to a higher and happier ftate of existence, by unremitted vigilance of caution, and activity of virtue. The duties required of man are fuch as human nature does not willingly perform, and fuch as those are inclined to delay, who yet intend fome time to fulfil them. It was therefore neceffary that this universal reluctance should be counteracted, and the drowsiness of hesitation wakened into refolve; that the danger of procrastination should be always in view, and the fallacies of fecurity be hourly detected. To this end all the appearances of nature uniformly confpire. Whatever we fee on every fide, reminds us of the lapse of time and the flux of life. The day and night fucceed each other; the rotation of seasons diverfifies the year; the fun rises, attains the meridian, declines, and fets; and the moon, every night, changes its form. He that is carried forward, however fwiftly, by a motion equable and eafy, perceives not the change of place but by the variation of objects. If the wheel of life, which rolls thus filently along, paffed on through. undistinguishable uniformity, we fhould never mark its approaches to the end of the courfe. If one hour were like another; if the paffage of the fun did not fhew B 3 that |