comfort to yourself, and those around you; and,. by persevering to the end, shall at length obtain "a crown of glory, which fadeth not away."

Rules for a right Conduct.

YOU should gain the favor of your superiors without meanness, treat your equals with esteem and friendship, and suffer not your inferiorsto be sensible of your superiority, preserving in all your actions a becoming deportment.

When

Respect is ever due to persons in elevated situations, but this is merely external; genuine respect and esteem are due only to merit. fortune has concurred with virtue in raising a man to eminence, he commands a double empire: but never suffer the mere tinsel of grandeur either to dazzle or deceive you. They are low and grovelling souls who are always prostrate at the shrine of exterior greatness. Separate a man from his

titles and his retinue, and examine what he is, abstractedly. There is a greatness very superior to that arising from authority. Neither birth. non

riches really distinguish men: the true criterion. of superiority, is merit. The title of a truly honest man, ranks above every title in the universe.

To be civil to all, serviceable to many, familiar with few, a friend to one, and an enemy to none, are requisite qualifications to enjoy a happy life.

On Self-Love.

IF

you design to be happy only for yourself, you will never be happy;

for every one will dispute the matter with you: but if you have an inclination to participate in promoting the general cause of happiness, every one will be ready to contribute a portion.

All vices favor self-love; all virtues combine to oppose its power. Valor exposes it; modesty humbles it; generosity strips it naked; moderation mortifies it; and zeal for the public good sacrifices it. The best kind of self-love is the love of virtue; to love vice, is to indulge a base and mistaken propensity.

On Vice.

To

THE pleasures of vice, if pleasures they can be called, are of short duration, and leave behind them the most painful remembrances. the confirmed profligate, these remembrances act as inducements to plunge into fresh excesses, and he endeavors to drown them in a new delirium; but with the novice in guilt, they produce a contrary effect, and seldom fail to be succeeded by a momentary enthusiasm in the cause of virtue. Therefore carefully attend to these first impressions; they are the surest criterions of right and wrong; and are the least sophisticated of all our decisions respecting our own conduct.

Whatever certain philosophers may talk of the calm and dispassionate investigation of our reason, rely upon it, that whatever the untainted heart condemns, the untainted judgment cannot approve.

On Religion.

RELIGION, in its most general view, is such a sense of God on the soul, and such a conviction of our obligations to him, and dependance upon him, as should engage us to make it our great care to conduct ourselves in a way which we have reason to believe will be pleasing to him. It is a true sense of religion, a full persuasion of an invisible power, who sees and knows every thing, and as we behave ill or well in this world, will accordingly reward or punish us in another, which only can restrain our giddy passions, control our headstrong appetites, and stop us in the full career of sin and folly for this reason, as well as others, the imprinting an early and due sense of religion on the minds of youth, is an essential part of education.

All sorts of men that have gone before us into an eternal state, have left this great observation behind them ;-that upon experience they have found, that what vain thoughts soever men may, in the heat of their youth, entertain of religion, they will sooner or later feel a testimony, God hath given it in every man's breast, which will one day make them serious, either by the inexpressible fears, terrors,

E

and agonies of a troubled mind, or the inconceivable peace, comfort, and joy, of a good conscience.

Although profane minds may ridicule the idea of such a divine impression on the soul, there is a secret commerce between God and the souls of good men : they feel the influence of Heaven, and become both wiser and better for it: and therefore to those who are so happy as to be properly affected by religion, piety and devotion are their eternal comforts; and the practice of their duty is an everlasting pleasure.

A state of temperance, sobriety, and justice, (however otherwise commendable), without devotion, is but a cold, lifeless, insipid, condition of virtue; and is rather to be stiled philosophy, than real substantial religion. Devotion

opens the mind to great conceptions, and fills it with more sublime ideas than any that are to be met with in the most exalted science; and at the same time warms and animates the soul more than sensual pleasure.

The most illiterate man, if sincere and frequent in the exercise of devotion, contracts a certain greatness of mind, mingled with a noble simplicity, that raises him far above others of the like condition in life; and there is an indelible