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supposing the present state of man necessary, they may supply some motives to content.

"Poverty is what all could not possibly have been "exempted from, not only by reason of the fluctuat

ing nature of human possessions, but because the "world could not subsist without it; for had all been "rich, none could have submitted to the commands "of another, or the necessary drudgeries of life; "thence all governments must have been dissolved, "arts neglected, and lands uncultivated, and so an "universal penury have overwhelmed all, instead of "now and then pinching a few. Hence, by the by,

appears the great excellence of charity, by which "men are enabled, by a particular distribution of the "blessings and enjoyments of life, on proper oc"casions, to prevent that poverty which by a general "one Omnipotence itself could never have pre"vented: so that, by inforcing this duty, God as it 66 were demands our assistance to promote universal happiness, and to shut out misery at every door, " where it strives to intrude itself.

"Labour, indeed, God might easily have ex"cused us from, since at his command the earth "would readily have poured forth all her treasures "without our inconsiderable assistance: but if the "severest labour cannot sufficiently subdue the ma"lignity of human nature, what plots and machi"nations, what wars, rapine, and devastation, what "profligacy and licentiousness, must have been the

consequences of universal idleness! so that labour ought only to be looked upon as a task kindly imposed upon us by our indulgent Creator, ne66 cessary

❝cessary to preserve our health, our safety, and our

I am afraid that the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. If God could easily have excused us from labour, I do not comprehend why he could not possibly have exempted all from poverty. For poverty, in its easier and more tolerable degree, is little more than necessity of labour; and in its more severe and deplorable state, little more than inability for labour. To be poor is to work for others, or to want the succour of others without work. And the same exuberant fertility which would make work unnecessary, might make poverty impossible.

Surely a man who seems not completely master of his own opinion, should have spoken more cautiously of Omnipotence, nor have presumed to say what it could perform, or what it could prevent. I am in doubt whether those who stand highest in the scale of being speak thus confidently of the dispensations of their Maker:

For fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.

Of our inquietudes of mind his account is still less reasonable." Whilst men are injured, they must be "inflamed with anger; and whilst they see cruelties, "they must be melted with pity; whilst they per"ceive danger, they must be sensible of fear." This is to give a reason for all Evil, by showing that one Evil produces another. If there is danger there ought to be fear; but if fear is an Evil, why should there be danger? His vindication of pain is of the

same

same kind: pain is useful to alarm us, that we may shun greater evils, but those greater evils must be presupposed, that the fitness of pain may appear.

Treating on death, he has expressed the known and true doctrine with sprightliness of fancy, and neatness of diction. I shall therefore insert it. There are truths which, as they are always necessary, do not grow stale by repetition.

"Death, the last and most dreadful of all Evils, " is so far from being one, that it is the infallible cure for all others.

To die, is landing on some silent shore,

Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar.

Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er. GARTH.

"For, abstracted from the sickness and sufferings "usually attending it, it is no more than the ex

piration of that term of life God was pleased to "bestow on us, without any claim or merit on our "part. But was it an Evil ever so great, it could "not be remedied but by one much greater, which " is by living for ever; by which means our wick"edness, unrestrained by the prospect of a future "state, would grow so insupportable, our sufferings

so intolerable by perseverance, and our pleasures

so tiresome by repetition, that no being in the uni"verse could be so completely miserable as a species "of immortal men. We have no reason, therefore, "to look upon death as an Evil, or to fear it as a punishment, even without any supposition of a "future life: but if we consider it as a passage to

a more perfect state, or a remove only in an

"eternal

"eternal succession of still-improving states (for "which we have the strongest reasons) it will then ap

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pear a new favour from the divine munificence; and

a man must be as absurd to repine at dying, as a "traveller would be, who proposed to himself a delightful tour through various unknown countries, "to lament that he cannot take up his residence at "the first dirty inn which he baits at on the road.

"The instability of human life, or of the changes "of its successive periods, of which we so frequently. "complain, are no more than the necessary progress "of it to this necessary conclusion; and are so far " from being Evils deserving these complaints, that they are the source of our greatest pleasures, as

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they are the source of all novelty, from which our "greatest pleasures are ever derived. The con"tinual succession of seasons in the human life, by "daily presenting to us new scenes, render it agree"able, and like those of the year, afford us delights

by their change, which the choicest of them could "not give us by their continuance. In the spring of "life, the gilding of the sun-shine, the verdure of "the fields, and the variegated paintings of the sky, "are so exquisite in the eyes of infants at their first "looking abroad into a new world, as nothing per

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haps afterwards can equal. The heat and vigour "of the succeeding summer of youth ripens for us

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new pleasures, the blooming maid, the nightly "revel, and the jovial chace: the serene autumn of "complete manhood feasts us with the golden harvests "of our worldly pursuits: nor is the hoary winter "of old age destitute of its peculiar comforts and en"joyments,

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joyments, of which the recollection and relation "of those past are perhaps none of the least; and "at last death opens to us a new prospect, from "whence we shall probably look back upon the di" versions and occupations of this world with the "same contempt we do now on our tops and hobby"horses, and with the same surprise that they could ever so much entertain or engage us."

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I would not willingly detract from the beauty of this paragraph; and in gratitude to him who has so well inculcated such important truths, I will venture to admonish him, since the chief comfort of the old is the recollection of the past, so to employ his time and his thoughts, that when the imbecility of age shall come upon him, he may be able to recreate its languors by the remembrance of hours spent, not in presumptuous decisions, but modest enquiries, not in dogmatical limitations of Omnipotence, but in humble acquiescence and fervent adoration. Old age will show him that much of the book now before us has no other use than to perplex the scrupulous, and to shake the weak, to encourage impious presumption, or stimulate idle curiosity.

Having thus dispatched the consideration of particular evils, he comes at last to a general reason for which Evil may be said to be our Good. He is of opinion that there is some inconceivable benefit in pain abstractedly considered; that pain however inflicted, or wherever felt, communicates some good to the general system of being, and that every animal is some way or other the better for the pain of every other animal. This opinion he carries so

far