To this address I was at a loss how to reply; but some time was happily allowed me for recollection by my friend, who, having now exhausted his ideas, lighted a pipe of tobacco, and resigned himself again to meditation. In this interval, I determined to accommodate myself to his conceptions, and try what could be effected by decorating some arguments with the machinery of his fancy.

‹ If Azail, ́ ́said I, has referred you to me, I will readily gratify your curiosity; but, for my ownpart I am more and more disgusted with this place, and I shall rejoice when I retun to our own world. We have, I confess, been abroad this morning: but though the weather, as you see, is fine, and the country pleasant, yet I have great reason to be dissatisfied with my walk. This, as you have remarked, is a retired part of the country: my discoveries, therefore, with respect to the people have been few: and till to-day, I have seen no object that has much excited my curiosity, or could much contribute to my information: but just as we had crossed the third field from the house, I discovered a man lying near the path, who seemed to be perishing with disease and want ; as we approached, he looked up at us with an aspect that expressed the utmost distress, but no expectation of relief: the silent complaint which yet scarce implied a petition, melted my heart with pity; I ran to him, and, gently raising him from the ground, inquired how I could be employed to assist him: the man gazed at me with astonishment; and, while he was making an effort to speak, Azail suddenly forced me from him. Suppress thy pity', said he, for it is impious; and forbear attempts of relief, for they are vain: hast thou forgot, that happiness and misery are here exactly proportioned to virtue and vice, and, therefore, that to alleviate the misery, or incr

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happiness, is to destroy the equipoise of the balance, and to counterwork the designs of Heaven?'

'I felt the force of this reproof; and, turning my eyes from an object which I could not behold without anguish, I soon discovered another person standing at some distance, and looking towards us: his features were fixed in the dead calm of indifference, and expressed neither pleasure nor pain: I, therefore, inquired of Azail to what moral class he belonged; what were his virtues, passions, enjoyments, and expectations.

The man,' said Azail, who is the subject of thy inquiry, has not deserved, and therefore does not suffer positive pain, either of body or mind: he possesses ease and health, and enjoys the temperate gratification of his natural appetites: this temperance is his virtue, and this enjoyment its reward. He is destitute of whatever is distinguished upon earth by the name of kind affections or social virtue: the kind affections would render his happiness dependant upon others; and the exercise of social virtue presupposes the happiness of others to be dependent upon him. Every individual is here a kind of separate system: among these there can be neither pity nor relief, neither bounty nor gratitude. To clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, and to comfort the afflicted, can be duties to those only, who are placed where the account of Providence with vice and virtue is kept open, and the mite of human benevolence may be accepted for either; as the balance is deferred till hereafter, and will at last be stated with the utmost precision and impartiality. If these beings are intended for a future state, it is not requisite they should know it; the Deity would be justified, if they should lose existence and life together. Hope and fear are not necessary to adjust the scale of dis

tributive justice, or to deter them from obtaining private gratifications at the expense of others: for over the happiness of others they have no power: their expectations, therefore, are bounded by the grave; and any calamity that would afford a probable proof of their existence beyond it, would be regarded as the most fortunate event that could befall them. In that of which others complain, they would rejoice; and adore, as bounty, that which upon earth has been censured as injustice. When Azail had vouchsafed me this information, I earnestly requested that I might no longer continue where my virtues had no object, where there was no happiness worthy my complacency, nor any misery that I was permitted to relieve.

All this while my friend seemed to listen with great attention, and I was encouraged to proceed. I could not forbear observing to Azail,' said I, 'as we returned, that he had exhibited, in a very strong light, the great advantages which are derived from that very constitution of the natural and moral world, which, being generally considered as defective, some have concealed with a view to justify Providence, and others have displayed as an argument that all things were produced by chance. But Sir,' said my friend, hastily interrupting me, it is not merely the unequal distribution, but the existence of evil, that the Stoics denied and the Epicureans admitted for the purposes which you suppose; and I can discover, without the assistance of Azail, that if moral evil had been excluded, the social affections would have been exercised only in a participation of happiness; pity would have been well exchanged for complacency, and the alleviation of evil for the mutual communication of good.' I now conceived hopes that I had engaged him in a train of thought, which would by degrees lead him out of all his difficulties;

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I applauded myself upon the success of my project, and believed I had nothing to do, but to obviate the objection he had started, and to recapitulate my other arguments, of which he had tacitly acknowledged the force. My dear friend,' said I, you talk of the exclusion of moral evil; but does not the exclusion of moral evil from a society of human beings placed in a state of probation, appear to be as impossible as to give a circle the properties of a square? And could man, supposing him to have continued impeccable, have lived upon earth, in perpetual security from pain? would he not have been still liable to be crushed by a fall, or wounded by a blow? and is it not easy to show that these evils, which unavoidably became probable the moment our world and its first inhabitants were produced, are apparently overruled by the wise Creator, and that from these he is perpetually educing good?

The same act by which man forfeited his original immortality, produced eventually a proof that it should be restored in a future state; with such circumstances, as more forcibly restrained vice by fear, and encouraged virtue by hope. Man, therefore, was urged by stronger motives to rectitude of life, and a further deviation to ill became more difficult than the first: a new field was open for the exercise of that virtue, which exercise only can improve. When distress came among us, the relief of distress was exalted into piety: What ye did to the sick and the prisoner,' says the Author of our religion, ye did to me.' But the sufferings of virtue do not only exercise virtue in others; they are an earnest of everlasting felicity: and hope, without any temporary enjoyment, is of more worth than all temporary enjoyments without hope. The present system is, indeed, evidently in a state of progression; in this view, it will appear to be a work worthy of Infinite

Wisdom and Goodness; for no one can complain that an ear of corn rots in the ground, who knows that it cannot otherwise spring up, and produce first the blade, then the ear, and afterwards an increase, by which alone it becomes useful.'

I now paused in expectation of his reply, with the utmost confidence of success; but while I was in fancy congratulating him on the recovery of his understanding, and receiving the thanks of his friends, to the utter confusion of my hopes, he burst into a violent fit of laughter. At first I was not less astonished than disappointed; but I soon discovered, that while I was labouring at my argument, which wholly engrossed my attention, he had found means mischievously to shake the lighted tobacco from his pipe into my coat pocket, which having set fire to my handkerchief, was now finding its way through the lining.

This was so learned, rational, and ingenious a confutation of all I had said, that I could not but retract my error: and as a friend to truth and free inquiry, I recommend the same method of reply to those ingenious gentlemen, who have discovered, that ridicule is the test of truth; and I am confident, that if they manage it with dexterity, it will always enable them perfectly to disconcert an antagonist who triumphs in the strength of his argument, and would otherwise bring contempt upon those who teach Providence to govern the world.