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neceffary evils, which our bleffed Lord has told us, "must come." If the fufferance of them have been grievous, let the remembrance of them be profitable. If they have crofied your inclinations, or withheld from you fancied pleasures, let them not die away without producing their proper effect in moderating the paffions, and infpiring that patient fortitude, which enables us, amidst all the ftorms of life, to maintain a character of dignified compofure, refignation and contentment. ever attentive to the future, and fully expect that what has already happened, will again take place, in the endless revolution of events. This expectation of evil, as the lot of man, will ferve to mitigate its force whenever it may arrive, and teach us to rely, with the moft unbounded confidence, on the Almighty Father of our being, as the wife difpofer of all events. It will open to us thofe lafting comforts also, which religion only can fupply, and to which we fly with joy, as to the laft afylum of our woes. It will point out

to

to us, with fufficient certainty, that this is not "the place of our appointed rest;' that those who would fight the good

"

fight of faith," muft fubmit, with patient refignation, to the needful difcipline of THIS life, if they ever hope to affociate with the glorious "fpirits of just men "made perfect" in the NEXT.

WHEN Once the mind can acquire these fober habits of thinking, it will be naturally led to confider, whether under the providence of an all-gracious power, our disappointments have really operated to our disadvantage or not. The vast and complicated fyftem of good and evil which is conducted throughout the universe, is by far too extenfive for us to view, as connected with events that are already past, and confequences that are now lodged in the womb of futurity. But let us inveftigate the matter, as far as we can, with candor and felf-examination. Awaken reflection and appeal to experience. Confider those wishes which long fince have vanished,

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vanished, and thofe defires which now. have loft their ardor, and, perhaps, you will have little caufe to regret that they paffed away without completion, or attainment.

LET us apply these reflections to the almoft general and predominant paffion for wealth. Many a man, I am certain, has been the better for being in poor, or moderate circumftances. Recollect yourfelves. When you have ardently wished for riches that were beyond your reach, if they had been granted, would you have applied them to the beft purposes? Had you no vicious pleasures in view? No pursuits in which your innocence and virtue would have fuffered? No gratifications which degrade the dignity of human nature, and which religion condemns as idle, unprofitable or luxurious? Answer these queftions, with impartiality, and a facred regard to truth, and, instead of murmuring, you will find occafion, perhaps, on maturer reflection and fentiments more improved,

improved, to blefs that providence, whose guardian care withheld from you the means of infamy and guilt, by ordering you to tread the paths of middle life.

NEXT to the difappointments of life, I wish you to reflect on the forrows which you might have experienced. This will open a pleasing field of inftruction to us. As the land is more pleafing to the mariner, after his veffel has been dashed against the rocks, and he himself has ftruggled with the waves for life; fo is the recovery of peace to those who have efcaped the ftorm's of adverfity. Many are the advantages we derive from this fevere monitor, if we knew how to enjoy them. She feldom fails to foften and improve the heart. Affifted by reafon and meditation, she wipes away those numerous, petty ills, which vex the inconfiderate multitude, and which, from their conftant recurrence, often form the fum of their mifery. Man, unimproved by reflection, and untaught by experience of this fort, is a

poor,

poor, inconftant, miferable animal. Every trifling evil ruffles his temper, and for the moment makes him wretched. Even when no prefent calamity oppreffes him, and no immediate danger hangs over his head, he will often form his own mifery, and often be his own tormentor. Comforts meet him in the variegated path of life that are not enjoyed; bleffings are conferred upon him that are never acknowledged; and, in this loofe, difordered state of mind, the Almighty Father is too often forgotten, whofe gracious difpenfations ought always to "fill our hearts with food and glad"nefs."

MANY, too many are there in the world who come under this defcription. Life paffes on unnoticed by them; its joys and its griefs, its miferies and disappointments, afford them no inftruction, and experience holds out her precepts in vain. But for a being that is formed for immortality, that is endowed with various intellectual powers, and placed in fuch a

fcene