mon acts of charity, which moderate competence enables us to practise, a delicacy of manner ought to be shewn to the objects of our beneticence; and if this mode of conduct is necessary towards the children of poverty and indigence, how much more attentive ought we to be to the feelings of those who are reduced from affluence to distress. It is not sufficient that we endeavour to relieve the actual wants of such persons, we must avoid wound- | ing their feelings; we must offer our boon with a mixture of sympathy and tenderness; and recollect there is a certain pride attached to degraded circumstances, quickly wounded, and easily offended!

Though several writers, ancient and modern, have recorded instances of this species of beneficence, flattering, in the highest degree, to those who performed them, yet none have struck me as more refinedly delicate, than one I recently met with in a French biographical work, the circumstances attending which were as follows:

countenance; and the courtesies of a first interview being ended, the prelate again drew near the picture, bestowing at the same time such extravagant praise upon it, as at once astonished and delighted the ladies, the elder of whom instantly offered to send it to the palace on the following morning.

"To the palace, Madam!" exclaimed the prelate, surely you cannot be a stranger to the value of it? I confess it is the very picture I have long wanted; and I have given an eminent artist a commission to procure me that identical subject. The value of that painting I know to be one thousand guineas; and if you will spare it upon those terms, you will lay me under an everlasting obligation, Ladies."

A mutual glance of delight passed between the two sisters; the worthy Bishop professed himself to be the obliged person, declaring they had saved him an infinity of trouble, by preventing the pretended artist's journey to Rome.

taken alarm, and they doubtless would have rejected friendship's pure and disinterested offering.

Upon the Archbishop D'Apchon's arrival at his archiepiscopal residence in This may truly be termed the refineGascony, he was desirous of becoming ment of beneficence; for, had the acquainted with the characters of the generous prelate proposed presenting principal inhabitants of Auch; and in decayed nobility with a sum which consequence of his inquiries, he was would have relieved their pressing informed that in the suburbs there re-difficulties, pride must instantly have sided two maiden ladies of high rank, but degraded fortune, who had survived all their near relatives, and were so reduced, as only to be able to keep one servant.-The worthy prelate was deeply affected by the simple recital of degraded dignity; and reflected in what manner he might be able to relieve their necessities, without wounding their feelings; but as no fortunate idea happened to strike him, he resolved to pay the two sisters an early visit. Though represented as truly amiable, they were pronounced highly dignified; in short, poverty had not been able to subdue the pride of rank, in consequence of which, the worthy Bishop was at a loss in what manner to display his intended beneficence.

Though the house was humble, its ill-fated inhabitants were haughty; and the Archbishop having been shewn into a small apartment, had an opportunity of examining it before the ladies made their appearance.-Upon entering, they observed their guest intently gazing upon an old painting, with an expression of delight upon his

A thousand guineas, it must be allowed, is a sum few possess the power of devoting to the comfort and relief of the children of misfortune; and yet the papers daily teem with descriptions of fashionable entertainments, which, unless truth is prostituted, and splendour magnified, equal, if not fur exceed, that amount! Ye daughters of fashion, nurtured in the lap of luxury, reflect for one moment, I beseech you, upon the refined gratification which must attend an action, similar to that ascribed to the worthy Archbishop; then draw a comparison between your sensations upon examining the exorbitant demand upon your purse for one splendid entertainment! an entertainment which, in all proba bility, many of the party attended, for the purpose of outvying in expense, magnificence, and profusion!

That this is no exaggerated picture of elevated association, those who move round the sun of royalty will

readily allow; and likewise acknowledge that the courteous smile of majesty seldom fails exciting a portion of envy towards those on whom it may be shed! Not that I mean to infer, that the baneful passion of envy is exclusively attached to courts; for, unhappily for the comforts of society, it not only pervades the middling, but the lower order; and the rage for expensive amusements, still more unhappily, extends to those who sacrifice to them, their children's future prospects in the world.

by a few lines, entreating them to pardon him for undertaking the office of their cook, but assuring them, that whilst they all were in existence, a hare, with a similar kind of stuffing, should be an annual present.

One of the highest gratifications attendant upon rank and fortune is, the wide field they open to the prac tice of beneficence; for how delightful must it be to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit those who are sick and in prison, and yet know that the performance of these imposing duties neither injures the fortune, nor lessens any persoral enjoyments. Charity may not only be considered as a moral, but a religious, duty, and one which the Saviour of mankind forcibly inculcated; for every precept he enforced, and every doctrine be impressed upon the minds of his hearers, had some allusion to the practice of sympathy and benevolence. Where much has not been given, much will not be required from us; yet circumscribed indeed must be that income, whieh cannot permit a minor display of beneficence; even in that case it behoves us to deprive ourselves of some few indulgences, that we may have the satisfaction of reliev

But I am widely digressing from the subject of this essay, which was not only to recommend beneficence to the affluent, but to convince the youthful, that an act of kindness is augmented by the method of performing it. Lord Chesterfield, that polished man, but truly mistaken father, is allowed, in an eminent degree, to have possessed the virtue of benevolence; and various are the instances related, of the delicate manner in which he performed those acts. His lordship's biographer informs us, that a clergyman who had long been curate of the parish in which one of his estates was situated, paid the debt of nature in very reduced circumstances, leaving two unmarried daughters to strug-ing poverty and wretchedness. gle with poverty and wretchedness.

A sympathy for the woes of others Those pleasing prospects which is frequently displayed in actual childyouth or beauty might have laid open hood; for, with a sensation of delight to them, were obscured by Time's which it would be difficult to express, destroying hand, for each of these ill-frequently have I seen the small sums fated females had seen upwards of fifty annual suns; and it was with difficulty they obtained the mere necessaries of existence by needle-work and clear-starching. Shocked at the description of their forlorn situation, with a delicacy that did honour to his lordship's feelings, he paid them an early visit; and the subject of game having been mentioned, the elder of the sisters observed, she had not tasted a hare since her beloved father's death.

bestowed for the gratification of the appetite, given to a poor mendicant whom an amiable child has accidentally met? What an admirable lesson does such an act present to the callous and the apathetic! for the relinquishing a tart, or a cake, at that period of existence, may be considered as great a privation, as it would be for a young lady, more advanced, to give the sum devoted to the purchase of a ball ticket, to the relief of some unfortunate family in distress. It is in cases Lord Chesterfield, on returning to of this description, that charity may his splendid mansion, inquired whe-justly be termed a Godlike virtue;ther there was a hare in the larder at its effects are equally beneficial, whe that moment; and being answered in ther they proceed from the hand of the affirmative, ordered it to be affluence or competence; yet infibrought him, at the same time desir-nitely superior must be the pleasure ing the cook to send him a handful of those herbs which were generally used in stuffing. These herbs he enclosed in a sheet of writing paper, together with a fifty-pound note, accompanied

arising from the practice, if, to perform a duty, we relinquish a personal enjoyment. Such actions, exemplify. ing pure benevolence, cannot proceed from self-love,

ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE | time, brought to the view and contem

OF GOD AND OBSERVATIONS

FINAL CAUSES.

ON

to

plation of this frame of things. Let him see the sun in his glory and strength; succeeded by the moon in THE arguments which are used her brightness, and the stars in their prove the existence of God, are distin- brilliancy and number; let him comguished by logicians into two kinds, mand the extensive prospect of ocean à priori, and à posteriori. The first and land, mountain and valley; let of these (arguments à priori) are found- him survey the tribes of animated exed upon principles anterior, and inde- istence, whether they swim in the pendent with regard to the works of water, or fly in the air, or graze in the nature. The arguments of this class field, of every nature and every form; are not very easy and obvious; they let him perceive the vegetable world, require a penetration of genius, a from the awful forest to the peaceful closeness of application, and a com- meadow and flowery garden; let him mand of leisure, in order to perceive behold himself, his form erect, his their force, which fall to the lot of powers of thought and expression! comparatively but few. But to a The first impression made by such a mind which distinctly perceives that survey would be, There is a God; and force, perhaps there is no kind of the first utterance would be, "These argument more conclusive. I submit are thy wondrous works, Parent of with the greatest deference the follow-good; thyself how wondrous then!" ing propositions.—

1. Nothing can produce nothing. 2. Something is; therefore something must have been always, or from eternity. 3. That which has been from eternity, must either be one being, a being independent and self-existent; or a succession of beings, caused by and dependent one upon another. 4. There cannot have been an eternal succession of beings. Succession implies that one thing exists before another; and to say that succession is eternal, is to say that things equally eternal, exist one before another; which is absurd. 5. Therefore, there must be a First Being; a Being uncaused, self-existent, eternal; the cause of all other beings; and that Being is God.

But the other kind of arguments, à posteriori, i. e. from the effect to the cause, from the works of nature to the Author of their existence, is in general the more obvious and convincing. The great Creator has manifested himself in his works; the heavens declare his glory; the firmament sheweth his handiwork; day unto day, and night unto night, proclaim his being, and wisdom, and power.

We are the less interested in the stupendous and infinitely varied works of nature, because we see them every day, and have gradually risen up among them from unconscious infancy. But suppose a creature, possessed of the powers of observation and intelligence, only equal to our own when fully matured; suppose such a creature to be all at once, and for the first

Have the researches of modern and experimental philosophy come to any other conclusion? By no means. The great discoveries in modern science are discoveries of final causes; of the adaptation of means to an end; of the fitness of parts to a whole; of ingenuity, contrivance, and design. In anatomy, physiology, chemistry, astronomy, in every science which has attained any thing like maturity and decision, this is most eminently the case. It is true, that in some phenomena of nature we do not discern the final cause; but it is equally true, that those phenomena of nature we do not understand. Nature, through all her works, in the stupendous, in the minute, in the planet, in the insect; nature, whenever her works are understood, proclaims the mighty God.I shall be excused the introduction of the following observations in proof of what has been just stated.

Final Cause; or Phenomena of Nature, tending to prove Intelligence and Design in its Operations and Laws.

By final cause, I understand the end or purpose for which an effect is produced. It is to be carefully distinguished from the efficient cause, which is the energy or power by which an effect is produced. Final cause supposes the existence of mind; an dimplies its exercise in forecast, contrivance, and design. Efficient cause, is the proof of power; final cause, is the equal proof of intelligence. In a