XI. It is a predominant principle in the system of LETTER human nature, that the designs which have been formed for its improvement, are also made contributory to its happiness; and in this respect we may admire the tendency and efficacy of the succession of the four stages of our earthly being, and of their occurring in the order we all pass thro. The pleasures and activities, as well as the disciplines and corrective vicissitudes of our after life, cause us to forget the enjoyments of our cradle era; but, excepting the anomalies which arise from neglecting or depraved mothers, these must be as soothing, as those of all young animals seem to be; with the addition of those maternal endearments and commingling sensibilities, which it is the privilege of the human race only to participate. All these gratifications are hourly increased, as the senses begin to attend to and to perceive the external things which affect it; for it is a law of our intellectual nature, that every new sensation is a pleasure. Even pain, in its novelty, from its exciting operation, is not wholly disagreeable, if it be not too severe nor too continuous; and when it is so, its departure causes a sense of positive enjoyment to succeed to it, merely from its absence. This I have repeatedly experienced. But with the exception of what is of the painful kind, the con "For such, in all ages and places, is the nature of a good man. He is ever a mystic, creative centre of goodness. His influence, if we consider it, is not to be measured. For his works do not die; but, being of Eternity, are eternal: and in new transformation, and ever wider diffusion, endure, living and giving life. If thou exclaimest against the baseness of time, think of this. To redeem a world sunk into dishonesty has not been given to thee. Solely over one man in it hast thou power. Redeem him; make him honest: this will be something; it will be much; thy life and labor there will not be in vain-THYSELF.' Edin. Rev. No. 110, p. 357. LETTER XI. tinual occurrence of fresh impressions, unknown before, which, from a world where every thing is new to it, as it begins to be acquainted with it, are continually occurring to the growing child, must make that state of its being a happy era. We see Who is so happy this effect continually before us. Old age is querulous. It is one of its defects at times to be so; but let not this occasional weakness deceive you. Age suffers often from calamities which it has brought upon itself, and from many splenetic feelings, which it might relinquish if it chose. But you may be assured that, naturally, it has new gratifications of its own, which fully balance those of earlier days, and which, if cultivated, would carry on the stream of happiness to its grave. If the life has been rightly employed, it will also have the visioned recollections of its preceding comforts, to enhance the pleasures which it is actually enjoying." The result of both our reasoning and our experi 41 On this last period of life my own experience is, in the 67th year of my age, that, notwithstanding ailments, infirmities, and the privations which they occasion, it is just as happy as all the preceding seasons were, tho in a different way. So happy, as to cause no regret that they have passed, and no desire to exchange what is, for what has been. If youth has hopes and prospects and wishes that enchant it, age has no inferiority even in this respect. XI. ence is, if we act properly ourselves, and keep a right LETTER judgment within us, as well as becoming habits, that each period has and brings its own felicities; and that it will be the fault of human mismanagement, not of created nature and its plan, if infancy, childhood, youth, maturity and old age be not a series of diversified pleasures: each period having its own best suiting and wisely appropriated ones, and altogether composing a noble banquet of rational happiness, partly sensorial, partly moral, and partly intellectual, terminating, if we shall so choose, with that which is divine, and which is meant, ultimately, to be superior to every other. XII. LETTER XII. PARADISE-STATE OF ADAM AND EVE-THE DIVINE COMMAND -THE NECESSITY OF SUCH TUITION-REASONS FOR ITS MY DEAR SYDNEY, LETTER HAVING taken this survey of the system of being, which our Creator devised and selected to be that of the human nature, which He chose to place on this our globe; and of its intended qualities, and of the provisions which He made for its moral and intellectual formation while here; let us now proceed to consider the actual execution of His interesting design, in the experienced history of our thus favored race. It was His will, that our order of being should begin with two parents, one of each of the sexes. already alluded to, and that from these, in an evermultiplying series of productions, by a continued succession of new generations, all that quantity of human beings should issue, which have since constituted the human population. It was also His plan that these two originating ancestors should begin their existence in a place, in a state, and under circumstances which would not occur to any of their descendants, and which would be but a temporary condition to themselves, and that of a very brief duration. The abode appointed for their first residence and experience, was a selected portion of the earth, whose exact site, from the subsequent changes of its surface, cannot now be satisfactorily ascertained. It XII. had been prepared to be a beautiful garden, where LETTER every thing that was pleasant to the eye and gratifying to the taste, was provided to give delight to their young sensibilities. The abundant produce made labor unnecessary, and precluded all care or inquiry about subsistence. Their food was every where about them as nature's spontaneous produce. Their daily life was the perfection of human happiness on earth, as far as terrestrial things and bodily effects could cause it. Every sensorial enjoyment; agreeable feelings; mutual affection; serene minds; the absence of all anxiety; ignorance of all that was evil; lovely objects of sight; interesting scenery; their own ever-gladdened spirits; the gentle activities of their limbs and movements; exercise without fatigue, and self-chosen occupations, without need or compulsion; interchange of thought and wishes; innocent gaiety; concurring sympathies; the delights of young knowlege and conversation ever varying, yet ever pleasing, and always kind and courteous, were those elements of gratification which must have attached to the sweetly passing hours, a joyous consciousness of happy existence, and imparted a soothing excitement of intellectual exhilaration. Such means of rational, sportive and tender enjoyment, must have caused the mutually admiring and heart-united pair, to be the image of their God in His felicity, as they were meant to be trained to be, and as all human nature will finally be led to be, in spirit, feeling and temper; in its intellectual improvements, and in highly celestialized principle and character. Such was the first state of mankind, and such will be their ultimate condition in their consummated |