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But you, perhaps, complain of hardships of another kind; of the injuftice of the world; of the poverty which you suffer, and the difcouragements under which you labour; of the croffes and difappointments of which your life has been doomed to be full. Before you give too much fcope to your difcontent, let me defire you to reflect impartially upon your paft train of life. Have not floth, or pride, or ill temper, or finful paffions, misled you often from the path of found and wife conduct? Have you not been wanting to yourselves in improving thofe opportunities which Providence offered you, for bettering and advancing your state? If you have chosen to indulge your humour, or your tafte, in the gratifications of indolence or pleasure, can you complain because others, in preference to you, have obtained thofe advantages which naturally belong to useful labours, and honourable purfuits? Have not the confequences of fome falfe fteps, into which your paffions, or your pleasures, have betrayed you, pursued you through much of your life; tainted, perhaps, your characters, involved you in embarraffments, or funk you into neglect? It is an old saying, that every man is the artificer of his own fortune in the world. It is certain, that the world feldom turns wholly against a man, unlefs through his own fault. "Religion is," in general, "profitable unto all things." Virtue, diligence, and industry, joined with good temper and prudence, have ever been found the fureft road to profperity; and where men fail of attaining it, their want of fuccefs is far oftener owing to their having deviated from that road, than to their having encountered infuperable bars in it. Some, by being too artful, forfeit the reputation of probity. Some, by being too open, are accounted to fail in prudence. Others, by being fickle and changeable, are diftrusted by all. The cafe commonly is, that men seek to afcribe their disappointments, to any cause, rather than to their own mifconduct; and when they can devife no other caufe, they lay them to the charge of Providence. Their folly leads them into vices; their vices into misfortunes; and in their misfortunes they "murmur againft Providence." They are doubly unjust towards their Creator. profperity, they are apt to afcribe their fuccefs to their own diligence, rather than to his bleffing; and in their adversity,

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they impute their diftreffes to his providence, not to their own misbehaviour Whereas, the truth is the very reverse of this. "Every good and every perfect gift cometh from above ;" and of evil and mifery, man is the author to himfelf.

When, from the condition of individuals, we look abroad to the public ftate of the world, we meet with more proofs of the truth of this affertion. We fee great focieties of men torn in pieces by inteftine diffentions, tumults, and civil commotions. We fee mighty armies going forth, in formidable array, against each other, to cover the earth with blood, and to fill the air with cries of widows and orphans. Sad evils thefe are, to which this miferable world is expofed. But are thefe evils, I beseech you, to be imputed to God? Was it he who fent forth flaughtering armies into the field, or who filled the peaceful city with maffacres and blood? Are these miferies any other than the bitter fruit of men's violent and diforderly paffions? Are they not clearly to be traced to the ambition and vices of princes, to the quarrels of the great, and to the turbulence of the people? Let us lay them entirely out of the account, in thinking of Providence; and let us think only of the foolishness of man." Did man control his paffions, and form his conduct according to the dictates of wisdom, humanity, and virtue, the earth would no longer be defolated by cruelty; and human focieties would live in order, harmony and peace. In those scenes of mif

chief and violence which fill the world, let man behold, with fhame, the picture of his vices, his ignorance and folly. Let him be humbled by the mortifying view of his own perverfenefs; but let not his "heart fret against the Lord."

SECTION V.

On difinterested Friendship.

BLAIR.

I AM informed that certain Greek writers (philofophers, it feems, in the opinion of their countrymen) have advanced fome very extraordinary pofitions relating to friendship; as, indeed, what fubject is there, which thefe, fubtle geniuses have not tortured with their fophiftry?

The authors of whom I refer, diffuade their difciples from entering into any ftrong attachments, as unavoidably

creating fupernumerary difquietudes to those who engage in them; and, as every man has more than fufficient to call forth his folicitude, in the cause of his own affairs, it is a weakness, they contend, anxiously to involve himself in the concerns of others. They recommend it also, in all connections of this kind, to hold the bands of union extremely loose; fo as always to have it in one's power to ftraiten or relax them, as circumftances and fituations fhall render most expedient. They add, as a capital article of their doctrine, that "to live exempt from cares, is an effential ingredient to conftitute human happiness: but an ingredient, however, which he, who voluntarily diftreffes himfelf with cares, in which he has no neceffary and perfonal intereft, muft never hope to poffefs."

I have been told likewife, that there is another fet of pretended philofophers, of the fame country, whofe tenets concerning this fubject, are of a still more illiberal and ungenerous caft.

The propofition they attempt to establish, is, that "friendfhip is an affair of felf interest entirely; and that the proper motive for engaging in it, is, not in order to gratify the kind and benevolent affections, but for the benefit of that affiftance and support which is to be derived fromt he connection." Accordingly they affert, that thofe perfons are most disposed to have recourse to auxiliary alliances of this kind, who are leaft qualified by nature, or fortune, to depend upon their own ftrength and powers; the weaker fex, for inftance, being generally more inclined to engage in friendfhips, than the male part of our fpecies; and thofe who are depreffed by indigence, or labouring under misfortunes, than the wealthy and the profperous.

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Excellent and obliging fages, thefe, undoubtedly! To ftrike out the friendly affections from the moral world, would be like extinguishing the fun in the natural each of then being the fource of the best and most grateful fatisfactions, that Heaven has conferred on the fons of men. But I fhould be glad to know, what the real value of this beafted exemp tion from care, which they promife their difciples, juftly amounts to an exemption flattering to felf love, I confefs; but which, upon many occurrences in human life, fhould be

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For nothing, furely, can

rejected with the utmoft difdain. be more inconfiftent with a well poifed and manly fpirit, than to decline engaging in any laudable action, or to be difcouraged from perfevering in it, by an apprehenfion of the trouble and folicitude, with which it may probably be attended. Virtue herself, indeed, ought to be totally renounced, if it be right to avoid every poffible means that may be productive of uneafinefs: for who, that is actuated by her principles, can obferve the conduct of an oppofite character, without being affected with fome degree of fecret diffatisfaction? Are not the juft, the brave, and the good, neceff-ily expofed to the disagreeable emotions of diflike and aver when they respectively meet with instances of fraud, of cowardice, or of villany? It is an effential property of every well constituted mind, to be affected with pain, or pleafure, according to the nature of thofe moral appearances that prefent themselves to obfervation.

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If fenfibility, therefore, be not incompatible with true wifdom, (and it furely is not, unless we fuppofe that philofophy deadens every finer feeling of our nature,) what just reafon can be affigned, why the fympathetic fufferings which may refult from friendship, fhould be a fufficient inducement for banishing that generous affection from the human breast ? Extinguifh all emotions of the heart, and what difference will remain, I do not fay between man and brute, but between man and a mere inanimate clod? Away then with thofe auftere philofophers, who reprefent virtue as hardening the foul against all the fofter impreffions of humanity! The fact, certainly, is much otherwife. A truly good man is, upon many occafions, extremely fufceptible of tender fentiments; and his heart expands with joy, or fhrinks with forrow, as good or ill fortune accompanies his friend. Upon the whole, then, it may fairly be concluded, that, as in the cafe of virine, fo in that of friendship, those painful fenfations, which may fometimes be produced by the one, as well as by the other, are equally infufficient grounds for excluding either of them from taking poffeffion of our bofoms.

They who infift that "utility is the first and prevailing motive, which induces mankind to enter into particular friendships," appear to me to diveft the affociation of its moft

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amiable and engaging principle. For, to a mind rightly dif pofed, it is not fo much the benefits received, as the affectionate zeal from which they flow, that gives them their best and most valuable recommendation. It is fo far indeed from

being verified by fact, that a fenfe of our wants is the orig nal caufe of forming these amicable alliances; that on the contrary, it is obfervable, that none have been more difti. guifhed in their friendships than thofe, whofe power an 1 opulence, but, above all, whofe fuperior virtue (a much firm. er support) have raised them above every neceffity of having recourfe to the affiftance of others.

The true diftinction then, in this question is, that "a!though friendship is certainly productive of utility, yet utility is not the primary motive of friendship." Thofe felfifh ferfualifts, therefore, who, lulled in the lap of luxury, prefun.c to maintain the reverse, have furely no claim to attention; as they are neither qualified by reflection, nor experience, to be competent judges of the fubject.

Is there a man upon the face of the earth, who would deliberately accept of all the wealth, and all the affluence this world can beftow, if offered to him upon the fevere terms of his being unconnected with a fingle mortal whom he could love, or by whom he should be beloved? This would be to lead the wretched life of a detested tyrant, who, amidst perpetual fufpicions and alarms, paffes his miferable days a ftranger to every tender fentiment; and utterly precluded from the heartfelt fatisfactions of friendship.

Melmoth's translation of Cicero's Lælius.

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I was yesterday walking, alone, in one of my friend's woods; and lost myself in it very agreeably, as I was running over, in my mind, the feveral arguments that establish this great point; which is the basis of morality, and the fource of all the pleafing hopes and fecret joys, that can arise in the heart of a reasonable creature. I confidered thofe feveral proofs drawn,

First, from the nature of the foul itfelf, and particularly its immateriality; which,hough not abfolutely neceffary to

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