cities, and in nations, and directs our united labours' to the public benefit; and without its influence, arts and learning, trade and manufactures, would be at an end, and all government, like matter by infinite division, would be annihilated.

The natural world subsists by a perpetual contention of tie elements of which it is composed; the political by as constant a contest of its internal parties, struggling for superiority. In the former, the great system is carried o by a continual rotation of good and evil, alternately poducing and succeeding each other. Continual sun. sine produces tempests; these discharge themselves into rfreshing rains; rains cause inundations, which, after sme ravages, subsiding, assist commerce and agriculture, by scouring out the beds of rivers, and fertilizing land; and sunshine returns again—so in the latter, long peace, the political sunshine, generates corruption, luxury, and fction, the parents of destructive wars; war for a time twakens national vigour, and pours down wealth and plunder, then causes inundations of poverty and distress; distress calls forth industry, agriculture, and commerce, and peace returns once more.

As night and day, winter and summer, are alternately irculated over the various regions of the globe, so are poverty and wealth, idleness and industry, ignorance and cience, despotism and liberty, by a uniform process, arising from their own natural constitutions, and their invariable effects upon each other. In poor countries, recessity incites industry, and cheapness of provisions invites traders and manufacturers to reside; this soon introduces wealth, learning, and liberty; and these are as soon followed by profusion, faction, and licentiousness; commerce will keep no such company; but, like a bird

of passage, migrates to climes by poverty and cheapnes better adapted to her constitution; these, in their turns grow rich, civilized, free, dissolute, and licentious, in th same manner, and are successively deserted for the sam reason, and the same circle is again renewed.

In the material world, the constant circulation of the air, and flux and reflux of the tides, preserve those ele. ments from a putrid stagnation; so in the political controversies, civil and religious, keep up the spirits of national communities, and prevent them from sinking into a state of indolence and ignorance; but if either exceed the bounds of moderation, their consequences are extremely fatal; the former producing storms and inundations, and the latter anarchy and confusion. Lore Bacon observes, that war is to states what exercise is ta individuals; a proper proportion may contribute to health and vigour, but too much emaciates and wears out a con. stitution.

Thus, by a wise and wonderful disposition of things material and intellectual, God has infused into them alt powers and propensities greatly analogous, by which they are enabled and compelled, in a similar manner, to per form their respective parts in the general system, to restrain their own excesses, and to call back each other. whenever they too far deviate from their destined ends; and has said unto every thing, as well as to the ocean, to night and day, to winter and summer, to heat and cold, to rain and sunshine, to happiness and misery, to science and ignorance, to war and peace, to liberty and despot ism, "Hitherto shalt thou go, and no farther." These amazing instances of infinite wisdom in the economy of things, presenting every where an analogy so remarkable, are well worthy of our highest admiration; yet have been,

but little observed, because these divine dispositions appear to us to be no more than the necessary consequences of previous causes, and the invariable operations of nature, and we forget that nature is nothing more than the art of her Omnipotent Author.-Soame Jenyns' Disquisitions.

II.

Intemperance. Those men who destroy a healthful constitution of body by intemperance, and an irregular life, do as manifestly kill themselves, as those who hang, or poison, or drown themselves.-Sherlock.

III.

Suspicion. There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little; and, therefore, men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions in smother.-Lord Bacon.

IV.

Historians. We find but few historians of all ages, who, have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they distribute to the public, by which means, a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.-Dryden.

V.

Punishments. The punishment of criminals should be of use: when a man is hanged he is good for nothing.Voltaire.

VI.

Duty of Parents.-The last duty of parents to their children is that of giving them an education suitable to

their station in life; a duty pointed out by reason and for the greatest importance of any. For, as Puffendorf very justly observes, it is not easy to imagine or allow, that i parent has conferred any considerable benefit on his chill by bringing him into the world, if he afterwards entirely neglects his culture and education, and suffers him o grow up like a beast, to lead a life useless to others and shameful to himself.-J. Blackstone.

VII.

The Wisdom of our Ancestors.-Of all the authorities to which men can be called to submit, the "Wisdom of our Ancestors" is the most whimsically absurd; we are in older generation than they were, and since experience is the consequence of age, we must necessarily be wiser. They, in their successive generations, laid aside absurdities which had descended to them from their fathers; that was a piece of wisdom on their parts which we might imitate with advantage. Our great grandfathers believed that the earth was a broad platter on the back of a tortoise; our grandfathers threw overboard that blessed specimen of hereditary wisdom, and declared the earth to be a ball, round which the sun and planets revolved; our fathers made a second change, their theory drove the earth from its state of quietude, and sent it spinning through infinite space, while the sun, which had hitherto capered with amazing velocity from one end of heaven to the other, was destined for the future to repose quietly in the centre of the system. Each of these alterations has been styled Atheism, and the authors threatened with crucifixion by the clergy, or with St. Stephen's fate by an ignorant mob. No improvement of importance has ever been proposed, which was not at the first onset denounced

as blasphemous, treasonable and absurd.—London University Magazine.

VIII.

Fear. Such as are in immediate fear of losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas, such as are actually poor slaves and exiles, oftentimes live as merrily as men in a better condition; and so many people, who, impatient of the perpetual alarms of fear, have hanged and drowned themselves, give us sufficiently to understand, that it is more importunate and insupportable than death itself.-Montaigne.

IX.

Gentleness of Address successful in convincing our Opponents. It is a very great and fatal mistake in persons who attempt to convince or reconcile others to their party, when they make the difference appear as wide as possible; this is shocking to any person who is to be convinced-he will choose rather to keep and maintain his own opinions, if he cannot come into yours without renouncing and abandoning every thing that he believed before. Human nature must be flattered a little as well as reasoned with, that so the argument may be able to come at his understanding, which otherwise will be thrust off at a distance. If you charge a man with nonsense and absurdities, with heresy and self-contradiction, you take a very wrong step towards convincing him.-Watts' Posthumous Works.

X.

Solitude. Those beings only are fit for solitude, who like nobody, are like nobody, and are liked by nobody.— Zimmerman.

VOL. I.-2