Page images
PDF
EPUB

es might excite? Let them not minister to pride, but adorn them with humility.-There is not an evil incident to hu-man nature for which the Gospel doth not provide a remedy. Are you ignorant of many things which it highly concerns you to know? The Gospel offers you instruction. Have you deviated from the path of dúty? The Gospel offers you forgiveness. Do temptátions surround you? The Gospel offers you the aid of heaven. Are you exposed to mísery? It consòles you. Are you subject to death? It offers you immortality.

Page 29, Note 1.

When (or) is used conjunctively, it has the same inflection before and after it.

In some sentences the disjunctive and the conjunctive use of or are so intermingled as to require careful attention to distinguish them.

1. Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the fúrrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labor to hím? Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich? Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hóok? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest dówn? Canst thou put a hook into his nóse? or bore his jaw through with a thórn? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy máidens? Canst thou fill his skin with barbed írons? or his head with fish spéars?

2. But should these credulous infidels after all be in the right, and this pretended revelation be all a fable; from believing it what harm could ensue? would it render princes more tyrannical, or subjects more ungóvernable, the rich more insolent, or the poor more disórderly? Would it make worse párents or children, húsbands, or wíves; másters, or sérvants, fríends, or néighbors? or* would it not make men more virtuous, and, consequently, more happy, in every situation?

EXERCISE 4.

Page 30. Negation opposed to affirmation.

1. True charity is not a meteor, which occasionally

*The last or is disjunctive.

glares; but a luminary, which, in its òrderly and règular course, dispenses a benignant influence.

2. Think not, that the influence of devotion is confined to the retirement of the closet, and the assemblies of the saints. Imagine not, that, unconnected with the duties of life, it is suited only to those enraptured souls, whose feelings, perhaps, you deride as romantic and visionary. It is the guarIdian of innocence-it is the instrument of virtue-it is a means by which every good affection may be formed and improved.

3. Cæsar, who would not wait the conclusion of the consul's speech, generously replied, that he came into Italy not to injure the liberties of Rome and its citizens, but to restòre them.

4. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

5. These things I say now, not to insult one who is fällen, but to render more secure those who stand; not to irritate the hearts of the wounded, but to preserve those, who are not yet wounded, in sound health; not to submerge him who is tossed on the bíllows, but to instruct those sailing before a propitious brèeze, that they may not be plunged beneath the waves.

6. But this is no time for a tribunal of jústice, but for showing mercy; not for accusátion, but for philanthropy ; not for trial, but for pàrdon; not for sentence and execution, but compassion and kindness.

Comparison and contrast belong to the same head.

1. By hónor and dishonor, by évil report and good report; as decéivers, and yet trùe; as únknown, and yet well known; as dy'ing, and behold we live; as chástened and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as póor, yet making many rìch; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Chríst with Bèlial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

A wise man feareth, and departeth from évil; but the fool rageth, and is confident. The wicked is driven away in his wickedness; but the righteous hath hope in his death. Righteousness exálteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people. The king's favor is toward a wise servant; but his wrath is against him that causeth shame.

2. Between fame and true honor a distinction is to be made. The former is a blind and noísy applause the latter a more sìlent and internal homage. Fame floats on the breath of the múltitude: honor rests on the judgment of the thinking. Fame may give praise, while it withholds estéem; true honor implies esteem, mingled with respect. The one regards particular distínguished talents: the other looks up

on the whole character.

3. Europe was one great field of battle, where the weak struggled for freedom, and the strong for domìnion. The king was without power, and the nobles without principle. They were tyrants at home, and robbers abroad. Nothing remained to be a check upon ferocity and violence.

The

4. The power of delicacy is chiefly seen in discerning the true mérit of a work; the power of correctness, in rejecting false pretènsions to merit. Delicacy leans more to féeling; correctness more to reason and judgment. former is more the gift of náture; the latter, more the product of cùlture and art. Among the ancient critics, Longinus possessed most délicacy; Aristotle, most correctness. Among the moderns, Mr. Addison is a high example of délicate taste; Dean Swift, had he written on the subject of criticism, would perhaps have afforded the example of a corrèct one.

5. Homer was the greater génius; Virgil, the better àrtist; in the one, we most admire the mán; in the other, the work. Homer hurries us with a commanding impetuósity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty. Homer scatters with a generous profúsion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden óverflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a constant strèam.-And when we look upon their machines, Homer seems, like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his benèvolence, counseling with the gods, laying plans for èmpires, and ordering his whole création.

6. Dryden knew more of man in his general náture, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, those of Pope by minute attention.

The style of Dryden is capricious and váried; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rápid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetátion; Pope's is a velvet làwn, shaven by the sythe, and leveled by the roller.

If the flights of Dryden are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire, the blaze is brighter; of Pope's the heat is more règular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astónishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.

7. Never before were so many opposing interests, passions, and principles, committed to such a decision. On one side an attachment to the ancient order of things, on the other a passionate desire of change; a wish in some to perpétuate, in others to destroy every thing; every abuse sacred in the eyes of the fórmer, every foundation attempted to be demolished by the latter; a jealousy of power skrinking from the slightest innovátion, pretensions to freedom pushed to madness and anarchy; superstition in all its dotage, impiety in all its fùry.

EXERCISE 5.

Page 31. The pause of suspension requires the rising slide. Several kinds of sentences are classed under this rule, in the body of the work; but as the principle is the same in all, no distinction is ne cessary in the Exercises.

1. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the worlu of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrów, making

them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.

2. If reason teaches the learned, necessity the barbárian, common custom all nations in géneral; and if even nature itself instructs the brútes to defend their bodies, limbs, and lives, when attacked, by all possible méthods; you cannot pronounce this action criminal, without determining at the same time that whoever falls into the hands of a highwayman, must of necessity perish either by his sword or your decisions. Had Milo been of this opinion, he would certainly have chosen to fall by the hands of Clodius, who had more than once, before this, made an attempt upon his life, rather than be executed by your order, because he had not tamely yielded himself a victim to his rage. But if none of you are of this opinion, the proper question is not whether Clodius was killed? for that we grant: but whether jústly or unjustly? an inquiry of which many precedents are to be found.

3. Seeing then that the soul has many different fáculties, or, in other words, many different ways of ácting; that it can be intensely pleased or made happy by áll these different faculties, or ways of ácting; that it may be endowed with several latent faculties, which it is not at present in a condition to exért; that we cannot believe the soul is endowed with any faculty which is of no úse to it; that whenever any one of these faculties is transcendently pleased, the soul is in a state of happiness; and in the last place, considering that the happiness of another world is to be the happiness of the whole mán; who can question but that there is an infinite variety in those pleasures we are spéaking of; and that this fullness of joy will be made up of all those pleasures which the nature of the soul is capable of receiving?

4. When the gay and smiling aspect of things has be gun to leave the passages to a man's heart thus thoughtlessly unguarded; when kind and caressing looks of every object without, that can flatter his senses, has conspired with the enemy within, to betray him and put him off his defense:

« PreviousContinue »