LETTER CXXIV.

From a gentleman to his friend, on happiness. Dear Sir, get galtest ₫ Sng

IT

T seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is very seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are therefore forced to supply the deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.

Every one so often experiences the fallaciousness of hope, and the inconveniences of teaching himself to expect. what a thousand accidents may preclude, that, when time has abated the confidence with which youth rushes out to take possession of the world, we naturally endeavour, or wish at least, to find entertainment in the review of life, and to repose upon real facts, and certain experience.

But so full is the world of calamity, that every source of pleasure is polluted, and tranquillity disturbed. When time has supplied us with events sufficient to employ our thoughts, it has mingled them with so many disasters and afflictions, that we shrink from the remembrance of them, dread their intrusion on our minds, and fly from them to company and diversion.

No. man that has past the middle point of life can sit down to feast upon the pleasures of youth, without finding the banquet embittered by the cup of sorrow. Many days of harmless frolic, and many nights of honest festivity will recur; he may revive the inemory of many lucky accidents, or pleasing extravagances; or, if he has engaged in scenes of action, and been acquainted with affairs of difficulty and vicissitudes of fortune, may enjoy the nobler pleasure of looking back upon distress firmly supported, upon danger resolutely encountered, and upon oppression artfully defeated. Aneas very properly comforts his companions, when, after the horrors of a storm, they have landed on an unknown and desolate country, with the hope that their miseries will, at some distant period, be recounted with delight. There are, perhaps, few higher gratifications than that of reflection on evils surmounted, when they are not incurred by our own fault, and neither reproach us with cowardice nor guilt.

But this kind of felicity is always abated by the reflect tion, that they with whom we should be most pleased to share it, are now in the grave. A few years make such

havock amongst the human race, that we soon see ourselves deprived of those with whom we entered the world. The man of enterprize, when he has recounted his adventures, is forced, at the close of the narration, to pay a sigh to the memory of those who contributed to his success; and he that has spent his life among the gayer part of mankind, has quickly his remembrance stored with the remarks and repartees of wits, whose sprightliness and merriment are now fost in perpetual silence. The trader, whose industry has supplied the want of inheritance, when he sits down to enjoy his fortune, repines in solitary plenty, and laments the absence of those companions with whom he had planned out amusements for his latter years: and the scholar, whose merit, after a long series of efforts, raises him from obscurity, looks round in vain from his exalted state, for his old friends, to be witnesses of his long-sought-for affluence, and to partake of his bounty.

Such is the imperfection of all human happiness; and every period of life is obliged to borrow its enjoyments from the time to come. In youth we have nothing past to entertain us; and in age we derive nothing from the retrospect, but fruitless sorrow. The loss of our friends and companions impresses hourly upon us the necessity of our own departure. We find that all our schemes are quickly at an end, and that we must lie down in the grave with the forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our places to others, who, like us, shall be driven awhile by hope or fear about the surface of the earth, and then, like us, be lost in the shades of death.

Beyond this termination of our corporeal existence, we are therefore obliged to extend our hopes; and every man indulges his imagination with something which is not to happen till he has lost the power of perceiving it. Some amuse themselves with entails and settlements, provide for the increase and perpetuation of families and honours, and contrive to obviate the dissipation of fortunes, which it has been the whole business of their lives to accumulate. Others, more refined and exalted, congratulate their own hearts upon the future extent of their reputation, the lasting fame of their performances, the reverence of distant nations, and the gratitude of unprejudiced posterity.

It is not, therefore, from this world, that any ray of comfort can proceed to cheer the gloom of the last hour. But futurity has still its prospects; there is yet happiness

in reserve sufficient to support us under every affliction. Hope is the chief blessing of man, and that hope only is rational, which we are certain cannot deceive.

LETTER CXXV.

I am, sir, &c.

From his friend in answer, concerning the immortality of

My dear friend,

T

the soul.

HE picture you have drawn of human nature is too true to be denied, and what you have said of the impossibility of enjoying real happiness in this life, has led me to consider that pleasing subject, the immortality of the soul.

The soul has been treated of by many philosophers; several have pretended to define it, some to describe its substance, and, in a word, many have pretended to say what it really is in itself. For my part, I fairly renounce every attempt to explain either its nature or connection with the body: I am content with my confidence, that I have a reasoning faculty within myself, of which, together with my visible body, I am composed and constituted. It must be allowed, that through all the parts of nature there appears a most benevolent intention in the Providence of God for man's preservation and comfort. The earth and waters administering to his food and raiment, animals of various kinds are preserved for him in due season, as we every day experience. But these pleasures are but of a subordinate degree; he enjoys something of a far more sublime nature, his power of contemplating on the goodness of his Maker in the creation of all these things which renders him desirous of something above and beyond them all.

Can it therefore be suggested, that beings capable of the. most refined contemplation on the works of the creation; beings capable of being moved and affected even to an inexpressible degree of pleasure, by the combined harmonies of sound; beings capable of increasing and advancing their knowledge and speculation in all things, even to their last moments; beings capable of conceiving notions which no part of their mortal frame can possibly convey to their understanding, and in which no instrumental influence can have any share; beings that are never satisfied in searching after truth through all the winding labyrinths and hidden recesses of nature; I say, can it be imagined, that such things shoulit

I

be deprived of all existence, in the midst of these growing speculations, which can have no origin but what is truly divine its fulness must be in an hereafter. Our very ima gination reaches to eternity, in spite of all that can be said by the most obstinate atheist, or our own doubts can devise. Hope is a constant instinct which inspires men with a desire of finding some better state, and is a sure presage of futurity; nor could any man on earth be possessed of it, if that state were not certain, no more than he should shrink at committing a wicked act, if there were no power within himself that is to live hereafter. Another strong proof of the immortality of the soul flows from the infallible goodness and justice of the Divine Being; for if it were not immortal, and ever conscious of good and evil done in this life, that goodness and justice would be liable to be called in question. This notion has often confounded some of the greatest philosophers, and is at the same time one of the greatest considerations to prove a future state, when entered upon with deliberation. Can we hesitate to believe the immortality of the soul, when we see how the most abandoned miscreants live and prosper in affluence of fortune, carrying it with a high hand against their neighbours, distressing all in their power, enjoying and rioting on the substance of widows and orphans, and at last going to the grave unpunished; whilst the innocent and virtuous suffer a series of afflictions and miseries, by the means of these powerful tyrants, all their lives, and, at length, lie down in the dust wronged and unredressed in this life? if then there be not an hereafter for the soul, and if it be not consciousof past good and evil, where is the justice, where is the goodness, where is the mercy, where is the benevolence in giving being to mankind, for no other end but to suffer pains and miseries at the hands of another? and what but partiality, which is injustice in itself, would have ordered sufferings like these for some, and a power of tyrannizing to others, for the short date of the life of man here, were there no punishment for the unjust and base, no happiness for the virtuous and injured hereafter? this is a consideration dreadful in its very essence, if justice was nowhere to ensue. But who can behold the beauties of all the parts. of the creation? who can see himself and know he exists, and at the same time observe not only the careful provi sion made for him, but also the numberless methods of pro

pagating and preserving them for his use, without know. ing, at the same time, that they were created for him as well as the tyrant who deprives him of them; and the avaricious, who abuses the good things of this life by denying them not only to others, but even to himself. I say who can be sensible to those things, who observe this divine impartiality, and doubt of future rewards for the virtuous, and future punishments for the wicked? for millions of evil deeds are unpunished, and as many wrongs done without restitution in this life; and, therefore, though a wicked man may escape punishment in this lite, it is impossible he should even shun the justice of that divine law, which necessarily points out, that social virtues and benevolence should be the reciprocal commerce between man and man, during his short stay here, and that under the severest restrictions and penalties. Where then must the uncertain justice of the Divine Being take place? if not on this side the grave, it must certainly be after the soul is separated from the body. Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts on that most important subject, and I leave them with you as a testimony of my unfeigned affection. I am, sir, Yours in the greatest affection.

LETTER CXXVI.

From a gentleman to his friend, concerning prejudice. Sir,

WAS lately in company with several gentlemen, and as the conversation turned upon a variety of subjects, I was much surprised to find every one prejudiced to his own favourite opinion, without being able to assign a reason why they should so hastily take upon themselves to dogmatize with so much assurance.

Among the various errors, into which human nature is liable to fall, there are some which people of a true understanding are perfectly sensible of in themselves, yet either wanting a strength of resolution to break through what by long custom has become habitual, or being of too indolent a temper to endeavour an alteration, still persist to act in contradiction to the dictates of even their own reason and judgment What we call prejudice, or prepossession, is Certainly that which stands foremost in the rank of servility, It is the great ringleader of almost all the mistakes we are