way to rifing in life, and will difable you from doing good to others.

If ever you was dangerously ill, what fault or folly lay heaviest upon your mind? Take care to root it out, without delay, and without mercy.

An unjust acquifition is like a barbed arrow, that must be drawn backward with horrible anguifh; elfe it will be your destruction.

To excel greatly in mufic, drawing, dancing, the pedantic parts of learning, play, and other accomplishments, rather ornamental than ufeful, is beneath a gentleman, and fhews, that to acquire fuch perfection in trifles, he must have employed himfelf in a way unworthy the dignity of his ftation. The peculiar accomplishments, in which a man of rank ought to fhine, are knowledge of the world, acquired by hiftory, travel, conversation, and business; of the conftitution, intereft, and the laws of his country; and of morals and religion; without excluding fuch a competent understanding of other fubjects, as may be confiftent with a perfect mastery of the accomplishments which make the gentleman's proper calling.

The meaneft spirit may bear a flight affliction. And in bearing a great calmity, there is great glory, and a great reward.

A wife man will improve by ftudying his own paft follies. For every flip will difcover fome weakness still uncorrected, which occafioned his misbehaviour; and will fet him upon effectually redreffing every failure.

There is fomewhat arch in the Roman Catholics putting their carnivals before Lent. Mirth is generally the prelude of repentance.

To be drawn into a fault, fhews human frailty. To be habitually guilty of folly, fhews a corrupt mind. To love vice in others is the fpirit of a devil, rather than a man; being the pure, difinterefted love of vice, for its own fake. Yet there are fuch characters!

Remember, your bottle-companions will not bear you company at your death; nor lighten your fentence at the dreadful day of judgment. Let the vicious there

fore

fore go alone at prefent; fince their company may heighten, but will not abate your punishment.

Proofs of genuine repentance are, abftaining from all temptations to the fame vice, thorough reformation, and all poffible reparation.

Take care of thofe vices which refemble virtues.

To abuse the poor for his poverty, is to infult God's providence.

Seek virtue rather than riches. You may be fure to acquire the firft, but cannot promife for the latter. No one can rob you of the first without your confent; you may be deprived of the latter a hundred ways. The first will gain you the esteem of all good and wife men; the latter will get you flatterers enough; but not one real friend. The first will abide by you for ever; the latter will leave you at death, to fhift as you can for eternity.

Moral truths are as certain as mathematical. It is as certain, that good is not evil, nor evil good, as that a part is less than the whole, or that a circle is not a triangle.

What matter what you know, if you do not know yourself?

It is pity that most people overdo either the active or contemplative part of life. To be continually immersed in business, is the way to become forgetful of every thing truly noble and liberal. To be wholly engaged in study, is to lose a great part of the usefulness of a focial nature. How much better would it be, if people would temper action with contemplation, and ufe action as a relief to ftudy?

You may easily know, whether you are in earnest about reforming, and living virtuously. If you be, you will fly from every temptation to vice, and carefully purfue every help to virtue. As you may know whether you love money, by obferving, whether you carefully purfue the means for getting, and cautiously avoid occafions of expence or lofs.

Never force nature. When ftudy becomes a burden, give it over for that time. You will not improve by it, if it goes against the grain.

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Preferve

Preferve, if you can, the esteem of the wife and good. But more especially your own. Confider how deplorable a condition of mind you will be in, when your confcience tells you, you are a villain.

It is not eating a great quantity of food that nourishes moft: Nor devouring of books that gives folid knowledge. It is what you digeft, that feeds both body and mind. Have your learning in your head, and not in your library.

You had better find out one of your own weakneffes, than ten of your neighbour's.

There is only one fingle object you ought to pursue at all adventures; That is virtue: All other things are to be fought conditionally. What fort of man must he be, who refolves to be rich or great at any rate?

If you give only with a view to the gratitude of thofe you oblige, you deferve to meet with ingratitude. If you give from truly difinterefted motives, you will not be discouraged or tired out by the worst returns. Rather be the bubble, than the biter.

Do your duty, if the world fhould laugh. Obedience to the Almighty Governor of the universe, is what one would hardly think fhould draw ridicule upon a man. But, however, if men will be fo abfurd as to laugh at you for what is your greateft wifdom; wait patiently the final iffue, and then it will be feen who acted the ridiculous part.

If it should be hard to do your duty, it is evidently not impoffible. To mention none of the Chriftian heroes, there is not a virtue which the Heathens have not fhewn to be practicable. Do not pretend that a Christian cannot be chafte, when you know that a young Scipio bravely refifted a molt powerful temptation of that kind, in yielding to which, he would have acted only according to the cuftom of thofe times. Do not pretend that it is impoffible for a Chriftian to forgive injuries, when you know, that Phocion, going to fuffer death unjustly, charged it upon his fon, with his laft breath, that he fhould fhew no refentment against his father's perfecutors. Do not excufe yourself in giving up the truth, through fear of offending thofe, on whom you depend,

when

when you know that Attilius Regulus gave himself up to tortures, and death, rather than falfify his word even to his enemies. Let it not be faid that a Chriftian, with his clear views of an over-ruling Providence, fhall be overcome with affliction, or impioufly murmur against the great Disposer of all things, when we find an Epictetus, funk in mifery and flavery, vindicating the Divine difpofal of himfelf, and fubduing his mind to the dif penfations of Providence. Do not excufe yourself from a little expence, trouble, or hazard of ill-will, for the general good, when you know, that a Leonidas, a Calpurnius Flamma, the Decii, and hundreds more, voluntarily devoted themselves to deftruction, to fave their country. If you pretend to be a Chriftian, that is, to profefs the most pure and moft fublime principles in the world, do not infamoufly fall fhort of the perfection of un-enlightened Heathens.

If a temptation folicits, think whether you would. ! yield to it, if you knew you fhould die next day.

Be affured, whatever you may think now, when you come to a death-bed, you will think you have given yourself up too much to pleafures, and other worldly pursuits, and be forry that you had fo large a fhare of them.

A good man has nothing to fear: A bad man every thing.

It is not eafy to keep the mean between temporizing too much, and giving a proper teftimony for decency and virtue, when one fees them outraged.

Do not regard any perfon's opinion of you, against your own knowledge.

Obferve, whether vice does not deform the most amiable perfons.

Custom will have the fame effect, with refpect to death, as to other frightful things; it will take off its

terror.

To understand a subject well, read a fet of the best authors upon it; make an abstract of it; and talk it over with the judicious.

There are no little fins.

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It is in any man's power to be contented; of very few to be rich. The firft will infallibly make you happy; which is more than you can depend on from the latter. He who begins foon to be good, is like to be very good at last.

Take care not to go to the brink of vice, left you fall down the precipice.

If you have, or have not, a chance for happiness in the next life, it cannot fignify much how you pass the prefent. Would you pity a perfon, who was obliged to travel in bad weather, and put up with mean accommodations, as he was going to take poffeffion of a fine eftate? Or would you envy one, who had a pleasant day to go to execution?

If you have the efteem of the wife and good, do not trouble yourself about the rest. And if you have not even that, let the a probation of a well-informed confcience make you eafy in the mean while. Time will come, when you may command the other: 1 mean when you have had the public approbation of an infallible Judge before angeis and men.

A good man gets good out of evil. A wicked man turns good to evil.

Fashion ought to have no weight in matters of any greater confequence than the cut of a coat, or a cap. Numbers do not alter right and wrong. If it thould be the fashion of this world to act foolishly and wickedly, depend on it, the fashion of the next will be, for virtue to be rewarded and vice to be punished.

If you can find a place, where you may be hid from God, and your confcience, do there what you will.

Obedience is the great leffon to be taught children. It is what the All-wife Teacher would bring mankind to. If you act only with a view to praife, you deferve

none.

Liften to confcience, and it will tell you, whether you really do as you would be done by.

Virtue in theory only is not virtue.

That bad habits are not quite unconquerable, is evident from Demofthenes, Cicero, and many others: But that they are very troublesome to deal with, and grow always

stronger