putation, or disturb the happiness of our neighbour.

But as the consideration of Vigilance, under such a variety of circumstances, may be too general and diffusive; I shall, at present, endeavour to point out its importance and utility in a state of prosperity. On some future occasion, I purpose, by Divine permission, to consider the obligations of the same great duty, under adversity; and, lastly, in that intermediate condition of life, which may be said to be equally remote from both.

First, then, Prosperity, however flattering and desirable in some respects, is attended with many snares and temptations; and, therefore, our vigilance in the enjoyment of it should be proportionably active. One of its most general effects is intimated by the Apostle in addressing his son Timothy, that of making men "high minded," proud, and vain. The rich and prosperous think not of the gifts of divine Providence as a kind of sacred trust, or talent, which they are required to husband and improve; but consider them as the instruments of power and often oppression; or, at least, as the means of gratifying ambition, pleasure, and voluptuousness in every varied and fantastic form. The

objects of their friendship and regard, therefore, are seldom chosen, according to the disinterested rule of the Gospel, from those humble and unfortunate men, who have not the power of returning favors; but are selected with most avidity from their superiors; or from their equals, who feel no wants, and who expect no sacrifices. By such exclusive intercourses, men are too apt to become, not only high-minded, "but to be careless and even ignorant of their social and religious duties; or, as St. Paul ob serves, to "trust in uncertain riches, rather than in the living God."

The sight of poverty and distress, instead of exciting charity, sometimes serves only to foster pride. Feeling their own greatness, and glorying in their prosperity, the mind is intoxicated with vain and selfish passions; and hence it is often the characteristic of men that are "rich in this world," and invested with power, to oppress more than to relieve, to increase misery, or to spread corruption, rather than to promote happiness, and encourage virtue.

Against such perversion, and abuse of the divine Bounty, we ought constantly "to watch and pray," convinced that while enjoying prosperity, temptations to sin are always before us,

and that nothing but vigilance, and the deepest sense of Christian duty, can prevent us from falling.

Other evils to which prosperity will often expose us, and against which we must strictly guard, are luxury, intemperance, and the excessive love of pleasure. It is a lamentable truth, founded on the experience of human frailty, that, in proportion to men's temptations, will be their transgressions. Now, riches, it should be remembered, lay the heart open to every vicious indulgence that can enslave, or corrupt it; and hence it is among the higher ranks of life, among the sons of worldly prosperity, (the influence of whose example spreads far and wide,) that we find the most flagrant instances of profligacy and licentiousness.

Exempt from the duties of any profession, and at liberty to spend time as they please, they lapse into a kind of active idleness; or rather, they are bred up to it. The mind however cannot remain long in absolute indolence; and therefore it pursues, with restless importunity, such frivolous objects, as afford iminediate gratification. The more exalted satisfactions that arise from industry, and perseverance, -from active benevolence, fortitude, and self

denial, they neither merit nor enjoy. Pleasure, in all its gay varieties, is the business of life, and fashion the sovereign umpire that regulates it. Virtue, with her efforts and trials, Duty with its principles and restraints, enter not into their voluptuous system; but are cherished, if cherished at all, by fits and starts, as the impulse of some sudden passion may suggest.

Thus, it is easy to perceive how the natural appetites of hunger, thirst, and sleep are perverted, anticipated, or cloyed;-how luxury is so studiously varied and extended, as to be in a great measure the science of fancy and invention;-how the body is debilitated, and the mind enfeebled, or corrupted, by that which should invigorate the one and recreate the other.

From the same causes proceeds a degree of thoughtlessness, and indifference, which would alone preclude the exercise of almost every Christian virtue; and a hardness of heart for the common concerns of humanity, which arises, in a great degree, however problematical it may seem, from a spurious kind of sensibility. Yes, there are persons continually immersed in pleasure, or always in pursuit of some trifling gratification, from the wearisomeness of time

not usefully employed, who shrink, with fastidious delicacy, from the real calamities of life; or view them from a summit so remote, that they contemplate misery and want, hunger, nakedness, and pain, as sufferings peculiar to beings of another species. The objects that excite their interest and pity are not to be found where their blessed Saviour sought them, in the House of mourning, or in the wretched abodes of poverty and disease. If they deign to shed a tear, it must be from the contagion of sympathy;-for beings that are the creatures of fancy;-not for misery as she presents herself in the simple garb of nature, but as exhibited in the pages of Romance, or decked out with all the pomp and decorations of a tragic queen.

These are too often the subjects of fashionable sorrow; and these are the sorrows in which the sons of prosperity may cheaply indulge. Sorrows that may be dismissed for the next farce that follows;-that require no assiduities to prevent, no fortitude to bear, and no sacrifice of time to solace or relieve.

It must inevitably follow, when a man indulges himself in all the pride and vanity, all the pleasure and luxury, the idleness and ostentation, which a state of prosperity might