body, as well as an immortal soul. The whole compound was like a well built temple, stately without, and sacred within.* GRATITUDE AND INGRATITUDE. GRATITUDE is properly a virtue, disposing the mind to an inward sense and an outward acknowledgment of a benefit received, together with a readiness to return the same or the like, as the occasions of the doer of it shall require, and the abilities of the receiver extend to. David in the overflowing sense of God's goodness to him cries out in the 116 Psalm, verse 12, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me ?" So the grateful person pressed down upon the apprehension of any great kindness done him, eases his burdened mind a little by such expostulations with himself as these: "What shall I do for such a friend, for such a patron, who has so frankly, so generously, so unconstrainedly, relieved me in such a distress; supported me against such an enemy; supplied, cherished, and upheld me, when relations would not know me, or at least could not help me; and, in a word, has prevented my desires, and outdone my necessities?"* Ingratitude is an insensibility of kindnesses received, * I subjoin a specimen of "GRATITUDE," as taught by the Moralist, the Historian, and the Poet. THE MORALIST. Examples of ingratitude check and discourage voluntary beneficence: and in this the mischief of ingratitude consists. Nor is the mischief small; for after all is done that can be done, by prescribing general rules of justice, and enforcing the observation of them by penalties or compulsion, much must be left to those offices of kindness, which men remain at liberty to exert or withhold.—Paley's Moral Philosophy, 234. without any endeavor either to acknowledge or repay them. Ingratitude sits on its throne, with pride at its right hand and cruelty at its left, worthy supporters of such a state. You may rest upon this as a proposition of an eternal unfailing truth, that there neither is, nor ever was any person remarkably ungrateful, who was not also insufferably proud; nor, convertibly, any one proud, who was not equally ungrateful. For as snakes breed in dunghills not singly, but in knots, so in such base noisome hearts, you shall ever see pride and ingratitude indivisibly wreathed, and twisted together. Ingratitude overlooks all kindnesses, but it is, because pride makes it carry its head so high. Ingratitude is too base to return a kindness, and too proud to regard it; much like the tops of mountains, barren indeed, but yet lofty; they produce nothing, they feed nobody, they clothe nobody, yet are high and stately, and look down upon all the world about them. Ingratitude indeed put the poniard into Brutus's hand, but it was want of compassion which thrust it into Cæsar's heart. Friendship consists properly THE HISTORIAN. The father of Caius Toranius had been prescribed by the triumvirate. Caius Toranius, coming over to the interests of that party, discovered to the officers, who were in pursuit of his father's life, the place where he concealed himself, and gave them withal a description, by which they might distinguish his person, when they found him. The old man, more anxious for the safety and fortunes of his son, than about the little that might remain of his own life, began immediately to inquire of the officers who seized him, whether his son were well, whether he had done his duty to the satisfaction of his generals. "That son," replied one of the officers, "so dear to thy affections, betrayed thee to us; by his information thou art apprehended, and diest." The officer with this struck a poniard to his heart, and the unhappy parent fell, not so much affected by his fate, as by the means to which he owed it.-Ibid., 8. ness. in mutual offices, and a generous strife in alternate acts of kindBut he who does a kindness to an ungrateful person, sets his seal to a flint, and sows his seed upon the sand upon the former he makes no impression, and from the latter he finds no production. The only voice of ingratitude is, give, give; but when the gift is once received, then, like the swine at his trough, it is silent and insatiable. In a word, the ungrateful person is a monster, which is all throat and belly; a kind of thoroughfare or common shore, for the good things of the world to pass into; and of whom, in respect of all kindnesses conferred on him, may be verified that observation of the lion's den; before which appeared the footsteps of many that had gone in thither, but no prints of any that ever came out thence. COVETOUSNESS. Or covetousness we may truly say, that it makes both the Alpha and Omega in the devil's alphabet, and that it is the first vice in corrupt nature which moves, and the last which dies. For look upon any infant, and as soon as it can but move a hand, we shall see it reaching out after something or other which it should not have; and he who does not know it to be the proper and peculiar sin of old age, seems himself to have the dotage of that age upon him, whether he has the years or no. The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world, to take in everything, and to part with nothing. Charity is accounted no grace with him, nor gratitude any virtue. The cries of the poor never enter into his ears; or if they do, he has always one ear readier to let them out than the other to take them in. In a word, by his rapines and extortions, he is always for making as many poor as he can, but for relieving none, whom he either finds or makes so. So that it is a question, whether his heart be harder, or his fist closer. In a word, he is a pest and a monster: greedier than the sea, and barrener than the shore. SELF-DECEPTION. FROM the beginning of the world, to this day, there was never any great villany acted by men, but it was in the strength of some great fallacy put upon their minds by a false representation of evil for good, or good for evil. Is a man impoverished and undone by the purchase of an estate? why; it is, because he bought an imposture; payed down his money for a lie, and by the help of the best and ablest counsel (forsooth) that could be had, took a bad title for a good. Is a man unfortunate in marriage? still it is, because he was deceived, and put his neck into the snare, before he put it into the yoke, and so took that for virture and affection, which was nothing but vice in a disguise, and a devilish humor under a demure look. Is he again unhappy and calamitous in his friendships? why: in this case also, it is because he built upon the air and trod upon a quicksand, and took that for kindness and sincerity which was only malice and design. KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. THE natural inability of most men to judge exactly of things, makes it very difficult for them to discern the real good and evil of what comes before them, to consider and weigh circumstances, to scatter and look through the mists of error, and so separate appearances from reality. For the greater part of mankind is but slow and dull of apprehension; and therefore in many cases under a necessity of seeing with other men's eyes, and judging with other men's understandings. To which their want of judging or discerning abilities, we may add also their want of leisure and opportunity, to apply their minds to such a serious and attent consideration, as may let them into a full discovery of the true goodness and evil of things, which are qualities which seldom display themselves to the first view: There must be leisure and retirement, solitude and a sequestration of man's self from the noise and toil of the world; for truth scorns to be seen by eyes too much fixed upon inferior objects. It lies too deep to be fetched up with the plough, and too close to be beaten out with the hamIt dwells not in shops or workhouses; nor till the late age was it ever known, that any one served seven years to a smith or mer. a tailor, that he might at the end thereof, proceed master of any other arts, but such as those trades taught him: and much less that he should commence doctor or divine from the shopboard, or the anvil; or from whistling to a team, come to preach to a congregation. These were the peculiar, extraordinary privileges of the late blessed times of light and inspiration: otherwise nature will still hold on its old course, never doing anything which is considerable without the assistance of its two great helps-art and industry. But above all, the knowledge of what is good and what is evil, what ought and what ought not to be done in the several offices and relations of life, is a thing too large to be compassed, and too hard to be mastered, without brains and study, parts and contemplation.* * Such were the sentiments of South. Shakspeare, in Troilus and Cressida, says, Paris, and Troilus, you have both said well; The reasons you allege, do more conduce Than to make up a free determination 'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice Of any true decision. Lord Bacon, in stating the objections made by divines to the advancement of learning, says, “They urge that knowledge is of the nature and number of those things, which are to be accepted with great limitation and caution; that the aspiring to overmuch knowledge was the original temptation and sin, whereupon ensued the fall of man." To which Lord Bacon answers, "the divines do not observe and consider, that it was not that pure and primitive knowledge of nature, by the light whereof man did give names to other creatures in paradise, as they were brought before him, according to their proprieties, which gave the occasion to the fall; but it was that proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent to shake off God and to give law unto himself." So too, in his tract on education, he says, "Is it not a wise opinion of Aristotle and worthy to be regarded: That young men are no fit auditors of Moral philosophy, because the boiling heat of their affections is not yet settled, nor attempered with time and experience. And to speak truth, |