HYMN XVIII. Christ's Victory over Satan. By Dr.Watts. To St. Mary's Tune. H Ofanna to our conqu❜ring king, His troops rufh headlong down to hell 2 There bound in chains the lions roar, 3 Hofanna to our conqu❜ring King, Ten thousand fongs and glories wait 4 Thy vict'ries and thy deathless fame Thro' the wide world fhall run, And everlasting ages fing, The triumphs thou hait won. grace, Hofanna to the Prince of Who from the Father came; SPECTATOR, N° 93, & 94. WE E all of us complain of the shortness of time, faith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, fays he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do; We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. That noble philofopher has described our inconfiftency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expreffion and thought which are peculiar to his writings. I often confider mankind as wholly inconfiftent with itself in a point that bears fome affinity to the former. Though we feem grieved at the fhortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of bufinefs, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honours, then to retire. Thus although the whole life is allowed by every one to be fhort, the feveral divifions of it appear long and tedious. We are for lengthening our fpan in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is compofed. The ufurer would be very well fatisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarter-day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the pofture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to ftrike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as faft as our time runs, we should be very glad in most parts of our lives that it ran much fafter than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands; nay we wifh away whole years and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty waftes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements, or imaginary points of rest which are difperfed up and down in it. If we divide the life of moft men into twenty parts, we fhall find that at leaft nineteen of them are meer gaps and chafms, which are neither filled with pleasure nor bufinefs. I do not however include in this calculation the life of thofe men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs; but of thofe only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I fhall not do an un acceptable acceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I fhall propofe to them are as follow. The first is the exercise of virtue, in the moft general acceptation of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the focial virtues, may give imployment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active ftation of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fiercenefs of a party; of doing juftice to the character of a deferving man; of foftning the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them imployments fuited to a reafonable nature, and bring great fatisfaction. to the person who can bufy himself in them with discretion. There is another kind of virtue that may find imployment for thofe retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and deftitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourfe and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great author of his being. The man who lives under an habitual fense of the divine prefence keeps up a perpetual chearfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the fatisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him: It is impoffible for him to be alone. His thoughts and paffions are the most bufted at fuch hours, when those of other men are the most unactive: He no fooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, fwells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that prefence which every where furrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its forrows, its apprehenfions, to the great fupporter of its existence. I have here only confidered the neceffity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have fomething to do; but if we confider further that the exercife of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lafts, but that its influence extends to thofe parts of our exiftence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us for putting in practice this method of paffing away our time. When a man has but a little ftock to im |