may still reign with full power, though it gives us leave to show this expression of humanity, and to acquire the reputation of pity and tenderness. Whence we are to infer, that such a reputation can be of no considerable value.

* Would any have thought, that a man who enjoyed the friendship of the kings of England and Poland, and the queen of Sweden, should at length have wanted a safe retreat, a shelter and asylum in the world?

* As objects have different qualities, so has the soul different inclinations. Nothing presents itself with the same constant face to the affections; and the affections apply themselves to nothing after the same constant manner. Hence it comes to pass, that the same thing which excites our laughter, may, upon the very next view, provoke our tears.

* We are of so unhappy a frame, that we can take pleasure in no enjoyment, but upon condition of being as much dissatisfied, if any thing chance to render it less successful to us, as a thousand accidents may and do every hour. He that has found out the secret of delighting himself in good, without disturbing himself with the fear of the opposite evil, seems to have hit on the point of true happiness.

There are different classes and orders of men; as the valiant, the sprightly, the witty, and the pious; who ought respectively to keep within their own sphere, and not to invade that of their neighbours. Yet how often do we find them at variance, and see the soldier and the beau idly contending with each other for the mastery? whereas they really belong to a different empire. Their fault is, that they do not understand themselves, and therefore set up for universal dominion. But nothing can obtain such a dominion; not even force itself; which, while it tyrannizes over external actions, has not the least command over the realms of learning and wit.

the

present

*Ferox gens nullam esse vitam nisi in armis putat. These men would have chosen death rather than peace: there are others who would choose death rather than war. Any opinion which has taken so deep, and so natural a root, gains an easy preference to life itself.

* How difficult is it for me, to propose any matter to the judgment of another, without corrupting his judgment by my manner of proposing it? I cannot intimate that it is easy and agreeable, or that it is difficult and obscure, but I shall, very probably, impose either a favourable or sinister bias on the conceptions of my friend. I ought to give no such intimation of my own sentiments. For then he will pronounce of the thing as it really is, according as its present condition, and those circumstances, which are not of my adding, shall represent it. And yet perhaps my very silence, in this case, may have the same ill effect: according to the turn and construction which my friend shall be in the humour to give it; or, according to what he may gather from my air and look, or from the tone of my voice in proposing the question. So easy is it to throw reason out of its natural seat; or, rather, so infirm and tottering a seat has nature given it.

* The Platonists, and even the Stoics, while they believed that God alone was an object so worthy as to justify our love, did yet desire themselves to be beloved and admired by men. They had no right sense of their natural corruption. Had they been really disposed to the love and adoration of God, and felt the most ravishing joy from so divine an employment, they might fairly have called themselves as good and great as they had pleased. But if they found their hearts under an utter aversion and repugnancy to these duties; if they had no manner of inclination but to establish themselves in the opinion of men; and if their whole perfection consisted in being able, without constraint, to make others propose

a happiness in loving and esteeming them; such a perfection ought to be abhorred. For this was their case : they possessed, in some degree, the knowledge of God, and yet courted only the love of men. They were desirous that men should place their hope and confidence in them, and should make them the sole objects of their choice and delight.

way.

* How wisely has it been ordained, to distinguish men rather by the exterior show, than by the interior endowments! Here is another person and I disputing the Who shall have the preference in this case? Why, the better man of the two. But I am as good a man as he; so that if no expedient be found, he must conquer me, or I must conquer him. Well, but all this while he has four footmen at his back, and I have but one. This is a visible. advantage: we must in a moment discover it. It is my part therefore to yield, and I am foolish if I contest the point. See here an easy method of peace, the great safeguard and supreme happiness of this world!

*Time puts the surest end to troubles and complaints. Because the world continually changes, and persons and things become indifferent. Neither the aggriever, nor the party aggrieved, are long in the same circumstances. It is as if we should have personally affronted and exasperated those of a certain nation, and should be able to visit that nation again, two generations hence. We should find the same French (for instance,) but not the same men.

* It is infallibly certain, that the soul is either mortal, or immortal. This ought to make an entire change in morality. And yet so fatal was the blindness of the philosophers, that they framed their whole moral system, without the least dependence on such an inquiry. * The last act of life is always bloody and tragical, how pleasantly soever the comedy may have run

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through all the rest. A little earth, cast upon our cold head, for ever determines our hopes, and our condition.

CHAPTER XXX.

THOUGHTS UPON DEATH; BEING AN EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OF M. PASCAL'S, OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF

HIS FATHER.

WHEN we are under affliction and trouble for the death of a person who was dear to us, or for any misfortune which we are capable of suffering, we ought not to seek our consolation in ourselves, or in others, or in any part of the creation, but in God alone. And the reason seems to be evident: inasmuch as no created being is the first cause and mover of those accidents which the world calls evil. Since, therefore, they are all to be referred to God as their real author and sovereign disposer, it is visibly our duty to repair to this original source, and to expect thence the only methods of solid comfort. If we observe these directions: if we look on the death, for instance, which we are lamenting, not as the effect of mere chance, nor as a fatal necessity of nature, nor as the sport of those elements and particles which constitute our frame (for God never abandons his servants to chance, but as the indispensable and inevitable, the most holy, and most just effect of a providential decree, now executed in its time;) if we consider that whatever has now happened, was from everlasting present to God, and pre-ordained by his wisdom: if, I say, by a noble transport of divine grace, we survey the event

which is before us, not in itself, and abstractedly from its author, but out of itself, and in its supreme author's will, as its true cause, with respect both to the matter and the manner; we shall adore in humble silence, his unsearchable judgments, his impenetrable secrets; we shall reverence the holiness of his decrees, we shall bless the guidance of his providence; and uniting our will to the will of God himself, we shall choose with him, in him, and for him, the very same events which he, in us, and for us, has chosen from all eternity.

*There can be no comfort but in truth. It is most certain, that Socrates and Seneca have nothing which may persuade, and convince, may console and relieve us on these occasions. They were both under the original error which blindeth mankind. They looked on death as really natural to us: and all the discourses which they have built on this false foundation, have so much vanity, and so little solidity, as to serve for no other use but to demonstrate the general weakness of the human race, since the most elevated productions of the wisest amongst men, are evidently so childish and contemptible.

It is not so that "we have learned Jesus Christ;" it is not thus that we read the canonical books of Scripture. It is here alone that we succeed in our search of truth: and truth is no less infallibly joined to comfort, than it is infallibly separated from error. Let us then take a view of death, by the light of that truth which the Holy Spirit has given us. And by those we have the advantage of discovering, that death is no other than a punishment imposed on man to expiate the guilt, and necessary to man to dissolve the power of his sins that it is this alone which can deliver the mind from the concupiscence of the flesh, some degree of which does ever adhere to good men, in this world. We are hence instructed, that Jesus Christ came into the