which perpetually overtake us, are they not enough, but we muft fally forth in queft of them,-belye our own hearts, and fay as your text would have us, that they are better than those of joy? did the Best of Beings send us into the world for this end-to go weeping through it, to vex and fhorten a life fhort and vexatious enough already? do you think, my good preacher, that he who is infinitely happy, can envy us our enjoyments? or that a Being fo infinitely kind would grudge a mournful traveller the short reft and refreshments neceffary to support his fpirits through the stages of a weary pilgrimage? or that he would call him to a fevere reckoning, because in his way he had haftily fnatched at fome little fugacious pleafures, merely. to sweeten this uneafy journey of life, and reconcile him to the ruggedness of

the road, and the many hard juftlings he is fure to meet with? Confider, I befeech you, what provifion and accommodation, the Author of our being has prepared for us, that we might not go on our way forrowing-how many caravanferas of rest-what powers and faculties he has given us for taking it what apt objects he has placed in our way to entertain us;-fome of which he has made so fair, fo exquifitely fitted for this end, that they have power over us for a time to charm away the fense of pain, to cheer up the dejected heart under poverty and fickness, and make it and remember its miferies no more.

go

I will not contend at prefent against this rhetoric; I would choofe rather for a moment to go on with the allegory, and fay we are travellers, and, in the most affecting

VOL. I.

D

affecting fenfe of that idea, that like tra vellers, though upon business of the last and nearest concern to us, may furely be allowed to amufe ourselves with the natural or artificial beauties of the country we are paffing through, without reproach of forgetting the main errand we are fent upon; and if we can fo order it, as not to be led out of the way, by the variety of profpects, edifices, and ruins which folicit us, it would be a nonfenfical piece of faint-errantry to fhut our eyes..

But let us not lofe fight of the argu ment in pursuit of the fimile.

Let us remember, various as our excurfions are that we have still fet our faces towards Jerufalem-that we have a place of reft and happiness,towards which

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we haften, and that the way to get there is not fo much to please our hearts, as to improve them in virtue;-that mirth and feafting are ufually no friends to atchievements of this kind-but that a feason of affliction is in fome fort a feafon of piety-not only because our sufferings are apt to put us in mind of our fins, but that by the check and interruption which they give to our purfuits, they allow us what the hurry and bustle of the world too often deny us, and that is, a little time for reflection, which is all that most of us want to make us wifer and better men ;-that at certain times it is fo neceffary a man's mind fhould be turned towards itself, that rather than want occafions, he had better purchase them at the expence of his present happiness.—He had better, as the text expreffes it, go to the house of D 2

mourn

mourning, where he will meet with fomething to fubdue his paffions, than to the houfe of feasting, where the joy and gaiety of the place is likely to excite them: That whereas the entertainments and careffes of the one place, expofe his heart and lay it open to temptations-the forrows of the other defend it, and as naturally fhut them from it. So ftrange and unaccountable a creature is man! he is fo framed, that he cannot but pursue happiness and yet unless he is made fometimes miferable, how apt is he to mistake the way which can only lead him to the accomplishment of his own wishes.

This is the full force of the wife man's declaration. But to do farther juftice to his words, I will endeavour to bring the fubject ftill nearer. For which purpose, it will be neceffary to ftop here,

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