pity on their poor parents, and to choose the right way, that they may not cause affliction to him who often has dandled them in his arms, nor to her at whose breast they hung in the sweet and innocent period of their infancy. It is indeed a melancholy consideration that children, who have been the delight of their parents during the earlier ages, no sooner arrive at maturity, than they often prove a scourge and a curse. They hurry those out of the world, who brought them into it. They imbitter the old age of those who devoted their health and strength of manhood to their welfare and support. Sad return! to plant the pillow of reclining age with thorns!-O bave pity, have pity on your father! -Behold him with tottering step approaching you With suppliant hands and tears in his eyes, he begs you-to do what? to be good and happy. O spare him, wipe away his tears; make him happy, be so yourself-so when it shall be your turn to be a father, may you never feel the pangs you have already inflicted!

!

There are parents, indeed, who seem to have little concern but for the pecuniary interest or worldly advancement of their children. While their children excel in dress, address, simulation, and dissimulation, they are allowed to be as debauched and immoral as they please. While they possess a poor, mean, and contemptible kind of wisdom, commonly called the knowledge of the world, their parents are perfectly easy; though they should be notoriously guilty of every base artifice, and plunged in the grossest and most unlawful species of sensuality. That poor man, Lord Chesterfield, was one of those parents who are ready to sacrifice their children's honour, conscience, and salvation, for the sake of gaining a little of the little honours and riches of a

not to be found among the pleasures of youth, reserved for his age; to reap the harvest of all his cares and labours, in the duty, affection, and felicity of his dear child. His very look bespeaks the inward satisfaction of his heart. The infirmities of his age sit light on him. He feels not the troubles of life; he smiles at the approach of death; sees himself still living and honoured in the memory and the person of his son, his other dearer self; and passes down to the receptacle of all the living, in the fulness of content and joy.

"How unlike to this, is the condition of him, who has the affliction to be the father of a wicked offspring! Poor, unhappy man! No sorrow is like unto thy sorrow. Diseases and death are blessings, if compared with the anguish of thy heart, when thou seest thy dear children run heedlessly and headlong in the ways of sin, forgetful of their parents' counsel, and their own happiness. Unfortunate old man! How often does he wish he had never been born, or had been cut off before he was a father! No reflection is able to afford him consolation. He grows old betimes; and the afflictions of age are doubled on his head. In vain are instruments of pleasure brought forth. His soul refuses comfort. Every blessing of life is lost upon him. No success is able to give him joy. His triumphs are like that of David; while his friends, captains, soldiers, were rending the air with shouts of victory-he, poor conqueror, went up, as it is written, to the chamber over the gate and wept: and as he went, thus he said; O, my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would to God I had died for thee! O Absalom, my son, my son!"

I have introduced this passage, with a hope that gay and thoughtless young men may be properly affected by it; and though they should have no re

pity on their poor parents, and to choose the right way, that they may not cause affliction to him who often has dandled them in his arms, nor to her at whose breast they hung in the sweet and innocent period of their infancy. It is indeed a melancholy consideration that children, who have been the delight of their parents during the earlier ages, no sooner arrive at maturity, than they often prove a scourge and a curse. They hurry those out of the world, who brought them into it. They imbitter the old age of those who devoted their health and strength of manhood to their welfare and support. Sad return! to plant the pillow of reclining age with thorns!-O have pity, have pity on your father! -Behold him with tottering step approaching you! With suppliant hands and tears in his eyes, he begs you-to do what? to be good and happy. O spare him, wipe away his tears; make him happy, be so yourself-so when it shall be your turn to be a father, may you never feel the pangs you have already inflicted!

There are parents, indeed, who seem to have little concern but for the pecuniary interest or worldly advancement of their children. While their children excel in dress, address, simulation, and dissimulation, they are allowed to be as debauched and immoral as they please. While they possess a poor, mean, and contemptible kind of wisdom, commonly called the knowledge of the world, their parents are perfectly easy; though they should be notoriously guilty of every base artifice, and plunged in the grossest and most unlawful species of sensuality. That poor man, Lord Chesterfield, was one of those parents who are ready to sacrifice their children's honour, conscience, and salvation, for the sake of gaining a little of the little honours and riches of a

most abundant riches are comparable to the possession of an honest heart. That wretched lord seems to have entertained very little natural affection for his spurious offspring. His paternal attention was all avarice and ambition. He would probably have been delighted if his son had been at an early age a remarkable debauchee. He would have thought the spirit which vice displayed, a sure prognostic of future eminence. Providence defeated his purpose, and permitted his letters to be exhibited as a loathsome monument of wickedness, vanity, and worldly wisdom. Such wisdom is indeed usually folly, even where its effects and consequences are confined to the present period of existence.

Every father then, and every mother who deserves that tender and venerable appellation, will strenuously endeavour, whatever have been their own errors and vices, to preserve those whom they have introduced into a troublesome world from the foul contagion and pollution of vice. If they have any regard for their children, for their country, for themselves, they will use every probable means to rescue the rising generation from early profligacy. Selfish motives often prevail when all others are inefficacious. I repeat then, that, for their own sakes, they must guard their offspring from riot, intemperance, and prodigality. If they are misguided by the example of Henry the Fifth, or any other reformed rake, so as to encourage their children in evil, or even to be negligent of them, they will probably repent in the day of old age, and find poverty, shame, and anguish, superadded to the weight of years, and the unavoidable evils of a natural decay.

No. CLX.

A Good Heart necessary to enjoy the Beauties of Nature.

By a just dispensation of Providence, it happens that they who are unreasonably selfish, seldom enjoy so much happiness as the generous and contented. Almost all the wicked deviate from the line of rectitude, that they may engross an extraordinary portion of some real or imaginary advantage. Their hearts are agitated in the pursuit of it with the most violent and painful emotions, and their eagerness, apprehensions, and solicitude, poison the enjoyment after they have obtained the possession. The nature of their pleasures is at best gross, sensual, violent, and transitory. They are always dissatisfied, always envious, always malignant. Their souls are bent down to the earth; and, destitute of all elevated and heavenly ideas, cælestium inanes. They have not powers of perception for the sublime or refined satisfactions; and are no less insensible to the tranquil delights of innocence and simplicity, than the deaf and blind to the beauty of colours, and the melody of music.

To the wicked, and indeed to all who are warmly engaged in the vulgar pursuits of the world, the contemplation of rural scenes, and of the manners and natures of animals, is perfectly insipid. The odour of flowers, the purling of streams, the song and plumage of birds, the sportive innocence of the lamb, the fidelity of the dog, are incapable of attracting, for one moment, the notice of him whose conscience is uneasy, and passions unsubdued.