the World. On the Government of Human Affairs by Providence. -On Prayer.-On the Last Judgment.

The 12th sermon being the last which Dr. Blair composed and preached, we shall make one extract from it, which will manifest that he preserved great vigour of mind to the latest period of his life. The text is Prov. 14, 13. Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness: a proposition which the preacher endeavours to establish by an appeal to facts. He first states the obvious consequences of a life of pleasure and dissipation with respect to health, fortune, and character; to each of which, he says, such a mode of life is an enemy, in the precise degree to which it is carried. In proof this remark, he observes:

Character is soon affected by it. As the man of dissipation often makes his appearance in public, his course is marked, and his character is quickly decided by general opinion, according to the line which he is observed to pursue. By frivolity and levity, he dwindles into insignificance. By vicious excesses, or criminal pleasures, he incurs disapprobation or contempt. The fair prospects which his friends had once entertained of him die away, in proportion as his idleness or extravagance grows; and the only hope which remains is, that some fortunate incident may occur to check his career, and reclaim him to a better mind. In the mean time, the respectable and the grave smile at his follies, and avoid his company, In the midst of some fashionable assemblies he may shine; by some of his fellows he may be admired; but in the world he is of no significance or consequence, any more than the little animals that sport around him.Health, the most valuable of all temporal blessings, is known to be preserved by temperance and a regular life. But by the men of dissipation, it is readily sacrificed at the shrine of pleasure. To years of health and soundness, they are often so foolish as to prefer a few hours of sensual gratification. Supposing that no extravagant excesses, or vicious pleasures, cut short their health and life, yet what constitution can stand the irregular hours, the disorderly living, the careless indulgence, into which the love of pleasure draws those who devote themselves to it? Hence the shattered and debilitated body, and the premature old age. The native vigour and sprightliness of youth, is (are) melted down by effeminacy and sensuality. The spirits are weakened and enervated, if not sunk and lost for ever. -The state of their fortune may, for a while, enable them to indulge their pleasures, and to maintain the figure they wish to keep up in the world; but let fortune be ever so affluent, in the possession of such persons, it is in the high road to decay. For to them, attention to business, or to the management of their affairs, becomes a burden, which they studiously shun. Prudent economy is disdained, as a mean attention, belonging only to vulgar and narrow minds. Their habits of licentiousness require unlimited indulgence. The demands of passion must be immediately supplied, whatever the consequences be. Hence delivering themselves up to

those

those who can furnish supply for their expence, or who pretend to take charge of their affairs, they become the prey of the crafty, who fatten on their spoils: till at last, in the midst of thoughtless extravagance, and of general waste and profusion, they see nothing remaining to them, but the ruins of a broken fortune.

Such are some of the miseries attending habits of dissipation, and the intemperate love of pleasure. We see them daily exemplified in the world, throughout all the stages of this character, from the frivolous and the giddy, up to the rake and the profligate; in some stages, only impairing health and fortune; in others, entirely overthrowing them; in their beginnings, casting a shade on the characters of men; in their completion, exposing them to disgrace and misery.Even abstracting from those ultimate consequences in which irregular pleasures terminate, the gratification which, in the mean time, they bestow, is dearly paid for. A temporary satis faction, it is admitted, they afford. They raise the spirits to a degree of elevation above their usual tone, but in that forced elevation they can never long remain; and in proportion to the elevation to which they were raised, is the degree of depression to which they subside. Experience has shown, that no sensual pleasure, except what is regulated by temperance, can be lasting. Every pleasure that is carried beyond it, is no more than a momentary explosion; a transient gush; a torrent that comes down impetuously, sparkling and foaming in its course, but that soon runs out, and leaves a muddy and polluted channel. Who knows not the languor and dejection that follow every excessive indulgence of pleasure, or a long continuation of amusement of any kind? From whom do we hear such frequent complaints of low spirits, as from those who spend most of their time in the circles of dissipation and gaiety, or in the revelry of the world? To what wretched and pernicious resources are they obliged to fly, in order to recruit their spirits, and restore some life to their deadened sensations? What melancholy spectacles do they at length exhibit of a worn-out frame, and an exhausted mind! So well founded is the assertion in the text, that there is a mirth, the end of which is heaviness.'

Some Scotticisms and negligences of style occur in this volume, which we shall hope to see corrected in the subsequent editions.

ART. VIII. The Means of Reforming the Morals of the Poor, by the Prevention of Poverty; and a Plan for meliorating the Condition of Parish Paupers, and diminishing the enormous Expence of maintaining them. By John Hill, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. 8vo. pp. 170. 4s. 6d. sewed. Hatchard. 1801.

WE

E have perused this really patriotic tract with much satisfaction, because Mr. Hill appears to us to contemM 3

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plate the important subject of his remarks in a true point of view; and we therefore strongly recommend it to general and effective attention. A regard to the morals of the poor is essential to the amelioration of their condition, and to exonerate parishes from the enormous expence of their maintenance. If we would enable them to respect themselves, and to be serviceable to the community, we must first discharge our highest duties towards them. It is not by attempting to subdue the spirit of the poor, by making them pensioners on public charity, and by driving them indiscriminately into large hospitals for poverty, that we can either excite their good will or promote their utility.

Labour is a species of property which ought to be fairly estimated; and that man is intitled to complain of an unjust return who works hard, and yet is unable to live by his wages. This is also one of those species of injustice which must necessarily defeat its own purpose, and recoil on the community which tolerates it; because he who has no source of gain but his labour must be supported at all events; and if he does not receive a competency from the hand of justice in the first instance, he must receive it from that of public benevolence (the poor's rate) in the second. It has been contended that, if the poor are furnished with a competency, it is of no consequence from which of these funds it proceeds: but we are of a different opinion. To say nothing of the immorality of substituting charity for justice, and of the unreasonableness of expecting that the inadequate wages given by the employer to the employed should be compensated from a parochial contribution, the system itself is fraught with mischief. It is calculated to encourage idleness, to increase the number of the poor, to destroy their morals, and to make them at last an insupportable burden on the community.-Impressed with this conviction, Mr. Hill contends for the necessity of advancing wages, and asserts the inefficacy of all substitutes:-maintaining that the various supplies from the poor's rate, or otherwise, are partial, temporary, and in some respects injurious He wishes, in the first place, to render ample justice to the poor in the price of labour; and in the second, to excite among them that spirit of industry which will most uniformly enable them to support themselves, and thus improve and preserve their morals. In this discussion, the attention of the public is very properly and very necessarily directed to the two distinctions of poor in the statute of the 43d of Elizabeth, viz. "the

The strength of the day labourer (says Mr. Hill) forms his whole wealth, and the labour of his hands is his just inheritance,'

weak

weak and impotent," and "the strong and able;" the former of which are objects of charity, but the latter not so, if idle and profligate. One class is to be relieved, the other to be employed, or set to work. Mr. H. observes that the deserving pauper should be ranked with those who in the statute of Elizabeth are distinguished as the "impotent poor," and are intitled to the relief provided by that statute; while all those whose misconduct renders them undeserving, should be numbered by the parish officer with the "able and idle," and with such poor as are to be maintained by the provision for employment; i. e. kept to hard labour :-these persons cannot have any claim, from the statute, to the money arising from the poor's rate, nor is the officer justified in bestowing it on them.

As our limits will not permit us to do full justice to Mr. Hill by a minute analysis of his work, it must suffice to remark that he inquires into the principal causes of the increasing number and distresses of the poor in general, and of parish paupers in particular, and into the effects of task work and large farms:states the original design of the poor laws;-points out the expediency of augmenting the wages of the day-labourer in husbandry, and proposes means for regulating them ;-laments the effects of licentiousness, depravity, and corruption among the poor;--and suggests a plan for improving their condition. and their morals. The scheme for preventing poverty, by establishing societies for encouraging and supporting the virtue of frugal industry, is an improvement on the plan of the Friendly Societies; and we are sorry that it is too much detailed to allow us to quote it.

Mr. Hill is equally the friend of the community and of the poor; and if his liberal sentiments were duly regarded, the latter would not be driven by the greediness of their superiors from the privilege of common rights to the garden and herb-plot; from the garden and herb-plot to the naked cottage; and at last from the naked cottage into those sinks of corruption, as he calls them, the poor-houses. In order to reform their morals, we must make them comfortable; and in order to prevent their being a burden on the community, we must convince them. of the superior advantages of virtuous industry. It is to be hoped that the return of peace will afford the legislature a favourable opportunity of inquiring into the state of the poor, and of remedying the defects in our poor laws;-and in this discussion, we trust that such remarks as Mr. Hill has offered to the public will not be overlooked.

The present work seems principally to respect this class of Poor; and in this relation our preceding remarks must chiefly be considered.

ART. IX. An Essay on the Way to restore and perpetuate Peace, Good Order, and Prosperity to the Nations. By Bryce Johnston, D. D. Minister at Holywood. Small 8vo. PP. 340. 4 s. Boards. Ogle, Edinburgh, and London. 1801.

BY

By this title, we were prepared to expect some novel and peculiar scheme for promoting the happiness of the great family of mankind; and we were therefore disappointed on finding only tedious dissertations respecting the general principles of religion and civil government. Though we might have little to object to Dr. Johnston's doctrines on either of these important subjects, we cannot but think that they should have been less pompously introduced. Religion and civil government are certainly essential to the peace, good order, and prosperity of nations: but, excellent as the observation is, it is far from being "perfectly new," and is not illustrated by any novel hints for restoring and perpetuating these blessings. Since, however, he has considered it as his duty to assist, by his advice, in healing the convulsions of the moral and political world, we shall accept his endeavours, in the form and manner in which he offers them; and proceed to state that his book consists of four chapters-On Religion-on Civil Society and Civil Government-on the Influence of Religion upon Civil Society-and on the necessity of Religion to the present State of Europe, in restoring Peace, Good Order, Stability, and Prosperity to Civil Society.

On Religion, Dr. J. remarks that Man is evidently a religious creature; and that the name religion is the most just, compendious, and comprehensive description of the thing itself. From the two Latin words, re-ligo, of which it is compounded, and from which it is derived, it signifies to bind again, or a second obligation religion binds us to nothing to which we are not previously bound by the law, and it binds us to every thing to which we are bound by the law of God;'-that religion is inconsistent with infidelity, sin, superstition, and hypocrisy; that the true religious man attends to the whole of religion that he attends to its duties universally, progressively, and each in its proper place;-and that as God hath not said in his word, that the Church of England, that the Church of Scotland, that any one of the dissenters from either, of whatever denomination they are, is the only true church of Christ, nor hath specified in his word, all the peculiar marks by which they are in fact distinguished from each other, he dares not fix on any one of them exclusively, as the only church of Christ on earth. The more truly religious any man is, the less is he under the domination of bigotry.'-Such remarks are

evidence