Here, alfo, let us endeavour to learn what leffons experience would teach us.

It is not in the giddy and fantastic fcenes of pleasure, that the mind improves in wisdom or in virtue; these for the most part are acquired by habits of reflection, and by taking fuch views of human affairs, as difpofe the foul to thought and meditation. For this caufe "the house of

mourning" is a house replete with instruction, and is wifely preferred to "the "house of feasting." It is there that our religious principles acquire an energy, not to be derived, perhaps, from any other fource. It is there that thofe truths which were announced to us as glad tidings from heaven, and thofe duties which are founded on reafon and contemplation, are ftrengthened and improved by the foftest and most powerful emotions. It is not sufficient for us weak mortals that we KNOW our duty, it is neceffary that we fhould fometimes FEEL it. When, therefore, the calls of friendship led you to take the last farewel

farewel of thofe you loved; when you wiped away the falling tear, and faw the anguish of a parent or a child; when you viewed the last struggles of nature, saw the fhades of death gathering around, and heard the fhriek of woe ;-then it was that the foul became enamoured of virtue, and felt the importance of piety and prayer. In these melancholy moments we feel our own weakness, and fee the vanities of life.. Temptations to guilt and mifery no longer court us, under the delufive forms of pleafure, and fin appears in all its native deformity. We confefs the vice and folly of every mean pursuit, and the mind flies to religion for comfort and support. Awakened to a sense of danger, and terrified for our own safety, we lament the time that has been unprofitably spent, and resolve for the future" to wake unto righteousness " and fin no more." It is then also that those divine truths, which can alone make us "wife unto falvation," are believed with ardor, and admitted with joy. We pray, with earnest devotion, for the mediation VOL. I. C

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of our Lord and Saviour to fecure us from the wrath that is denounced against past fins, and we truft, with humble confidence, in the Father of mercies, for that divine grace, which is at all times neceffary "to "ftrengthen the feeble knees, and to keep our feet from falling."

SUCH are the fentiments which a chriftian feels in the house of mourning; and, if we took heed to ourselves, and kept "our fouls diligently, we fhould not let "them depart from our heart, all the

days of our lives." We fhould recur to them, as often as the avocations of bufinefs and the duties of fociety permit; and though the paffions that accompanied them may vanish from the bofom, yet the principles they infpired fhould remain fixed. and permanent.

Ir is of the utmost confequence to take thefe retrospective views of life, and store the mind with the falutary principles which experience always affords. The ef

ficacy of this moral difcipline will fully appear, if we confider the unhappiness of those thoughtless mortals, who are unprepared to meet any calamity, and are difconcerted at the most common exigencies of life. The ignorant and unguarded are tormented with a thousand imaginary ills, and no reflection teaches them to meet real ones with fortitude or refignation. Caught with light and fuperficial pleasures, nothing engages their notice, but what immediately strikes the fenfes. They fit idle and inattentive, while the wife man is forming maxims to regulate his conduct, meditating on past events, in order to withstand the force of forrow, or communing with his own "heart," to moderate its paffions, its wishes and defires. The fool ftrays through the variegated fields of life, without pondering his path, and without reaping any advantage; while the wife man, like the bee, gathers honey from every flower as he paffes. In his mind the remembrance of thofe ideas which fcenes of death create, will

not only fupply him with conftant motives to devotion, but alfo improve his temper, and extend a foothing influence over all his affections. He will confider those about him as his fellow-travellers, with whom he foon must part. He will be ready to make every allowance for those weaknesses, which experience only corrected in himself, and will be disposed to view the tenor of their conduct with charity and moderation. Fully fatisfied of the vanity of worldly enjoyments, from the fhortness of their duration, and the goodness of divine providence, which has not confined happiness to any particular fituation, his mind is neither harraffed by the miferies and disappointments that wait on ambition, nor preyed on by any infatiable defire of wealth. Charmed with nobler prospects, and impreffed with more exalted fentiments, he is never engaged in those mean and groveling pursuits, which caufe fuch enmity and confufion among mankind. He is taught, by the strange viciffitudes of fortune, and the miseries

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