disappointment is, are little prepared to encounter thofe adverfe events of Providence, which fooner or later must prefent themselves to every traveller through this mournful and uncertain pilgrimage.However ferene and pleafant the morning of life may commence, clouds will often overcaft the day, or will moft certainly cover the evening with darkness and gloom. If your path now winds along a fmiling plain in the midst of flowers, it will foon lead you into a barren defert filled with briars and thorns, or prefent to you frightful precipices from which you will hardly efcape. Difappointments you must meet, mortifications you muft endure, diftrefsful reverfes you ought to expect. What af fliction are they preparing for themselves who now will dwell only in the house of feafting? Conftant pleasure induces a weaknefs of mind that augments the preffure of the multiplied and unavoidable calamities that belong to our flate. In that case, unlooked for reverfes will overwhelm you with a dreadful weight-if you would act your part with dignity in the world, and not weakly fink under its misfortunes, accustom yourself to look forward to its

changes, and feriously to confider the mixed condition of human life. Early learn to forego your own inclinations, when duty requires it; and to preferve them at all times, under the perfect controul of reafon. Often enter into the house of mourning, and there meditate on the dark fcenes of human nature. Vifit the receptacles of poverty and want-attend the couches of difeafe and pain-liften to the fighs of the friendlefs and the wretched-look on the melancholy trophies of death-let the cries of mourners who lament the lofs of all that was dear to them on earth touch your fympathy-reflect on the tears that are fhed in fecret, and on the thoufand nameless griefs that wring the hearts of the unhappy. By fcenes like thefe chaften yourselves, and, by becoming familiar with affliction, prepare your mind with fortitude to meet thofe changes which may be reserved for you in the course of divine providence. If it should please God to cultivate your patience and conflancy in the fchool of fuffering, regard it as a proof of his paternal care. Every fuch trial will be disarming for you the force of thofe great calamities that fink feeble minds to the duft, and preparing you, with calm

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nefs and refignation, to approach the close of life, a period fo formidable to the foft and guilty fons of pleasure.-The grace of God, fanctifying the heart, and cultivating within it the hope of a bleffed immortality, is the only effectual preparative for a peaceful and happy death. But the holy fpirit ufes as valuable and necessary auxiliaries of his influences, the affecting meditations, and the self-denying duties which I have here recommended. Certain it is that those who form to themselves the moft flattering profpects in the houfe of feafting, and cherish only those gay hopes that are apt to brighten upon them there, muft, in the progrefs of life, meet with many cruel and overwhelming disappointments which they will, by no means, be prepared to endure.

Without a firm and steady self-command, and many felf-denials, no great attainments can be made in the best and most valuable

qualities of human nature. When pleasure is left to form the character it foon deftroys whatever is amiable or respectable in youth. See a young man who has pursued only falhionable amufements! What frivolity,

what ignorance, what conceit, what inanity mark his character, and render him contemptible in the efteem of the wife and good! What an unfurnished mind! what ufelefs talents! what an infipid and unfleady heart! But if he has plunged deep in the ftream of pleasure, frivolity and unfleadinefs foon become its lightest faults. Loaded with treachery, deceit, and every bafenels, it haftens to fink into the dregs of vice. If the bloom and vivacity of youth fhould caft a veil over thefe defects for a time, what insignificance, what contempt are they preparing for age!-what melancholy and gloom for declining health, and impotent years!-what bitter, and, at the fame time, what vain repentance for a dying bed!

VI. Pleasure is unfavourable, in the last place, to thofe ferious reflections on our mortality, and on the inftability of all human things which are fo useful to prepare the foul for her immortal destination.

The image of death would frown on the gaieties of the house of feafling, and dash them with unfeasonable melancholy.-

Strangely importunate, and unmindful of propriety would he be thought to be who fhould infinuate a thought of dying where all were devoted to feftivity and mirth. Ah! that folemn and eventful moment is haftening on. The riot of the fpirits may hide it from your view, but cannot retard it. And, with a fearful furprize it will overtake those who have not expected its approach.

Little more welcome will the thoughts even of the felicities of Heaven find among fuch scenes of levity and folly. With these, their pure and holy nature cannot be associated. And the heart that adores the one will be cold and indifferent to the other. We are connected with this world by the impreffions of fenfe, and with the world to come only by the power of reflection. Hence, in the house of feafting, where the fenfes are all heated and inflamed, and reflection almoft excluded, the prefent obtains an infinite advantage over the future. Eternity is forgotten, and the grave at last opens upon us by furprize. As death is the inevitable lot of human nature, and all things here are haftening to a period, how wife would it be often to retire from the circle