them when it is not entirely united to God. For, not being made with a capacity to sustain itself, the soul necessarily seeks some foreign support. It was formed to know and love; but, finding nothing within sufficient to satisfy these inclinations, it is forced with some other objects to fill the void it finds in itself. Some of these objects make agreeable impressions on the sense; others content our curiosity and vanity; others relieve the mind by turning it from things which appear disgusting; some nourish its hopes, while others fortify it against its fears. The soul inclines to all the objects of sense, and is engaged and supported by them, in such a manner, that it cannot prove a separation without pain and emotion.

We are not always sensible of these ties; but the soul begins to feel them when it comes to be separated from what it loves. It has then a sense of the privation, proportional to its union with them. So true is that maxim of St Augustine," It is impossible to lose "any thing without sorrow but what we possess with"out passion." There are few persons free from an infinite number of these engagements; and though we are ignorant of them till an actual separation discovers what they are, we may nevertheless conceive something by separating ourselves from them in our thoughts, and imagining we are deprived of them by some accident.

For instance, take a person who does not seem to place his happiness in the objects of sight, and fancies they contribute nothing to the tranquillity of his mind; and suppose him suddenly deprived of his sight: though in all other circumstances happy, we should find him affected with the loss as the greatest misfortune.

The sight of mankind gives us some consolation, because we always discover in them a certain appearance of compassion, capable to give us succour in our necessities;which at least indulges our hopes, and those hopes excite a kind of secret joy.

The objects which, in some respects, are disgusting to the soul, and raise its fears and aversion, yet in other views fail not to sustain it. For though these un

easy passions cannot be altogether appeased, yet the imagination always furnishes them with means or hopes that quiet them; while the pursuit of those means, or the hopes of arriving at the end of their desires, employ

and divert the mind.

All the objects to which the soul is joined, by the senses, imagination, reason, or passions, are its goods and riches; and even those we call poor, abound in these sort of goods. If they want palaces, or even a cottage, they have the sky, the sun, and stars; of which the prospect is so magnificent, that St Augustine says, "It is a greater blessing for the poor to behold the hea "venly luminaries, than for the rich to view their gol

"den roofs."

Thus, in the privation of some advantages, we comfort ourselves with others, true or false, that we either possess or hope for. As the body always finds something to bear it, since, even when through weariness it falls to the ground, it there finds a support; so the soul, sick and feeble, never fails of something to sustain it; and when there is nothing real, forms imaginary supports on which (vain as they are) it leans.

This necessity of human consolation is not peculiar to vicious men. In some degree, the virtuous want their relief. There are few persons so perfect, but they have still some remaining tie to the world. Fatigued by a long attention to spiritual objects, they are forced, in divers instances, to abandon themselves, and fly for satisfaction to their friends, their children, their estates; to a field of their own planting, or an edifice of their own raising.

This is the condition of man in this life; which may help us to comprehend what death is, with the effect it produces. We ought to look on it as the rupture of all that unites us to the creatures; a general separation from the objects of sense; the cancelling all human ties, and every pleasure the soul found in them; with a total privation of what it loved and enjoyed on earth. When a man dies, he loses not only what he called his wealth, but the firmament, the sun, the stars, the air,

the earth, and all the rest of nature: He loses his body, and all those sensations that gave him pleasure; he loses his relations, his friends, and all mankind; he loses all relief, all support; and, in short, all the objects of his senses and passions.

Indeed, if the soul, in some degree united to these, finds itself also united to God by a holy love, though the privation of the creatures causes some emotion, yet it sinks not into despair: For this divine principle sustains it; and growing more active, confirms its hopes of being shortly united to, and overwhelmed in that a byss of pleasure, which alone can satisfy all its capacity of loving,

But who is able to conceive the state of the miserable soul, when it comes by death to be rent from all the objects of its inclinations; from all that sustained it during life, and finds nothing in itself on which to lean? Its propensities to love, and enjoy what it loved, become, beyond comparison, more lively and ardent, while all the soul was fond of escapes, and flies before her with an everlasting flight, without leaving the least hope of fruition. She loses all, finds nothing; all sinks under her, all vanishes and disappears for ever.

It is not possible, in this world, to comprehend a state so perfectly miserable. All one can say, to give some idea of it, is this: It is a terrible fall of the soul, by a sudden removal of all its supports; it is a horrible famine, by a privation of its nourishment; it is an infinite void, by the annihilation of all that filled it; it is an extreme poverty, by the entire loss of that which was its wealth; it is a ghastly solitude, by the separa tion it finds itself in from all union and society; it is a dreadful desolation, by the want of all consolation.; it is a cruel rupture, which violently rends the soul from every object of its love.

LETTERS

From Philario to his Friend, relating his unhappy
amour with Amasia.

My dear Chamont,

WHATEVER reproaches my past follies have des served, I know my present misfortunes will raise your compassion. The gentle Amasia is no more; she exe pired in my arms, and I have paid the last rites to her memory.

!

Your suspicions were just, that I had perverted and secretly kept her, contrary to all the friendly admoni tions you gave me. The spring of my misery was my father's marrying me, at twelve years old, (O cursed avarice !) to a girl of ten, only to secure her vast fortune to his family. As I grew old, instead of liking, I con ceived an unconquerable aversion to the innocent creature: but no arguments could prevail with my father to break the contract, and I was as obstinate never to complete the marriage. Thus intangled, I grew uneasy; which my sister observing, to divert my chagrin, often car ried me with her to visit a young lady, descended from a good family, but decayed in fortune, and obscure. Haying never met her before at any public place, I was surprised at the sight of such an accomplished beauty; which her fine genius, and a thousand elegancies in her conversation, still heightened. Here the guilty inclina. F

tion began, which, never presaging its fatal event, I cherished, and resolved to be happy in spite of the incumbrance of my young wife; who, without any matrimonial cares at heart, diverted herself with her babies and play-things while I, privileged by my sister's discretion and intimacy, continued my visits to Amasia; whom we always found with her mother, the pious and discreet Sophronia; whose only fault was being a little too reserved and severe in her temper. But Amasia had a natural disposition to books and solitude, with a temper rather serious and pensive than gay; which made the strictness ofher mother's conduct, and her own confinement easy.The little society she had, was some grave and good women of Sophronia's acquaintance, who took care to inform ber, that all the men of the present age were rakes and Atheists; and the young women no better, nor hardly so good as they should be; and that conversing with such sage persons as themselves was the most Amasia assented to their reputable thing she could do. wise maxims; my sister and I being the only acquaintance of a modern character that were admitted to the house. I made myself so agreeable to Sophronia, that I got the office of reader to the family; but, to my secret mortification, instead of plays, she confined me to history or sermons, though my accent was better suited to the stage than the pulpit. However, my fair audience were pleased and attentive; and I would rather have taken orders than have lost my employment. But it was not long before cautious Sophronia saw through the disguise of my zeal; and observing a greater gaiety than was usual to Amasia's temper, in conversing with me, she told my sister freely her suspicions; entreating her, as she valued her daughter's reputation, to bring me no more with her. My sister, who was perfectly virtuous, was alarmed at this discovery; and would never, from that time, suffer me to accompany her.

I had now no way to let Amasia know the violence of my passion but by a letter; which unluckily fell into her mother's hands. By this confirmed in her fears, she charged Amasia, as she expected her blessing, to send