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and humanity in judging of others. The worft confequences, both to ourselves and to fociety, follow from the oppofite spirit.

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SECTION IV.

MISFORTUNES OF MEN MOSTLY CHARGEABLE ON THEMSELVES.

BLAIR.

WE. find man placed in a world, where he has by no means the difpofal of the events that happen. Calamities fometimes befall the worthieft and the beft, which it is not in their power to prevent, and where nothing is left them, but to acknowledge, and to fubmit to the high hand of Heaven. For fuch vifitations of trial, many good and wife reafons can be affigned, which the prefent fubject leads me not to difcufs. But though thofe unavoidable calamities make a part, yet they make not the chief part, of the vexations and forrows that diftrefs human life. A multitude of evils befet us, for the fource of which we must look to another quarter. No fooner has any thing in the health, or in the circumftances of men, gone cross to their with, than they begin to talk of the unequal distribution of the good things of this life; they envy the condition of others; they repine at their own lot, and fret against the Ruler of the world.

Full of these fentiments, one man pines under a broken conftitution. But let us afk him, whether he can, fairly and honeftly, affign no caufe for this but the unknown decree of heaven? Has he duly valued the bleffing of health, and always obferved the rules of virtue and fobriety? Has he been moderate in his life, and temperate in all his pleafures? If now he is only paying the price of his former, perhaps his forgotten indulgences, has he any title to complain, as if he were fuffering unjufly? Were we to furvey the chambers of fickness and diftrefs, we should often find them peopled with the victims of intemperance and fenfuality, and with the children of vicious indolence and sloth. Among the thousands who languish there, we should find the proportion of innocent fufferers to be fmall. fhould fee faded youth, premature old age, and the prof pect of an untimely grave, to be the portion of multitudes, who in one way or other, have brought thofe evils on themselves; while yet thefe martyrs of vice and folly have the affureance to arraign the hard fate of man, and to "fret against the Lord."

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But you, perhaps, complain of hardships of another kind; of the injuftice of the world; of the poverty which you fuffer, and the difcouragements under which you labour; of the croffes and difappointments of which your life has been doomed to be full. Before you give too much scope to your discorent, let me defire you to reflect impartially upon your past train of life. Have not

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floth, or pride, or ill temper, or finful paffions, mifled you often from the path of found and wife conduct? Have you not been wanting to yourselves in improving those opportunities which Providence offered you, for bettering and advancing your state? If you have chofen to indulge your humour, or your tafte, in the gratifications of indolence or pleasure, can you complain because others, in preference to you, have obtained thofe advantages which naturally belong to useful labours, and honourable purfuits? Have not the confequences of fome false steps, into which your paffions, or your pleasures, have betrayed you, purfued you through much of your life; tainted, perhaps, your characters, involved you in embaraffments, or funk you into neglect? It is an old faying, that every man is the artificer of his own fortune in the world. It is certain, that the world feldom turns wholly against a man, unless through his own fault. Religion is," in general," profitable unto all things." Virtue, diligence, and induftry, joined with good temper and prudence, have ever been found the fureft road to profperity; and where men fail of attaining it, their want of fuccefs is far oftener owing to their having deviated from that road, than to their having encountered infuperable bars in it. Some, by being too artful, forfeit the reputation of probisy Some, by being too open, are accounted to fail in prudence. Others, by being fickle and changeable, are diftrusted by all. The cafe commonly is, that men feek to afcribe their disappointments, to any caufe, rather than to their own mifconduct; and when they can devife no other caufe, they lay them to the charge of Providence. Their folly leads them into vices; their vices into misfortunes; and in their misfortunes they "murmur againft Providence." They are doubly unjust towards their Creator. In their profperity, they are apt to afcribe their fuccefs to their own diligence, rather than to his bleff

ing; and in their adverfity, they impute their diftreffes to his providence, not to their own misbehaviour. Whereas, the truth is the very reverfe of this. "Every good and every perfect gift cometh from above ;" and of evil and mifery, man is the author to himself.

When, from the condition of individuals, we look abroad to the public ftate of the world, we meet with more proofs of the truth of this affertion. We fee great focieties of men torn in pieces, by inteftine diffenfions, tumults, and civil commotions. We fee mighty armies going forth, in formidable array, against each other, to cover the earth with blood, and to fill the air with the cries of widows and orphans. Sad evils these are, to which this miserable world is expofed. But are thefe evils, I befeech you, to be imputed to God? Was it he who fent forth flaughtering armies into the field, or who filled the peaceful city with maffacres and blood? Are these miseries any other than the bitter fruit of men's violent and disorderly paffions? Are they not clearly to be traced to the ambition and vices of princes, to the quarrels of the great, and to the turbulence of the people? Let us lay them entirely out of the account, in thinking of Providence; and let us think only of the "foolishness of man." Did man control his paffions, and form his conduct according to the dictates of wisdom, humanity, and virtue, the earth would no longer be defolated by cruelty; and human focieties would live in order, harmony and peace. In those scenes of mifchief and violence which fill the world, let man behold, with fhame, the picture of his vices, his ignorance, and folly. Let him be humbled by the mortifying view of his own perverfeness; but let not his "heart fret against

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I AM informed that certain Greek writers (philofophers, it feems, in the opinion of their countrymen) have advanc ed fome very extraordinary pofitions relating to friendfhip; ; as, indeed, what fubject is there, which thefe fubtle geniuses have not tortured with their sophistry ?

The authors to whom I refer, diffuade their difciples from entering into any strong attachments, as unavoidably

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creating fupernumerary difquietudes to those who engage in them; and, as every man has more than fufficient to call forth his folicitude, in the courfe of his own affairs, it is a weakness, they contend, anxioufly to involve himself in the concerns of others. They recommend it also, in all connections of this kind, to hold the bands of union extremely loofe; fo as always to have it in one's power to ftraiten or relax them, as circumstances and fituations shall render most expedient. They add, as a capital article of their doctrine, that, "to live exempt from cares, is an effential ingredient to conftitute human happiness: but an ingredient, however, which he, who voluntarily diftreffes himself with cares, in which he has no neceffary and perfonal intereft, must never hope to poffefs."

I have been told likewife, that there is another fet of pretended philofophers, of the fame country, whofe tenets, concerning this fubject, are of a ftill more illiberal and ungenerous cast.

The propofition they attempt to establish, is, that "friendfhip is an affair of self intereft entirely; and that the proper motive for engaging in it, is, not in order to gratify the kind and benevolent affections, but for the benefit of that affiftance and support which is to be derived from the connection." Accordingly they affert, that those perfons are most difposed to have recourfe to auxiliary alliances of this kind, who are leaft qualified by nature, or fortune, to depend upon their own ftrength and powers: the weaker fex, for inftance, being generally more inclined to engage in friendships, than the male part of our fpecies; and thofe who are depreffed by indigence, or labouring under misfortunes, than the wealthy and the profperous.

But

Excellent and obliging fages, thefe, undoubtedly! To ftrike out the friendly affections from the moral world, would be like extinguifhing the fun in the natural: each of them being the fource of the best and most grateful fatisfactions, that Heaven has conferred on the fons of men. I fhould be glad to know, what the real value of this boasted exemption from care, which they promife their difciples, justly amounts to an exemption flattering to flf love, I confefs; but which, upon many occurrences in human life, fhould be rejected with the utmost difdain. For nothing, furely, can be more inconfiftent with a well poifed and

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manly fpirit, than to decline engaging in any laudable action, or to be difcouraged from perfevering in it, by an apprehenfion of the trouble and folicitude, with which it may probably be attended. Virtue herself, indeed, ought to be totally renounced, if it be right to avoid every poffible means that may be productive of uneafinefs: for who, that is actuated by her principles, can observe the conduct of an oppofite character, without being affected with fome degree of fecret diffatisfaction? Are not the just, the brave, and the good, neceffarily exposed to the disagreeable emotions of diflike and averfion, when they refpectively meet with instances of fraud, of cowardice, or of villany? It is an effential property of every well conftituted mind, to be affected with pain, or pleasure, according to the nature of thofe moral appearances that prefent themselves to obfervation.

If fenfibility, therefore, be not incompatible with.true wifdom, (and it furely is not, unless we fuppofe that philofophy deadens every finer feeling of our nature,) what juft reafon can be affigned, why the fympathetic fufferings which may refult from friendship, should be a fufficient inducement for banishing that generous affection from the human breaft? Extinguish all emotions of the heart, and what difference will remain, I do not fay between man and brute, but between man and a mere inanimate clod? Away then with thofe auftere philofophers, who reprefent virtue as hardening the foul against all the fofter impreffions of humanity! The fact, certainly, is much otherwife. A truly good man is, upon many occafions, extremely fufceptible of tender fentiments; and his heart expands with joy, or fhrinks with forrow, as good or ill fortune accompanies his friend. Upon the whole, then, it may fairly be concluded, that, as in the cafe of virtue, fo in that of friendship, those painful fenfations, which may fometimes be produced by the one, as well as by the other, are equally infufficient grounds for excluding either of them from taking poffeffion of our bofoms.

They who infift that "utility is the first and prevailing motive, which induces mankind to enter into particular friendships," appear to me to diveft the affociation of its molt amiable and engaging principle. For, to a mind rightly difpofed, it is not fo much the benefits received, as

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