"I am sorry it is no better."

Instead of which

I freely tell my readers," I have written what is not unworthy of their perusal." If I did not think so, truly, I would not publish it: for no man living has demanded it of me; it is not published "to gratify the importunity of friends," as your authors are used to say; but it is to use importunity with others, in a point, on which I thought they needed it. And I will venture to say, there is not one whimsey in all my proposals. I propose no object concerning which the conscience of every good man will not say, "It were well if it could be accomplished." That writer was in the right who said, "I cannot understand how any honest man can print a book, and yet profess that he thinks none will be the wiser or better for the reading it." Indeed I own that my subject is worthy to be much better treated; and my manner of treating it is not such as to embolden me to affix my name to it, as the famous painter Titian did to his pieces, with a double fecit fecit; as much as to say, "Very well done!" and I must have utterly suppressed it, had I been of the same humour with Cimabue, another famous painter, who, if hịmself or any other detected the least fault in his pieces, would utterly destroy them, though he had bestowed a twelvemonth's pains upon them. Yet I will venture to say, the book is full of reasonable and serviceable things; and it would be well for us if such things were regarded; and I have done well propose them.

to

Who the author is, there is no need of enquir ing. This will be unavoidably known in the vicinity; but his writing without a name (as well as not for one,) will conceal it from most of those

to whom the book may come. And the concealment of his name, he apprehends, may be of some use to the book; for now, not who, but what, is the only thing to be considered.*

It was a vanity in one author, and there may be too many guilty of the like; to demand, "Ubi mea legis, me agnosce." In plain, unblushing English," Reader, whatever you do, account the author somebody." But, I pray, Sir, who are you, that mankind should be at all concerned about you? He was almost as great a man as any ecclesiastical preferments could make him, who yet would not have so much as his name in this epitaph; he would only have "Hic jacet, umbra, cinis, nihil:"+ there shall be no other name on this composure," Hic scribit (vel scripturire studet et audet) umbra, cinis, nihil."

However, he is very strongly persuaded that there is a day very near at hand, when books of such a tendency as this, will be the most welcome thing imaginable to many thousands of readers, and have more than one edition. Yea, great will be the army of them that publish them! M.DCCXVI. is coming.

66

A vast variety of new ways to do good will be invented; paths" which no fowl of the best flight at noble designs has yet known; and which

* This treatise was originally published without the name of the author.

+ Here lies a shadow-ashes-nothing.

Here is written, or rather attempted, by one who is a shadowashes-nobody.

The day is come. We have the happiness to live in an age and in a country, wherein schemes of usefulness are not only proposed, and accepted, but executed.

What the author's expectations were of the year 1716, are not

known to the editor.

the vulture's most piercing eye has not yet seen; and where the lions of the strongest resolution have never passed.

In the mean time, North Britain will be distinguished (pardon me, if I use the term, Goshenized,) by irradiations from heaven upon it, of such a tendency. There will be found a set of excellent men in that reformed and renowned church of Scotland, with whom the most refined and extensive essays to do good will become so natural, that the whole world will fare the better for them. To these, this book is humbly presented by a great admirer of the good things daily doing among them; as knowing, that if no where else, yet among them it will find some reception; they will "not be forgetful to entertain such a stranger!"

The censure of "writing too much," (though he should go as far as Terentianus Carthaginensis tells us Varro did,) he accounts not worth answering. And pray, why not also "preaching too much?"-But Erasmus, who wrote more, has furnished him with an answer which is all that he ever intends to give; " Accusant quod nimium fecerim ; conscientia mea me accusat, quod minus fecerim, quodque lentior fuerim." In plain English-The censure of others upbraids me that I have done so much; my own conscience condemns me that I have done so little: the good God forgive my slothfulness!

ESSAYS

TO DO GOOD.

SUCH glorious things are spoken in the Oracles of God, concerning them who devise good, that a BOOK OF GOOD DEVICES may reasonably demand attendance and acceptance from those who have any impressions of the most reasonable religion upon them. I am devising such a BOOK; but at the same time offering a sorrowful demonstration, that if men would set themselves to devise good, a world of good might be done more than is now done, in this "present evil world." Much is requisite to be done that the great God and his CHRIST may be more known and served in the world, and that the errors which prevent men from glorifying their Creator and Redeemer may be rectified. Much is necessary to be done that` the evil manners of the world, by which men are drowned in perdition, may be reformed; and mankind rescued from the epidemical corruption which has overwhelmed it. Much must be done that the miseries of the world may have suitable remedies provided for them; and that the wretched may bẹ

relieved and comforted. The world contains, it is supposed, about a thousand millions of inhabitants. What an ample field do these afford, for doing good! In a word, the kingdom of God in the world calls for innumerable services from us. To do such things is to do good. Those men devise good, who form plans which have such a tendency, whether the objects be of a temporal or spiritual nature. You see the general matter appearing as yet but a chaos, which is to be wrought upon. O! that the good Spirit of God may now fall upon us, and carry on the glorious work which lies before us!

IT

It may be presumed that my readers will readily admit, that it is an excellent thing to be full of devices to bring about such noble designs. For any man to deride or despise my proposal. "That we resolve and study to do as much good in the world as we can," would be the mark of so black a character, that I am almost unwilling to suppose its existence. Let no man pretend to the name of a Christian who does not approve the proposal of, a perpetual endeavour to do good in the world. What pretension can such a man have to be a follower of the Good One? The primitive Christians gladly accepted and improved the name, when the Pagans by mistake, styled them Chrestians; because it signified useful ones. The Christians who have no ambition to be such, shall be condemned by the Pagans; among whom it was a title of the highest honour to be termed, "a Benefactor;"-To have done good, was ac