humanity in judging of others. The worst consequences both to ourselves and to society, follow from the opposite. spirit. SECTION IV. BLAIR. THE MISFORTUNES OF MEN MOSTLY CHARGEABLE ON THEMSELVES. We find man placed in a world, where he has by no, means the disposal of the events that happen. Calamities sometimes befal the worthiest and the best, which it is not in their power to prevent, and where nothing is left them, but to acknowledge, and, to submit to the high, hand of Heaven. For such visitations of trial many good and wise reasons can be assigned, which the present subject leads me not to discuss. But though those unavoidable calamities make a part, yet they make not the chief part, of the vexations and sorrows that distress human life. A múl-.. titude of evils beset us, for the source of which we must look to another quarter. No sooner has any thing in the health, or in the circumstances of men, gone cross to their wish, than they begin to talk of the unequal distribution of the good things of this life; they envy the condition of oth-. ers; they repine at their own lot, and fret against the Ruler of the world. Full of these sentim nts, one man pines under a broken constitution. But let us ask him, whether he can fairly and honestly, assign no cause for this but the unknown decree. of Heaven? Has he duly value the blessing of health,.. and always observed the rules of virtue and sobriety ? · Has he been moderate in his life and temperate in all his pleas ures? If now he is only paying the price of his former, perhaps his forgotten indulgences, has he any title to com-. plain, as if he were suffering unjustly? Were we to survey. the chambers of sickness and distress, we should often find. them peopled with the victims of intemperance and sensual. ity, and with the children of vicious. indolence and sicth. Among the thousands who languish there, we should find, the proportion of innocent sufferers to be small. We should see faded youth, premature old age, and the pros pect of an untimely grave, to be the portion of muhitudés, the in out way or other, have brought those evils on thems selves; while yet these martyrs of vice and folly, have the assurance to arraign the hard fate of man, and to “fret against the Lord." But you, perhaps, complain of hardships of another kind of the injustice of the world; of the poverty which you suffer and the discouragement under which you labor; of the crosses and disappointments of which your life has been doomed to be full. Before you give too much scope to your discontent, let me desire you to reflect impartially upon yourpast traiu of life. Have not sloth, or pride, or ill temper, or sinful passious, misled you often from the path of sound and wise 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 chosen to indulge your humor, or your taste, in the gratifi cations of indolence or pleasure, can you complain because others. in preference to you, have obtained those advantages which naturally belong to useful labors, and honorable pursuits? Have not the consequences of some false steps, into which your passions, or your pleasures, bave betrayed you, pursued you through much of your life; tainted, perhaps, your characters, involved you in enibarrassments, or sunk you into neglect? It is an old saying, that every man is the artificer of his own fortune in the world.. It is certain, that the world seldom turns wholly against a man, unless through his own fault. Religion is," in general, "profitable unto all things." Virtue, diligence and, industry, joined with good temper and prudence, have ever been found the surest. road to prosperity; and where men fail of attaining it, their want of success is far oftener owing to their having deviated from that road, than to their having encountered insuperable bars in it: Same, by being too artful, forfeit the reputation of probity. Some, by being too open, are accounted to fail in prudence.. Others, by being fickle and changeable, are distrusted by all.. The case commonly is, that men seek to ascribe their disappointments to any cause, rather than to their own misconduct; and when they can devise no other cause, they lay them to the charge of Providence. Their folly leads, them into vices; their vices into misfor tunes; and in their misfortunes they murmur against Providence. They are doubly unjust towards their Creator. In their prosperity, they are apt to ascribe their success to very their owndiligence, rather than to his blessing; and in their adversity, they impute their distresses to his providence, not to their own misbehavior. Whereas, the truth is the reverse of this., " Every good and every perfect gift cometh from above;" and of evil and misery: man is the author to himself. When from the condition of individuals, we look abroad to the public state of the world, we meet with more proofs of the truth of this assertion. We see great societies of men torn in pieces by intestine dissentions, tumults, and civil com-motions. We see 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 exposed.=) But are these evils, I beseech you, to be imputed to God? Was it he who sent forth slaughtering armies into the field, or who filled the peaceful city with massacres and blood? Are these miseries any other than the bitter fruit of men's violent and disorderly passions? 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."2 Did man control his passions, and form his conduct according to the dictates of wisdom, humanity, and virtue, the earth would no longer be desolated by cruelty and human societies would live in order, harmony and peace. In those scenes of mischief and violence which filled the world, let man behold, with shame, the picture of his vices, his ignorance and folly. Let him be humbled by the mortifying view of his own per verseness; but let not his "heart fret against the Lord." SECTION Y. ON DISINTERESTED FRIENDSHIP.. BLAIR IAM informed that certain Greek writers (hilosophers, it seems, in the opinion of their country men), have advanced some very extraordinary positions relating to friendship; as, indeed, what subject is there, which these subtle geniuses have not tortured with their sophistry? The authors to whom I refer, dissuade their disciples from entering into any strong attachments, as unavoidably creating supernumerary disquietudes to those who engage in them and, as every man has more than sufficient to call forth his solicitude, in the course of his own affairs, it is a weakness they contend, anxiously 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 loose; so as always to have it in one's power to straiten or relax them, as circumstances and situations shall render most expedient. They add, as a capital article of their doctrine, that, "to live exempt from cares, is an essential ingredient to constitute human happiness; but an ingredient, however, which he, who voluntarily distresses himself with cares, in which he has to necessary and personal interest, must never hope to possess." I have been told likewise, that there is another set of pretended philosophers, of the same country, whose tenets, concerning this subject, are of a still more illiberal and ungenereus cast. The proposition they attempt to establish, is, that "friendship is an affair of self-interest entirely; and that the prop er motive for engaging in it, is not in order to gratify the kind and benevolent affections, but for the benefit of that assistance and support which is to be derived from the con nection. Accordingly they assert, that those persons are most disposed to have recourse to auxiliary alliauces of this. kind, who are least qualified by nature or fortune, to depend upon their own strength and power: the weaker sex, for instance, being generally more inclined to engage in friendships, than the male part of our species; and those who are depressed by indulgence, or laboring under misfortunes, than the wealthy and the prosperous. Excellent and obliging sages, these, undoubtedly! To strike out the friendly affections from the moral world, would be like extinguishing the sun in the natural: each of them. being the source of the best and most grateful satisfactions. that Heaven has conferred on the sons of men. But I should be glad to know, what the real value of this boasted exemption from care, which they promise their disciples, justly amounts to? an exemption flattering to self love, I confess; but which, upon many occurrences in human life should be rejected with the utmost disdain. For nothing, surely, can be more inconsistent with a well poised and man ly spirit, than to decline engaging in any laudable action, or to be discouraged from persevering in it, by an apprehension. of the trouble and solicitude, with which it may probably be attended. Virtue, herself, indeed, ought to be totally renounced, if it be right to avoid every possible means that may be productive of uneasiness; for who, that is actuated by her principles, can observe the conduct of an opposite character, without being affected with some degree of secret dissatisfaction? Are not the just, the brave, and the good, necessarily exposed to the disagreeable emotions of dislike. and aversion, when they respectively meet with instances of fraud, or cowardice, or of villainy? It is an essential prop. erty of every well constituted mind, to be affected with pain, or pleasure, according to the nature of those moral appearances that present themselves to observation. If sensibility, therefore, be not incompatible with true. wisdom, (and it surely is not, unless we suppose that philosophy deadens every finer feeling of our nature what just reason can be assigned, why the sympathetic sufferings which may result from friendship, should be a sufficient inducement for banishing that generous affection from the human breast? Extinguish all emotions of the heart, and what difference will remain, I do not say between man and brute, but between inan and a mere inanimate clod. Away then with those austere philosophers, who represent virtue as hardening the soul against all the softer impressions of hu manity The fact, certainly, is much otherwise. A truly good man is, upon many occasions, extremely susceptible of tender sentiments; and his heart expands with joy, or shrinks with sorrow, as good or ill fortune accompanies his friend. Upon the whole, then, it may fairly be concluded that, as in the case of virtue, so in that of friendship, those painful sensations, which may sometimes be produced by the one, as well as by the other, are equally insufficient grounds for excluding either of them from taking possession of our bosoms. 66. They who insist that utility is the first and prevailing motive which induces mankind to enter into particular friendships," appear to me to divest the association of its most amiable and engaging principle. For to a mind rightly disposed, it is not so much the benefits received, as the affectionate zeal from which they flow, that gives them their |