blessed my father before I was born, will bless you when I am dead.

As you have been used to look to me in all your actions, and have been afraid to do any thing, unless you first knew my will; so let it now be a rule of your life to look up to God in all your actions, to do every thing in his fear, and to abstain from every thing which is not according to his will.

W

Next to this, love all mankind with such tenderness and affection, as you love yourself. Think how God loves all mankind how merciful he is to them, how tender he is of them, how carefully he preserves them, and then strive to love the world as God loves it.

Do good, my son, first of all to those who most deserve it, but remember to do good to all. The greatest sinners receive daily instances of God's goodness towards them; he nourishes and preserves them, that they may repent and return to him; do you therefore imitate God, and think no one too bad to receive your relief and kindness, when you see that he wants it.

Let your dress be sober, clean, and modest; not to set off the beauty of your person, but to declare the sobriety of your mind; that your outward garb may resemble the inward plainness and simplicity of your heart. For it is highly reasonable that you should be one man, and appear outwardly such as you are inwardly.

In meat and drink, observe the rules of christian temperance and sobriety; consider your body only as the servant and minister of your soul; and only so nourish it, as it may best perform an humble and obedient service.

Love humility in all its instances; practise it in all its parts; for it is the noblest state of the soul of man: it will set your heart and affections right towards God, and fill you with whatever temper is tender and affectionate towards

men.

Let every day therefore be a day of humility: condescend to all the weakness and infirmities of your fellowcreatures; cover their frailties; love their excellences; encourage their virtues; relieve their wants; rejoice in their prosperity; compassionate their distress; receive their friendship; overlook their unkindness; forgive their malice; be a servant of servants; and condescend to do the lowest offices for the lowest of mankind.

It seems but the other day since I received from my dear

father the same instructions which I am now leaving with you. And the God who gave me ears to hear, and a heart to receive, what my father enjoined on me, will, I hope, give you grace to love and follow the same instructions.

SELECT SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHS.

LESSON III.

The source of happiness.

REASON'S whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone,
And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own.

An approving mind.

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Sleep.

Tir'd nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visits pays
Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinions, flies from grief,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

The benefit of afflictions.

These are counsellors,

That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

The value of time.

Youth is not rich in time; it may be poor:
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment but in purchase of its worth;
And what its worth?-ask death-beds, they can tell.

Contentment.

While through this fleeting life's short, various day,
An humble pilgrim here I plod my way,
May no ambitious dreams delude my mind;
Impatience hence be far-and far be pride;
Whate'er my lot, on Heaven's kind care reclin'd,
Be Piety my comfort-Faith my guide.

The tender affections.

Who, that bears

A human bosom, hath not often felt,

How dear are all those ties which bind our race
In gentleness together; and how sweet

Their force; let Fortune's wayward hand, the while,
Be kind or cruel?

Local attachment.

Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms;
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And, as a child, whom scaring sounds molest,
Clings close, and closer, to the mother's breast;
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.

Homage at the altar of Truth.

Before thy mystic altar, heavenly Truth,
I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth:
Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay,
And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray:
Then shall my soul, now lost in clouds below,
Soar without bound, without consuming glow.

The succession of human beings.

Like leaves on trees the life of man is found,
Now green in youth, now with'ring on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rise:

So generations in their course decay;

So flourish these, when those have past away.

Time never returns.

Mark how it snows! how fast the valley fills,

And the sweet groves the hoary garment wear; Yet the warm sun-beams, bounding from the hills, Shall melt the veil away, and the young green appear.

But when old age has on your temples shed

Her silver frost, there's no returning sun :

Swift flies our summer, swift our autumn 's fled,

When youth and love and spring and golden joys are gone.
A temple.

How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immoveable,
Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight: the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chilness to my trembling heart.

A battle.

Now, shield with shield, with helmet helmet elos'd,
To armor armor, lance to lance oppos'd,

Host against host the shadowy squadrons drew;
The sounding darts, in iron tempests, flew.
Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries,
And thrilling shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slipp'ry fields are dy'd,
And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.

Family devotion.

Lo, kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father and the husband prays:
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated
rays,

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society yet still more dear;

While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.

LESSON IV.

The Chinese Prisoner.-PERCIVAL.

A CERTAIN emperor of China, on his accession to the throne of his ancestors, commanded a general release of all these who were confined in prison for debt. Amongst that number was an old man, who had fallen an early victim to adversity, and whose days of imprisonment, reckoned by the notches which he had cut on the door of his gloomy cell, expressed the annual circuit of more than fifty suns.

With trembling limbs and faltering steps, he departed from his mansion of sorrow: his eyes were dazzled with the splendor of the light; and the face of nature presented to his view a perfect paradise. The jail in which he had been imprisoned, stood at some distance from Pekin, and to that city he directed his course, impatient to enjoy the caresses of his wife, his children, and his friends.

Having with difficulty found his way to the street in which his decent mansion had formerly stood, his heart became more and more elated at every step he advanced. With joy he proceeded, looking eagerly around; but he observed few of the objects with which he had been formerly con'versant. magnificent edifice was erected on the site of the house which he had inhabited; the dwellings of his neighbors had assumed a new form; and he beheld not a single face of which he had the least remembrance.

An aged beggar who with trembling knees stood at the gate of a portico, from which he had been thrust by the insolent domestic who guarded it, struck his attention. He stopped, therefore, to give him a small pittance out of the bounty with which he had been supplied by the emperor, and received, in return, the sad tidings, that his wife had fallen a lingering sacrifice to penury and sorrow; that his children were gone to seek their fortunes in distant or unknown climes; and that the grave contained his nearest and most valuable friends.

Overwhelmed with anguish, he hastened to the palace of his sovereign, into whose presence his hoary locks and mournful visage soon obtained admission; and casting himself at the feet of the emperor, “Great Prince," he cried, "send me back to that prison from which mistaken mercy has delivered me! I have survived my family and friends, and even in the midst of this populous city I find myself in a dreary solitude. The cell of my dungeon pro