half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and, under every variety of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it should seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted but that this is a state of gratification: what else should fix them so close to the operation, and so long? Other species are running about with an alacrity in their motions which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes half covered with these brisk and sprightly natures. If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, (which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amusement,) all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the sea-side in a calm evening upon a shady shore and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or rather very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much space filled with young shrimps in the act of bounding into the air from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this: if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment-what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view! The young of all animals appear to me to receive pleasure simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to any end to be attained, or any use to be answered by the exertion. A child, without knowing any thing of the use of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or perhaps of the single word which it has learned to pronounce, proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavors to walk, or rather to run, (which precedes walking,) although entirely ignorant of the importance of the attainment to its future life, and even without applying it to any present purpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without having any thing to say; and with walking, without knowing where to go. And prior to both these, I am disposed to believe that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see. But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of creation hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat no less than with the playful kitten; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardor of pursuit, succeeds what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, "perception of ease." Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure; the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigor of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest; whilst, to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important step the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease, is preferable to that which can taste only pleasure. This same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its anchor after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well described by Rousseau to be the interval of repose and enjoyment between the hurry and the end of life. How far the same cause extends to other animal natures, cannot be judged of with certainty. The appearance of satisfaction with which most animals, as their activity subsides, seek and enjoy rest, affords reason to believe that this source of gratification is appointed to advanced life under all or most of its various forms. In the species with which we are best acquainted, namely, our own, I am far, even as an observer of human life, from thinking that youth is its happiest season, much less the only happy one. Natural Theology. CONSTANT BLESSINGS SHOULD EXCITE CONSTANT GRATITUDE. One great cause of our insensibility to the goodness of our Creator, is the very extensiveness of his bounty. We prize but little what we share only in common with the rest, or with the generality of our species. When we hear of blessings, we think forthwith of successes, of prosperous fortunes, of honors, riches, preferments; that is, of those advantages and superiorities over others which we happen either to possess, or to be in pursuit of, or to covet. The common benefits of our nature entirely escape us. Yet these are the great things; these constitute what most properly ought to be accounted blessings of Providence; what alone, if we might so speak, are worthy of its care. Nightly rest and daily bread, the ordinary use of our limbs, and senses, and understandings, are gifts which admit of no comparison with any other; yet, because almost every man we meet possesses these, we leave them out of our enumeration. They raise no sentiment; they move no gratitude. Now herein is our judgment perverted by our selfishness. A blessing ought, in truth, to be the more satisfactory, (the bounty at least of the donor is rendered more conspicuous,) by its very diffusion, its commonalty, its cheapness; by its falling to the lot and forming the happiness of the great bulk and body of our species as well as of ourselves. The same. : PRAYER. We find our Lord resorting to prayer in his last extremity; and with an earnestness, I had almost said a vehemence of devotion, proportioned to the occasion. As soon as he came to the place, he bade his disciples pray. When he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray ye, that ye enter not into temptation. This did not content him this was not enough for the state and sufferings of his mind. He parted even from them. He withdrew about a stone's cast, and kneeled down. Hear how his struggle in prayer is described! Three times he came to his disciples, and returned again to prayer: thrice he kneeled down at a distance from them, repeating the same words. Being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: drops of sweat fell from his body, as if it had been great drops of blood: yet, in all this, throughout the whole scene, the constant conclusion of his prayer was, "not my will, but thine be done." It was the greatest occasion that ever was-and the earnestness of our Lord's prayer, the devotion of his soul, corresponded with it.-Scenes of deep distress await us all. It is in vain to expect to pass through the world without falling into them. But, whatever may be the fortune of our lives, one great extremity at least, the hour of approaching death, is certainly to be passed through. What ought then to occupy us? What can then support us?-Prayer. Prayer, with our blessed Lord, was a refuge from the storm: almost every word he uttered during that tremendous scene was prayer: prayer the most earnest, the most urgent; repeated, continued, proceeding from the recesses of the soul; private, solitary; prayer for deliverance; prayer for strength; above every thing, prayer for resignation. CHARACTER OF PAUL. Sermon viii. Here then we have a man of liberal attainments, and, in other points, of sound judgment, who had addicted his life to the service of the gospel. We see him, in the prosecution of his purpose, travelling from country to country, enduring every species of hardship, encountering every extremity of danger, assaulted by the populace, punished by the magistrates, scourged, beat, stoned, left for dead; expecting, wherever he came, a renewal of the same treatment, and the same dangers; yet, when driven from one city, preaching in the next; spending his whole time in the employment, sacrificing to it his pleasures, his ease, his safety; persisting in this course to old age, unaltered by the experience of perverseness, ingratitude, prejudice, desertion; unsubdued by anxiety, want, labor, persecutions; unwearied by long confinement, undismayed by the prospect of death. Such was Paul. We have his letters in our hands; we have also a history purporting to be written by one of his fellow-travellers, and appearing, by a comparison with these letters, certainly to have been written by some person well acquainted with the transactions of his life. From the letters, as well as from the history, we gather not only the account which we have stated of him, but that he was one out of many who acted and suffered in the same manner; and that of those who did so, several had been the companions of Christ's ministry, the ocular witnesses, or pretending to be such, of his miracles and of his resurrection. We moreover find this same person referring in his letters to his supernatural conversion, the particulars and accompanying circumstances of which are related in the history; and which accompanying circumstances, if all or any of them be true, render it impossible to have been a delusion. We also find him positively, and in appropriate terms, asserting that he himself worked miracles, strictly and properly so called, in support of the mission which he executed; the history, meanwhile, recording various passages of his ministry which come up to the extent of this assertion. The question is, whether falsehood was ever attested by evidence like this. Falsehoods, we know, have found their way into reports, into tradition, into books; but is an example to be met with of a man voluntarily undertaking a life of want and pain, of incessant fatigue, of continual peril; submitting to the loss of his home and country, to stripes and stoning, to tedious imprisonment, and the constant expectation of a violent death, for the sake of carrying about a story of what was false, and what, if false, he must have known to be so? Conclusion of the Hora Paulina. ELIZABETH CARTER, 1717-1806. ELIZABETH CARTER, eldest daughter of the Rev. Nicholas Carter, D. D., was born at Deal, in Kent, on the 16th December, 1717. In her early years she gave no promise of excelling in literature, and her father was quite discouraged, and advised her to relinquish her studies; but intense and systematic application soon met with its reward. In a few years, she acquired a very critical knowledge of Greek and Latin, and had made considerable proficiency in Hebrew, and, before her twenty-first year, she added the French, Spanish, and German to her other acquirements. But all attainments in knowledge she felt to be nothing without religion. Her earnest piety was the most decided feature of her character in her youth, and continued undiminished to the last moments of her life. Notwithstanding her laborious and severe studies, she found leisure for amusement, and for the display of a cheerful and ever gay disposition. Of dancing she was particularly fond, and entered with great vivacity and high spirits into all the innocent diversions of youth. She was fond of painting, and attained considerable excellence in the art; and, before her seventeenth year, she courted the Muses, by translating from the Greek the thirtieth ode of Anacreon; and the next year she sent two or three poetical effusions to the "Gentleman's Magazine." In 1739, she gave a translation from the French of the critique of Crousaz on Pope's "Essay on Man," and of Algarotti's "Explanation of Newton's Philosophy, for the use of Ladies," which procured her a high reputation among the literati, both in England and on the Continent. In 1746, she wrote her "Ode to Wisdom," one of the most elegant and instructive of her poetical effusions. By this time, of course, her literary acquaintance was very extensive. Of these, Dr. Secker (afterward Archbishop of Canterbury) was warmly attached to her, and was of great service to her in her literary pursuits; and Dr. Johnson was so struck with the depth and variety of her acquisitions, that he wrote a Greek epigram in her praise.4 Encouraged by the approbation of her intimate friend, Miss Talbot, and of Dr. Secker, she commenced, in 1749, when in her thirty-second year, a translation of the writings of Epictetus. It was completed in 1756, and published in 1758, in one volume, quarto. About one thousand three hundred copies were printed, and she realized one thousand pounds as the pecuniary reward of her labors. But a reward of a much higher kind awaited her-the applause and the "I talked of the difficulty of early rising. Dr. Johnson told me that the learned Mrs. Carter, at that period when she was eager in study, did not awake as early as she wished, and she therefore had a contrivance that, at a certain hour, her chamber light should burn a string, to which a heavy weight was suspended, which then fell with a strong, sudden noise: this roused her from sleep, and then she had no difficulty in getting up."-CROKER'S BOSWELL, vi. 310. 2 These acquirements were not made, as they never should be, at the expense of more feminine accomplishments. "Upon hearing a lady commended for her learning, Dr. Johnson said, A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek. My old friend, Mrs. Carter,' he added, 'could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus from the Greek; and work a handkerchief as well as compose a poem."-CROKER'S BOSWELL, ix. 129. She was highly complimented for this effort by a writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine," ix. 322: "Be thine the glory to have led the way, And beam'd on female minds fair science's ray; To meditate on themes sublime as these: The many paths of nature to explore, And boldly tread where none have reach'd before.” In a letter to Cave, he says, "I have composed a Greek epigram to Eliza, and think she ought to be celebrated in as many different languages as Louis le Grand.” See Compendium of English Literature, p. 566. |