(Prov. xvii. 27). It gives time to understand, and ripens an answer. Affect not words, but matter, and chiefly to be pertinent and plain. Truest eloquence is plainest, and brief speaking (I mean brevity and clearness to make yourselves easily understood by everybody, and in as few words as the matter will admit of) is the best.

Prefer the aged, the virtuous, and the knowing, and choose those that excel for your company and friendship, but despise not others.

Return no answer to anger, unless with much meekness, which often turns it away; but rarely make replies, less rejoinders, for that adds fuel to the fire. . . . . Silence to passion, prejudice, and mockery, is the best answer, and often conquers what resistance inflames.

Cast up your incomes and live on half if you can, one-third-reserving the rest for casualties, charities,

portions.

Be plain in clothes, furniture, and food, but clean, and then the coarser the better; the rest is folly and a snare. Therefore next to sin, avoid daintiness and choiceness about your persons and houses; for if it be not an evil in itself, it is a temptation to it, and may be accounted a nest for sin to brood in.

Be sure to draw your affairs into as narrow a compass as you can, and in method and proportion, time and other requisites proper for them.

Have very few acquaintances, and fewer intimates, but of the best in their kind.

Keep your own secrets, and do not covet others; but if trusted, never reveal them unless mischievous to somebody; nor then, before warning to the party to desist and repent. Prov. xi. 13, xxv. 9, 10.

Trust no man with the main chance, and avoid to be trusted.

Make few resolutions, but keep them strictly.

Prefer elders and strangers on all occasions; be rather last than first in conveniency and respect, but first in all virtues.

Above all, remember your Creator; remember yourselves and your families, when you have them, in the youthful time and forepart of your life; for good methods and habits obtained then will make you easy and happy the rest of your days. Every estate has its snare: Youth and middle age, pleasure and ambition; old age, avarice; remember, I tell you, that man is a slave where either prevails. Beware of the pernicious lusts of the eye, and the flesh, and the pride of life (1 John ii. 15, 16, 17), which are not of the Father, but of the world. Get higher and nobler objects for your immortal part, oh, my dear children! and be not tied to things without you; for then you can never have the true and free enjoyment of yourselves to better things; no more than a slave in Algiers has of his house or family in London. Be free; live at home in yourselves, I mean where lie greater treasures hid than in the Indies. The pomp, honor, and luxury of the world are the cheats, and the unthinking and inconsiderate are taken by them. But the retired man is upon higher ground, he sees and is aware of the trick, contemns the folly, and bemoans the deluded.

Choose God's trades before men's; Adam was a gardener, Cain a ploughman, and Abel a grazier or shepherd. These began with the world, and have least of snare, and most of use. When Cain became a murderer, as a witty man said, he turned a builder of cities, and quitted his husbandry. Mechanics, as handicrafts, are also commendable, but they are but a second brood, and younger brothers.

Have but few books, but let them be well chosen and

well read, whether of religious or civil subjects. Shun fantastic opinions; measure both religion and learning by practice; reduce all to that, for that brings a real benefit to you; the rest is a thief and a snare. And indeed, reading many books is but a taking off the mind too much from meditation. Reading yourselves and nature, in the dealings and conduct of men, is the truest human wisdom. The spirit of a man knows the things of man, and more true knowledge comes by meditation and just reflection than by reading; for much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.

Do not that which you blame in another. Do not that to another which you would not that another should do to you; but above all, do not that in God's sight you would not man should see you

do.

And that you may order all things profitably, divide your day: such a share of time for your retirement and worship of God; such a proportion for your business, in which remember to ply that first which is first to be done; so much time for yourselves, be it for study, walking, visit, etc.; in this, be first, and let your friends know it, and you will cut off many impertinences and interruptions, and save a treasure of time to yourselves, which people most unaccountably lavish away. And to be more exact (for much lies in this), keep a short journal of your time, though a day require but a line; many advantages flow from it.

Avoid discontented persons, unless to inform or reprove them. Abhor detraction, the sin of fallen angels and the worst of fallen men.

Excuse faults in others, own them in yourselves, and forgive them against yourselves, as you would have your

heavenly Father and Judge forgive you. Read Prov. xvii. 9, and Matt. vi. 14, 15. Christ returns and dwells upon that passage of his prayer above all the rest-forgiveness the hardest lesson to man, that of all other creatures most needs it.

Love silence, even in the mind; for thoughts are to that, as words to the body, troublesome; much speaking, as much thinking, spends; and in many thoughts, as well as words, there is sin. True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. It is a great virtue; it covers folly, keeps secrets, avoids disputes, and prevents sin. See Job xiii. 5; Prov. x. 19, xii. 13, xiii. 3, xvii. 28, xviii. 6, 7.

The wisdom of nations lies in their Proverbs, which are brief and pithy; collect and learn them, they are notable measures and directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking, and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answers.

Never meddle with other folks' business, and less with the public, unless called to the one by the parties concerned, in which move cautiously and uprightly, and required to the other by the Lord in a testimony for his name and truth, remembering that old, but most true and excellent proverb: Bene qui latuit, bene vixit. He lives. happily that lives hiddenly or privately, for he lives quietly. It is a treasure to them that have it; study it, get it, keep it; too many miss it that might have it; the world knows not the value of it; it doubles man's life by giving him twice the time to himself that a large acquaintance or much business will allow him.

Have a care of resentment, or taking things amiss, a natural, ready, and most dangerous passion; but be apter to remit than resent, it is more Christian and wise. For

as softness often conquers, where rough opposition fortifies, so resentment, seldom knowing any bounds, makes many times greater faults than it finds; for some people have out-resented their wrong so far that they made themselves faultier by it, by which they cancel the debt through a boundless passion, overthrow their interest and advantage, and become debtor to the offender.

Rejoice not at the calamity of any, though they be your enemies (Prov. xvii. 5; xxiv. 17).

Envy none; it is God that maketh rich and poor, great and small, high and low (Psalm xxxvii. 1; Prov. iii. 31; xxiii. 17; xxiv. 1; 1 Chron. xxii. 11, 12; Psalm cvii. 40, 41).

Beware of jealousy, except it be godly, for it devours love and friendship; it breaks fellowship and destroys the peace of the mind. It is a groundless and evil surmise.

Be not too credulous. Read Prov. xiv. 15. Caution is a medium; I recommend it. . . .

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Meddle not with government; seldom speak of it; others say or do as they please, but read such books of law as relate to the office of a justice, a coroner, sheriff, and constable; also the "Doctor and Student"; some book of clerkship, and a treatise of wills, to enable you about your own private business only, or a poor neighbor's. For it is a charge I leave with you and yours, meddle not with the public, neither business nor money; but understand how to avoid it, and defend yourselves, upon occasion, against it. For much knowledge brings sorrow, and much doings more. Therefore know God, know yourselves; love home, know your own business and mind it, and you have more time and peace than your neighbors.

If you incline to marry, then marry your inclination rather than your interest; I mean what you love, rather than what is rich. But love for virtue, temper, education,