he had found and feen the infufficiency of all fenfual pleasures; how unable to furnish either a rational or a lafting scheme of happiness; how foon the best of them vanished; the less exceptionable in vanity, but the guilty both in vanity and vexation of fpirit. But that this was of fo pure and refined a nature, it burned without confuming; it was figuratively the widow's barrel of meal which wafted not, and crufe of oil which never failed.

It is not an eafy matter to add weight to the teftimony of the wifeft man, upon the pleafure of doing good; or else the evidence of the philofopher Epicurus is very remarkable, whose word in this matter is the more to be trufted, because a professed sensualist; who, amidst all the delicacies and improvements of pleasure which a luxuriant fancy might strike out, ftill maintained, that the best way of enlarging human happiness was, by a communication of it to others.

And if it was neceffary here, or there was time to refine upon this doctrine, one might further maintain, exclufive of the happiness which the mind itself feels in the exercife of

this virtue, that the very body of man is never in a better ftate than when he is most inclined to do good offices:-that as nothing more contributes to health than a benevolence of temper, so nothing generally was a stronger indication of it.

And what seems to confirm this opinion, is an obfervation, the truth of which must be fubmitted to every one's reflection—namelythat a difinclination and backwardness to do good, is often attended, if not produced, by an indifpofition of the animal as well as rational part of us—fo naturally do the foul and body, as in other cases so in this, mutually befriend, or prey upon each other. And indeed, fetting afide all abftrufer reasoning upon the point, I cannot conceive, but that the very mechanical motions which maintain life, must be performed with more equal vigour and freedom in that man whom a great and good foul perpetually inclines to fhew mercy to the miserable, than they can be in a poor, fordid, selfish wretch, whose little, contracted heart, melts at no man's affliction; but fits brooding fo intently over its own plots and concerns, as to fee and feel nothing; and, in

truth,

truth, enjoy nothing beyond himself: and of whom one may say what that great master of nature has, fpeaking of a natural fenfe of harmony, which I think, with more juftice may be faid of compaffion, that the man who had it not,

"Was fit for treafons, ftratagems and

66

Spoils :

"The MOTIONS of his fpirits are dull as

“ night;

"And his affections dark as EREBus:
"Let no fuch man be trusted."-

What divines fay of the mind, naturalists have obferved of the body; that there is no paffion fo natural to it as love, which is the principle of doing good;-and though inftances like this just mentioned feem far from being proofs of it, yet it is not to be doubted, but that every hard-hearted man has felt much inward oppofition before he could prevail upon himself to do aught to fix and deserve the character: and that what we fay of long habits of vice, that they are hard to be fubdued, may with equal truth be faid concerning the natural impreffions of benevolence, that a man must do much violence to himself, and fuffer many a painful ftruggle before he can tear away fo great and

noble

noble a part of his nature.Of this antiquity has preserved a beautiful inftance in an anecdote of Alexander, the tyrant of Pheres, who, though he had fo induftriously hardened his heart, as to feem to take delight in cruelty, infomuch as to murder many of his fubjects every day, without cause and without pity; yet, at the bare representation of a tragedy which related the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache, he was fo touched with the fictitious diftrefs which the poet had wrought up in it, that he burft out into a flood of tears. The explication of which inconfiftency is eafy, and cafts as great a luftre upon human nature, as the man himself was a difgrace to it. The cafe feems to have been this: in real life he had been blinded with paffions, and thoughtlessly hurried on by intereft or refentment:-but here, there was no room for motives of that kind fo that his attention being first caught hold of, and all his vices laid asleep;-then NATURE awoke in triumph, and shewed how deeply she had fown the feeds of compassion in every man's breaft; when tyrants, with vices the most at enmity with it, were not able entirely to root it out.

But

But this is painting an amiable virtue, and fetting her off, with shades which wickedness lends us, when one might fafely truft to the force of her own natural charms, and ask, whether any thing under Heaven, in its own nature, is more lovely and engaging?—To illuftrate this the more, let us turn our thoughts within ourselves; and for a moment, let any number of us here imagine ourselves at this inftant engaged in drawing the most perfect and amiable character, fuch as, according to our conceptions of the Deity, we should think most acceptable to him, and most likely to be universally admired by all mankind.—I appeal to your own thoughts, whether the first idea which offered itself to most of our imaginations, would not be that of a compaffionate benefactor, ftretching forth his hand to raise up the helpless orphan? Whatever other virtues we should give our hero, we should all agree in making him a generous friend, who thought the opportunities of doing good to be the only charm of his profperity: we should paint him like the pfalmift's river of God overflowing the thirsty parts of the earth, that he might enrich them, carrying plenty and glad

nefs