trade upon the broken stock of other people's failings, perhaps their misfortunes: so much good may it do them with what honour they can get, the furthest extent of which, I think, is to be praised, as we do some sauces, with tears in our eyes. It is a commerce most illiberal, and, as it requires no vast capital, too many embark in it; and so long as there are bad passions to be gratified, and bad heads to judge, with such it may pass for wit, or at least, like some vile relation whom all the family is ashamed of, claim kindred with it, even in better companies. Whatever be the degree of its affinity, it has helped to give wit a bad name; as if the main essence of it was satire. Certainly there is a difference between bitterness and saltness-that is, between the malignity and the festivity of wit: the one is a mere quickness of apprehension, void of humanity, and is a talent of the devil; the other comes from the Father of spirits, so pure and abstracted from persons, that willingly it hurts no man; or, if it touches upon an indecorum, 'tis with that dexterity of true genius which enables him rather to give a new colour to the absurdity, and let it pass. He may smile at the shape of the obelisk raised to another's fame; but the malignant wit will level it at once with the ground, and build his own upon the ruins of it.

What then, ye rash censurers of the world! have ye no mansions for your credit but those whence ye have extruded the right owners? Are there no regions for you to shine in, that ye descend for it into the low caverns of abuse and crimination? Have ye no seats but those of the scornful to sit down in? If honour has mistook his road, or the Virtues, in their excesses, have approached too near the confines of Vice, are they therefore to be cast down the precipice? Must beauty for ever be trampled upon in the dirt for one-one false step? And shall no one virtue or good quality, out of the thousand the fair penitent may have left,-shall not one of them be suffered to stand by her? Just God of heaven and earth!

But thou art merciful, loving, and righteous, and lookest down with pity upon these wrongs thy servants do unto each other. Pardon us, we beseech thee, for them, and all our transgressions! let it not be remembered that we were brethren of the same flesh, the same feelings and infirmities! O, my God! write it not down in thy book that thou madest us merciful after thy own image! that thou hast given us a religion so courteous,- -so good-tempered,that every precept of it carries a balm along with it to heal the soreness of our natures, and sweeten our spirits, that we might live with such kind intercourse in this world as will fit us to exist together in a better.

XIX.-FELIX'S BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS PAUL EXAMINED.

'He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him.'-ACTS XXIV. 26. A NOBLE object, to take up the consideration of the Roman governor!

'He hoped that money should have been given him;' for what end? To enable him to judge betwixt right and wrong?—and whence was it to be wrung? From the poor scrip of a disciple of the carpenter's son, who left nothing to his followers but poverty and sufferings!

And was this Felix? the great, the noble Felix.

Felix the happy! the gallant Felix, who kept Drusilla! Could he do this? Base passion, what canst thou not make us do!

Let us consider the whole transaction.

Paul, in the beginning of this chapter, had been accused before Felix by Tertullus of very grievous crimes; of being a pestilent fellow, a mover of seditions, and a profaner of the temple, etc. To which accusations, the Apostle having liberty from Felix to reply, he makes his defence from the 10th to the 22d verse, to this purport. He shows him, first, that the whole charge was destitute of all proof; which he openly challenges them to produce against him, if they had it: that, on the contrary, he was so far from being the man Tertullus had represented, that the very principles of the religion with which he then stood charged, and which they called heresy, led him to be the most unexceptionable in his conduct, by the continual exercise which it demanded of him of having a conscience void of offence, at all times, both towards God and man: that, consistently with this, his adversaries had neither found him in the temple disputing with any man, neither raising up the people, either in the synagogue or in the city; for this he appeals to themselves: that it was but twelve days since he came up to Jerusalem to worship: that during that time, when he purified in the temple, he did it as became him, without noise, without tumult; this he calls upon the Jews who came from Asia, and were eye-witnesses of his behaviour, to attest: and, in a word, he urges the whole defence before Felix in so strong a manner, and with such plain and natural arguments of his innocence, as to leave no colour for his adversaries to reply.

There was, however, still one adversary in this court, though silent, yet not satisfied.

Spare thy eloquence, Tertullus! roll up the charge: a more notable orator than thyself is risen up-'tis Avarice; and that, too, in the most fatal place for the prisoner it could have taken possession of; 'tis in the heart of the man who judges him.

If Felix believed Paul innocent, and acted

accordingly, that is, released him without reward, this subtle advocate told him he would lose one of the profits of his employment; and if he acknowledged the faith of Christ, which Paul occasionally explained in his defence, it told him he might lose the employment itself. So that, notwithstanding the character of the Apostle appeared (as it was) most spotless, and the faith he professed so very clear, that, as he urged it, the heart gave its consent, yet at the same time the passions rebelled; and so strong an interest was formed thereby against the first impressions in favour of the man and his cause, that both were dismissed,-the one to a more convenient hearing, which never came; the other to the hardships of a prison for two whole years, hoping, as the text informs us. that money should have been given him: and even at the last, when he left the province, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, that is, to serve his interest in another shape,-with all the conviction upon his mind that he had done nothing worthy of bonds, he nevertheless left the holy man bound, and consigned over to the hopeless prospect of ending his days in the same state of confinement in which he had ungenerously left him.

One would imagine, as covetousness is a vice not naturally cruel in itself, that there must certainly have been a mixture of other motives in the governor's breast, to account for a proceeding so contrary to humanity and his own conviction; and could it be of use to raise conjectures upon it, there seems but too probable ground for such a supposition. It seems that Drusilla, whose curiosity, upon a double account, had led her to hear Paul (for she was a daughter of Abraham-as well as of Eve), was a character which might have figured very well even in our own times; for, as Josephus tells us, she had left the Jew her husband, and, without any pretence in their law to justify a divorce, had given herself up without ceremony to Felix; for which cause, though she is here called his wife, she was in reason and justice the wife of another man, and consequently lived in an open state of adultery; so that when Paul, in explaining the faith of Christ, took occasion to argue upon the morality of the gospel,-and urged the eternal laws of justice, the unchangeable obligations to temperance, of which chastity was a branch,-it was scarce possible to frame his discourse so (had he wished to temporize) but that either her interest or her love must have taken offence; and though we do not read, like Felix, that she trembled at the account, 'tis yet natural to imagine she was affected with other passions, of which the Apostle might feel the effects; and 'twas well he suffered no more, if two such violent enemies as lust and avarice were combined against him.

But this by the way; for as the text seems

only to acknowledge one of these motives, it ia not our business to assign the other.

It is observable that this same Apostle, speak ing, in the Epistle to Timothy, of the ill effects of this same ruling passion, affirms that it is the root of all evil; and I make no doubt but the remembrance of his own sufferings had no small share in the severity of the reflection. Infinite are the examples where the love of money is only a subordinate and ministerial passion, exercised for the support of some other vices; and 'tis generally found, when there is either ambition, prodigality, or lust to be fed by it, that it then rages with the least mercy and discretion; in which cases, strictly speaking, it is not the root of other evils,—but other evils are the root of it.

This forces me to recall what I have said upon covetousness, as a vice not naturally cruel; it is not apt to represent itself to our imaginations, at first sight, under that idea: we consider it only as a mean, worthless turn of mind, incapable of judging or doing what is right; but as it is a vice which does not always set up for itself to know truly what it is in this respect, we must know what masters it serves: they are many, and of various casts and humours; and each lends it something of its own complexional tint and character.

This, I suppose, may be the cause that there is a greater and more whimsical mystery in the I love of money than in the darkest and most nonsensical problem that ever was pored over.

Even at the best, and when the passion seems to seek nothing more than its own amusement, there is little-very little, I fear to be said for its humanity. It may be a sport to the miser; but consider, it must be death and destruction to others. The moment this sordid humour begins to govern, farewell all honest and natural affection! farewell all he owes to parents, to children, to friends! How fast the obligations vanish! see, he is now stripped of all feelings whatever: the shrill cry of Justice, and the low lamentation of humble Distress, are notes equally beyond his compass! Eternal God! see! he passes by one whom thou hast just bruised, without one pensive reflection! he enters the cabin of the widow, whose husband and child thou hast taken to thyself, exacts his bond without a sigh! Heaven! if I am to be tempted, let it be by glory, by ambition, by some generous and manly vice; if I must fall, let it be by some passion which thou hast planted in my nature, which shall not harden my heart, but leave me room at last to retreat and come back to thee!

It would be easy here to add the common arguments which reason offers against this vice; but they are so well understood, both in matter and form-it is needless.

I might cite to you what Seneca says upon it; but the misfortune is, that at the same time he

was writing against riches, he was enjoying a great estate, and using every means to make that estate still greater!

With infinite pleasure might a preacher enrich his discourse in this place, by weaving into it all the smart things which ancient or modern wits have said upon the love of money: he might inform you,

would reflect dishonour upon God; as if he had made and sent men into the world on purpose to play the fool. His all-bountiful hand made man's judgment, like his heart, upright; and the instances of his sagacity in other things abundantly confirm it: we are led therefore, in course, to a supposition, that in all inconsistent instances there is a secret bias, somehow or

"That a miser can only be said to have riches as a sick man has a fever, which holds and tyrannizes over the man,-not he over it!'

'That covetousness is the shirt of the soul, the last vice it parts with!'

from reason and truth.

What this is, if we do not care to search for it in ourselves, we shall find it registered in this translation of Felix; and we may depend, that in all wrong judgments whatever, in such plain cases as this, the same explanation must be

The reflection of our Saviour, 'That the life of man consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth,'-speaks more to the heart; and the single hint of the Camel, and what a very narrow passage he has to go through, has more coercion in it than all the see-saws of philosophy.

I shall endeavour, therefore, to draw such other reflections from this piece of sacred history as are applicable to human life, and more likely to be of use.

There is nothing generally in which our happiness and honour are more nearly concerned than in forming true notions both of men and things; for, in proportion as we think rightly of them, we approve ourselves to the world; and as we govern ourselves by such judgments, so we secure our peace and wellbeing in passing through it: the false steps and miscarriages in life, issuing from a defect in this capital point, are so many and fatal, that there can be nothing more instructive than an inquiry into the causes of this perversion, which often appears so very gross in us, that were you to take a view of the world,-see what notions it entertains, and by what considerations it is governed, you would say of the mistakes of human judgment, what the prophet does of the folly of human actions,-'That we were wise to do evil; but to judge rightly had no understanding.'

That in many dark and abstracted questions of mere speculation we should err, is not strange; we live among mysteries and riddles ; and almost everything which comes in our way, in one light or other, may be said to baffle our understandings, yet seldom so as to mistake in extremities, and take one contrary for another. 'Tis very rare, for instance, that we take the virtue of a plant to be hot when it is extremely cold, or that we try the experiment of opium to keep us waking; yet this we are continually attempting in the conduct of life, as well as in the great ends and measures of it. That such wrong determinations in us do arise from any defect of judgment inevitably misleading us,

that it is some selfish consideration, some secret dirty engagement with some little appetite, which does us so much dishonour.

The judgments of the more disinterested and impartial of us receive no small tincture from our affections: we generally consult them in all doubtful points; and it happens well if the matter in question is not almost settled before the arbitrator is called into the debate. But in the more flagrant instances, where the passions govern the whole man, 'tis melancholy to see the office to which Reason, the great prerogative of his nature, is reduced; serving the lower appetites in the dishonest drudgery of finding out arguments to justify the present pursuit.

To judge rightly of our own worth, we should retire a little from the world, to see all its pleasures, and pains too, in their proper size and dimensions. This, no doubt, was the reason St. Paul, when he intended to convert Felix, began his discourse upon the day of judgment, on purpose to take the heart off from this world and its pleasures, which dishonour the understanding, so as to turn the wisest of men into fools and children.

If you enlarge your observations upon this plan, you will find where the evil lies which has supported those desperate opinions which have so long divided the Christian world, and are likely to divide it for ever.

Consider Popery well; you will be convinced that the truest definition which can be given of it is, that it is a pecuniary system, well contrived to operate upon men's passions and weakness, whilst their pockets are o'picking! Run through all the points of difference between us; and when you see that, in every one of them, they serve the same end which Felix had in view, either of money or of power, there is little room left to doubt whence the cloud arises which is spread over the understanding.

If this reasoning is conclusive with regard to those who merely differ from us in religion, let us try if it will not hold good with regard to those who have none at all; or rather, who affect to treat all persuasions of it with ridicule alike. Thanks to good sense, good manners,

and a more enlarged knowledge, this humour is going down, and seems to be settling at present chiefly amongst the inferior classes of people, where it is likely to rest. As for the lowest ranks, though they are apt enough to follow the modes of their betters, yet are they not likely to be struck with this one, of making merry with that which is their consolation; they are too serious a set of poor people ever heartily to enter into it.

There is enough, however, of it in the world, to say that this all-sacred system, which holds the world in harmony and peace, is too often the first object that the giddy and inconsiderate make choice of to try the temper of their wits upon. Now, of the numbers who make this experiment, do you believe that one in a thousand does it from conviction, or from arguments which a course of study, much cool reasoning, and a sober inquiry into antiquity, and the true merits of the question, have furnished him with? The years and way of life of the most forward of these lead us to a different explanation.

Religion, which lays so many restraints upon us, is a troublesome companion to those who will lay no restraints upon themselves; and, for this reason, there is nothing more common to be observed, than that the little arguments and cavils which such men have gathered up against it in the early part of their lives, how considerable soever they may have appeared when viewed through their passions and prejudices, which give an unnatural turn to all objects, yet, when the edge of appetite has been worn down, and the heat of the pursuit pretty well over, and reason and judgment have got possession of their empire,

'A certain man,' says our Saviour, had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Give me the portion of goods that falls to me; and he divided unto them his substance. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.'

The account is short; the interesting and pathetic passages, with which such a transaction would be necessarily connected, are left to be supplied by the heart: the story is silent, but nature is not: much kind advice and many a tender expostulation would fall from the father's lips, no doubt, upon this occasion.

He would dissuade his son from the folly of so rash an enterprise, by showing him the dangers of the journey, the inexperience of his age, the hazards his life, his fortune, his virtue would run, without a guide, without a friend: he would tell him of the many snares and temptations which he had to avoid or encounter at every step,-the pleasures which would solicit him in every luxurious court,-the little knowledge he could gain, except that of evil; he would speak of the seductions of women, their charms, their poisons; what hapless indulgences he might give way to when far from restraint, and the check of giving his father pain.

The dissuasive would but inflame his desires. He gathers all together.

I see the picture of his departure; the camels and asses loaded with his substance, detached, on one side of the piece, and already on their way; the prodigal son standing on the foreground, with a forced sedateness, struggling against the fluttering movement of joy upon his

May God bring us all there. Amen.

XX. THE PRODIGAL SON.

And not many days after, the younger son gathered all he had together, and took his journey into a far country.'-LUKE XV. 13.

I KNOW not whether the remark is to our honour or otherwise, that lessons of wisdom have never such power over us as when they are wrought | into the heart through the groundwork of a story which engages the passions. Is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon? or, Is the heart so in love with deceit, that, where a true report will not reach it, we must cheat it with a fable, in order to come at truth?

Whether this parable of the Prodigal (for so it is usually called) is really such, or built upon some story known at that time in Jerusalem, is not much to the purpose; it is given us to enlarge upon, and turn to the best moral account

we can.

holding his hand, as if unwilling to let it go; the father, sad moment! with a firm look, covering a prophetic sentiment, that all would not go well with his child,'-approaching to embrace him and bid him adieu. Poor inconsiderate youth! From whose arms art thou flying? From what a shelter art thou going forth into the storm! Art thou weary of a father's affection, of a father's care? or hopest thou to find a warmer interest, a truer counsellor, or a kinder friend, in a land of strangers, where youth is made a prey, and so many thousands are confederated to deceive them, and live by their spoils ?

We will seek no further than this idea for the extravagance by which the prodigal son added one unhappy example to the number; his fortune wasted, the followers of it fled, in course, -the wants of nature remain; the hand of God gone forth against him,- for when he had spent all, a mighty famine arose in that country." Heaven have pity upon the youth, for he is in hunger and distress ;- strayed out of the reach of a parent, who counts every hour of his ab

sence with anguish; cut off from all his tender offices by his folly, and from relief and charity from others by the calamity of the times.

Nothing so powerfully calls home the mind as distress! the tense fibre then relaxes, the soul retires to itself,-sits pensive, and susceptible of right impressions: if we have a friend, it is then we think of him; if a benefactor, at that moment all his kindnesses press on our mind. Gracious and bountiful God! Is it not for this that they who in their prosperity forget thee, do yet remember and return to thee in the hour of their sorrow? When our heart is in heaviness, upon whom can we think but thee, who knowest our necessities afar off,puttest all our tears into thy bottle,-seest every careful thought,-hearest every sigh and melancholy groan we utter !

Strange! that we should only begin to think of God with comfort, when with joy and comfort we can think of nothing else.

Man surely is a compound of riddles and contradictions: by the law of his nature he avoids pain; and yet, unless he suffers in the flesh, he will not cease from sin,' though it is sure to bring pain and misery upon his head for ever.

Whilst all went pleasurably on with the prodigal, we hear not one word concerning his father; no pang of remorse for the sufferings in which he had left him, or resolution of returning, to make up the account of his folly: his first hour of distress seemed to be his first hour of wisdom. When he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, whilst I perish !'

Of all the terrors of nature, that of one day or other dying by hunger is the greatest; and it is wisely wove into our frame to awaken man to industry, and call forth his talents; and though we seem to go on carelessly sporting with it, as we do with other terrors, yet he that sees this enemy fairly, and in his most frightful shape, will need no long remonstrance to make him turn out of the way to avoid him.

It was the case of the prodigal; he arose to go to his father.

Alas! How should he tell his story? Ye who have trod this round, tell me in what words he shall give in to his father the sad items of his extravagance.

The feasts and banquets which he gave to whole cities in the East; the costs of Asiatic rarities, and of Asiatic cooks to dress them; the expenses of singing men and singing women -the flute, the harp, the sackbut, and of all kinds of music; the dress of the Persian courts, how magnificent! their slaves, how numerous! their chariots, their horses, their palaces, their furniture-what immense sums they had devoured! what expectations from strangers of condition! what exactions!

How shall the youth make his father compre

hend that he was cheated at Damascus by one of the best men in the world; that he had lent a part of his substance to a friend at Nineveh, who had fled off with it to the Ganges; that a whore of Babylon had swallowed his best pearl, and anointed the whole city with his balm of Gilead; that he had been sold by a man of honour for twenty shekels of silver to a worker in graven images; that the images he had purchased had profited him nothing; that they could not be transported across the wilderness, and had been burned with fire at Shusan; that the apes and peacocks,1 which he had sent for from Tarsis, lay dead upon his hands; and that the mummies had not been dead long enough which had been brought him out of Egypt: that all had gone wrong since the day he forsook his father's house?

Leave the story: it will be told more concisely. When he was yet afar off, his father saw him.' Compassion told it in three words: 'He fell upon his neck and kissed him.'

Great is the power of eloquence; but never is it so great as when it pleads along with Nature, and the culprit is a child strayed from his duty and returned to it again with tears. Casuists may settle the point as they will; but what could a parent see more in the account than the natural one of an ingenuous heart too open for the world-smitten with strong sensations of pleasures, and suffered to sally forth unarmed into the midst of enemies stronger than himself?

Generosity sorrows as much for the overmatched as Pity herself..

The idea of a son so ruined would double the father's caresses: every effusion of his tenderness would add bitterness to his son's remorse'Gracious heaven! what a father have I rendered miserable!'

And he said, 'I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.'

'But the father said, Bring forth the best robe.'

O ye affections! how fondly do ye play at cross purposes with each other! "Tis the natural dialogue of true transport: joy is not methodical; and where an offender, beloved, overcharges itself in the offence, words are too cold, and a conciliated heart replies by tokens of esteem.

'And he said unto his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and let us eat and drink, and be merry.'

When the affections so kindly break loose, Joy is another name for Religion.

We look up as we taste it: the cold Stoic without, when he hears the dancing and the music, may ask sullenly (with the elder brother)

1 Vide 2 Chron. xai