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REFLECTIONS

ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

BY JOHN EVANS, A M.

Master of a Seminary for a limited Number of Pupils, Pullin's Row, Islington.

Magnus ab integro SÆCLORUM nascitur ordo.

VIRGIL.

-Mighty years begun

From their first orb-in RADIANT CIRCLES run!

DRYDEN.

Nothing is lasting on the world's wide stage,
As sung, and wisely sung, the Grecian sage;
And MAN, who through the globe extends his sway,
Reigns but the sovereign creature of a day;
One generation comes-another goes,

Time blends the happy with the man of woes;
A different face of things each AGE appears,
And all things alter in a course of years.

COOKE.

~HE moralist has recommended stated times for

TH

the purposes of meditation. At such periods the faculties are awakened, and the soul is set in motion. Thus stimulated, the sluggish current of our thoughts becomes quickened, flowing on with an accelerated rapidity. Such is precisely our present situation. The commencement of a century occurs not twice in our life. This is a serious consideration.-May it be rendered subservient to our moral improvement !

Standing as it were on an eminence and looking around us, we find the new revolving century replete with the most important, though obvious, topics of instruction.

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1. We cannot enter on the present period without glancing at the century already expired. It would betray a strange insensibility, not to cast one lingering look" after an old friend, whom we have now quitted for ever. The 17th century, which preceded it, was marked by disasters of an extraordinary kind. The civil wars between Charles the I. and his parliament, which terminated in the decapitation of that monarch-the act of uniformity, by which two thousand pious and learned ministers were ejected from their livings in the church, reducing them and their families to beggary-the plague, which swept away thousands of the inhabitants of this metropolis-the fire of London, which laid 436 acres of the city in ruinsthe Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, on account of which hundreds were butchered by a ruffian, under the forms of law-and the abdication of James the II. which threw the nation for a time into the utmost confusion, are events not to be forgotten. In the succeeding century, now elapsed, nothing equally pernicious has occurred. Though sadly disordered towards the latter end of it by WAR, yet it may be pronounced, on the whole, favourable to human improvement. We have, however, lost during this period some of the first men, whose genius and wisdom have at once instructed and exalted the nation. Our Marlboroughs and our Newtons are no more! Such recollections, though melancholy, cannot be avoided in the retrospective survey of a century! These are thoughts which will force themselves on the mind, in spite of every effort to exclude them :

When down thy vale, unlock'd by solemn thought,
That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,

O DEATH! I stretch my view-what visions rise!
What triumphs-toils imperial-arts divine
In wither'd laurels glide before my sight!

What length of far-famed ages billow'd high
With human agitation roll along

In unsubstantial images of air!

The melancholy ghosts of dead renown

Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause;
With penitential aspect as they pass,

All point at earth and hiss at human pride,

The wisdom of the wise and prancings of the great!

YOUNG.

Xerxes, the Persian Monarch, when he reviewed his millions from a stately throne in the plains of Asia, burst into tears on the recollection that the multitude of men he saw before his eyes, would, in one hundred years be NO MORE!

2. The commencement of a century should suggest to us the inestimable value of our TIME. Time was granted to man for his improvement. By the protraction of life fresh opportunities are afforded for our progress in knowledge, virtue and piety. We were not raised into being that we might be idle spectators of the objects with which we are surrounded. The situation in which we are placed demands reiterated exertion. The spheres in which we move call for the exercise of all the ability with which we may be endowed. Enquiries therefore should be made how improvements can be best effected, either in our individual, social, or public capacities. This conduct will reflect an honour on our rationality. This train of action will elevate us in the scale of being-impart a zest to our enjoyment, and prepare us for the honours of immortality! It is said, that the elder Cato repented of three things-one of which was his having spent a day without improvement.

3. We cannot begin a century without being impressed with the vicissitude by which sublunary affairs are characterised.

1. We cannot enter on the present period without glancing at the century already expired. It would betray a strange insensibility, not to cast one" lingering look" after an old friend, whom we have now quitted for ever. The 17th century, which preceded it, was marked by disasters of an extraordinary kind. The civil wars between Charles the I. and his parliament, which terminated in the decapitation of that monarch-the act of uniformity, by which two thousand pious and learned ministers were ejected from their livings in the church, reducing them and their families to beggary-the plague, which swept away thousands of the inhabitants of this metropolis-the fire of London, which laid 436 acres of the city in ruins→→→ the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, on account of which hundreds were butchered by a ruffian, under the forms of law-and the abdication of James the II. which threw the nation for a time into the utmost confusion, are events not to be forgotten. In the succeeding century, now elapsed, nothing equally pernicious has occurred. Though sadly disordered towards the latter end of it by WAR, yet it may be pronounced, on the whole, favour. able to human improvement. We have, however, lost during this period some of the first men, whose genius and wisdom have at once instructed and exalted the nation. Our Marlboroughs and our Newtons are no more! Such recollections, though melancholy, cannot be avoided in the retrospective survey of a century! These are thoughts which will force themselves on the mind, in spite of every effort to exclude them :

When down thy vale, unlock'd by solemn thought,
That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,

O DEATH! I stretch my view-what visions rise!
What triumphs toils imperial-arts divine
In wither'd laurels glide before my sight!

What length of far-famed ages billow'd high
With human agitation roll along
In unsubstantial images of air!

The melancholy ghosts of dead renown
Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause;
With penitential aspect as they pass,

All point at earth and hiss at human pride,

The wisdom of the wise and prancings of the great!

YOUNG.

Xerxes, the Persian Monarch, when he reviewed his millions from a stately throne in the plains of Asia, burst into tears on the recollection that the multitude of men he saw before his eyes, would, in one hundred years be NO MORE!

2. The commencement of a century should suggest to us the inestimable value of our TIME. Time was granted to man for his improvement. By the protraction of life fresh opportunities are afforded for our progress in knowledge, virtue and piety. We were not raised into being that we might be idle spectators of the objects with which we are surrounded. The situation in which we are placed demands reiterated exertion. The spheres in which we move call for the exercise of all the ability with which we may be endowed. Enquiries therefore should be made how improvements can be best effected, either in our individual, social, or public capacities. This conduct will reflect an honour on our rationality. This train of action will elevate us in the scale of being-impart a zest to our enjoyment, and prepare us for the honours of immortality! It is said, that the elder Cato repented of three things-one of which was his having spent a day without improvement.

3. We cannot begin a century without being impressed with the vicissitude by which sublunary affairs are characterised.

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