fe made, that from the common gratifications of our appetites, and the impreffions of a thousand objects, we snatch the one, like a tranfient gleam, without being fuffered to tafte the other, and enjoy the perpetual fun-fhine and fair weather which conftantly attend it. This, I contend, is only to be found in religion in the consciousness of virtue-and the fure and certain hopes of a better life, which brightens all our prospects, and leaves no room to dread disappointments because the expectation of it is built upon a rock, whofe foundations are as deep as thofe of heaven and hell.

And though in our pilgrimage through this world -fome of us may be fo fortunate as to meet with fome clear fountains by the way, that may cool, for a few moments, the heat of this great thirst of happinefs yet our Saviour, who knew the world, though he enjoyed but little of it, tells us, that whofoever drinketh of this water will thirft again :-and we all find by experience it is so, and by reason that it always must be so.

I conclude with a short observation upon Solomon's evidence in this cafe.

Never did the busy brain of a lean and hectic chemift fearch for the philofopher's ftone with more pains and ardour than this great man did after happinefs. He was one of the wifeft inquirers into Nature-had tried all her powers and capacities, and after a thousand vain fpeculations and vile experiments, he affirmed at length, it lay hid in no one thing he had tried; like the chemists projections, all

had ended in fmoke, or what was worse, in vanity and vexation of fpirit:-the conclufion of the whole matter was this-that he advifes every man who would be happy, to fear God and keep his commandments.

SERMON II.

The House of Feafting and the Houfe of Mourning described.

ECCLESIASTES VII. 2, 3.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feafting.

THAT I deny-but let us hear the wife man's reafoning upon it-for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart: forrow is better than laughter for a crack-brain'd order of Carthufian monks, I grant, but not for men of the world: For what purpose, do you imagine, has God made us? for the social sweets of the well-water'd valleys where he has planted us, or for the dry and difmal deferts of a Sierra Morena? Are the fad accidents of life, and the uncheery hours which perpetually overtake us, are they not enough, but we must fally forth in queft of them,-belie our own hearts, and say, as your text would have us, that they are better than those of joy? Did the Best of Beings fend us into the world for this end-to go weeping through it,to vex and shorten a life short and vexatious enough already? Do you think, my good preacher, that he who is infinitely happy, can envy us our enjoyments?

or that a being fo infinitely kind would grudge a mournful traveller the fhort reft and refreshments neceffary to fupport his fpirits through the stages of a weary pilgrimage? or that he would call him to a fevere reckoning, because in this way he had haftily fnatched at fome little fugacious pleasures, merely to fweeten this uneafy journey of life, and reconcile him to the ruggedness of the road, and the many hard juftlings he is fure to meet with? Confider, I beseech you, what provifion and accommodation the Author of our being has prepared for us, that we might not go on our way forrowing-how many caravanferas of rest-what powers and faculties he has given us for taking it—what apt objects he has placed in our way to entertain us ;-fome of which he has made so fair, so exquifitely fitted for this end, that they have power over us for a time to charm away the fenfe of pain, to cheer up the dejected heart under poverty and fickness, and make it go and remember its miferies no more.

I will not contend at prefent against this rhetoric; I would choose rather for a moment to go on with the allegory, and fay we are travellers, and, in the most affecting sense of that idea, that like travellers, though upon bufsiness of the last and nearest concern to us, we may furely be allowed to amufe ourselves with the natural or artificial beauties of the country we are paffing through, without reproach of forgetting the main errand we are fent upon; and if we can fo order it as not to be led out of the way, by the variety of prospects, edifices, and ruins which

folicit us, it would be a nonfenfical piece of fainterrantry to fhut our eyes.

But let us not lofe fight of the argument in pur. fuit of the fimile.

Let us remember, various as our excurfions are― that we have still set our faces towards Jerufalemthat we have a place of rest and happiness, towards which we haften, and that the way to get there is not so much to please our hearts, as to improve them in virtue;that mirth and feafting are ufually no friends to achievements of this kind—but that a seafon of affliction is in fome fort a feafon of piety-not only because our fufferings are apt to put us in mind of our fins, but that by the check and interruption. which they give to our pursuits, they allow us what the hurry and buftle of the world too often deny us, -and that is, a little time for reflection, which is all ́that most of us want to make us wifer and better men ;—that at certain times it is so neceffary a man's mind fhould be turned towards itfelf, that rather than want occafions, he had better purchase them at the expence of his present happiness.-He had better, as the text expreffes it, go to the house of mourning, where he will meet with fomething to fubdue his paffions, than to the house of feafting, where the joy and gaiety of the place is likely to excite them: That whereas the entertainments and careffes of the one place expose his heart, and lay it open to tempta tions the forrows of the other defend it, and as naturally shut them from it. So ftrange and unaccountable a creature is man! he is fo framed, that he

cannot but pursue happiness-and yet unless he is