the souls of men, wherein we, who are the disciples of the blessed Jesus, ought, in imitation of His example, to exercise ourselves according to our several capacities and opportunities. And this is the noblest charity and the greatest kindnesses that can be shown to human nature. It is in the most excellent sense to "give eyes to the blind, to set the prisoners at liberty;" to rescue men out of the saddest slavery and captivity, and to save souls from death. And it is the most lasting and endurable benefit, because it is to do men good to all eternity.

The other way of being beneficial to others is procuring their temporal good, and contributing to their happiness in this present life. And this, in subordination to our Saviour's great design of bringing men to eternal happiness, was a great part of His business and employment in this world. He went about healing all manner of diseases, and rescuing the bodies of men from the power and possession of the devil.

And though we cannot be beneficial to men in that miraculous manner that He was, yet we may be so in the use of ordinary means. We may comfort the afflicted and vindicate the oppressed, and do a great many acts of charity, which our Saviour, by reason of His poverty, could not do without a miracle. We may supply the necessities of those that are in want, "feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and visit the sick," and minister to them such comforts and remedies as they are not able to provide for themselves. We may take a child that is poor, and destitute of all advantages of education, and bring him up in the knowledge and fear of God, and without any great expense put him into a way wherein, by his diligence and industry, he may arrive to a considerable fortune in the world, and be able afterwards to relieve hundreds of others. Men glory in raising great and magnificent structures, and find a secret pleasure to see sets of their own planting to grow up and flourish; but surely it is a greater and more glorious work to build up a man, to see a youth of our own planting, from the small beginnings and advantages we have given him, to grow up into a considerable fortune, to take root in the world, and to shoot up to such a height, and spread his branches so wide, that we who first planted him may ourselves find comfort and shelter under his shadow. We may many times, with a small liberality, shore up a family that is ready to fall, and struggles under such necessities that it is not able to support itself. And if our minds were as great as sometimes our estates are, we might do great and public works of a general and lasting advantage, and for which many generations to come might call us blessed. And those who are in the lowest condition may do great good to others by their prayers, if they themselves be as good as they ought; for "the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." The intercession of those who are in

favour with God, as all good men are, are not vain wishes, but many times effectual to procure that good for others which their own endeavours could never have effected and brought about.

I have done with the first thing, the great work and business which our blessed Saviour had to do in the world, and that was to do good. I proceed to our Saviour's diligence and industry in this work. He went about doing good; He made it the great business and constant employment of His life; He travelled from one place to another to seek out opportunities of being useful and beneficial to mankind.

How unwearied our blessed Saviour was in doing good. He made it His only business, and spent His whole life in it. He was not only ready to do good to those that came to Him and gave Him opportunity for it, and besought Him to do it, but went Himself from one place to another to seek out objects to exercise His charity upon. He went to those who could not, and to those who would not come to Him; for so it is written of Him, He "came to seek and to save that which was lost." He was contented to spend whole days in this work, to live in a crowd, and to be almost perpetually oppressed with company; and when His disciples were moved at the rudeness of the people in pressing upon Him, He rebuked their impatience; and for the pleasure He took in doing good, made nothing of the trouble and inconvenience that attended it.

If we consider how much He denied Himself in the chief comforts and conveniences of human life, that He might do good to others. He neglected the ordinary refreshments of nature, His meat, and drink, and sleep, that He might attend this work. He was at everybody's beck and disposal, to do them good. When He was doing cures in one place He was sent for to another; and He either went, or sent healing to them, and did by His word at a distance what He could not come in person to do. Nay, He was willing to deny Himself in one of the dearest things in the world, His reputation and good name; He was contented to do good, though He was ill thought of and ill spoken of for it. He would not refuse to do good on the Sabbath day, though He was accounted profane for so doing. He knew how scandalous it was among the Jews to keep company with publicans and sinners, and yet He would not decline so good a work for all the ill words they gave Him for it.

If we consider the malicious opposition and sinister construction that His good deeds met withal. Never did so much goodness meet with so much enmity, endure so many affronts, and so much contradiction of sinners. This great benefactor of mankind was hated and persecuted as if He had been a public enemy. While He was instructing them in the meekest manner,

they were ready to stone Him for telling them the truth; and when the fame of His miracles went abroad, though they were never so useful and beneficial to mankind, yet upon this very account they conspire against Him and seek to take away His life. Whatever He said or did, though never so innocent, never so excellent, had some bad interpretation put upon it, and the great and shining virtues of His life were turned into crimes and matter of accusation. For His casting out of devils He was called a magician; for His endeavour to reclaim men from their vices, "a friend of publicans and sinners;" for His free and obliging conversation, "a wine-bibber and a glutton." All the benefits which He did to men, and the blessings which He so liberally shed among the people, were construed to be a design of ambition and popularity, and done with an intention to move the people to sedition, and to make Himself a king, enough to have discouraged the greatest goodness, and have put a damp upon the most generous mind, and to make it sick and weary of well-doing. For what more grievous than to have all the good one does ill interpreted, and the best actions in the world made matter of calumny and reproach?

If we consider how cheerfully, notwithstanding all this, He persevered and continued in welldoing. It was not only His business but His delight-"I delight," says He, "to do Thy will, O my God;" the pleasure which others take in the most natural actions of life, in eating and drinking when they are hungry, He took in doing good. It "was His meat and drink to do the will of His Father." He plied this work with so much diligence as if He had been afraid He should have wanted time for it. "I must work the work of Him that sent me while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work." And when He was approaching towards the hardest and most unpleasant part of His service, but of all others the most beneficial to us-I mean His death and sufferings-He was not at ease in His mind till it was done; "How am I straitened," says He, "till it be accomplished;" and just before his suffering, with what joy and triumph does He reflect upon the good he had done in His life? "Father, I have glorified Thee upon earth, and finished the work which Thou hast given me to do!" What a blessed pattern is here of diligence and industry in doing good! How fair and lovely a copy for Christians to write after !

FRIENDSHIPS HUMAN AND DIVINE.

WHEN We have said and done all; it is only the true Christian and the religious person who is or can be sure of a friend-sure of obtaining, sure of keeping him. But as for the friendship of the world, when a man shall have done all that he can to make one his friend, employed the utmost of his wit and labour, beaten his brains, and emptied his purse, to create an endearment between him and the person whose friendship he desires, he may, in the end, upon all these endeavours and attempts, be forced to write vanity and frustration; for by them all he may at last be no more able to get into the other's heart than he is to thrust his hand into a pillar of brass; the man's affection, amidst all these kindnesses done him, remaining wholly unconcerned and impregnable, just like a rock which, being plied continually by the waves, still throws them back again into the bosom of the sea that sent them, but is not at all moved by any of them.

People at first, while they are young and raw, and soft-natured, are apt to think it an easy thing to gain love, and reckon their own friendship a sure price of another man's. But when

experience shall have once opened their eyes, and showed them the hardness of most hearts, the hollowness of others, and the baseness and ingratitude of almost all, they will then find that a friend is the gift of God, and that He only, who made hearts, can unite them. For it is He who creates those sympathies and suitablenesses of nature, that are the foundation of all true friendship, and then by His providence brings persons so affected together.

It is an expression frequent in Scripture, but infinitely more significant than at first it is usually observed to be, namely, that God gave such or such a person grace or favour in another's eyes. It is an invisible hand from heaven that ties this knot, and mingles hearts and souls, by strange, secret, and unaccountable conjunctions.

That heart shall surrender itself and its friendship to one man, at first view, which another has in vain been laying siege to for many years, by all the repeated acts of kindness imaginable.

Nay, so far is friendship from being of any human production, that, unless nature be predisposed to it by its own propensity or inclination, no arts of obligation shall be able to abate the secret hatreds and hostilities of some persons

towards others. No friendly offices, no addresses, no benefits whatsoever, shall ever alter or allay that diabolical rancour that frets and ferments in some hellish breasts, but that upon all occasions it will foam out at its foul mouth in slander and invective, and sometimes bite too in a shrewd turn or a secret blow. This is true and undeniable upon frequent experience, and happy those who can learn it at the cost of other men's.

But now, on the contrary, he who will give up his name to Christ in faith unfeigned, and a sincere obedience to all His righteous laws, shall be sure to find love for love, and friendship for friendship. The success is certain and infallible, and none ever yet miscarried in the attempt. For Christ freely offers His friendship to all, and sets no other rate upon so vast a purchase, but only that we would suffer Him to be our friend. Thon perhaps spendest thy precious time in waiting upon such a great one, and thy estate in presenting him, and probably, after all, hast no other reward, but sometimes to be smiled upon, and always to be smiled at; and when thy greatest and most pressing occasions shall call for succour and relief, then to be deserted and cast off, and not known.

Now, I say, turn the streams of thy endeavours another way, and bestow but half that hearty, sedulous attendance upon thy Saviour in the duties of prayer and mortification, and be at half that expense in charitable works, by relieving Christ in His poor members; and, in a word, study as much to please Him who died for thee, as thou dost to court and humour thy great patron, who cares not for thee, and thou shalt make Him thy friend for ever; a friend who shall own thee in thy lowest condition, speak comfort to thee in all thy sorrows, counsel thee in all thy doubts, answer all thy wants, and, in a word, "never leave thee, nor forsake thee." But when all the hopes that thou hast raised upon the promises or supposed kindnesses of the fastidious and fallacious great ones of the world, shall fail, and upbraid thee to thy face, He shall then take thee into His bosom, embrace, cherish, and support thee, and, as the Psalmist expresses it, "He shall guide thee with His counsel here, and afterwards receive thee into glory." -Sermon, of the Love of Christ to His Disciples.

MAN AT THE MERCY OF FORTUNE.

Then for the friendships or enmities that a man contracts in the world, than which surely there is nothing that has a more direct and potent influence upon the whole of a man's life, whether as to happiness or misery, yet chance has the ruling stroke in them all.

A man by mere peradventure lights into company, possibly is driven into a house by a shower of rain for present shelter, and there begins an acquaintance with a person, which acquaintance

and endearment grows and continues, even when relations fail, and perhaps proves the support of his mind and of his fortunes to his dying day.

And the like holds in enmities, which come much more easily than the other. A word unadvisedly spoken on the one side, or misunderstood on the other, any the least surmise or neglect, sometimes a bare gesture, nay, the very unsuitableness of one man's aspect to another man's fancy, has raised such an aversion to him as in time has produced a perfect hatred of him, and that so strong and tenacious that it has never left vexing and troubling him till, perhaps, at length it has worried him into his grave; yea, and after death, too, has pursued him in his surviving shadow, exercising the same tyranny upon his very name and memory.

It is hard to please men of some tempers, who indeed hardly know what will please themselves; and yet, if a man does not please them, which it is ten thousand to one if he does, if they can but have power equal to their malice (as sometimes, to plague the world, God lets them have), such' an one must expect all mischief that power and spite, lighting upon a base mind, can possibly do him.

As for men's employments and preferments, every man that sets forth into the world comes into a great lottery, and draws some one certain profession to act and live by, but knows not the fortune that will attend him in it.

One man, perhaps, proves miserable in the study of the law, who might have flourished in that of physic or divinity. Another runs his head against the pulpit, who might have been very serviceable to his country at the plough. And a third proves a very dull and heavy philosopher, who possibly would have made a good mechanic, and have done well enough at the useful philosophy of the spade or the anvil.

Now, let this man reflect upon the time when all these several callings and professions were equally offered to his choice, and consider how indifferent it was once for him to have fixed upon any one of them, and what little accidents and considerations cast the balance of his choice rather one way than the other, and he will find how easily chance may throw a man upon a profession, which all his diligence cannot make him fit for.

And then, for the preferments of the world. He that would reckon upon all the accidents that they depend upon, may as well undertake to count the sands or to sum up infinity; so that greatness as well as an estate may, upon this account, be properly called a man's fortune, forasmuch as no man can state either the acquisition or preservation of it upon any certain rules -every man, as well as the merchant, being here truly an adventurer. For the ways by which it is obtained are various, and frequently contrary; one man, by sneaking and flattering, comes to riches and honour (where it is in the power of

G

fools to bestow them); upon observation whereof, another presently thinks to arrive to the same greatness by the same means, but striving, like the ass, to court his master, just as the spaniel had done before him, instead of being stroked and made much of, he is only rated off and cudgelled for all his courtship.

The source of men's preferments is most commonly the will, humour, and fancy of persons in power; whereupon when a prince or grandee manifests a liking to such a thing, such an art, or such a pleasure, men generally set about to make themselves considerable for such things, and thereby, through his favour, to advance themselves; and at length, when they have spent their whole time in them, and so are become fit for nothing else, that prince or grandee perhaps dies, and another succeeds him, quite of a different disposition, and inclining him to be pleased with quite different things. Whereupon these men's hopes, studies, and expectations are wholly at an end. And besides, though the grandee whom they build upon should not die or quit the stage, yet the same person does not always like the same things. For age may alter his constitution, humour, or appetite; or the circumstances of his affairs may put him upon different courses and counsels; every one of which accidents wholly alters the road to preferment. So that those who travel that road must be like highwaymen, very dexterous in shifting the way upon every turn; and yet their very doing so sometimes proves the means of their being found out, understood, and abhorred; and for this very cause that they who are ready to do anything are justly thought fit to be preferred to nothing. Cæsar Borgia, base son to Pope Alexander VI.,

used to boast to his friend Machiavel, that he had contrived his affairs and greatness into such a posture of firmness that, whether his holy father lived or died, they could not but be secure. If he lived, there could be no doubt of them; and if he died, he had laid his interest so as to overrule the next election as he pleased. But all this while the politician never thought or considered that he might, in the meantime, fall dangerously sick, and that sickness necessitate his removal from the court, and that during his absence his father die, and so his interest decay, and his mortal enemy be chosen to the papacy, as, indeed, it fell out. So that, for all his exact plot, down was he cast from all his greatness, and forced to end his days in a mean condition, as it is pity but all such politic opiniators should.

Upon much the like account we find it once said of an eminent cardinal, by reason of his great and apparent likelihood to step into St Peter's chair, that in two conclaves he went in pope and came out cardinal.

So much has chance the casting voice in the disposal of all the great things of the world. That which men call merit is a mere nothing. For even when persons of the greatest worth and merit are preferred, it is not their merit but their fortune that prefers them. And then, for that other so much admired thing called policy, it is but little better; for when men have busied themselves, and beat their brains never so much, the whole result, both of their counsels and their fortunes, is still at the mercy of an accident. And, therefore, whosoever that man was that said that he had rather have a grain of fortune than a pound of wisdom, as to the things of this life, spoke nothing but the voice of wisdom and great experience.

AND SCOTLAND.*

MY LORD CHANCELLOR,-When I consider the affair of a union betwixt the two nations, as

A speech delivered in the Parliament of Scotland, November 2, 1706.

"In despite of Scotticisms, Gallicisms, overstretched classicality, and monstrous affectation, it [will] stand beside any effort of later English oratory; and probably were it examined at an age so distant as not to give the later speaker the benefit of a distinctly

perceptible adaptation to acknowledged conventional

isins, it would be found to have few competitors among them in the essentials of heroic oratory, rapid and potent diction, impassioned appeal, bold and apt illustration."-John Hill Burton.

now the subject of our deliberation at this time, I find my mind crowded with a variety of melancholy thoughts; and I think it my duty to disburden myself of some of them by laying them before, and exposing them to the serious consideration of this honourable House.

I think I see a free and independent kingdom delivering up that which all the world hath been fighting for since the days of Nimrod; yea, that for which most of all the empires, kingdoms, states, principalities, and the dukedoms of Europe are at this time engaged in the most bloody and cruel wars; to wit, a power to manage their own affairs by themselves, without the assistance and counsel of any other.

I think I see a national Church, founded upon a rock, secured by a claim of right, hedged and fenced about by the strictest and most pointed legal sanctions that sovereignty could contrive, voluntarily descending into a plain, upon an equal level with Jews, Papists, Socinians, Arminians, Anabaptists, and other sectaries.

I think I see the noble and honourable peerage of Scotland, whose valiant predecessors led armies against their enemies upon their own proper charges and expense, now divested of their followers and vassalages; and put upon such an equal foot with their vassals, that I think I see a petty English exciseman receive more homage and respect than what was paid formerly to their quondam MacCallammores.

I think I see the present peers of Scotland, whose noble ancestors conquered provinces, overran countries, reduced and subjected towns and fortified places, exacted tribute through the greatest part of England, now walking in the Court of Requests, like so many English attorneys; laying aside their walking swords when in company with the English peers, lest their selfdefence should be found murder.

I think I see the honourable estate of barons, the bold assertors of the nation's rights and liberties in the worst of times, now setting a watch upon their lips, and a guard upon their tongues, lest they may be found guilty of scandalum magnatum, a speaking evil of dignities.

I think I see the royal state of burghers walking their desolate streets, hanging down their heads under disappointments wormed out of all the branches of their old trade, uncertain what hand to turn to, necessitated to become prentices to their unkind neighbours; and yet, after all, finding their trade so fortified by companies, and secured by prescriptions, that they despair of any success therein.

I think I see our learned judges laying aside their pratiques and decisions, studying the common law of England, gravelled with certioraris, nisi priuses, writs of error, verdicts, injunctions, demurs, etc., and frightened with appeals and avocations, because of the new regulations and rectifications they may meet with.

I think I see the valiant and gallant soldiery either sent to learn the plantation trade abroad, or at home petitioning for a small subsistence, as a reward of their honourable exploits; while their old corps are broken, the common soldiers left to beg, and the youngest English corps kept standing.

I think I see the honest industrious tradesman loaded with new taxes and impositions, disappointed of the equivalents,* drinking water in

"The 'equivalent,' or compensation, of £398,000 spoken of above, was to be distributed, a great portion of it, to the shareholders of the African and India Company, who had suffered so severely by the breaking up of the Darien settlement. As the shares must, in many instances, have changed hands, great inequality

place of ale, eating his saltless pottage, petitioning for encouragement to his manufactures, and answered by counter petitions.

In short, I think I see the laborious ploughman, with his corn spoiling upon his hands for want of sale, cursing the day of his birth, dreading the expense of his burial, and uncertain whether to marry or do worse.

I think I see the incurable difficulties of the landed men, fettered under the golden chain of "equivalents," their pretty daughters petitioning for want of husbands, and their sons for want of employment.

I think I see our mariners delivering up their ships to their Dutch partners; and what through presses and necessity, earning their bread as underlings in the Royal English Navy!

But above all, my Lord, I think I see our ancient mother, Caledonia, like Cæsar, sitting in the midst of our senate, ruefully looking round about her, covering herself with her royal garment, attending the fatal blow, and breathing out her last with an et tu quoque mi fili!

Are not these, my Lord, very afflicting thoughts? And yet they are but the least part suggested to me by these dishonourable articles. Should not the consideration of these things vivify these dry bones of ours? Should not the memory of our noble predecessors' valour and constancy rouse up our drooping spirits? Are our noble predecessors' souls got so far into the English cabbage-stalk and cauliflowers, that we should show the least inclination that way? Are our eyes so blinded, are our ears so deafened, are our hearts so hardened, are our tongues so faltered, are our hands so fettered, that in this our day-I say, my Lord, in this our day-we should not mind the things that concern the very being and wellbeing of our ancient kingdom, before the day be hid from our eyes?

No, my Lord, God forbid! Man's extremity is God's opportunity: He is a present help in time of need-a deliverer, and that right early! Some unforeseen providence will fall out, that may cast the balance; some Joseph or other will say, "Why do ye strive together, since ye are brethren?" None can destroy Scotland save Scotland's self. Hold your hands from the pen, and you are secure! There will be a JehovahJireh; and some ram will be caught in the thicket, when the bloody knife is at our mother's throat. Let us, then, my Lord, and let our noble patriots behave themselves like men, and we know not how soon a blessing may come.

I design not at this time to enter into the merits of any one particular article. I intend this discourse as an introduction to what I may

and disappointment was to be expected in the distribution of this money, which was likely, in most cases, to go into the hands of the friends of Government, as a bribe or recompense for services on this occasion.". C. A. Goodrich.