terruptions from public news, from whispers that he is to be apprehended on suspicion of treason, from the intrusion of Government officers, and from a want of thorough sympathy on political subjects even perhaps in the members of his own domestic circle. All at once, his quiet is destroyed by an order from court to leave his seclusion, and reside in the metropolis, that he may be more immediately under the eye of Government. Here again he is brought face to face with all that he hates and despises. His aversion is increased by a sense of his inability to resist; and he learns even to cherish the feeling and habit of misery as the only testimony that his soul is unsubdued. He is politically miserable. I have given this sketch as an illustration of those natural laws which make our happiness dependent on our sympathy with a power which overrules us; and also as an example of the form and the precariousness of that process by which we can in some circumstances contract our horizon, as it were, and shut out from our view those things which give us pain, and withdraw ourselves from the encounter of those prin ciples which are in opposition to our own. In the field of this world, there are many divisions and subdivisions, separated by strong barriers from each other, and acknowledging different authorities, or the same authority perhaps in different degrees. There are so many shelters to which men may betake themselves, when pursued by the justice or injustice of their fellow-creatures. But whilst we continue within the scope of one authority, although we may find a temporary asylum against its enmity in a narrower circle or more private society, we are continually liable to be confronted by it, and dragged from our hiding-place; and must therefore, from the nature of things, be in some measure dependent on it for our happiness. Whenever the material world and its concerns are made use of to illustrate the concerns of the mind and of the invisible world, it is of great importance to preserve in lively recollection the essential difference which separates the two subjects. The one embraces outward actions exclusively; whilst the prominent feature in the other is the principle from which the actions spring. Thus, in the example which has just been given, we can easily suppose that Cromwell's followers were actuated by a great variety of motives, and that the solemnity of the Commonwealth might captivate different minds on very different principles. Some pious people might have liked it, from having associated it in their minds with true religion; some from the fanatical idea, that this outward form would atone for more secret sins; some, from its mixture with republican sturdiness; and some, from a hatred of Popery or of the Stuart family. Now, these principles are all very different in their nature, although their external results might in some particulars resemble each other; and therefore the happiness of the citizens did not proceed from an actual sympathy of principle with the Government, but from a coincidence in the effects of their principles: And if the Government had had cognizance and control of the mind as well as the body, then those alone could have been happy, or could have been considered as good citizens, who liked that solemn system of things precisely on the same principles with the Government; and the collision of opposite principle would in this case have been as violent as the collision of external conduct actually was. In morals, an action does not mean an effect simply, but a principle carried into exercise; and therefore, in a government of minds, any effect produced by pride, for instance, however beneficial to the public, would get the name of a proud action, and would be condemned by a judge who disapproved of pride. Man cannot see into the heart; and therefore he is obliged to conjecture or guess at principles by their effects; but yet his judgment is always determined by the nature of the principle to which he ascribes the effects. Supposing, then, that we were under such a supernaturally gifted government, and that this government was so strong that the idea of resisting or escaping it involved an absurdity, it would evidently become a matter of the very highest importance, to make ourselves accurately acquainted with its principles, and to accommodate our own to them; because, till this were accomplished, we could never enjoy tranquillity, but must continually suffer the uneasiness of being reluctantly borne down our own. by the current of a will more powerful than This object, however, would be attended by considerable difficulty. In the first place, it could not be very easy to discover the precise principles of the administration: Almost any single act might proceed from a great variety of principles; and it would therefore require a long observation and induction of facts, in order to ar rive at a satisfactory conclusion. And, in the second place, after we had discovered those principles, we might chance to find that they were in direct opposition to our own. In these circumstances, it would be most desirable that the Government should, for the information of the people, embody in one interesting train of action the whole of the principles of its Administration; so that an unequivocal and distinct idea of these principles might be conveyed, by the narrative, to any one who would carefully consider its purport. After Government had done this, it would evidently be the interest and the duty of all the subjects to dwell much upon the history thus communicated to them, in order that they might |