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presence of mind in cases of difficulty; and their hearts are disposed to virtuous courses." One is astonished that a man of learning and sense could be so blinded by party feeling as to utter such sentiments. But he was exceedingly violent in his feelings, continuing through life to pour forth upon all sects that dissented from the church of England, as well as upon all who doubted the "divine right" of kings to rule their subjects with unrestricted sway, his inexhaustible sarcasm, ridicule, and contempt. He died in 1716.

As a writer, Dr. South is conspicuous for good practical sense, for a deep insight into human character, for liveliness of imagination, and exuberant invention, and for a wit that knew not always the limit of propriety. In perspicuity, copiousness, and force of expression, he has few superiors among English writers; which qualities fully compensate for the "forced conceits, unnatural metaphors, and turgid and verbose language which occasionally disfigure his pages."

THE WILL FOR THE DEED.

The third instance in which men used to plead the will instead of the deed, shall be in duties of cost and expense.

Let a business of expensive charity be proposed; and then, as I showed before, that, in matters of labor, the lazy person could find no hands wherewith to work; so neither, in this case, can the religious miser find any hands wherewith to give. It is wonderful to consider how a command or call to be liberal, either upon a civil or religious account, all of a sudden impoverishes the rich, breaks the merchant, shuts up every private man's exchequer, and makes those men in a minute have nothing, who, at the very same instant, want nothing to spend. So that, instead of relieving the poor, such a command strangely increases their number, and transforms rich men into beggars presently. For, let the danger of their prince and country knock at their purses, and call upon them to contribute against a public enemy or calamity, then immediately they have nothing, and their riches upon such occasions (as Solomon expresses it) never fail to make themselves wings, and fly away.

But do men in good earnest think that God will be put off so? or can they imagine that the law of God will be baffled with a lie clothed in a scoff?

For such pretences are no better, as appears from that notable account given us by the apostle of this windy, insignificant charity of the will, and of the worthlessness of it, not enlivened by deeds: "If a brother or a sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?" Profit, does he say? Why, it profits just as much as fair words command the market, as good wishes buy food and raiment, and pass for current pay. ment in the shops.

1 Read-an article in "Retrospective Review," ix. 291.

Come we now to a rich old pretender to godliness, and tell him that there is such a one, a man of good family, good education, and who has lost all his estate for the king, now ready to rot in prison for debt; come, what will you give towards his release ? Why, then answers the will instead of the deed, as much the readier speaker of the two, "The truth is, I always had a respect for such men; I love them with all my heart; and it is a thousand pities that any that had served the king so faithfully should be in such want." So say I too, and the more shame is it for the whole nation that they should be so. But still, what will you give? Why, then, answers the man of mouth-charity again, and tells you that " you could not come in a worse time; that now-a-days money is very scarce with him, and that therefore he can give nothing; but he will be sure to pray for the poor gentleman.

Ah, thou hypocrite! when thy brother has lost all that ever he had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think thus to lick him up again only with thy tongue? Just like that old formal hocus, who denied a beggar a farthing, and put him off with his blessing. Why, what are the prayers of a covetous wretch worth? what will thy blessing go for? what will it buy? Is this the charity that the apostle here, in the text, presses upon the Corinthians?1 This the case in which God accepts the willingness of the mind instead of the liberality of the purse? No, assuredly; but the measures that God marks out to thy charity are these: thy superfluities must give place to thy neighbor's great convenience; thy convenience must veil thy neighbor's necessity; and, lastly, thy very necessities must yield to thy neighbor's extremity.

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COVETOUSNESS.

Of covetousness we may truly say, that it makes both the Alpha and Omega in the devil's alphabet, and that it is the first vice in corrupt nature which moves, and the last which dies. For look upon any infant, and as soon as it can but move a hand, we shall see it reaching out after something or other which it should not have; and he who does not know it to be the proper and peculiar sin of old age, seems himself to have the dotage of that age upon him, whether he has the years or no.

The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world, to take in every thing, and to part with nothing. Charity is accounted no grace with him, nor gratitude any virtue. The cries of the poor never enter into his ears; or if they do, he has always one ear readier to let them out than the other to take them in. In a word, by his rapines and

1 "For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath and not accordIng to that he hath not.”—2 Cor. viii. 12.

extortions, he is always for making as many poor as he can, but for relieving none whom he either finds or makes so. So that it is a question, whether his heart be harder, or his fist closer. In a word, he is a pest and a monster: greedier than the sea, and barrener than the shore.

THE GLORY OF THE CLERGY.

God is the fountain of honor; and the conduit by which he conveys it to the sons of men are virtues and generous practices. Some, indeed, may please and promise themselves high matters from full revenues, stately palaces, court interests, and great dependences. But that which makes the clergy glorious, is to be knowing in their profession, unspotted in their lives, active and aborious in their charges, bold and resolute in opposing seducers, and daring to look vice in the face, though never so potent and llustrious. And, lastly, to be gentle, courteous, and compassionate to all. These are our robes and our maces, our escutcheons and highest titles of honor.

1.

THE PLEASURES OF AMUSEMENT AND INDUSTRY COMPARED.

Nor is that man less deceived that thinks to maintain a constant tenure of pleasure by a continual pursuit of sports and recreations. The most voluptuous and loose person breathing, were he but tied to follow his hawks and his hounds, his dice and his courtships every day, would find it the greatest torment and calamity that could befall him; he would fly to the mines and galleys for his recreation, and to the spade and the mattock for a diversion from the misery of a continual unintermitted pleasure. But, on the contrary, the providence of God has so ordered the course of things, that there is no action, the usefulness of which has made it the matter of duty and of a profession, but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it without loathing and satiety. The same shop and trade that employs a man in his youth, employs him also n his age. Every morning he rises fresh to his hammer and anvil; he passes the day singing; custom has naturalized his labor to him; his shop is his element, and he cannot with any enjoyment of himself live out of it.

THE EYE OF CONscience.

That the eye of conscience may be always quick and lively, let constant use be sure to keep it constantly open, and thereby ready

1 This is in accordance with Ezekiel xxxiii. 1-6. The ancient prophets, faithful and fearless men, thinking more of "the heathen" at home than "the heathen" abroad, did not reprove the Jews for the sins of the people of Kamtschatka; but it was, "wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings; seek justice; break every yoke; loose the bands of wickedness, and let the oppressed go free," &c. Whenever and wherever the pulpit is silent on great national sins, it 18 false to its high and holy trust. Even bad men will respect faithfulness more than P time-serving silence.

and prepared to admit and let in those heavenly beams which are always streaming forth from God upon minds fitted to receive them. And to this purpose let a man fly from every thing which may leave either a foulness or a bias upon it; let him dread every gross act of sin; for one great stab may as certainly and speedily destroy life as forty lesser wounds. Let him carry a jealous eye over every growing habit of sin: let him keep aloof from all commerce and fellowship with any vicious and base affection, especially from all sensuality: let him keep himself untouched with the hellish, unhallowed heats of lust and the noisome steams and exhalations of intemperance: let him bear himself above that sordid and low thing, that utter contradiction to all greatness of mindcovetousness: let him disenslave himself from the pelf of the world, from that amor sceleratus habendi.1 Lastly, let him learn so to look upon the honors, the pomp, and greatness of the world, as to look through them. Fools indeed are apt to be blown up by them and to sacrifice all for them: sometimes venturing their heads only to get a feather in their caps.

THOMAS PARNELL. 1679-1717.

THOMAS PARNELL was born in Dublin in 1679. After receiving the ele ments of education at a grammar-school, he was admitted to the University of Dublin; after leaving which he was ordained a deacon, in 1700, and in five. years afterwards, he was promoted to the archdeaconry of Clogher. Up to this time he had sided with the Tory party, but now found it convenient to change his politics; he therefore went over to the Whigs, who received him with open arms, deeming him a valuable auxiliary to their cause. Parnell endeavored to recommend himself by his eloquence in the pulpits of London, but from the new ministry he received nothing more substantial than caresses and empty protestations. To imbitter his disappointment, he lost, in 1712, his amiable wife, to whom he was affectionately devoted. His private friends, however, were not unmindful of his interests, and obtained for him a vicarage in the vicinity of Dublin, worth £400 per annum: but he did not live long to enjoy his promotion. He died in 1717, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. "The compass of Parnell's poetry is not extensive, but its tone is peculiarly delightful: not from mere correctness of expression, to which some critics have stinted its praises, but from the graceful and reserved sensibility that accompanied his polished phraseology. The studied happiness of his diction does not spoil its simplicity. His poetry is like a flower that has been trained and planted by the skill of the gardener, but which preserves, in its cultured state, the natural fragrance of its wilder air."2

The poem by which Parnell is chiefly known, is "The Hermit," which has always been a favorite with every class of readers. It is a revolving panc. rama of beautiful pictures, each perfect in itself. But the story is not original, as it appeared as early as the fifteenth century in a collection of tales entitled

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the "Gesta Romanorum," and we present the rader with the analysis of it below, as given by Warton in his History of Engi sh Poetry. The poem, however, is too long for our limits, and no extracts would do it justice; but we will give a few lines to show its style. The last instance of the angel's seeming injustice, is that of pushing the guide from the bridge into the river. At this the Hermit is unable to suppress his indignation:

Wild sparkling rage inflames the Father's eyes;
He bursts the bonds of fear, and madly cries,
"Detested wretch!"—but scarce his speech began,
When the strange partner seem'd no longer man:
His youthful face grew more serenely sweet;
His robe turn'd white, and flow'd upon his feet;
Fair rounds of radiant points invest his hair;
Celestial odors fill the purple air;

And wings, whose colors glitter'd on the day,
Wide at his back their gradual plumes display.
The form ethereal bursts upon his sight,

And moves in all the majesty of light.

Another very interesting piece of Parnell's is his ballad, "Edwin of the Green, a fairy tale, in the ancient English style:" but its length excludes it

1 A devout hermit lived in a cave, near which a shepherd folded his flock. Many of the sheep being stolen, the shepherd was unjustly killed by his master, as being concerned in the theft. The hermit, seeing an innocent man put to death, began to suspect the existence of a Divine Providence, and resolved no longer to perplex himself with the useless severities of religion, but to mix in the world. In travelling from his retirement, he was met by an angel in the figure of a man, who said, "I am an angel, and am sent by God to be your companion on the road." They entered a city, and begged for lodging at the house of a knight, who entertained them at a splendid supper. In the night, the angel rose from his bed and strangled the knight's only child, who was asleep in the cradle. The hermit was astonished at this barbarous return for so much hospitality, but was afraid to make any remonstrance to his companion. Next morning they went to another city. Here they were liberally received in the house of an opulent citizen; but in the night the angel rose, and stole a golden cup of inestimable value. The hermit now concluded that his companion was a bad angel. In travelling forward the next morning, they passed over a bridge, about the middle of which they met a poor man, of whom the angel asked the way to the next city. Having received the desired information, the angel pushed the poor man into the water, where he was immediately drowned. In the evening they arrived at the house of a rich man, and begging for a lodging, were ordered to sleep in a shed with the cattle. In the morning the angel gave the rich man the cup which he had stolen. The hermit, amazed that the cup which was stolen from their friend and benefactor should be given to one who refused them a lodging, began to be now convinced that his companion was the devil; and begged to go on alone. But the angel said, "Hear me, and depart. When you lived in your hermitage, a shepherd was killed by his master. He was innocent of the supposed offence; but had he not been then killed, he would have committed crimes in which he would have died impenitent. His master endeavors to atone for the murder, by dedicating the remainder of his days to alms and deeds of charity. I strangled the child of the knight. But know, that the father was so fntent on heaping up riches for his child, as to neglect those acts of public munificence for which he was before so distinguished, and to which he has now returned. I stole the golden cup of the hospitable citizen. But know, that from a life of the strictest temperance, he became, in consequence of possessing this cup, a perpetual drunkard, and is now the most abstemious of men. I threw the poor man into the water. He was then honest and religious. But know, had he walked one half of a mile further, he would have murdered a man in a state of mortal sin. I gave the golden cup to the rich man, who refused to take us within his roof. He has therefore received his reward in this world, and in the next will suffer the pains of hell for his inhospitality." The hermit fell prostrate at the angel's fect, and, requesting forgiveness, returned to his hermitage, fully envinced of the wisdom, and justice of God's government.

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