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ing my use of the words 'reafon' and understanding,' as far as is requifite for the full comprehenfion of the political effays from the seventh to the eleventh numbers. But as I am not likely to receive back my list of fubfcribers from London within less than ten days, and muft till then remain ignorant of the names of those who may have given orders for the discontinuance of the Friend, I am obliged to fufpend the publication for one week. I cannot conclude this address without expreffions of gratitude to those who have written me letters of encouragement and respect; but at the fame time entreat, that in their friendly efforts to ferve the work by procuring new names for it, they will apply to fuch only as, they have cause to believe, will be actually pleased with a work of this kind. Such only can be of real advantage to the Friend: and even if it were otherwife, he ought not to wish it. An author's fuccefs fhould always depend on feelings infpired exclufively by his writings, and on the sense of their having been useful to the person who recommends them. On this fuppofition, and on this only, fuch recommendation becomes a duty.

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Ibid.

No. XXI.

S to myself, and my own present attempt to record the life and character of the late Admiral Sir Alexander Ball, I have already stated that I confider myfelf as debarred from all circumstances, not appertaining to his conduct or character as a public functionary that involve the names of the living for good or for evil. What

ever facts and incidents I relate of a private nature, must for the most part concern Sir Alexander Ball exclufively, and as an infulated individual. But I needed not this restraint. It will be enough for me, still as I write, to recollect the form and character of Sir Alexander Ball himself, to represent to my own feelings the inward contempt, with which he would have abstracted his mind from worthless anecdotes and petty perfonalities;a contempt rifing into indignation, if ever an illuftrious name were used as the thread to string them upon. If this recollection be my Socratic demon to warn and to check me, I fhall on the other hand derive encouragement from the remembrance of the tender patience, the sweet gentleness, with which he was wont to tolerate the tediousness of well meaning men; and the inexhauftible attention, the unfeigned intereft, with which he would liften for hours where the converfation appealed to reason, and like the bee made honey while it murmured.

T

H.

No. XXII.

O the doctrine of retribution after death the philofopher made the following objection. "When the foul is disunited from the body, to which will belong the guilt of the offences committed during life? Certainly not to the body; for this, when the foul takes its departure, lies like a clod of earth, and without the foul would never have been capable of offending: and as little would the foul have defiled itself with fin but for its union with the flesh. Which of the two then is the proper object of the divine justice?" "God's wif

dom only," anfwered the Rabbi, "fully comprehends the way of his juftice. Yet the mortal may without offence, if with humility, ftrive to render the fame intelligible to himself and his fellows. A householder had in his fruit garden two servants, the one lame and the other blind. Yonder, faid the lame man to the blind, on those trees I see most delicious fruit hang, take me on thy shoulders and we will pluck thereof. This they did, and thus robbed their benefactor who had maintained them, as unprofitable fervants, out of his mere goodnefs and compaffion. The mafter difcovered the theft, and called the two ingrates to account. Each threw off the blame from himself, the one urging in his defence his incapability of seeing the fruit, and the other the want of power to get at it. What did the master of the house do? He placed the lame man upon the blind, and punished them in the fame posture in which they had committed the offence. So will the Judge of the world do with the foul and body of man.'

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THE END.

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