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ARGUMENT.

Mirror of Truth.-The vain pursuits of man.-Conditions on which true happiness was offered.-Happiness the universal aim.—Philosophy unable to guide men to it.-The Tree of Holiness-Uprooted by the Fall.-The Son of God descended to earth to replant it. The reason why so few reached it, and so many despised it.-Estimate of happiness in the different stages of life.-Fear alike in hope and in possession.-Many roads taken and plans tried to attain happiness.-Gold.-The miser.-Pleasure-Her enchantments-Her apparent loveliness and inward corruption― Allurements of the harlot :-Fate of the votaries of Pleasure.Earthly fame-pursued as a source of happiness, in different ways by different characters-by the man of science—the poet-the divine-the hind-the fop-the beauty-the usurper-the warrior -the swearer and blasphemer.-Other trifling human pursuits described :-The falconer-the hunter-the antiquarian-the naturalist-and the astrologer.-The sceptic or unbeliever.-Reproof and instructions of Wisdom.-Lessons taught by the natural world-by the faithful ministers of Christ-by the Bible-by sacred bards-by the judgments of God.-Men, notwithstanding, rush on to ruin.-The original Curse.-Wisdom, as defined by God and by the world-by the Bible, and by the multitude-by the learned.-Remorse :-Its agonies described.-Disappointment :-Sketch of one of its victims-and his happy deliverance. -A Death-bed and its lessons.-Earth possessed genuine native joys.

THE

COURSE OF TIME.

BOOK III.

BEHOLD'ST thou yonder, on the crystal sea,
Beneath the throne of God, an image fair,
And in its hand a mirror large and bright?
'Tis Truth, immutable, eternal Truth,
In figure emblematical expressed.

Before it, Virtue stands, and smiling sees,
Well pleased, in her reflected soul, no spot.
The sons of heaven, archangel, seraph, saint,
There daily read their own essential worth ;
And as they read, take place among the just;
Or high, or low, each as his value seems.
There each his certain interest learns, his true
Capacity; and going thence, pursues,
Unerringly, through all the tracts of thought,
As God ordains, best ends by wisest means.

The Bible held this mirror's place on earth. But, few would read, or, reading, saw themselves. The chase was after shadows, phantoms strange, That in the twilight walked of Time, and mocked The eager hunt, escaping evermore:

Yet with so many promises and looks

Of gentle sort, that he whose arms returned Empty a thousand times, still stretched them out, And grasping, brought them back again unfilled.

In rapid outline thou hast heard of man,
His death, his offered life, that life by most
Despised, the Star of God, the Bible, scorned,
That else to happiness and heaven had led,
And saved my lyre from narrative of wo.
Hear now more largely of the ways of Time,
The fond pursuits and vanities of men.

"Love God, love truth, love virtue, and be happy:" These were the words first uttered in the ear Of every being rational made, and made For thought, or word, or deed accountable. Most men the first forgot, the second none. Whatever path they took, by hill or vale, By night or day, the universal wish,

The aim, and sole intent, was happiness.

But, erring from the heaven-appointed path,

Strange tracks indeed they took through barren

wastes,

And up the sandy mountain climbing toiled,
Which pining lay beneath the curse of God,
And nought produced. Yet did the traveller look,
And point his eye before him greedily,

As if he saw some verdant spot, where grew

The heavenly flower, where sprung the well of life,
Where undisturbed felicity reposed;

Though Wisdom's eye no vestige could discern,
That Happiness had ever passed that way.

Wisdom was right, for still the terms remained Unchanged, unchangeable, the terms on which True peace was given to man, unchanged as God, Who, in his own essential nature, binds Eternally to virtue happiness,

Nor lets them part through all his universe.

Philosophy, as thou shalt hear, when she

Shall have her praise, her praise and censure too, Did much, refining and exalting man;

But could not nurse a single plant that bore

True happiness. From age to age she toiled,
Shed from her eyes the mist that dimmed them still,
Looked forth on man, explored the wild and tame;
The savage and polite, the sea and land,

And starry heavens; and then retired far back
To meditation's silent shady seat;

And there sat pale, and thoughtfully, and weighed,
With wary, most exact, and scrupulous care,
Man's nature, passions, hopes, propensities,

Relations, and pursuits, in reason's scale;

And searched and weighed, and weighed and

searched again;

And many a fair and goodly volume wrote,
That seemed well worded too, wherein were found

Uncountable receipts, pretending each,

If carefully attended to, to cure

Mankind of folly, to root out the briers,

And thorns, and weeds, that choked the growth of

joy;

And shewing, too, in plain and decent phrase,
Which sounded much like wisdom's, how to plant,
To shelter, water, culture, prune, and rear
The tree of happiness; and oft their plans
Were tried; but still the fruit was green and sour.

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