ference perhaps to a string of beads, a hatchet, or a musket, as are to be found in wealthier communities.'

. . The savage is commonly found to be covetous, frequently rapacious, when his present inclination impels him to seek any object which he needs, or which his fancy is set on. He is not indeed so steady or so provident, in his pursuit of gain, as the civilized man; but this is from the general unsteadiness and improvidence of his character,-not from his being engrossed in higher pursuits. What keeps him poor, in addition to want of skill and insecurity of property, is not a philosophical contempt of riches, but a love of sluggish torpor and of present gratification. The same may be said of such persons as constitute the dregs of a civilized community; they are idle, thoughtless, improvident; but thievish. Lamentable as it is to see, as we may, for instance, in our own country, multitudes of Beings of such high qualifications and such high destination as Man, absorbed in the pursuit of merely external and merely temporal objects-occupied in schemes for attaining wealth and worldly aggrandizement, without any higher views in pursuing them, we must remember that the savage is not above such a life, but below it. It is not from preferring virtue to wealth -the goods of the mind to those of fortune-the next world to the present-that he takes so little thought for the morrow; but, from want of forethought and of habitual self-command. The civilized man, too often, directs these qualities to an unworthy object; the savage, universally, is deficient in the qualities themselves. The one is a stream, flowing, too often, in a wrong channel, and which needs to have its course altered; the other is a stagnant pool.'

'There is one antecedent presumption that the advancement in national wealth should be, on the whole, favourable to moral improvement, from what we know of the divine dispensations, both ordinary and extraordinary. I am aware what caution is called for in any attempt to reason à priori from our notions of the character and designs of the Supreme Being. But in this case there is a clear analogy before us. We know that God placed the human species in such a situation, and endued them with such faculties and propensities, as would infallibly tend to the advancement of society in wealth, and in all the arts of life; instead of either creating Man a different kind of Being, or

leaving him in that wild and uninstructed state, from which he could never have emerged. Now if the natural consequence of this advancement be a continual progress from bad to worse -if the increase of wealth, and the development of the intellectual powers, tend, not to the improvement, but rather to the depravation, of the moral character-we may safely pronounce this to be at variance with all analogy,-a complete reversal of every other appointment that we see throughout

creation.

'And it is completely at variance with the revealed Will of God. For, the great impediments to the progress I am speaking of are, war, and dissension of every kind,—insecurity of property-indolence, and neglect of providing for ourselves, and for those dependent on us. Now, God has forbidden Man to kill, and to steal; He has inculcated on him gentleness, honesty, submission to lawful authority, and industry in providing for his own household. If therefore the advancement in national wealth,—which is found to be, by the appointment of Providence, the result of obedience to these precepts-if, I say, this advancement naturally tends to counteract that improvement of the moral charac‘er, which the same God has pointed out to us as the great business of this life, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion, that He has given contradictory commands,—that He has directed us to pursue a course of action, which leads to an end the very opposite of what we are required by Himself to aim at.'

But the opposite conclusion is, surely, much more in accordance with reason and experience, as with every rational wish, that as the Most High has evidently formed society with a tendency to advancement in national wealth, so, He has designed and fitted us to advance, by means of that, in virtue, and true wisdom, and happiness.

'Believe not much them that seem to despise riches.'

The declaimers on the incompatibility of wealth and virtue are mere declaimers, and nothing more. For, you will often find them, in the next breath, condemning or applauding every measure or institution, according to its supposed tendency to increase or diminish wealth. You will find them not only readily

accepting wealth themselves from any honourable source, and anxious to secure from poverty their children and all most dear to them, (for this might be referred to the prevalence of passion over principle), but even offering up solemn prayers to Heaven for the prosperity of their native country; and contemplating with joy a flourishing condition of her agriculture, manufactures, or commerce; in short, of the sources of her wealth. Seneca's discourses in praise of poverty would, I have no doubt, be rivalled by many writers of this island, if one half of the revenues he drew from the then inhabitants of it, by lending them money at high interest, were proposed as a prize. Such declaimers against wealth resemble the Harpies of Virgil, seeking to excite disgust at the banquet of which they are themselves eager to partake.

'Have no abstract nor friarly contempt of them.'

The goods of this world are not at all a trifling concern to Christians, considered as Christians. Whether, indeed, we ourselves shall have enjoyed a large or a small share of them, will be of no importance to us a hundred years hence; but it will be of the greatest importance, whether we shall have employed the faculties and opportunities granted to us, in the increase and diffusion of those benefits among others. For, in regard to wealth, as well as all those objects which the great moralist of antiquity places in the class of things good in themselves, (áπλōç άyalà), more depends, as he himself remarks,' on the use we make of these bounties of Providence, than on the advantages themselves. They are, in themselves, goods; and it is our part, instead of affecting ungratefully to slight or to complain of God's gifts, to endeavour to make them goods to us, (huir ȧyalà), by studying to use them aright, and to promote, through them, the best interests of ourselves and our fellowcreatures. Every situation in which Man can be placed has, along with its own peculiar advantages, its own peculiar difficulties and trials also; which we are called on to exert our faculties in providing against. The most fertile soil does not

1 Arist. Eth. b. v. c. 3.

necessarily bear the most abundant harvest; its weeds, if neglected, will grow the rankest. And the servant who has received but one talent, if he put it out to use, will fare better than he who has been entrusted with five, if he squander or bury them. But still, this last does not suffer because he received five talents; but because he has not used them to advantage.

I

ESSAY XXXV. OF PROPHECIES.

MEAN not to speak of divine prophecies, nor of heathen oracles, nor of natural predictions, but only of prophecies that have been of certain memory, and from hidden causes. Saith the Pythonissa' to Saul, 'To-morrow thou and thy sons shall be with me.'" Virgil hath these verses from Homer:

'At domus Æneæ cunctis dominabitur oris,
Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis :'

a prophecy, as it seems, of the Roman empire. Seneca the tragedian hath these verses:

"Venient annis

Sæcula seris, quibus Oceanus
Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens
Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos
Detegat orbes; nec sit terris
Ultima Thule :'4

The daughter of

a prophecy of the discovery of America. Polycrates dreamed that Jupiter bathed her father, and Apollo anointed him; and it came to pass that he was crucified in an open place, where the sun made his body run with sweat, and the rain washed it." Philip of Macedon" dreamed he sealed up his wife's belly; whereby he did expound it, that his wife should be barren; but Aristander, the soothsayer, told him his wife was with child, because men do not use to seal vessels that are empty. A phantom that appeared to M. Brutus in his tent, said to him, 'Philippis iterum me videbis." Tiberius said to Galba, Tu quoque, Galba, degustabis imperium.'s In Vespasian's time there went a prophecy in the East, that those that should come forth of Judea should reign over the world; which, though it may be was meant of our Saviour, yet Tacitus

1 Pythonissa. Pythoness.

2

1 Sam. xxviii. 19.

3 Över every shore the house of Æneas shall reign; his children's children, and their posterity likewise.'—Æneid, iii. 97.

There shall come a time, in later ages, when Ocean shall relax his chains, and a vast continent appear; and a pilot shall find new worlds, and Thule shall be no more earth's bound.'-Sen. Med. xi. 375.

Hesiod, iii. 24.

6 Plut. Vit. Alexan. 2.

7 Thou shalt see me again at Philippi.'-Appian, Bell. Civ. iv. 134. 8Thou, also, Galba, shalt taste of empire.'-Stat. Vit. Galba.