and connections, gives fullest scope to the tender and manly passions, and in his public character and connections serves his country and mankind in the most upright and disinterested manner; who, in fine, enjoys the goods of life with the greatest moderation, bears its ills with the greatest fortitude, and in those various circumstances of duty and trial maintains and expresses an habitual reverence and love of God; that man is the worthiest character in this stage of life: passes through it with the highest satisfaction and dignity, and paves the way to the most easy and honourable old age. The happiest old age. Finally, he who, in the decline of life, pre serves himself most exempt from the chagrins, incident to that period; cherishes the most equal and kind affections; uses his experience, wisdom, and authority, in the most fatherly and venerable manner; acts under a sense of the inspection, and with a view to the approbation, of his maker; is daily aspiring after immortality, and ripening apace for it; and, having sustained his part with integrity and consistency to the last, quits the stage with a modest and graceful triumph; this is the best, this is the happiest old man. The happiest life. Therefore that whole life of youth, manhood, and old age, which is spent after this manner, is the best and happiest life. The good man. "He, who has the strongest original propension to such sentiments and dispositions, has the best natural temper." "He, who cultivates them with the greatest care, is the most virtuous character." The virtu ous; The wise; 66 He, who knows to indulge them in the most discreet and consistent manner, is the wisest." "And he, who, with the largest capacities, has has the best opportunities of indulging them, The fortu is the most fortunate." "6 to act in a con nate man. A life according to nature. "To form our life upon this plan, is to follow nature," that is to say, formity to our original constitution, and in a subordination to the eternal order of things. And, by acting in this manner (so benevolently we are formed by our common parent!) we effectually promote and secure our highest interest." Thus, at last it appears (and who would not rejoice in so divine a constitution?) that "duty, wisdom, and happiness coincide, and are one." Duty, wis dom, and happiness are one. To conclude: "virtue is the highest ex- The sum and perfection ercise and improvement of reason; the inte- of virtue. grity, the harmony and just balance of affection; the health, strength, and beauty of the mind." "The perfection of virtue is to give reason free scope; to obey the authority of conscience with alacrity; to exercise the defensive passions with fortitude; the private with temperance; the public with justice; and all of them with prudence; that is, in a due proportion to each other, and an intire subserviency to a calm diffusive benevolence:to adore and love God with a disinterested and unrivalled affection; and to acquiesce in his providence with a joyful resignation. Every approach to this standard is an approach to perfection and happiness. And every deviation from it, a deviation to vice and misery." From this whole review of human nature, the A noble and joyful corolmost divine and joyful of all truths breaks lary. upon us with full evidence and lustre; "that man is liberally provided with senses and capacities for enjoying happiness; furnished with means for attaining it; taught by his nature where it lies; prompted by his passions within, and his condition without, powerfully to seek it; and, |