ELE. He promises, but comes not.
CHO. Things of moment

Require deliberation and delay.

ELE. O! but did I delay to fave ORESTES?

CHо. He boafts a noble nature, and will ne'er Forget his friends: be confident.

ELE. I am;

Were I not fo, I had not lived till now:

[The buftle of the Play now commences.]

SECT.

SECT. XV.

CONSOLATIONS FROM CHRISTIANITY.

As Chriftians, we are able to employ more powerful perfuafives against excefs of forrow. Many are the fayings of the wife

In ancient and in modern books inroll'd,
Extolling PATIENCE as the trueft fortitude:
And to the bearing well of all calamities,
All chances incident to man's frail life.-
Many are the confolatory writs, form'd
With ftudied argument, and much perfuafion,
But with th' afflicted in his pangs fuch founds
Little prevail, or rather feem a tune

Harsh, and of diffonant mood from his complaint,
Unless he feel within

Some fource of CONSOLATION FROM ABOVE,
Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,

And fainting spirits uphold.

MILTON.

When a feeling heart is oppreffed with fome painful disease in his body, or wrung with fome fore diftrefs of mind, every former comfort, at that moment, ufually goes for nothing. Life is beheld in all its gloom. A dark cloud feems to hang over it ; and it is too often reviled, as no other than a fcene of wretchedness and forrow. But this is to

be unjust to human life, as well as ungrateful to

its Author.-Let me only defire you to think how many days, how many months, how many years, you have paffed in health, and eafe, and comfort; how many pleasurable feelings you have had; how many friends you have enjoyed; how many bleffings, in short, of different kinds you have tafted; and you will be forced to acknowledge, that more materials of thanksgiving present themselves than of lamentation and complaint.-Thefe bleffings, you will fay, are paft. But though past, ought they to be gone from your remembrance? Do they merit no place in the comparative estimate of the goods and evils of your ftate? Did you, could you, expect, that in this mutable world, any temporal joy was to laft for ever? Has gratitude no influence to form your minds to a calm acquiescence in your BENEFACTOR's appointments? What can be more reasonable than to fay, "Having in former times received fo many good

things from the hand of GOD, fhall I not now, "without defpondence, receive the few evils " which it hath pleased him to fend?”—If we are deprived of friends whom we tenderly loved, are there not still fome remaining from whom we may expect much comfort? If our bodies are afflicted with fore disease, have we not reason to be thankful that our mind continues vigorous and entire; that we are in a fituation to look around us for whatever can afford us eafe; and that after the decay of this frail and mouldering 'VOL. IV. tabernacle,

G

tabernacle, we can look forward to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ?-In the midst of all diftreffes there remains to every fincere Chriftian, that mixture of pure and genuine confolation which fprings from the promises and hopes of a future life. Confider, I befeech you, what a fingular diftinction this makes in your fituation, beyond the ftate of thofe who, under the various troubles of life, are left without hope; without any thing to look up to, but a train of unknown causes and accidents, in which they fee no light nor comfort.-Thank the FATHER OF MERCIES, that into all the evils he fends, he infufes joyful hope, that the sufferings of the prefent time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that fhall be revealed in the end to the virtuous and good.

Have we fuftained the greatest of all loffes, that of a child, reflect, that if it is our lofs, it is his gain that he yet liveth *, that this life is but the threshold, the portal, the entrance to a palace, the prelude to a better play, and that his happiness is as complete, as our mifery is great. Let us turn

The Christian religion teaches us, that the moment of the feparation of the foul from the body, that the foul is inftantly embodied and received up into Paradife. Hence the appearance of Mofes and Elias in an embodied form. Hence the expref

fion of our Saviour, "this day shalt thou be with me in Para"dife." Hence the vifion of St. Paul, "I was caught up into "the third heaven, whether in the body, or out of the body, I "cannot tell, God knoweth."

our

our eyes from earth to heaven, from the perishable body to that which endureth for ever; and even whilst we are heavy with affliction, let us fmile, with our eyes turned upwards, and fay, "It is thy will, I fubmit.-He is happy.-I would not with him back to a troublesome world."I foon fhall follow after him.-The mortal "hath put on immortality.-We fhall then meet, never, never, to be feparated more."