plexity after others, which can only be discovered with great labour, only fparingly, enjoyed, from which they cannot always, from which they can but feldom draw undisturbed, can never entirely flake their thirst, and often run the hazard of taking in bitterness and death with the waters of them. I will speak without a metaphor. Mankind too often feek their principal pleasure, their whole felicity, in what is called the great world, in numerous and brilliant companies, in diftracting and fafcinating diverfions, in extensive connections with fuch perfons as are diflinguifhed by their rank, their train, their opulence, their luxuries, and their magnifi cence, and live fumptuoufly every day, or rather 'feem as if they lived. Too often do they run from one fuch glittering circle to another, from one fuch company of counterfeit freedom and joy to another, in hopes of affuaging their thirst after pleasure and happiness. But how feldom do they find what they feek! How much feldomer do they find it fo pure, fo complete, as they expected! How oft do they there mistake the fhadow for the fubftance, appearance for reality, and find themselves lamentably and fhamefully deceived in their moft flattering hopes! And how much more easily and fatisfactorily, how much more fincerely and completely might they have found and enjoyed this pleasure and happiness, if they had been contented to look for it, not fo far off, but nearer at hand; not in noife, but in quiet; not in what depends on mere accident,

accident, but is in their own power; in fhort, if they had fought for it in domeftic life?

Yes, in this little unrenowned circle, there is far more real, folid joy, than in grand and brilliant companies; more happiness and greater variety of it is to be found in this fmall round of employments and pleasures than on the vast theatre of glaring shows and tumultuous diverfions. Here, in the enjoyment of domestic happiness, it is that the wife man, the christian, principally feeks and finds refreshment, recreation, and pleasure. Here even our Lord, whose taste and fentiments were in all refpects fo humane and generous, fought and found them. Wearied by the labours of the day, and the contradictions of his enemies, he left them, as our text informs us, and went out of the city into Bethany, there to participate in the peace and comfort of a family united together by the tendereft affection, the family of Lazarus and his fifters, and to increafe their fatisfactions by his prefence and converfe. This humble abode of domeftic happiness he preferred to the lofty palaces of the great, to the festivities of the rich and the riotous mirth of the voluptuous. Happy they, who in this refpect likewise are fo minded as Jefus was! They can never be deficient in real felicity.

Yes, my dear brethren, great, uncommonly great, is the value of domestic happiness! But infinitely greater to them who know it by experience, than to fuch as are only acquainted with it from description.

May

May I be enabled to do juftice to it at leaft in my representation! In order to this, let us enter upon two inquiries. The first, how should domestic life be conftituted, that it may have a great value? The other, what gives it this value; or, wherein does it confift?

Domestic life, like all other external goods, is not neceffarily and of itself, but only under certain conditions, in particular circumftances, a real advantage and a fource of actual felicity. Home is but too frequently rendered the feat of tiresomeness and disgust; the scene of low and ungoverned paffions; the abode of vexation, of ill-humour, of various diffentions, of petulance and malice; not feldom an actual place of torment. This is always more or lefs the cafe, where wisdom and virtue are not of the party, and do not animate the bufineffes and pleasures of domeftic life. Only there where wisdom and virtue dwell, where intelligent and good perfons live together, only there dwell peace, fatisfaction, and joy; it is they alone that render either a cottage or a palace the receptacle of pleasure; only by their means is any family, whether great or small, rendered capable of happiness. For only the intelligent and good can tell what folid happiness implies; none but they have either the taste or fentiment proper for it; it is they alone that estimate things by their real value, and know how to enjoy above all things what is true and beautiful and good, unesteemed and unknown as it may be in the great world, and among

fuch

fuch as are not fufceptible of the more delicate fenfations. To them a word that overflows from the fullness of the heart, a look that indicates the foul, an inconfiderable but guilelefs action, an unimportant kindness but performed from real affection, a calm and filent fentiment of friendship, a free effufion of one's thoughts and sentiments into the bofom of one's family, is of more worth than the reiterated proteftations of civility and regard, than all the flattering encomiums and blandishments, than all the friendly miens and gestures, than all the splendid entertainments in which the glory and happiness of the generality of large companies confist.

Wherever domestic happiness is found, it fhews us persons who are connected together by real, intrinsic love and friendship, who live entirely by each other, and who feek their happiness, their honour, and their force, in the mutual union of their hearts. Only to perfons of this defcription can and must every thing be of importance which each has and fays and does and enjoys, how he is inclined, and whatever befalls him. They alone know how to confider the advantages of one with undeviating complacency; to obferve the infirmities and failings of another without diflike; to reprove the indifcretions of a third with inoffenfive gentleness; to underftand the looks of each; to prevent the wants and wishes of all; mutually to comply with the defigns of each other; to harmonize with the feelings of the reft; and to rejoice heartily in all the fucceffes,

even the most inconfiderable, that happen to each other. Wherever frigidity of temper and untractablenefs, where jealousy and envy prevail, there no real happiness is poffible, in the narrow circle of daily intercourse.

Laftly, domestic happiness fuppofes a taste for truth, for nature, for a noble fimplicity, for ferene repofe; as they are in contrast with error and art, studied and forced pleafures, and the more oftentatious and poignant diverfions. That pure and generous taste alone can give any value to the comforts of domestic life, and, to fuch as understand and enjoy it, render all its concerns important and delightful, as the fources of fatisfaction and pleasure. For, in this cafe, they arise, not fo much from the object, as from the eye that beholds them and - the heart that feels them; not fo much from the importance of the tranfactions and incidents themselves, as from the natural and fpontaneous manner in which they arife, and the pleasing interest taken in them. To perfons of a found judgment and an uncorrupted heart, the chearful countenance of the spouse, the lifping of the infants, the mirthful sports of the children, the fight of reafon in its bud and in its bloffom; to them the earnest curiofity of one, the innocent vivacity of another, the growth and improvement of a third, the contentedness of all, is a scene far preferable, with all its privacy and fimplicity, to any other however intricately conducted or fplendidly performed; to them the filent

and