felf, investigates closer, fcrutinizes deeper, tries himfelf upon founder principles, and pronounces more impartially on the value of himself and his actions. There he will neither be led into error by the dread of betraying himself before others, nor by the hope of obtaining from them a more advantageous opinion of him. There felf-conceit gives way to rational felf-love. There nothing is more natural than for a man to ask his own heart: Am I really that for which I am taken? The wife, the virtuous, the, fincere, the upright, the beneficent, the well-di pofed, the useful man, which I am reputed to be by my friends? Have I done fo much good, have I performed so much service to society as they ascribe to me? Am I actually exempt from thofe failings, which I know how to conceal in company, and from which I am thought to be exempt? Are these failings fo infignificant, are they fo unavoidable, fo infeparable from human infirmity, as they are faid to be? Can I reflect on myself and on my moral condition with as much complacency, and be as fatisfied with myself and my conduct, when I am not difturbed in reflecting on them, when nothing beguiles me, nobody flatters me, when I confider what I am and what I do, in the clear light of truth, in the presence of him who sees in fecret? Oh how totally different, my dear brethren, do we not appear to ourselves, how many weak places in our heart, how many infractions in our virtue, how many defects in our beft difpofitions and actions, do

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we not then perceive, which we almost always overlook in the ordinary diffipations of our lives, or only difcern them, as it were, in the fhade! And must not such discoveries as these be of ineftimable moment to us, muft they not render folitude, which enables us to make them, delightful to us?

But folitude must become still dearer to us, if we confider, in the fourth place, that we there feel the being of God and his nearness, far more intimately and acutely than it is poffible for us in other circumstances to do. Indeed he is every where prefent, every where near, near to every one of us, he pervades and animates all, he works in all and by all; and the sentiment of him never abfolutely forfakes the wife man and the christian, even in the noise and hurry of an active and focial life. He has the Lord alway before him and walks continually in his prefence. But how frequently will this greatest, this moft bleffed of all fentiments, be obfcured by the unavoidable distractions and bufineffes which engrofs our whole attention! How feldom can we entertain it properly, or dwell long enough upon it! How much oftener is it then only like a feeble, tranfient gleam, or the cold, unfruitful light of the moon, than the strong beams of the fun, warming, invigo rating, illuminating, and enlivening nature!

No, only in the filence of folitude, only in those folemn hours and moments, when all around us is" ftill, when we hear nothing in nature but the voice of God, the voice of God in our hearts, the voice

of God in his word, only there do we learn to observe the revelations of the deity within us and without us, fee ourselves furrounded with the effects of his power and goodnefs, and cordially feel that he is not far from every one of us, that he is all in all. There our reflections are perfpicuous and certain: If I be, then God is; if I be and operate here, then God is and operates here, by whom I fubfift and live. Am I encompaffed by creatures all around me, by beauties, by bleffings and powers? Then am I encompassed all around by God, the father of thefe creatures, the fource of thefe beauties and powers, the giver and preferver of these bounties. Where force, where motion, where life, where intelligence, where freedom and activity is, there is God, there he reveals himself, there he acts! How nigh, how inexpreffibly nigh then must he not be to me, and to every thing that is and lives and thinks and moves! What can I be and think and will and do and enjoy, that does not afford me a demonftration of the existence and the prefence of God, without whom nothing is and nothing will be, nothing can be, and nothing happen? No, I have no need to foar into the heights of heaven, to fearch for him, the Omniprefent, nor to dive into the abyffes of the deep, neither to look for him in the fplendor of the fun nor in the darkness of the night, neither through the boundless regions of the fky nor in the temples of his votaries, neither in this nor in that peculiar fpot of his immeafurable domain;

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domain; he is in the height and in the depth, in the splendor of the fun and in the obscurity of night, among the hymning choirs of fuperior fpirits, and in the midst of his worshipers on earth; he is here and at the fame time there, in me and in each of his creatures, is every where, and every where equally great, equally powerful, equally good, every where perfection and love itself! Nothing can conceal me from his infpection, nothing deprive me of his vivifying and bleffing influence, nothing of his paternal tenderness; nothing remove and part me from him, without whom I fhould not be, and without whofe power and will I could not continue for a moment! And now when these thoughts are ftrong and vigorous in me; when I thus feel the nearness of my God, my creator and father; feel that I live and move and am in him: what a light muft not then diffufe itfelf upon all things round me, what brightness in my mind! What are the cares and what the troubles that will not, then vanifh away! What ftrife of the paffions will not then fubfide! What tumult`not fink into peace! What hopes, what affurance, what joy will not animate and pervade my frame! What a foretaste not bless me of purer and everlasting pleafure! And fhall not the folitude that promises and procures me fuch advantages be dear to me?

O folemn filence, be thou hailed of me! Hail, facred folitude! facred to wisdom, to self-poffeffion, to fupernal joys, facred to the complacency of God:

ever be thou bleffed of me, ever let me find thee the restorative, the comfort, the folace of my foul! Take me into thy bofom, when stunned with the noise of the world and weary of its pleasures, I am only alive to my intellectual wants! Oh fhed thy mild reviving influence on me, when I feel the weariness of the traveller, overtaken by night, while yet a great way from the place he endeavoured to reach, or has had the misfortune to ftray from his path! Shield me from the derifion of the vain, from the unmerited scorn and the uncharitable judgment of the envious, from the melancholy view of the follies, the crimes, and the miferies, which fo often dif figure the scene of bufy and focial life! Be thou my fanctuary and refting place against the hoftile attacks of infidelity and doubt; dart light around me when my path is obfcure; appease my swelling heart, abate the rage of every wild and furious passion, establish ferenity in my breast; give me to feel the intimate prefence of my creator and father, to taste the ravishing joys of exalted devotion, and be to me the gate of heaven!

But, wouldst thou, my chriftian friend and brother, wouldst thou that folitude fhould be and procure to thee what it is and procures to the wife man and the christian; then let the following maxims of prudence be recommended to thee in the use of it.

Seek not folitude from difguft or mifanthropy; not that thou mayft give freer fcope to thy fullen and gloomy reflections, or the furious fallies of thy wounded

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