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passion for elevation and grandeur, and let him humbly rest in that mean situation where it hath pleased providence to place him. Let him moderate his love of riches, and let him patiently submit to poverty and indigence. After he shall have thus submitted to the laws of his Creator, he may expect another period, in which his desires to be great will be satisfied.

His miseries are no more enigmatical; they exercise his virtue, and will be rewarded with glory.

His life ceases to be mysterious. It is a state of probation, a time of trial, a period given him to make choice of an eternity of happiness, or an eternity of misery.

His death is no longer a mystery, and it is impossible that either his life or his death should be enigmas, for the one unfolds the other. The life of man is not an enigma, because it tends to death, and death verifies, proves and demonstrates the idea we have given of life.

We conclude then, that the destination of man is one great barrier against imaginary schemes of happiness. Change the face of society; subvert the order of the world: put despotical government in the place of a democracy; peace in the place of war, plenty in the place of scarcity, and you will alter nothing but the surface of human things, the substance will always continue the same. The thing, that hath been, is that which shall be; and that, which is done, is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the sun.

2. The school of the world opens to us a second source of demonstrations. Enter this school, and you will renounce all vain schemes of felicity.

There you will learn that the greatest part of the pleasures of the world, of which you entertain such

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fine notions, are only phantoms, which seem indeed at a distance to have some solidity and consistence, but which vanish the moment you approach and try to enjoy them.

There you will learn that the extensive views, the great designs, the plans of immortality and glory, which revolve in the mind of an ambitious man, keep him continually upon the rack, trouble his repose, deprive him of sleep, and render him insensible to all the pleasures of life.

There you will understand that ae friends, who attach themselves to us when we have favors to be stow, are venal souls, who put up their esteem to auction, and sell it to the highest bidder; bloodsuckers who live upon the substance of those, round whom they twist and twine; that the sacred names of friendship, tenderness, zeal, and devotedness, are nothing in their mouths but empty sounds, to which they affix no ideas.

There you will find that those passions, which men of high rank have the power of fully gratifying, are sources of trouble and remorse, and that all the pleasures of gratification is nothing in comparison of the pain of one regret caused by the remembrance of it.

There you will learn that the busbandman, who all day follows the plough or the cart, and who finds at home in the evening a family of love, where innocent and affectionate children surround a table furnished with plain and simple diet, is incomparibly more happy than the favorite of victory and fortune, who rides in a superb carriage attended by a splendid retinue, who sits at a table, where art and nature seem to vie with each other in lavishing out their treasures, who is surrounded with courtiers watching their fate in the cast of his eye, or the signal of his hand.

In a word, you will there understand, that what may seem the most fortunate events in your favor will contribute very little to your happiness.

3. But if the school of the world is capable of teaching us to renounce our fanciful projects of felicity, Solomon is the man in the world the most learned in this school, and the most able to give us intelligence. Accordingly we have made his declaration the third source of our demonstrations.

When your preachers declaim against the vanity of human things, you secretly say to yourselves, their judgment merits very little regard. You think that they, generally educated in silence and retirement, having breathed only the dusty air of schools and libraries, are unacquainted with that world against which they declain. I will not now examine this reproach. People of our order, I grant, are very apt to form false ideas of the world. But take our word for one truth, for which we could allege a thousand proofs, that is, that if they magnify worldly objects, it is because they are strangers to the world. A hermit, who hath spent all his days in dens and deserts; a nun sequestered from society in her childhood, and buried in the cells and solitary walks of a convent; a man, who hath grown grey over his books; people of this kind generally imagine that the world is full of pleasure, and that the demon of voluptuousness hath strewed all the paths with flowers and perfumes in favor of such as travel them. I know no one more proper to teach us a good course of morality than an old reformed courtier, who chooses to retire after he hath spent the prime of his life in dissipation.

On this principle, what an impression ought the declaration of Solomon to make on our minds? But what an idea doth he give us of all the good

things, of which he had made an experiment ?. And this also, saith he of each particular, in the catalogue of the whole, and this also is vanity. This word seems to me very remarkable, THIS also, and this also is vanity.

Few men are so fascinated with the world as not to know that some things in it are vain and vexatious. Most men say of some particular object this is vanity but very few are so rational as to comprehend all the good things of this life in the same class, and to say of each, as Solomon did, this also is vanity. A poor peasant, whose ruinous cottage doth not keep out the weather, will readily say, my cottage is vanity: but he imagines, there is a great deal of solidity in the happiness of him, who sleeps in a superb palace. A man, who is admitted only into a small circle of company hardly known in society, will say without hesitation, my circle is vanity: but he fancies there is a great deal of solidity in the happiness of those, who are admitted into circles, or shall I rather say, into that chaos, where jews and greeks, barbarians and scy. thians, people of all nations, and of every religion seem to contribute to a general disorder and confusion?

Solomon knew all these conditions of life, and it was because he knew them all that he declaimed against them and had you like him known them all by experience, you would form such an idea as he did of the whole. See what a list he makes, and observe, he says that of each, which he said of the whole, This also is vanity. What! Is it vain to possess great riches? Yes, He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; this is also vanity. What! Is it in vain to become a celebrated author, a model of erudition? Yes, saith he, of making many books there is no end, and much

study is a weariness of the flesh. This also is vanity. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.

4. To reflections on the experience of Solomon add your own, and to this purpose recollect the history of your life. Remember the time when sighing and wishing for the condition in which providence hath since placed you, you considered it as the centre of felicity, and verily thought could you obtain that state you should wish for nothing more. You have obtained it. Do you think now as you did then?

You, who formerly had hardly enough to subsist on, now possess enough for your subsistence, and almost enough for your wishes, have you less inclination now to augment your superfluities, than you had then to acquire a maintenance ?

You, who have been raised from the meanest and most obscure employment in society to one of the most conspicuous and brilliant offices, do you feel yourself less disposed to have no equal, than you did formerly to have fewer masters ?

You, who are now come to manhood through a sickly youth, in which you did not expect to live half your days, have you less desire to arrive at a hoary old age, than you had formerly to advance to manhood?

Realize all the fanciful schemes of happiness, that revolve in your minds, and you will find that the good things you acquire will leave you as hungry, and as void as these do which you now actually possess; and that the more you enter into the spirit of this supposition the more will you be astonished at the exact conformities there are between conditions, which at first sight appear to you so extremely different.

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