would not have accorded with my plan: the test of good judgment, in the selection, will be, not how much might have been advantageously added, but what ought to have been left out. Many very familiar passages have, for obvious reasons, not been inserted; I have also deprived myself of real pleasure by not indulging more in quotations from the ancient classical, and the Italian writers: I have not so indulged, in the hope that this unpretending volume may find its way, and be of some use, to persons not very conversant with the languages of those authors. Translations have been much avoided: how very few instances exist, where the genuine spirit of an author has not considerably evaporated, and its strength and beauty been diminished, in translation, even by the ablest! Passages from Horace and Terence, especially, might have been selected, almost without number, for a work like this. But who ever succeeded in translating Horace? Who could ever infuse into any other language, with the same terseness and felicity of diction, the vigour of thought, the beauty and accuracy of description, the critical acumen, and the deep, thorough insight into human nature which the works of that author possess? My anxious endeavour, in discharging, what I conceived to be my duty, has been to select such passages as might tend to confirm religious and moral principles; to incite to active and honourable exertion in the discharge of the duties of life; to calm the inquietude of the sufferer of mental or bodily anguish; to open and expand the social affections, so as to lead to the love and practice of real benevolence; to offer useful rules for guidance through life; to raise the idea of moral excellence, by exhibiting some of the characters of the truly great, the good, and the wise; and, lastly, to gratify the reader by presenting to the mind's eye some of those beautiful images and descriptions, with which the possessors of genius have presented us. Should any, even the smallest, of these objects be accomplished by the production of this work, I shall never regret the time and attention afforded, and I shall enjoy the heartfelt satisfaction of having contributed my humble mite towards advancing, what I believe to be, the true interests of human nature. J. S. C. P. S. The attention of the reader is requested to the Addenda, p. 342., where will be found some passages, perhaps not unworthy of attention, which were inadvertently omitted in the body of the work, or were selected too late. for insertion under their proper titles. RESULTS OF READING. CHAPTER I. THE DEITY. I HAD rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than believe that this universal frame is without a mind.1 None deny that there is a God, but those for whom it maketh that there were no God.2 Something, of necessity, must be eternal, otherwise nothing could have been at all; other things show themselves to have proceeded from the wisdom, power, and goodness of One-whence that One is eternal; and so all nations have concluded that God is.3 To believe a God is to believe the existence of all possible good and perfection in the universe; it is to believe that things are as they should be, and that the world is so well framed and governed, as that the whole system thereof could not possibly have been better. . . . There is nothing, which can not be hoped for, by a good man, from the Deity; whatsoever happiness his being is capable of, and such things as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor can now enter into the heart of man to conceive.1 The visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature, who will but seriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a Deity.2/ It is as certain that there is a God as that the opposite angles, made by the intersection of two straight lines, are equal.3 The ordinary, and, I believe, the just idea entertained of God, is, that he is an infinite, eternal, incorporeal, and all-perfect Being." 4 I believe that whoever turns his thoughts inward will evidently know, without being able to have the shadow of a doubt of it, that from all eternity there has existed an intelligent Being." We have not, as it appears to me, a greater certainty of any matter of fact than of the existence of the Deity. It is at least equal to the certainty we have of external objects, and of the constancy and uniformity of the operations of nature, upon the faith of which our whole schemes of life are adjusted. We have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of any thing our senses have 1 Cudworth. 2 Locke. 3 Locke. 4 Locke. 5 Locke. 6 Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, 336. (1751.) |