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attract the sight of all men, that it is in no man's power not to be pleased with it. Nor can any aversion or malignity towards the object irreconcile the eyes from looking upon it: as a man who bath an envenomed and mortal hatred against another who hath a most graceful and beautiful person, cannot hinder his eye from being delighted to behold that person; though that delight is far from going to the heart; as no man's malice towards an excellent musician can keep his ear from being pleased with his music. No man can ask how or why men come to be delighted with peace, but he who is without natural bowels; who is deprived of all those affections, which can only make life pleasant to him. Peace is that harmony in the state, that health is in the body. No honour, no profit, no plenty can make him happy, who is sick with a fever in his blood, and with defluctions and aches in his joints and bones; but health restored gives a relish to the other blessings, and is very merry without them : no kingdom cau flourish or be at ease, in which there is no peace; which only makes men dwell at home, and enjoy the labour of their own hands, and improve all the advantages which the air, and the climate, and the soil administers to them; and all which yield no comfort, where there is no peace. God himself reckons health the greatest blessing he can bestow upon mankind, and peace the greatest comfort and ornament he can confer upon states; which are a multitude of men gathered together. They who delight most in war are so much ashamed of it, that they pretend to desire nothing but peace-that their heart is set upon nothing else. When Cæsar was engaging all the world in war, he wrote to Tully, there was nothing worthier of an honest man than to have contention with nobody.' It was the highest aggravation that the prophet could find out in the description of the greatest wickedness, that the way of peace they knew not;' and the greatest punishment of all their crookedness and perverseness was, that they should not know peace.' A greater curse cannot befall the most wicked nation, than to be deprived of peace. There is nothing of real and substantial comfort in this world, but what is the product of peace; and whatsoever we may lawfully and innocently take delight in, is the fruit and effect of peace. The solemn service of God, and performing our duty to him in the exercise of regular devotion, which is the greatest business of our life, and in which we ought to take most delight, is the issue of peace. War breaks all that order, interrupts all that devotion, and even extinguisheth all that zeal, which peace had kindled in us; lays waste the dwelling-place of God as well as of man; and introduces and propagates opinions and practice, as much against Heaven as against earth, and erects a deity that delights in nothing but cruelty and blood. Are we pleased with the enlarged commerce and society of large and opulent cities, or with the retired pleasures of the country? do we love stately palaces, and noble houses, or take delight in pleasant groves and woods, or fruitful gardens, which teach and instruct nature to produce and bring forth more fruits, and flowers, and plants, than her own store can supply her with? all

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this we owe to peace; and the dissolution of this peace disfigures all this beauty, and in a short time covers and buries all this order and delight in ruin and rubbish. Finally, have we any content, satisfaction, and joy, in the conversation of each other, in the knowledge and understanding of those arts and sciences, which more adorn mankind, than all those buildings and plantations do the fields and grounds on which they stand? even this is the blessed effect and legacy of peace; and war lays our natures and manners as waste as our gardens and our habitations; and we can as easily preserve the beauty of the one, as the integrity of the other, under the cursed jurisdiction of drums and trumpets.

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'If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men,' was one of the primitive injunctions of Christianity, Rom. xii. 18; and comprehends not only particular and private men (though no doubt all gentle and peaceable natures are most capable of Christian precepts, and most affected with them) but kings and princes themselves. St. Paul knew well, that the peaceable inclinations and dispositions of subjects could do little good, if the sovereign princes were disposed to war; but if they desire to live peaceably with their neighbours, their subjects cannot but be happy. And the pleasure that God himself takes in that temper needs no other manifestation, than the promise our Saviour makes to those who contribute towards it, in his Sermon upon the Mount, Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God,' Matt. v. 9. Peace must needs be very acceptable to him, when the instruments towards it are crowned with such a full measure of blessing; and it is no hard matter to guess whose children they are, who take all the pains they can to deprive the world of peace, and to subject it to the rage and fury and desolation of war. If we had not the woful experience of so many hundred years, we should hardly think it possible, that men who pretend to embrace the Gospel of peace, should be so unconcerned in the obligation and effects of it; and when God looks upon it as the greatest blessing he can pour down upon the heads of those who please him best, and observe his com mands, I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid,' Lev. xxvi. 6, that men study nothing more than how to throw off and deprive themselves and others of this his precious bounty; as if we were void of natural reason, as well as without the elements of religion: for nature itself disposes us to a love of society, which cannot be preserved without peace. A whole city on fire is a spectacle full of horror, but a whole kingdom on fire must be a prospect much more terrible; and such is every kingdom in war, where nothing flourishes but rapine, blood, and murder, and the faces of all men are pale and ghastly, out of the seuse of what they have done, or of what they have suffered, or are to endure. The reverse of all this is peace, which in a moment extinguishes all that fire, binds up all the wounds, and restores to all faces their natural vivacity and beauty. We cannot make a more lively representation and emblem to ourselves of hell, than by the

view of a kingdom in war; where there is nothing to be seen but destruction and fire, and the discord itself is a great part of the torment: nor a more sensible reflection upon the joys of Heaven, than as it is all quiet and peace, and where nothing is to be discerned but consent and harmony, and what is amiable in all the circumstances of it. And as far as we may warrantably judge of the inhabitants of either climate, they who love and cherish discord among men, and take delight in war, have large mansions provided for them, in that region of faction and disagreement; as we may presume, that they who set their hearts upon peace in this world, and labour to promote it in their several stations amongst all men, and who are instruments. to prevent the breach of it amongst princes and states, or to renew it when it is broken, have infallible title to a place and mansion in Heaven; where there is only peace in that perfection, that all other blessings are comprehended in it, and a part of it.

DESCRIPTION OF BRITAIN;

(From Thomson's Seasons.)

(James Thomson was born September 7, 1700. at Ednam, in Roxburghshire, of which parish his father was minister. After this parent's death he came to London, a poetical adventurer. His first want,' says Dr. Johnson, was a pair of shoes. He soon rose into fame by the publication of a portion of the Seasons,' which is perhaps the most popular poem in our language. He also wrote Liberty,'' The Castle of Indolence,' and some Tragedies. He died in 1748.

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HAPPY BRITANNIA! where the Queen of Arts,
Inspiring vigour, Liberty abroad-

Walks, unconfin'd, even to thy farthest cots,
And scatters plenty with unsparing hand.

Rich is thy soil, and merciful thy clime;
Thy streams unfailing in the Summer's drought;
Unmatch'd thy guardian-oaks, thy valleys float
With golden waves: and on thy mountains flocks
Bleat numberless; while, roving round their sides,
Bellow the blackening herds in lusty droves.
Beneath, thy meadows glow, and rise unquell'd
Against the mower's scythe. On every hand
Thy villas shine. Thy country teems with wealth,
And property assures it to the swain,
Pleas'd, and unwearied, in his guarded toil.

Full are thy cities with the sons of art;

And trade and joy, in every busy street,
Mingling are heard: even Drudgery himself,
As at the car he sweats, or dusty hews

The palace stone, looks gay. Thy crowded ports,
Where rising masts an endless prospect yield,
With labour burn, and echo to the shouts

Of hurried sailor, as he hearty waves

His last adieu, and loosening every sheet,
Resigns the spreading vessel to the wind.

Bold, firm, and graceful, are thy generous youth,
By hardship sinew'd, and by danger fir'd,
Scattering the nations where they go; and first
Or on the listed plain, or stormy seas.
Mild are thy glories too, as o'er the plans
Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside;
In genius, and substantial learning, high;
For every virtue, every worth, renown'd;
Sincere, plain-hearted, hospitable, kind ;
Yet like the muttering thunder when provok'd,
The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource
Of those that under grim oppression groan.
Island of bliss! amid the subject seas,
That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,
At once the wonder, terror, and delight,
Of distant nations; whose remotest shores
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm ;
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults
Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave:

O THOU! by whose almighty Nod the scale
Of empire rises, or alternate falls,

Send forth the saving Virtues round the land,
In bright patrol: white Peace, and social Love;
The tender-looking Charity, intent

On gentle deeds, and shedding tears thro' smiles;
Undaunted Truth, and Dignity of mind;

Courage compos'd, and keen; sound Temperance;
Healthful in heart and look; clear Chastity,
With blushes reddening as she moves along,
Disordered at the deep regard she draws;
Rough Industry; Activity untir'd,
With copious life informed, and all awake :
While in the radiant front, superior shines
That first paternal virtue, Public Zeal;
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey,
And, ever musing on the common weal,
Still labours glorious with some great design.

VOL. I..

The Fireside Companion;

NO. I.

PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.

[The following is an extract from a publication by Thomas Babington, Esq., late Member of Parliament for Leicester, a gentleman not more distinguished by the purity of his conduct in Parliament, than by the success of those principles of Education exemplified in his own family, which he has benevolently communicated to the public in this valuable little work.]

1. LET a parent be particularly on his guard against his faults and weaknesses when in the bosom of his family.

The reverse is not seldom the case. The circumspection and restraint practised abroad are often greatly relaxed at home. Here liberties and self-indulgences are thought more allowable; wrong tempers are not instantly repressed in the bosom, and are suffered to deform the countenance, and also sometimes to break out in unchristian tones, expressions, and conduct. We must all have observed this in others; and few of us, I conceive, are unconscious of having been sometimes taken by surprise on the entrance of a friend, and of having felt that it was necessary to recall both the mind and the face to greater serenity and benignity, in order to receive him properly. Now, can we seriously think, that a heart and a countenance unfit for our friend was fit for our children, who surrounded us before his arrival?

2. Never make mere playthings of your children.

Many fathers treat their little ones as if nothing was to be sought in their society but mutual amusement. All is good humour when they are together; and therefore all is supposed to be right, though there be little besides folly and self-indulgence on one side, and improper liberties, caprice, self-will, or artifice, on the other. In short, there seems to be a sort of conspiracy between the parties to indulge the natural man. The child is often even taught to be indecorous and mischievous and saucy, for the amusement of its parent. What excuse can be made for such a scene? The poor child is greatly to be pitied: but really the parent, if we were to look no further, would appear to be a sort of monster, devoid of principle, of feeling, and of common sense. Follow him, however, to his serious occupations, and you may find him a useful and respectable man. What a shame, that he is insensible to the high destiny and unspeakable value of the little creature he is spoiling, for the sake of half an

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