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3. Besides, the mind must be employed. The lower orders of men have their attention much engrossed by those employments, in which the necessities of life engage them and it is happy that they have. Labour stands in the room of education; and fills up those vacancies of mind, which, in a state of idleness, would be engrossed by vice. And if they who have more leisure do not substitute something in the room of this, their minds also will become the prey of vice; and the more so, as they have the means to indulge it more in their power. It is an undoubted truth, that one vice indulged, introduces others; and that each succeeding vice becomes more depraved. If, then, the mind must be employed, what can fill up its vacuities more rationally than the acquisition of knowledge? But, however necessary to us knowledge may be, religion, we know, is infinitely more so. The one adorns a man, and gives him, it is true, superiority and rank in life; but the other is absolutely essential to his happiness.

4. In the midst of youth, health, and abundance, the world is apt to appear a very gay and pleasing scene; it engages our desires; and, in a degree, satisfies them also. But it is wisdom to consider, that a time will come, when youth, health, and fortune, will all fail us: and if disappointment and vexation do not sour our taste for pleasure, at least, sickness and infirmities will destroy it. In these gloomy seasons, and, above all, at the approach of death, what will become of us without religion! When this world fails, where shall we fly, if we expect no refuge in another? Without holy hope in God, and resignation to his will, and trust in him for deliverance, what is there that can secure us against the evils of life?

5. The great utility, therefore, of knowledge and religion, being thus apparent, it is highly incumbent upon us to pay a studious attention to them in our youth. If we do not, it is more than probable that we shall never do it; that we shall grow old in ignorance, by neglecting the one; and old in vice, by neglecting the other.

6. For improvement in knowledge, youth is certainly the fittest season. The mind is then ready to receive any impression. It is free from all that care and attention which, in riper age, the affairs of life bring with them. The memory too is strong. er, and better able to acquire the rudiments of knowledge; and as the mind is then void of ideas, it is more suited to those parts of learning which are conversant in words. Besides, there are sometimes in youth a modesty and docility, which, in advanced years, if those years especially have been left a prey to igno

ance, become self-sufficiency and prejudice; and these effectually bar up all the inlets to knowledge. But, above all, unless habits of attention and application are early gained, we shall scarcely acquire them afterwards. The inconsiderate youth seldom reflects upon this, nor knows his loss, till he knows also that it cannot be retrieved.

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7. Nor is youth more the season to acquire knowledge, than to form religious habits. It is a great point to get habit on the side of virtue it will make every thing smooth and easy. The earliest principles are generally the most lasting; and those of a religious cast are seldom wholly lost. Though the temptations of the world may, now and then, draw the well principled youth aside; yet his principles being continually at war with his practice, there is hope, that in the end the better part may overcome the worse, and bring on a reformation: whereas he, who has suffered habits of vice to get possession of his youth, has little chance of being brought back to a sense of religion and virtue. 8. There are persons, who would restrain youth from imbibing any religious principles, till they can judge for themselves; lest they should imbibe prejudice for truth. But why should not the same caution be used in sciences also, and the minds of youth left void of all impressions! The experiment, I fear, in both cases, would be dangerous. If the mind were left uncultivated during so long a period, though nothing else should find entrance, vice certainly would; and it would make the larger shoots, as the soil would be vacant. It would be better that young persons receive knowledge and religion mixed with errour, than none at all. For when the mind comes to reflect, it may deposit its prejudices by degrees, and get right at last but in a state of stagnation it will infallibly become foul.

9. To conclude, our youth bears some proportion to our more advanced life, as this world does to the next. In this life we must form and cultivate those habits of virtue, which will qualify us for a better state. If we neglect them here, and contract habits of an opposite kind, instead of gaining that exalted state, which is promised to our improvement, we shall of course sink into that state, which is adapted to the habits we have formed.

10. Exactly thus is youth introductory to manhood; to which it is, properly speaking, a state of preparation. During this season, we must qualify ourselves for the parts we are to act hereafter. In manhood we bear the fruit, which has in youth been planted. If we have sauntered away our youth, we must expect to be ignorant men. If indolence and inattention have

taken an early possession of us, they will probably increase as we advance in life; and make us a burden to ourselves, and useless to society. If again we suffer ourselves to be misled by vicious inclinations, they will daily get new strength, and end in dissolute lives. But if we cultivate our minds in youth, attain habits of attention and industry, of virtue and sobriety, we shall find ourselves well prepared to act our future parts in life; and what, above all things, ought to be our care, by gaining this command over ourselves, we shall be more able, as we get forward in the world, to resist every new temptation, as soon as it appears.

Execution of Cranmer.

1. QUEEN MARY determined to bring Cranmer, whom she had long detained in prison, to punishment; and in order more fully to satiate her vengeance, she resolved to punish him for heresy, rather than for treason. He was cited by the Pope to stand his trial at Rome; and, though he was known to be kept in close custody at Oxford, he was, upon his not appearing, condemned as contumacious. Bonner, Bishop of London, and Thirleby, bishop of Ely, were sent to degrade him; and the former executed the melancholy ceremony, with all the joy and exultation which suited his savage nature. The implacable spirit of the Queen, not satisfied with the future misery of Cranmer, which she believed inevitable, and with the execution of that dreadful sentence to which he was condemned, prompted her also to seek the ruin of his honour, and the infamy of his name. Persons were employed to attack him, not in the way of disputation, against which he was sufficiently armed, but by flattery, insinuation, and address; by representing the dignities to which his character still entitled him, if he would merit them by a recantation; by giving him hopes of long enjoying those powerful friends, whom his beneficent disposition had attached to him, during the course of his prosperity.

2. Overcome by the fond love of life; terrified by the prospect of those tortures which awaited him; he allowed, in an unguarded hour, the sentiments of nature to prevail over his resolution, and agreed to subscribe the doctrines of the papal supremacy, and of real presence. The court, equally perfidious and cruel, was determined that this recantation should avail him nothing; and sent orders that he should be required to acknowledge his errour in church, before the whole people; and that he should thence be immediately carried to execution.

3. Cranmer, whether he had received a secret intimation of

their design, or had repented of his weakness, surprised the audience by a contrary declaration. He said that he was well ap prised of the obedience which he owed to his sovereign and the laws; but that his duty extended no farther than to submit patiently to their commands; and to bear, without resistance, whatever hardships they should impose upon him; that a supe. riour duty, the duty which he owed to his Maker, obliged him to speak truth on all occasions; and not to relinquish by a base denial, the holy doctrine which the Supreme Being had revealed to mankind; that there was one miscarriage in his life, of which, above all others, he severely repented; the insincere declaration of faith, to which he had the weakness to consent, and which the fear of death alone had extorted from him that he took this opportunity of atoning for his errour, by a sincere and open recantation; and was willing to seal with his blood, that doctrine which he firmly believed to be communicated from heaven; and that, as his hand had erred by betraying his heart, it should first be punished by a severe but just doom, and should first pay the forfeit of its offences.

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4. He was then led to the stake, amidst the insults of his enemies and having now summoned up all the force of his mind, he bore their scorn, as well as the torture of his punishment, with singular fortitude. He stretched out his hand, and without betraying, either by his countenance or motions, the least sign of weakness, or even of feeling, he held it in the flames till it was entirely consumed. His thoughts seemed wholly occupied with reflections on his former fault, and he called aloud several times, This hand has offended.' Satisfied with that atonement, he then discovered a serenity in his countenance; and when the fire attacked his body, he seemed to be quite insensible of his outward sufferings, and by the force of hope and resolution, to have collected his mind, altogether within itself, and to repel the fury of the flames. He was undoubtedly a man of merit; possessed of learning and capacity, and adorned with candour, sincerity, and beneficence, and all those virtues which were fitted to render him useful and amiable in society.

The Spaniard and Peruvian.

1. DON PEDRO MENDEZ was a Spaniard of noble extraction; but the extravagance of his progenitor had rendered him incapable of supporting himself in the rank to which he was entitled by birth. Whether it be from pride or sentiment, it is certainly mortifying for a man to walk as a stranger through

those estates which formerly belonged to his family, and which he himself might, or ought to have possessed.

2. This, with other causes of chagrin, which he daily experi enced, determined him to leave Spain. The resource, in those cases, is generallyto repair to America; and his remaining friends procured him an establishment at Lima, that was not only lucrative in itself, but afforded him great opportunities of trading to the Manillas from Acapulco, and to Europe by means of the galleons, which sailed between Lima and Old Spain.

3. In a few years after his arrival in Peru, he found himself in a very affluent and desirable situation. The income which arose from his office and mercantile pursuits, was quite sufficient to defray the charges of living in a sumptuous and magnificent style, and by which he enjoyed all the pleasures that a country, favoured by the most powerful influences of the sun, can afford.

4. For this purpose, he bought an elegant villa near the city of Cruso, about 180 miles from Lima, to which he frequently retired. It was situated on a plain, that, by a gentle descent to the westward, terminated on the banks of the lake Titiaca. To the eastward, at five miles distance, was seen part of the chain of lofty mountains which is called the Andes; and the intervening space was filled by lofty woods, with plains between, so disposed as to make a very picturesque appearance. This district was perfectly adapted, either for the diversion of shooting, or other pleasures of contemplation; and here Mendez usually amused himself with one or the other, as inclination prompted him.

5. An illiberal prejudice has, in too many instances, fixed upon nations the odium which the crimes of individuals have merited. The Spaniards are said to be cruel, because a set of wretches, whose vices had rendered their fortunes desperate in Europe, were banished upon a kind of forlorn expedition, to make discoveries upon a new continent.

6. The event surpassed expectation; and those men, whom the fear of punishment had not kept within bounds, when in Europe, did not scruple in America to commit the most horrid crimes. But they perpetrated these crimes not more or less because they were Spaniards, but because they were bad men. Had they been Englishmen, who is there so hardy as to pretend that they would have been more humane? It is a degradation from human nature to say, that a cruel, perfidious, or an unprincipled nation exists; and the case is sufficiently deplorable,

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