But however the soundness of his principles might, in general be apparent, he seems to have lived with a perpetual conviction that his conduct was defective; lamenting past neglects, forming purposes of future diligence, and constantly acknowledging their failure in the event. It was natural for him, who possessed such powers of usefulness, to consider the waste of his time as a peculiar delinquency; with which, however, he appears to have been far less frequently, and less culpably chargeable, than his own tender sense of duty disposed him to apprehend. That he meritoriously redeemed many days and years from indolence, is evinced by the number and excellence of his Works; nor can we doubt that his literary exertions would have been still more frequent, had not morbid melancholy, which, as he informs us, was the infirmity of his life, repressed them. To the prevalence of this infirmity, we may

certainly ascribe that anxious fear, which seized him on the approach of his dissolution, and which his friends, who knew his integrity, observed with equal astonishment and concern. But the strength of religion at length prevailed against the frailty of nature; and his foreboding dread of the Divine justice, by degrees subsided into a pious trust and humble hope in the Divine mercy.

He is now gone to await his eternal sentence; and as his life exhibited an illustrious example, so his death suggests an interesting admonition. It concerns us to reflect, that however many may find it impossible to rival his intellectual excellence, yet to imitate his virtues is both possible and necessary to all; that the current of time now hastens to plunge us in that gulph of death, where we have so lately seen him absorbed, where there is no more place of repentance, and whence,

according to our innocence or guilt, we shall rise to an immortality of bliss or torment.

GEORGE STRAHAN.

ISLINGTON,

August 6, 1785.

PREFACE TO THIS EDITION.

OTHING so accurately reveals the spiritual state of a man's heart, as a view of his private "Prayers and Meditations." How few would not shrink from

the ordeal. How many who stand fair in the world's estimation as men of religion, and even are so in reality, yet if the inward thoughts of their hearts were revealed, would be found to be troubled in soul, and disquieted in spirit. Peace of mind is not always a sure sign of a right mind. Many wicked worldly men are little troubled in spirit from sheer ignorance of the precipice, at the brink of which they stand. They eat, drink, and are merry, without a

thought of their danger. There are also religious errors which lull men in fancied security, and give them peace when there is no peace. They only can have real peace who have fought the good fight, and gained the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. They who have early won this victory may live peaceful happy days in the fear of GOD and consciousness of His approval. But to others it happens, through their own fault (and this was Johnson's case), to wage a life-long struggle against in-dwelling sin. In him was exemplified in a remarkable degree the words of S. Paul in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.... I delight in the law of God after the