for the offender. Consider his natural temper. Turn your anger into pity. Regard him as ill of a very bad distemper. Think of the patience and meekness of Christ, and the petition in the Lord's prayer; how much you stand in need of forgiveness yourself from God and man; and how foolish it is to torment yourself, because he has behaved amiss. The apostle's precept in this case is, "Let not the "sun go down upon your wrath." The Pythagoreans, a sect of Heathen philosophers, are said to have practised it literally, who, if at any time, in a passion, they had broken out into abusive language, before sunset gave each other their hands, and with them a discharge from all injuries; and so, with a mutual reconciliation, parted friends. Above all things, be sure to set a guard on the tongue, while the angry mood is upon you. The least spark may break out into a conflagration, when cherished by a resentful heart, and fanned by the wind of an angry breath. Aggravating expressions, at such a time, are like oil thrown upon the flames. In anger, as well as in a fever, it is good to have the tongue kept clean and smooth.

Whoever has been much conversant with the world must have often met with silly, trifling, and unreasonable people, who are to be found every where, and thrust themselves into all companies; who will talk for ever about nothing; and whose conversation, if you could enjoy it a month together, would neither instruct nor entertain you. How far preferable is solitude to such society! There are silly, trifling, and unreasonable thoughts, as well as

persons such are always about, and, if care be not taken, will get into the mind we know not how, and seize and possess it before we are aware; they will hold it in empty, idle speculations, which yield it neither pleasure nor profit, and turn to no manner of account upon earth; only consume time, and prevent a better employment of the mind. And, indeed, there is little difference whether we spend the time in sleep, or in these waking dreams. Nay, if the thoughts which thus insensibly steal upon the mind, be not altogether absurd and nonsensical, yet, if they be impertinent and unseasonable, they ought to be dismissed, because they keep out better company.

There is something particularly tiresome in your projectors and castle-builders, who will detain you for hours with relations of their improbable and impracticable schemes, taking you off, as well as themselves, all the while, from the plain duties of common life; from doing your business, or enjoying your friends. One would never be at home to this sort of visitants. Give your porter, therefore, directions to be in a more especial manner upon his guard against all wild and extravagant thoughts, all vain and fantastical imaginations. Suffer not your mind to be taken up with thoughts of things that never were, and perhaps never will be; to seek after a visionary pleasure in the prospect of what you have not the least reason to hope, or a needless pain in the apprehension of what you have not the least reason to fear. It is unknown how much time is wasted by many persons in these airy and chimerical

schemes; while they neglect their duty to God and man, and even their own worldly interest; thus losing the substance by grasping at the shadow, and dreaming themselves princes, till they awake beggars. The truth is, next to a clear conscience and sound judgement, there is not a greater blessing than a regular and well-governed imagination; to be able to view things as they are, in their true light and proper colours; and to distinguish the false images that are painted on the fancy, from the representations of truth and reason. For how common a thing is it for men, before they are aware, to confound reason and fancy, truth and imagination together; to think they believe things true or false, when they only fancy them to be so, because they would have them so; as some have told a story, knowing it to be false, till by degrees they have come to think it true.

There is one sort of guests, who are no strangers to the mind of man, of an Englishman, it is said, above others. These are gloomy and melancholy thoughts. There are times and seasons, when to some every thing appears dismal and disconsolate, though they know not why. A black cloud hangs hovering over their minds; which, when it falls in showers through their eyes, is dispersed; and all is serene again. This is often purely mechanical; and owing either to some fault in the bodily constitution, or some accidental disorder in the animal frame. It comes on in a dark month, a thick sky, and an east wind; it may be owing in part to our situation as islanders, and in part to the grossness and heaviness of our diet, attended, as it frequently is among those of better con

dition, who are chiefly subject to this malady, with the want of a due degree of exercise and labour. In this case, the advice of an honest and skilful physician may be of eminent service. Constant employment and a cheerful friend are two excellent remedies. Certain, however, it is, that whatever means can be devised, they should instantly and incessantly be used, to drive away such dreary and desponding imaginations; for to admit and indulge them, would be as if one was to quit the warm precincts of day, to take leave of life and the sun, and to pass one's time amidst the damps and darkness of a funeral vault. Our faculties, in such circumstances, would be benumbed, and we should soon become, ourselves, useless to all the purposes of our being, like the inhabitants of the tomb, who sleep in death.

It is needless to say, that we should repel all impure and lascivious thoughts, which taint and defile. the mind, and which, though hidden from men, are known to God, in whose eye they are abominable; because, if we possess a fair character, and frequent good company, it is to be hoped they will not have the assurance to knock at the door.

Lastly, with abhorrence reject immediately all profane and blasphemous thoughts, which are sometimes suddenly injected into the mind, we know not how, though we may give a pretty good guess from whence; unless, indeed, they proceed from some bodily weakness and indisposition; in which case, as in a former one, the assistance of the physician may be more necessary than that of the divine. When the body is disordered, the mind will be so too; and thoughts

will arise in it, of which no account can be given. But let those who are thus afflicted know for their comfort, that bare thoughts will not be imputed to them for sins, while they do not cherish and encourage them, but, on the contrary, exert all their endeavours to expel and banish them; which, with prayers for help from above, will not fail of success in the end.

These, then, are the thoughts against which you should carefully guard: such as are peevish and discontented, anxious and fearful, passionate and quarrelsome, silly and trifling, vain and fantastical, gloomy and melancholy, impure and lascivious, profane and blasphemous: a formidable band! to whose importunity, more or less, every one is subject. Reason, aided and inspirited by the grace of God, must watch diligently at the gate, either to bar their entrance, or drive them out forthwith when entered, not only as impertinent, but mischievous intruders, that will otherwise for ever destroy the peace and quiet of the family.

The best method, after all, perhaps, is to contrive matters so as to be always pre-engaged, when they come; engaged with better company; and then there will be no room for them. For other kind of thoughts there are, to which, when they stand at the door and knock, the porter should open immediately; which you should let in and receive, retain and improve to your souls' health and happiness.

The grand secret in this, as in many other cases, is employment. An empty house is every body's property. All the vagrants about the country will take