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more gratitude than is in our weak capacities to pay? Those most defended from hurts by the affiuence of fortune and an indolent life,--- those who loll in coaches, and scarce lift their hands to theirhead, are every moment liable to fome inward fraction, which may throw into disorder their whole frame. I have heard anatomists say, that did we know the delicacy of the human iystein, the thousand and ten thousand fibres, which like threads run through every part of the body, and which, if any one should be cracked or removed out of its place, would prejudice, if not bring total destruction to the whole, we should tremble at moving even a finger, for fear of hurting their clastic quality, and cry out with the royal Pfalmist,

"Lord, I am fearfully and wonderfully made!"

YET how are all our motions so guided and directed by an Invisible Power, that very rarely any accident of this kind happens, even to those who are continually employing themselves in the most robust exercises ?

WHEN we look around the amazing scenes which this wide world affords, and consider the various produce of the earth andair, the unfathomable deep, and the rivers issuing from it, all created for our use, and abounding with every thing neceffary for our fupport and pleasure; how can we fufficiently testify our gratitude to the Dispenser of these bleffings !---But if we lift up our eyes to the immense expanse above, where miriads of miriads of orbs, infinitely larger than that wherein we are placed, roll over our heads, self-poised in æther, and at the fame time reflect, that should one of these start from its sphere, its fall would crush this globe to atoms; how must our whole fouls dissolve. in

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in grateful contemplation on that Almighty Power, whose single fiat regulates their motions, so as to be of no prejudice to each other, or to us !

THOSE who disbelieve, or affect to disbelieve, all other obligations, readily acknowledge themselves bound by these, and are ashamed and angry if but Tuspected guilty of ingratitude on this score.

Our parents, as next to Heaven the authors of our being, and protectors of our helpless infancy, certainly claim the first and greatest share of our love and gratitude.---Never is it in our power to recompense those tender cares they feel for us ;yet what we can we ought:-love and respect to them are duties so known and universally confeffed, that where a person is visibly wanting in either of these, he is deservedly looked upon as a monster. Most people, therefore, especially of the better fort, endeavour to maintain an exterior shew of this gratitude, though too many have little of it in their hearts.

THOSE also who under our parents have the care of our education, such as tutors, governors, or governesses, if they have discharged the trust reposed in them, by inspiring us with true notions of honour and virtue, justly demand our gratitude; and we ought not only to acknowledge the obligations we owe to their integrity, but recompense it by all the acts of friendship in our power.

Nor ought we to deny some gratitude due to our menial servants, when the respect they pay us is accompanied with love; and we perceive, as we easily may, that what they do for us proceeds from fomething more than mere duty. - Such a servant is indeed a jewel rare to be found, and de

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serves to be used with all the indulgence we can shew, without lessening our authority.

IF, according to the different relations they stand in to us, we treat any of these in an unbecoming manner, we are guilty of an ingratitude, which no excuse can fhadow over: - the obligations I have mentioned are plain, convincing, and when not acknowledged, though no human law exist against the unnatural propenfity,

"Heaven seldom fails to punish it in kind,
" I he ungrateful does a more ungrateful find."

THERE are also others more diftant, tho' not less binding debts of gratitude owing from us, such as that to a king when he is truly the father of his people, when he places his chief glory in the happiness of the commonwealth, when he exerts his power only for our protection, when he feeks no pretences to oppress us with taxations, nor permits a haughty o er-grown minister to insult and ruin us ;---to all the members of a wife and uncorrupt senate, who speak the sense of those whose representatives they are, who despise not our instructions, but make their first business the redress of our grievances, and by their upright behaviour and steady adherence to the conftitution, preserve the balance of power between the king and people; - to every civil magiftrate, who is diligent in his office for executing justice, and maintaining peace; ---to those of the clergy, whose piety, charity, temperance, and humility of manners, are a proof that they them selves are convinced of the truth of the doctrine they preach ;---and lastly, tho' not least worthy our confideration and regard, to the gallant failors, who are the guardians of our commerce abroad, and the true and fole bulwark of our iflands islands from all foreign force, who dare every dan ger, endure every hardship, that we may fleep securely and at ease.

WHOEVER feels not a due portion of love and veneration for these, or any of these, is unworthy to share the benefits derived from them, and ought to be banished to some other country, where the very reverse of all these excellent qualities are practised, and no fuch persons as I have described be found.

I HAD wrote thus far the sense of our Society at our last meeting, as near as I remember, and was proceeding with something of my own, when MIRA and EUPHROSINE came into the room, and looking over my papers, "You have forgot," faid the former of these ladies, " to make any mention " of authors in your detail of those to whom the " public is obliged :---pray, is laying out the brain " in an endeavour to improve or to divert the "world, of no inore estimation with you, than "to be passed over in filence ?"

EUPHROSINE seconded this reproof, which I could not but allow the justice of, and heartily ask pardon for fo palpable an omiffion.

IT is indeed to books we owe all that which diftinguishes us from savages; and it would be extremely ungrateful to refuse our good-will to the composers of what afford us the greatest of all benefits, that of informing the mind, correcting the manners, and enlarging the understanding.

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WHAT clods of earth should we have been but for reading!--- how ignorant of every thing but the spot we tread upon ! ---Books are the channel through

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BOOK 7. through which all useful arts and sciences are con- . veyed. By the help of books we fit at ease, and travel to the most distant parts; behold the cuftoms and manners of all the different nations in the habitable globe; may take a view of Heaven itself, and traverse all the wonders of the skies.---. By books we learn to sustain calamity with patience, and bear prosperity with moderation.--- By books we are enabled to compare past ages with the present; to discover what in our fore-fathers was worthy imitation, and what should be avoided; to improve upon their virtues, and take warning by their errors.---It is books which dispel that gloomy melancholy our climate but too much inclines us to, and in its room diffuses an enlivening chearfulness.---In fine, we are indebted to books for every thing that can profit or delight us.

AUTHORS, therefore, can never be too much cherished and encouraged, when what they write is calculated for public utility, whether it be for instruction or innocent amusement; and it must be confefsed it would be a proof of the most fordid and ungrateful spirit to deny the recompence of their labour, yet enjoy all the advantages of it.

Iт may, indeed, be objected, that many of them deserve little thanks for occafioning that waste of time the reading of them takes up; but the same may with equal justice be alledged against all those others in public stations I have mentioned, fince it is not to a bad king, a corrupt parliament, an indolent magiftrate, a haughty, ambitious, or intemperate clergyman, or an unskilful failor, any more than a weak, illiterate, or vicious author, I pretend our gratitude is due.

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