MONG the many ancient mytholo

A gical fables that have defcended to

us, there is none that, at the present period, is calculated to take a stronger hold, or to ftamp a more lasting impression upon the human mind: there is none that is more interesting to our feelings than that folemn idea, fraught with moral infstruction, which their Sages meant to convey under the allegorical representatation of Κρόν-Chronos; or, as we term him, Time devouring his Children. The Poet (for this idea is certainly poetical) intended, by this fublime fiction, ingeniously and elegantly to display the great Father of Ages feeding upon the elapfing centuries, which he confidered as his offspring; and, although he fwallowed them in fucceffion, still continuing, with an appetite ungratified, voracioufly to devour them as they arrived at maturity. The ancient sculptors have borrowed and embodied the fame mental image, in order the more forcibly to convey to their unlettered countrymen a moral leflon in the statues which they formed upon it.

This idea was by the Grecians derived from the Egyptians, who, as will hereafter be shewn, had deified the fubject; and who were, among the heathens, the first observers of the progress of time, which, although not very accurately, they deduced from the course of the Sun, the revolutions of the Planets, whose inAuence they confidered as pervading while they environed the world, and dispensing light, heat, motion, and nutriment to all

exittence.

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To enter into a disquisition of the original nature and computation of time, the latter of which is known to have been different in every nation of antiquity, would here be equally abstruse and use less. In the Mofaical account of the Creation, its pristine formation is strongly and sufficiently marked. The day, the week, are there distinguished; from which ample sources, a steady current has flowed through months, years, ages, centuries, epochs, and milleniums, down to the present moment.

But although it is unnecessary to pursue the subject through the divisions, fubdivisions, branches, and ramifications of time, it will, for the moral purpose of this work, be proper to state the opinion of the ancient sages and philosophers respecting its symbolical or real property as, from their opinions, contrasted with those far more just and beautiful allufions which the holy scriptures supply, ideas may arife, and deductions will follow, useful at all feasons, but particularly fo at this awful and eventful period.

Pythagoras, in his definition of time, is far more extensive than intelligible. He faith, "that it is the sphere of the utmost heavens;" Plato, "that it is the moveable image of eternity." Arif totle, less sublime, but not more clear in his idea, "that it hath no existence but in the understanding." The Romans always facrificed to Saturn bare beaded, because, they faid that time was the far ther of truth; but in these definitions of, and allufions to, the nature and properties of time, the sacred writers have, as has been observed, foared as far beyond the heathen philosophers, as they have in every other disquisition and observation that has been brought into comparison with them; and, as the following beautiful passages exemplify, turned their enquiries into the fubject, in a manner peculiar to themselves, to the purposes of religious and moral inftruction:

"Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble: he cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he Aceth also as a shadow, and continueth not. "Seeing

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"Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with thee thou hait appointed his bounds, which he cannot pafs."-Job, Ch. 14, V. 1, 2, and 5. "Behold thou haft made my days as a hand's breadth, and mine age as nothing before thee." - Plalm 39, V. 5.

"A thousand years, in thy fight, are but as yesterday when it has paffed."Pfalm 90.

"All these things have passed away like a thadow, or as a post which hasteth by."

"And as a ship which passeth over the waves; when it has gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel on the water."

"Or like an arrow shot at a mark; it parteth the air, which immediately cometh together, so that a man cannot know where it went."-Wisdom of Solomon, Chap. 5, V. 9, 10, and 12.

Cicero (de Invent.), speaking of time, faith, "It is difficult to give its definition;" and St. Austin, "I know what time is, if no man asks ine; but when I would explain, I know not what it is." St. Cyprian laments that the world decays and grows old: in fact, however different the opinion of the fages and inspired writers, whom I have quoted, may be with refpect to their definition of time, in this point they all virtually agree, that it is an effence ductile to the imagination; inasmuch as that a space of years may be as eafily conceived as a space of minutes, illusive to the grasp, flow to the ardency of hope or expectation, and fwift to the mind in which defpondency or dread predominates that of all that have paffed, and all that are to come, the prefent moment is the only period which we can, with any propriety,

term our own.

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The present moment is indeed an aw. one; it tlandeth as a bridge betwixt two centuries, from which, like the buft of Janus, we, with a mental eye, look backward and forward upon the events that have paffed, and those yet in embrio; upon the generations which have, even in the short period of our existence, appeared upon the great theatre of the world; and upon those that have receded from our fight. We confider how they have sustained their parts on this extenfive icene; to what cause it was owing that myriads of them made their exit before they had half finished their course; and what effect their virtues or vices, their exertions or indolence, and those of their cotemporaries that still exist, may have

had upon the minds of the rifing generation; what influence their example will have upon posterity ?

The Close of the Century, to a thinking mind, seems strongly to exhibit a type of the Close of Life. We have, through the few or many years that we have existed, fuffered our faculties to be occupied in the pursuit of pleasure; or with equal, perhaps still ftronger avidity, fuffered them to be absorbed in the purfuit of riches: diffipation and avarice have, perhaps, taken their turns, like day and night. To intemperance, ambition, or interest, we have, perhaps, devoted the choicest of our hours, and confidered the one or the other of these predominating propenfities or paffions as the master-fpring of our actions: the goal to which our exertions have impelled or directed us. What has been the consequence? Such as might have been expected: we have, perhaps, after a life of fpeculation and toil, hope and disappointment, arrived at this awful period-this bourn which feparates two ages-as we shall arrive at a period still more awful, without properly reflecting upon the past, yet ftill with dread and apprehenfion of the future: with all those passions and propenfities, which have, through our erratic course, goaded us on, unrepreffed even by the failure, the fading of those evanefcent objects, those ignis fatuus's of the mind, which have led our reafon aftray: and shall (except we attend to the observations with which I shall conclude), on the eve of this century, lie down to rest from our labour with all our offences upon our heads, and rife the morning of the next, if God permits us to rife, with recruited spirits, and an avidity as keen, to return to the chace of those delufive objects, which we have ever had in view, but shall never have in poffeffion.

To recur to the beginning of this fpeculation, and endeavour, from ancient mythology and scriptural truth, more strongly to enforce those moral and pious deductions which it is my wish to incul

It is well known, that among the infinite variety of deities worshipped by the Egyptians, under the forms of different animals, or rather monsters, and which were perhaps venerated by them as types of fome mystery, as hieroglyphical fymbols containing a meaning, leading through their medium up to the first great Cause, to which meaning we have unfortunately loft the key, they had one termed Canouphis, whose emblematical fignification has furvived the lapse of ages

ges, has been rescued from the ruins of time, and was instructive to them, to every intervening period, and may be equally so to us. This God was represented under the form of a figure highly dignified, whose head was encircled with å radiated crown: he rested upon a broken column, on which, and on its pedestal, in characters more intelligible than hieroglyphics in general, was marked, according to their ideas, the fituation of the Sun, the orbits of the planets, the various conftellations, the figns of the zodiac, with calculations, shewing by their motions the lapse of years, by their revolutions the revolutions of time: around the middle of this statue was entwined a ferpent, the well-known emblem of eternity.

Glancing with a mental eye to this venerable figure, piercing the thick veil in which antiquity has throuded his alle. gorical form, we shall find the impreffion which it makes fufficiently strong to enable us to judge that from the earliest periods, in a nation where the lamp of Icience which has fince illuminated the world was first lighted, the mythologists thought it neceffary to form an object of adoration, whose attributes combined the folar system, time and eternity. Perhaps when the first age, after its erection, had elapsed, the temple of Canouphis was opened, and the whole people crowded to pay their devotion to him who had already paffed the gulf of time, and was embraced by eternity; perhaps the fame ceremony was observed at every revolving period, which was, by the nation, confidered as a call upon them to make up their accounts, by casting a retrospective eye over their former transactions, reflecting in what manner they had em. ployed their time, and confidering whether, like their deity, they were prepared for the embraces of eternity.

Although, under the Christian difpenfation, many may be prepared to scoff at my bringing instances from heathen mythology to enforce the purer doctrines of that religion, it will not be contended but that from every system, however in, congruous and erratic its tenets might have been, something moral and confequently profitable may be deduced; and perhaps from none more than from the religious symbols (in which certainly was displayed all the learning of the times) of a nation that was the parent of mythology, as well as the cradle of science. To be " skilled in all the wif.

of

dom of the Egyptians," was, among the chosen peoplé God, confidered as the highest effort of human genius, and the highest compliment that could be paid their sages, who unquestionably, from their pristine connection with them, borrowed those sublime images and that figurative mode of expression which adorn and elucidate the scriptural books: therefore the ideas of those original poffeffors of learning or wisdom, for they are used as synonimous terms, are adduced to shew, that from the earliest ages, from the moment the taper of knowledge was first lighted, these important confiderations operated upon the human mind more than I fear they do at present.

Yet at present, at this moment, the only one of which we are certain-the moment when a new sera begins to dawn, a new scene to open before ushow much doth it behove us to reflect upon our real situation; to view the prefent apex upon which we stand, and from this eminence, like skilful surveyors, obferving the country around, form a general though ideal plan or scheme of human life; in order that, while we contemplate on the fates of the myriads that appear and are swept away from the extensive space within our mental grafp, they may furnish us with proper reflections upon the nature of time, operating upon vitality, and forming a chain of caufes and confequences leading from the first stage of infantile existence to eternity.

To do this with effect, we must, as has been obferved, consider ourselves as standing on the top of a pyramid composed of flights of steps, every flight containing a decade: around the base of this ideal pile, we shall behold millions of infants, crawling, as it were, into life. On the first ten steps, children sporting in wanton gambols; the second will be filled by the youth of both sexes, afcending with vivacity, jocund from the impulse of health, and flourishing in all the bloom and animation of adolefcence. On the third we shall still behold them afcending, but with graver steps, encumbered with burthens which feem to accumulate as they proceed to the fourth decade. Here, after anxiously cafting their eyes around, as if to observe in what manner their offspring, whom they have left on the first and second flights, climb the steps of life, they begin a contrary course, descending on the other fide with greater rapidity, though less Ca firmness, firmness, than they rose. In the fifth, their loads appear wonderfully to have increafed, and their bodies seem less able to hear their preffure. With weakened limbs and unsteady footsteps they totter on, however, to another's some to anether; and a few to another after that; which leads to the bottom, where we mail observe, in the very, very small number that remain alive, every mark of mental imbecility and corporeal decrepitude: but while we lament the fad condition of these survivors, we shall, perhaps, from it derive confolation for the fate of those who have been swept off from every step, as they attempted to gain the summit, or those whose heavy burdens and bodily infirmities caused them to flip as they were defcending.

This picture of human life, drawn with a trembling hand, is a true though faint emblem of the operation of time upon existence in the last, in every centory that has elapfed since the creation of the world; and may, if we view it in a proper light, lead us to confider how we have afcended or defcended the mountain of years, over which we are now travel. ling: whether we have, in any of the stages, loitered upon the road; indulged ou selves in excurfive rambles; pursued criminal or frivolous objects; been engaged in schemes inimical to our own, to The general happiness; and have failed to make advantage of that stock of know. ledge derived from experience, which our ancestors had left us, but have squandered it away in desultory adventures and idle speculations, by which means we are in danger of becoming bankrupts of time, and consequently of eternity.

These reflections, forming an balo, an imaginary circle, seem to round the Eighteenth Century; and, confidered in a general view, extended to a scale which not only ferves to measure Europe but Afia, Africa, and America, after enabling us to furvey countries devaftated, cities dilapidated, empires overthrown, to trace circuitous course of ambition, war, and all their dreadful concomitants, rebellion, faction, fedition, peculation, fraud, and a voluminous catalogue of confequent crimes, brings us, jaded with our toil, debilitated with our share of the vices of the times, and fuffering all the incon. yeniences without having attained any of the experience of age, exactly to the point whence we fet out.

The curtain which fell at the close of the lait (the Seventeenth) Century will, if it is for a few minutes again drawn

up, discover a series of events wonder fully fimilar to those which have dif graced the present. The fame tragedy hath again been acted, although, thank Heaven! the scene of the catastrophe has been laid in a different country. Another Monarch has bled; Princes and Nobles have again been driven into exile by the double edged sword of the malignant demon of Democracy: here candour obliges me to ftate, and proud I am to state it, that from the inherent humanity. which is our national characteristic, though almost frightened from the land in that turbulent period to which I have alluded, yet still the Goddess hovered in the air; therefore, foul as was the murder of the benignant and unfortunate Charles; atrocious as were the crimes of the English regicides; their treason and enormities were not attended with those dreadful, those sanguinary confequences which have followed, and do ftill continue to follow, the fates of the ne less benignant and unfortunate Louis, and (who can think of them without pity combined with horror?) his innocent Queen and family.

These dreadful events, and the ven geance of the Almighty which hath overtaken, and still pursues their murderers, together with other circumstances nearly as terrific, the effects of their crimes, have marked the last decade of the Eighteenth Century upon the tablet of the hif toric Muse in characters written with blood, and extended the flames of the war, which it is to be hoped they have kindled, as an Indian lights his funeral pile, to perish in its vortex, to every furrounding nation. With respect to these kingdoms, though blesled in a fupreme degree in our infulated fituation; while from Pentland Firth to the Land's-End our brave domeftic bands are armed for our defence; while our coafts are guarded by a navy victorious in every part of the globe ; & navy that has exalted the glory of the British flag to a height on which it was never before displayed; we have had little opportunity to feel the preflure, and still less to fear the consequences, of Gallic arms or Gallic enormities; yat we have affumed a proud, a diftinguished station: we have not only fympathized in the fufferings of fuffering humanity, but have accompanied those sympathetic feel ings with active exertions. We have endeavoured to itop the torrent, even at its source, which, illuing from that red land of regicides, had directed its streams to other countries, had lapped the mounds