have been justly regarded as prizes, held out to invite persons of good hopes, and ingenuous attainments." Agreed. But the prize held out in the Scripture is of a very different kind; and our ecclesiastical baits are too often snapped by the worthless, and persons of no attainments at all. They are indeed incentives to avarice and ambition, but not to those acquirements by which only the ministerial function can be adorned, -zeal for the salvation of men, humility, and selfdenial. Mr. Paley and I therefore cannot agree. W. C. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. May 26, 1783. I FEEL for my uncle, and do not wonder that his loss afflicts him. A connexion that has subsisted so many years could not be rent asunder without great pain to the survivor. I hope however and doubt not but when he has had a little more time for recollection, he will find that consolation in his own family, which it is not the lot of every father to be blessed with. It seldom happens that married persons live together so long, or so happily; but this, which one feels oneself ready to suggest as matter of alleviation, is the very circumstance that aggravates his distress; therefore he misses her the more, and feels that he can but ill spare her. It is however a necessary tax which all who live long must pay for their longevity, to lose many whom they would be glad to detain, (perhaps those in whom all s. c. 4. T their happiness is centered,) and to see them step into the grave before them. In one respect at least this is a merciful appointment: when life has lost that to which it owed its principal relish, we may ourselves the more cheerfully resign it. I beg you would present him with my most affectionate remembrance, and tell him, if you think fit, how much I wish that the evening of his long day may be serene and happy. W.C. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. MY DEAR FRIEND, May 31, 1783. You have had but a disagreeable part to perform towards your two visitors, which, though disagreeable, you have performed well. I understand perfectly your reasons for not offering your pulpit to the first; but though I have no doubt of your having withheld it for reasons not less cogent, from the last, I am not equally aware of them. Whether your objections were suggested by his general course of life, or by any particular instance of misconduct, my memory, which is but an indifferent one, does not furnish me with the means of knowing; neither is there any necessity that you should inform me, unless it should happen that you have nothing more important to write about, for I feel myself much disposed to an implicit acquiescence in the propriety of all you do. I recollect but very imperfectly, something that passed at Doctors' Commons, where he shone indeed as he does every where, but so much in the wrong place, that serious and thinking people were rather disgusted than pleased. If, however, his ministry prospers at home, it is well; and he may find in that circumstance a consolation of which I fear our friend at Epsom cannot so readily avail himself. We rather rejoice than mourn with you on the occasion of Mrs. Cunningham's death. In the case of believers, death has lost his sting, not only with respect to those he takes away, but with respect to survivors also. Nature indeed will always suggest some causes of sorrow, when an amiable and Christian friend departs; but the Scripture, so many more, and so much more important reasons to rejoice, that on such occasions, perhaps more remarkably than on any other, sorrow is turned into joy. The law of our land is affronted if we say the king dies, and insists on it that he only demises. This, which is a fiction, where a monarch only is in question, in the case of a Christian is reality and truth. He only lays aside a body, which it is his privilege to be encumbered with no longer; and instead of dying, in that moment he begins to live. But this the world does not understand, therefore the kings of it must go on demising to the end of the chapter, till futurity shall prove that most of them are dead indeed. Our illustrious visitors from the continent, whatever opinion they may conceive of our politesse, in which perhaps they may condescend to think us inferior only to themselves, are likely to entertain but a mean one of our devotion. They will observe, at least, that the sabbath is almost as obsolete in England as in France. I feel something like indignation kindle within me, when the papers tell me that our dukes and our judges, the legislators who not long since enacted a penalty upon the profanation of that day, themselves profane it, and in a manner the most notorious. The Duchess of Devonshire has amused the world and herself almost as long as the most celebrated lady can expect to do it. They that were infants when she first started in the race of pleasure, are now beginning to engage attention, and will soon elbow that Queen of the revels out of her delightful office. Instead of a girdle there will be a rent, and instead of beauty, baldness. I once knew her Grace of Devonshire's mother well; she is a sensible and discreet woman, so that the daughter has the more to fear, and the less to plead in her excuse. Yet a little while, and she and all such will know that their life was madness. - Quicquid in buccam venerit, loquor. We are well, and shall rejoice to see you at any time. Be assured of our love, and believe me, my dear friend, Ever yours, WM.COWPER. TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL. MY DEAR FRIEND, June 3, 1783. My greenhouse, fronted with myrtles, and where I hear nothing but the pattering of a fine shower and the sound of distant thunder, wants only the fumes of your pipe to make it perfectly delightful. Tobacco was not known in the golden age. So much the worse for the golden age. This age of iron, or lead, would be insupportable without it; and therefore we may reasonably suppose that the happiness of those better days would have been much improved by the use of it. We hope that you and your son are perfectly recovered. The season has been most unfavourable to animal life; and I, who am merely animal, have suffered much by it. Though I should be glad to write, I write little or nothing. The time for such fruit is not yet come; but I expect it, and I wish for it. I want amusement; and, deprived of that, have none to supply the place of it. I send you, however, according to my promise to send you every thing, two stanzas composed at the request of Lady Austen. She wanted words to a tune she much admired, and I gave her these on Peace. Yours, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR WILLIAM, June 8, 1783. Our severest winter, commonly called the spring, is now over, and I find myself seated in my favourite recess, the greenhouse. In such a situation, so silent, so shady, where no human foot is heard, and where only my myrtles presume to peep in at the window, you may suppose I have no interruption to complain of, and that my thoughts are perfectly at my command. But the beauties of the spot are themselves an interruption; my attention is called upon by those very myrtles, by a double row of grass pinks just beginning to blossom, and by a bed of beans already in |