A PEEP INTO THE DEN OF IDLENESS.
Yonder! under those ragged rocks, where the baleful yews waving their sable branches of mournful cypress throws an awful gloom; a den dark and ghastly opens its horrid mouth! ’Tis there idleness is lodged, the great thief of time, and destroyer of innocence and human felicity.
What a dreadful cave!——how it yawns amid the noisome lakes and shaggy bushes! Vice and sin breed here; like monsters they hiss with impudence, and howl with too late repentance. Security and Carelessness, Sloth and Ignorance, joined hand in hand, stalk around. Hark how their mingled yells echo, in the caverns of the rocks, and drive downy footed Silence far away! Prodigality and Wantonness hover aloft, and call their votaries to the scene of irrevocable loss, and to the prison of unavoidable destruction, which at a little distance opens before them: there crowds led on by Error, and intoxicated with Folly sport to ruin.
But what frightful figure is that now emerging from the cave!---Riot and Noise attend him, and Bacchus (jolly god), and Venus, (bewitching queen) appear in the rear. That figure is Idleness, for defiance appears in his looks, and temerity and effrontery are stampt in indelible characters on his brow. Ebriety too with flushed cheeks and staggering gait appears in the group, whilst light-footed Mirth, led on by Gaiety, dance to the warbling notes of the birds of pleasure.
All around see the traps and gins put up to catch the imprudent, the giddy, and the thoughtless! Artfully are they covered over! but Wisdom’s keen eye sees the dangerous snares, and turns back with abhorrence. And see yonder the deceiving waters of pleasure and filthy lakes of impurity; a sink of vice and sin where evil conceptions breed, and hell-bred monsters sport in the sordid waves. I am shocked to my very heart at the sight!---Come, heaven-born peace and meek-eyed Religion, oh! come and destroy this horrid den, this rueful spot, where destruction secretly lurks, and where crowds daily unwaringly resort to inevitable and delicious ruin.
A FRAGMENT ON BENEVOLENCE.
He gives his mite to the relief of poverty. Joy enlivens his countenance, and sparkles in his eye. He can lay his hand upon his heart, and say, “I have done a good thing.” But who can do justice to his feelings? None but those whose lips the God of Israel hath touched with sacred fire! None but those whose pens are guided by the inspiration of the Almighty! And though at this moment my heart expands with the delightful sensation, I am totally unable to express it. Most devoutly do I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast given me feeling. The sensation, indeed, is sometimes painful; but the intellectual pain far excels the most delightful sensual pleasure.---Ye kings and princes of the earth, possess your envied grandeur! Let the epicure gratify his palate; let the miser hoard his gold in peace. Dear sensibility! do thou but spread thy benign influence over my soul, and I am sure I shall be happy.
He held out his hat. “Pity me,” said he, but turned away his face, to hide his blushing countenance, and the tear which stole down his cheek. I saw it; and that little tear, with a force as powerful as the inundations of the Nile, broke through all the bounds of cautious prudence. Had the wealth of the Indies been in my pocket, I could hot but have given it. I gave all I had. He cast his glistening eyes upon me. “You have saved a family: may God bless you!” with my then sensations I could have been happy through eternity. At that instant I could have wished all the wheels of Nature to have stopped.