I. INQUIRY AFTER HAPPINESS.

There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us!-PSALM IV. 6.

THE great pursuit of man is after happiness; it is the first and strongest desire of his nature. In every stage of his life he searches for it as for hid treasure; courts it under a thousand different shapes; and, though perpetually disappointed, still persists, runs after, and inquires for it afresh,-asks every passenger who comes in his way, Who will show him any good? -who will assist him in the attainment or direct him to the discovery of this great end of all his wishes?

He is told by one to search for it among the more gay and useful pleasures of life, in scenes of mirth and sprightliness, where happiness ever presides, and is ever to be known by the joy and laughter which he will at once see painted in her looks.

A second, with a graver aspect, points out to the costly dwellings which pride and extravagance have erected; tells the inquirer that the object he is in search of inhabits there; that Happiness lives only in company with the great, in the midst of much pomp and outward state; that he will easily find her out by the coat of many colours she has on, and the great luxury and expense of equipage and furniture with which she always sits surrounded.

The miser blesses God! wonders how any one would mislead, and wilfully put him upon so wrong a scent; convinces him that happiness and extravagance never inhabited under the same roof; that, if he would not be disappointed in his search, he must look into the plain and thrifty dwelling of the prudent man, who knows and understands the worth of money, and cautiously lays it up against an evil hour: that it is not the prostitution of wealth upon the passions, or the parting with it at all, that constitutes happiness; but that it is the keeping it together, and the having and holding it fast to him and his heirs for ever, which are the chief attributes that form this great idol of human worship, to which so much incense is offered up every day.

The epicure, though he easily rectifies so gross

a mistake, yet at the same time he plunges him, if possible, into a greater; for, hearing the objects of his pursuits to be happiness, and knowing of no other happiness than what is seated immediately in his senses,-he sends the inquirer there, tells him 'tis in vain to search

elsewhere for it than where Nature herself has placed it-in the indulgence and gratification of the appetites, which are given us for that end; and, in a word-if he will not take his opinion in the matter-he may trust the word of a much wiser man, who has assured us that there is nothing better in this world than that a man should eat and drink, and rejoice in his works, and make his soul enjoy good in his labour, for that is his portion.

To rescue him from this brutal experiment, Ambition takes him by the hand, and carries him into the world; shows him all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them; points out the many ways of advancing his fortune, and raising himself to honour; lays before his eyes all the charms and bewitching temptations of power; and asks if there can be any happiness in this world like that of being caressed, courted, flattered, and followed?

To close all, the philosopher meets him bustling in the full career of this pursuit, stops him, tells him if he is in search of happiness he is far gone out of his way; that this deity has long been banished from noise and tumults, where there was no rest found for her, and was fled into solitude far from all commerce of the world; and, in a word, if he would find her, he must leave this busy and intriguing scene, and go back to that peaceful scene of retirement and books from which he at first set out.

In this circle too often docs man run, tries all experiments, and generally sits down weary and dissatisfied with them all at last, in utter despair of ever accomplishing what he wants, nor knowing what to trust to after so many disappointments, or where to lay the fault, whether in the incapacity of his own nature, or the insufficiency of the enjoyments themselves.

In this uncertain and perplexed state, without knowledge which way to turn or where to betake ourselves for refuge-so often abused

and deceived by the many who pretend thus to show us any good-Lord! says the Psalmist, lift up the light of thy countenance upon us! Send us some rays of thy grace and heavenly wisdom, in this benighted search after happiness, to direct us safely to it! O God! let us not wander for ever without a guide, in this dark region, in endless pursuit of our mistaken good, but enlighten our eyes that we sleep not in death; open to them the comforts of thy holy word and religion; lift up the light of thy countenance upon us, and make us know the joy and satisfaction of living in the true faith and fear of thee, which only can carry us to this haven of rest where we would be, that sure haven where true joys are to be found, which will at length not only answer all our expectations, but satisfy the most unbounded of our wishes for ever and ever.

The words thus opened naturally reduce the remaining part of the discourse under 'two heads. The first part of the verse, 'There be many that say, Who will show us any good?'-To make some reflections upon the insufficiency of most of our enjoyments towards the attainment of happiness, upon some of the most received plans on which 'tis generally sought.

The examination of which will lead us up to the source and true secret of all happiness, suggested to us in the latter part of the verse,'Lord! lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us,'-that there can be no real happiness without religion and virtue, and the assistance of God's grace and Holy Spirit to direct our lives in the true pursuit of it.

Let us inquire into the disappointments of human happiness, on some of the most received plans on which 'tis generally sought for and expected by the bulk of mankind.

There is hardly any subject more exhausted, or which at one time or other has afforded more matter for argument and declamation than this one, of the insufficiency of our enjoyments. Scarcely a reformed sensualist, from Solomon down to our own days, who has not in some fits of repentance or disappointment uttered some sharp reflection upon the emptiness of human pleasure, and of the vanity of vanities which discovers itself in all the pursuits of mortal man. But the mischief has been, that, though so many good things have been said, they have generally had the fate to be considered either as the overflowings of disgust from sated appetites, which could no longer relish the pleasures of life; or as the declamatory opinions of recluse and splenetic men, who had never tasted them at all, and consequently were thought no judges of the matter. So that 'tis no great wonder if the greatest part of such reflections, however just in themselves and founded on truth and knowledge of the world, are found to leave

little impression where the imagination was already heated with great expectations of future happiness; and that the best lectures that have been read upon the vanity of the world so seldom stop a man in the pursuit of the object of his desire, or give half the conviction that the possession of it will, and what the experience of his own life, or a careful observation upon the life of others, do, at length generally confirm to us all.

Let us endeavour, then, to try the cause upon this issue; and instead of recurring to the common arguments, or taking any one's word in the case, let us trust to matter of fact; and if, upon inquiry, it appears that the actions of mankind are not to be accounted for upon any other principle but this of the insufficiency of our enjoyments, 'twill go further towards the establishment of the truth of this part of the discourse than a thousand speculative arguments which might be offered upon the occasion.

Now if we take a survey of the life of man, from the time he is come to reason to the latest decline of it in old age, we shall find him engaged, and generally hurried on, in such a succession of different pursuits and different opinions of things, through the different stages of his life, as will admit of no explication but this,-That he finds no rest for the sole of his foot on any of the plans where he has been led to expect it.

The moment he is got loose from tutors and governors, and is left to judge for himself, and pursue this scheme his own way, his first thoughts are generally full of the mighty happiness which he is going to enter upon, from the free enjoyment of the pleasures in which he sees others of his age and fortune engaged.

In consequence of this, take notice how his imagination is taught by every glittering appearance that flatters this expectation. Observe what impressions are made upon his senses by diversions, music, dress, and beauty; and how his spirits are upon the wing, flying in pursuit of them, that you would think he could never have enough.

Leave him to himself a few years, till the edge of appetite is worn down, and you will scarce know him again. You will find him entered into engagements, and setting up for a man of business and conduct, talking of no other happiness but what centres in projects of making the most of this world, and providing for his children and children's children after them. Examine his notions, he will tell you that the gayer pleasures of youth are only fit for those who know not how to dispose of themselves and time to better advantage. That however fair and promising they might appear to a man unpractised in them, they were no better than a life of folly and impertinence; and, so far from answering your expectations

of happiness, 'twas well if you escaped without pain. That in every experiment he had tried, he had found more bitter than sweet; and, for the little pleasure one could snatch, it too often left a terrible sting behind it. Besides, did the balance lie on the other side, he would tell you there could be no true satisfaction where a life runs on in so giddy a circle, out of which a wise man should extricate himself as soon as he can, that he may begin to look forwards; that it becomes a man of character and consequence to lay aside childish things, to take care of his interests, to establish the fortune of his family, and place it out of want and dependence; and, in a word, if there is such a thing as happiness upon earth, it must consist in the accomplishment of this; and, for his own part, if God should prosper his endeavours so as to be worth such a sum, or to be able to bring such a point to bear, he shall be one of the happiest of the sons of men. In full assurance of this, on he drudges, plots, contrives, rises early, late takes rest, and eats the bread of carefulness, till at length, by hard labour and perseverance, he has reached, if not outgone, the object he had first in view. When he has got thus far, if he is a plain and sincere man, he will make no scruple to acknowledge truly what alteration he has found in himself. If you ask him, he will tell you that his imagination painted something before his eyes, the reality of which he has not yet attained to; that, with all the accumulation of his wealth, he neither lives the merrier, sleeps the sounder, nor has less care and anxiety upon his spirits than at his first setting out.

Perhaps, you'll say, some dignity, honour, or title only is wanting: oh! could I accomplish that, as there would be nothing left then for to wish, good God! how happy should I be "Tis still the same: the dignity or title, though they crown his head with honour, add not one cubit to his happiness. Upon summing up the account, all, all is found to be seated merely in the imagination. The faster he has pursued, the faster the phantom flies before him; and, to use the satirist's comparison of the chariotwheels, haste as they will, they must for ever keep the same distance.

But what? though I have been thus far disappointed in my expectations of happiness from the possession of riches, 'let me try whether I shall not meet with it in the spending and fashionable enjoyment of them.'

Behold! I will get me down, and make me great works, and build me houses, and plant me vineyards, and make me gardens, and pools of water; and I will get me servants and maidens; and whatsoever my eyes desire I will not keep from them.

In prosecution of this, he drops all painful pursuits, withdraws himself from the busy part of the world, realizes, pulls down, builds

up again; buys statues, pictures; plants, and plucks up by the roots; levels mountains, and fills up valleys; turns rivers into dry ground, and dry ground into rivers; says unto this man, Go, and he goeth; and unto another, Do this, and he doeth it: and whatsoever his soul lusteth after, of this kind, he withholds not from it. When everything is thus planned by himself, and executed according to his wish and direction, surely he is arrived to the accomplishment of his wishes, and has got to the summit of all human happiness? Let the most fortunate adventurers in this way answer the question for him, and say how often it arises higher than a bare and simple amusement; and well if you can compound for that, since 'tis often purchased at so high a price, and so soured by a mixture of other incidental vexations, as to become too often a work of repentance, which in the end will extort the same sorrowful confession from him which it did from Solomon in the like case,Lo! I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit: and there was no profit to me under the sun.'

To inflame this account the more-it would be no miracle if, upon casting it up, he has gone further lengths than he first intended; run into expenses which have entangled his fortune; and brought himself into such difficulties as to make way for the last experiment he can try,-and that is, to turn miser, with no happiness in view but what is to rise out of the little designs of a sordid mind, set upon saving and scraping up all he has injudiciously spent.

In this last stage, behold him a poor trembling wretch, shut up from all mankind, sinking into utter contempt; spending careful days and sleepless nights in pursuit of what a narrow and contracted heart can never enjoy: and let us here leave him to the conviction he will one day find,-that there is no end of his labour; that his eyes will never be satisfied with riches, or will say, For whom do I labour and bereave myself of rest? This is also a sore travail.

I believe this is no uncommon picture of the disappointments of human life, and the manner our pleasures and enjoyments slip from under us in every stage of our life. And though I would not be thought, by it, as if I was denying the reality of pleasures, or disputing the being of them, any more than one would the reality of pain, yet I must observe, on this head, that there is a plain distinction to be made betwixt pleasure and happiness; for, though there can be no happiness without pleasure, yet the reverse of the proposition will not hold true. We are so made that, from the common gratifications of our appetites, and the impressions of a thousand objects, we snatch the one, like a transient gleam, without being suffered to taste the other,

and enjoy the perpetual sunshine and fair weather which constantly attend it. This, I contend, is only to be found in religion-in the consciousness of virtue-and the sure and certain hopes of a better life, which brighten all our prospects, and leave no room to dread disappointments; because the expectation thereof is built upon a rock, whose foundations are as deep as those of heaven and hell.

And though in our pilgrimage through this world some of us may be so fortunate as to meet with some clear fountains by the way, that may cool for a few moments the heat of this great thirst of happiness; yet our Saviour, who knew the world, though he enjoyed but little of it, tells us that whosoever drinketh of this water will thirst again; and we all find, by experience, it is so, and by reason, that it always must be so.

a mournful traveller the short rest and refreshments necessary to suppport his spirits through the stages of a weary pilgrimage? or that he would call him to a severe reckoning, because in his way he had hastily snatched at some little fugacious pleasures, merely to sweeten this uneasy journey of life, and reconcile him to the ruggedness of the road, and the many hard jostlings he is sure to meet with? Consider, I beseech you, what provision and accommodation the Author of our being has prepared for us, that we might not go on our way sorrowing; how many caravanseras of rest; what powers and faculties he has given us for taking it; what apt objects he has placed in our way to entertain us,-some of which he has made so fair, so exquisitely fitted for this end, that they have power over us for a time, to charm away the sense of pain, to cheer up the dejected heart

Never did the busy brain of a lean and hectic chemist search for the philosopher's stone with more pains and ardour than this great man did after happiness. He was one of the wisest inquirers into Nature; had tried all her powers and capacities; and, after a thousand vain speculations and vile experiments, he affirmed, at length, it lay hid in no one thing he had tried. Like the chemist's projections, all had ended in smoke, or, what was worse, in vanity and vexation of spirit.-The conclusion of the whole matter was this, that he advises every man who would be happy to fear God and keep his commandments.

II. THE HOUSE OF FEASTING AND THE HOUSE OF MOURNING DESCRIBED.

'It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.'-ECCLES. VII. 2, 3.

THAT I deny: but let us hear the wise man's reasoning upon it,- For that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart; sorrow is better than laughter,'-for a crackbrained order of Carthusian monks, I grant, but not for men of the world. For what purpose, do you imagine, has God made us? for the social sweets of the well-watered valleys, where he has planted us; or for the dry and dismal desert of a Sierra Morena? Are the sad accidents of life, and the uncheery hours which perpetually overtake us, are they not enough, but we must sally forth in quest of them, belie our own hearts, and say, as our text would have us, that they are better than those of joy? Did the Best of Beings send us into the world for this end,-to go weeping through it,-to vex and shorten a life short and vexatious enough already? Do you think, my good preacher, that he who is infinitely happy can envy us our enjoyments? or that a Being so infinitely kind would grudge

remember its miseries no more.

I will not contend at present against this rhetoric; I would choose rather for a moment to go on with the allegory, and say we are travellers, and, in the most affecting sense of that idea, that, like travellers, though upon business of the last and nearest concern to us, we may surely be allowed to amuse ourselves with the natural or artificial beauties of the country we are passing through, without reproach of forgetting the main errand we are sent upon; and if we can so order it as not to be led out of the way by the variety of prospects, edifices, and ruins which solicit us, it would be a nonsensical piece of saint-errantry to shut our eyes.

But let us not lose sight of the argument in pursuit of the simile.

Let us remember, various as our excursions are, that we have still set our faces towards Jerusalem; that we have a place of rest and happiness, towards which we hasten, and that the way to get there is not so much to please our hearts, as to improve them in virtue; that mirth and feasting are usually no friends to achievements of this kind, but that a season of affliction is in some sort a season of piety, not only because our sufferings are apt to put us in mind of our sins, but that by the check and interruption which they give to our pursuits, they allow us what the hurry and bustle of the world too often deny us,-and that is a little time for reflection, which is all that most of us want to make us wiser and better men; that at certain times it is so necessary a man's mind should be turned towards itself, that, rather than want occasions, he had better purchase them at the expense of his present happiness. He had better, as the text expresses it, go to the house of mourning, where he will meet with something to subdue his passions, than to the house of feasting, where the joy and gaiety of the place is likely to excite them. That whereas the entertainments and caresses of the one place expose

his heart and lay it open to temptations; the sorrows of the other defend it, and as naturally shut them from it. So strange and unaccountable a creature is man! he is so framed that he cannot but pursue happiness; and yet, unless he is made sometimes miserable, how apt is he to mistake the way which can only lead him to the accomplishment of his own wishes!

This is the full force of the wise man's declaration. But to do further justice to his words, I will endeavour to bring the subject still nearer. For which purpose it will be necessary to stop here, and take a transient view of the two places here referred to, the house of mourning, and the house of feasting. Give me leave therefore, I beseech you, to recall both of them for a moment to your imaginations, that thence I may appeal to your hearts, how faithfully, and upon what good grounds, the effects and natural operations of each upon our minds are intimated in the text.

render himself an acceptable guest,-let us conccive them entering into the house of feasting, with hearts set loose from grave restraints, and open to the expectations of receiving pleasure. It is not necessary, as I premised, to bring intemperance into this scene, or to suppose such an excess in the gratification of the appetites as shall ferment the blood and set the desires in a flame. Let us admit no more of it, therefore, than will gently stir them, and fit them for the impressions which so benevolent a commerce will naturally excite. In this disposition, thus wrought upon beforehand, and already improved to this purpose, take notice how mechanically the thoughts and spirits rise; how soon and insensibly they are got above the pitch and first bounds which cooler hours would have marked.

And here, to be as fair and candid as possible in the description of this, we will not take it from the worst originals, such as are open merely for the sale of virtue, and so calculated for the end, that the disguise each is under not only gives power safely to drive on the bargain, but safely to carry it into execution too.

This we will not suppose to be the case; nor let us even imagine the house of feasting to be such a scene of intemperance and excess as the house of feasting docs often exhibit; but let us take it from one as little exceptionable as we can-where there is, or at least appears, nothing really criminal, but where everything seems to be kept within the visible bounds of moderation and sobriety.

Imagine, then, such a house of feasting, where, either by consent or invitation, a number of each sex is drawn together for no other purpose but the enjoyment and mutual entertainment of each other, which we will suppose shall arise from no other pleasures but what custom authorizes, and religion does not absolutely forbid.

Before we enter, let us examine what must be the sentiments of each individual previous to his arrival, and we shall find, however they may differ from one another in tempers and opinions, that every one seems to agree in this, that, as he is going to a house dedicated to joy and mirth, it was fit he should divest himself of whatever was likely to contradict that intention, or be inconsistent with it. That for this purpose he had left his cares, his serious thoughts, and his moral reflections, behind him; and was come forth from home with only such dispositions and gaiety of heart as suited the occasion, and promoted the intended mirth and jollity of the place. With this preparation of mind, which is as little as can be supposed, since it will amount to no more than a desire in each to

flatter his senses, have conspired with the enemy within to betray him, and put him off his defence; when music likewise hath lent her aid, and tried her power upon the passions; when the voice of singing men, and the voice of singing women, with the sound of the viol and the lute, have broken in upon his soul, and in some tender notes have touched the secret springs of rapture,-that moment let us dissect and look into his heart-see how vain! how weak! how empty a thing it is! Look through its several recesses, those pure mansions formed for the reception of innocence and virtue: sad spectacle! Behold those fair inhabitants now dispossessed-turned out of their sacred dwellings, to make room-for what? At the best for levity and indiscretion; perhaps for folly; it may be for more impure guests, which possibly, in so general a riot of the mind and senses, may take occasion to enter unsuspected at the same time.

In a scene and disposition thus described, can the most cautious say, Thus far shall my desires go, and no further? or will the coolest and most circumspect say, when pleasure has taken full possession of his heart, that no thought nor purpose shall arise there which he would have concealed? In those loose and unguarded moments, the imagination is not always at command; in spite of reason and reflection, it will forcibly carry him sometimes whither he would not-like the unclean spirit, in the parent's sad description of his child's case, which took him, and ofttimes cast him into the fire to destroy him; and wheresoever it taketh him it teareth him, and hardly departeth from him.

But this, you'll say, is the worst account of what the mind may suffer here.

Why may we not make more favourable suppositions?—that numbers, by exercise and custom to such encounters, learn gradually to despise and triumph over them; that the