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OF MISERY.

UNDER the term misery, Mr. M. comprises a host of evils, formidable in their nature, and so extensive in their influence, as to appear capable not only of checking the increase, but of destroying the whole race of man. The direct injury done by vice, is but as a drop in the bucket, compared with that done by misery. During the long period of six thousand years in which it has taken up its abode in our world, it has shown its horrid form to every generation; no sooner has one been hurried by it from its proper station than it seizes on another, and forces it down the current of time, grappling with all the evils its name imports; another and another have succeeded, and shared the same. fate.

But, happily for man, this prevalent and powerful evil is of his own creating: misery is not forced upon us, it forms no part, it has no

place in the laws by which man is governed. War, famine, pestilence, unwholesome occupations, and a long train of other evils which Mr. M. enumerates under this head, do not constitute a natural or a necessary part in the government of the world.

There is no physical cause of war, none of famine, none of pestilence: when did there a war happen that could not have been prevented? or a famine, that might not have been guarded against? Are not millions of acres of fertile land at the service of man? if they are allowed to lie waste; if that labour is not bestowed upon them which was stipulated in the gift, faminė inevitably follows, for the earth is not spontaneously fruitful: but a voluntary evil is distinct from a natural one. Is not indolence a reproach to an individual, because it ends in want? so scarcity, as the consequence of indolence, is a reproach to a government: the people will labour if they are sufficiently protected. It is a disgrace to a nation to want bread; to say so, would be impious, were it not given to us in as great an abundance as we stretch out our hands to receive: we have only to cultivate a sufficient extent of land, and a store may be laid up for many succeeding years.

Pestilence commonly arises out of some act of human folly, or is the consequence of igno rance. War is the parent of pestilence; it follows in its train as one attached to it, as the history of the world too fully testifies. Improvements in the arts of peace have always driven away pestilence, even when it had had long possession of a country. When Bengal was first occupied by the British, the life of a man was not worth more than two monsoons; but the goodness of the situation made its retention. desirable; and by discovering the cause of the malady to be in the undrained state of the land, by remedying it the effect ceased, and Bengal is now as healthful as any town in China. The middle states of Europe, about a century and a half ago, and for many preceding years, were visited by frequent returns of pestilential seasons, but now these scourges are happily unknown; the advancement of cultivation, and the generally improved condition of the people, are the causes that have produced this important change. Constantinople, the mother of plagues, was not wasted by them when the sceptre of the Roman government was retained in her palaces; and her present bondage to them, we may fairly infer, originates not in a permanent,

immoveable cause, but in one which it is the duty of the government to enquire into and remedy. The people of the coast of America are almost the yearly victims of this grievous evil, but the interior of that country is free from it; ingenuity will, I doubt not, discover the cause of its local existence, and foresight guard against or prevent it. The West-Indies, the coast of Africa, the Pontian Marshes near Rome, are all nurseries of pestilence; but there is a cause for each, and the cause is in general known.

England, Switzerland, France, are no more naturally exempt from pestilence now, than they were a century and a half ago, yet these Scourges approach not the borders of these countries; the same, in another hundred and fifty years, will probably be said of America, and every other place now visited by them, if in that time an improvement takes place in the face of those countries.

There are many other important considerations connected with this subject, which I design to state in a future dissertation. It is sufficient for the present to say, that the world is not visited by plagues at irregular but fixed and certain periods: a comet observes its course, and

approaches our horizon at the time when its appearance is expected; but this cannot be said of plagues, no calculation can be made concerning them, unless from considering the manners and customs of a country.

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Plagues are sometimes mentioned in the scriptures, as indicating the displeasure of God; so are wars, and so is famine; but I am not speaking of them in that light, my object is, to consider their ordinary cause. That the subject may be left as free from embarrassment as possible, let the history of the world be read over, and the misery that hath at various times pressed hard upon it be noted down, and the cause enquired into, and I apprehend very little of it will be found to attach to the appointment of God; on the contrary, man will be found at once the cause and the instrument of his own destruction.

Famine and pestilence are the consequences of indolence, and war of selfishness, but neither indolence or selfishness are directed to be the rules of our conduct. At the eventful period of the overthrow of the Roman empire, in which the world lost half its population by war, famine, and pestilence, no supernatural power was called into exercise; the irruption of the barbarians

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