of the lane, when I left my master's house, and hung upon "me, when they bid me farewell.”

"My new master obliged me to work in the field; the "consequence of which was, I caught a fever which in a few "weeks ended my life. Say, my friend, is my first young "master still alive? If he is go to him, and tell him, his ❝ unkind behaviour to me is upon record against him. The "gentle spirits in heaven, whose happiness consists in ex"pressions of gratitude and love, will have no fellowship "with him. His soul must be melted with pity, or he can "never escape the punishment which awaits the hard-hearted, "equally with the impenitent, in the regions of misery."

As soon as she had finished her story, a middle aged woman approached me, and after a low and respectful curtsey, thus addressed me.

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"Sir I was born and educated in a christian family in one "of the southern states of America. In the thirty-third 66 year of my age, I applied to my master to purchase my "freedom. Instead of granting my request, he conveyed me by force on board of a vessel and sold me to a planter "in the island of Hispaniola. Here it pleased God."Upon pronouncing these words, she paused, and a general silence ensued. All at once, the eyes of the whole assembly were turned from me, and directed towards a little white man who advanced towards them, on the opposite side of the grove, in which we were seated. His face was grave, placid, and full of benignity. In one hand he carried a subscription paper and a petition-in the other, he carried a small pamphlet, on the unlawfulness of the African slave-trade, and a letter directed to the King of Prussia, upon the unlawfulness

of war. While I was employed in contemplating this venerable figure-suddenly I beheld the whole assembly running to meet him the air resounded with the clapping of handsand I awoke from my dream, by the noise of a general acclamation of

ANTHONY BENEZET!

AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF PREMATURE DEATHS.

THE

HE frequency of death in infancy, childhood, and middle life, and the immense disproportion between the number who die in those periods, and of those who die in old age, have often been urged as arguments against the wisdom and goodness of the divine government. The design of this inquiry is to shew that, in the present state of the world those supposed evils, or defects, are blessings in disguise, and a part of a wise and extensive system of goodness to the children of men.

The reasons for this opinion are:

1. Did all the people who are born, live to be seventy or eighty years of age, the population of the globe would soon so far surpass its present cultivation, that millions would perish yearly from the want of food.

INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF PREMATURE DEATHS. 311

2. Did all the men and women who come into the world, live to be old, how miserable would be the condition of most of them, from weakness, sickness, and pain! Unable to assist each other, and neglected or deserted by their children, or friends, they would perish from want, or perhaps putrify above ground. This view of the consequences of universal longevity is not an exaggerated one. A tribe of northern Indians, Mr. Hearnes says, always leave their parents, when they become old and helpless, to die alone with hunger. They meet death, he adds, with resignation, from an idea of its necessity, and from the recollection of their having treated their parents in the same manner. In support of the remark, under this head, let us recollect how many old people in humble life, are maintained by the public, and how few parents in genteel life, after they have exhausted their liberality upon their children, receive from them a due proportion of gratitude or respect.

3. In the present depraved state of human nature, how great would be the mass of vice in the world, if old age were universal? If avarice in an individual strikes a whole city with surprise and horror, how great would be the mass of this vice in a city that contained 30 or 40,000 old people, all equally absorbed in the love of money? Again, what would be the extent and degrees of ambition, malice and cruelty, nurtured and cherished for 70 or 80 years in the same number of human beings? But, to do justice to this part of our subject, let us view the effects of universal longevity upon another and greater scale. Suppose Alexander, Cæsar, Nero, Caligula, and many others of the conquerors and tyrants of the ancient world, had lived to be old men with the ambition and love of power that have been ascribed to them, growing with their years, how much more accumulated would have been their

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crimes, and how much more distressing would have been the history of the nations which were conquered and enslaved by them! The same Alexander, who at thirty years of age, only demanded divine homage from his captives, would probably at seventy have exacted human sacrifices to satisfy his assumed divinity; and the same Nero, who, when a young man, only fiddled at the sight of the houses of Rome in a blaze, had he lived to be old, would probably have danced at the sight of all the inhabitants of that city perishing in its general conflagration. But I will not rely upon mere supposition, to evince the pernicious influence which universal longevity has upon morals. The inhabitants of the antediluvian world exhibited a memorable instance of it. Their wickedness is characterized by the sacred historian in the following words. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil, continually. The earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence." Gen. vi. 6 & 11. The extent of the wickedness among the antediluvians may easily be conceived from the two following circum

stances.

1. The small number of those persons who escaped the general depravity of morals which had overspread the world, being eight only; and that at a time when the world was probably more populous than it has ever been since.

2. The abortive issue of the means that God employed to reform them. Noah preached to them several hundred years, and probably during that long period, travelled over a great portion of the world, and yet not a single person was converted, or saved from destruction by his ministry, except the members of his own family.

It was from a review of this wickedness, by the Supreme Being, that life was shortened, as if in mercy to present a a similar accumulation of it in any future age of the world. "And the Lord said, my breath shall not always remain in these men because they are flesh, yet shall their days be one hundred and twenty years. For the same reason they were

afterwards reduced to seventy, or a few more years, as is obvious from the 10th verse of the 90th Psalm.

4. The mass of vice is not only lessened by the small pro portion of the human race who live to be old, but the mass of virtue is thereby greatly increased. The death of persons who have filled up the measure of their days, and who descend to the grave in a good old age, seldom excites a serious reflection; but every death that occurs in early or middle life, has a tendency to damp the ardor of worldly pursuits, to weaken the influence of some sinful passion, and to produce some degrees of reverence for that religion which opens prospects of life and happiness beyond the grave.

* This translation of the verse is copied from the LXX. whose version is justified by all the circumstances of the case, The Creator had breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, (Gen. ii. 7.) and a continuance in life was promised him during his continuance in innocence; but upon his transgression he became mortal; and upon an increase of wickedness, human life was proportionably shortened. It was for this reason (Gen. vi. 13.) that God determined to destroy the old world; and this occasioned the above declaration: the punctuality with which it was verified deserves particular notice; for Noah was employed 120 years in building the ark; and at the expiration of that time the flood came, and destroyed "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land." Gen. vii. 22.

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