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.
* * * * *