A RELIGIOUS difpofition frequently mixes itself in retirement with the innocent and moral enjoyments of the heart, and promotes, by reciprocal effects, the highest pleasures of Solitude. A fimple, virtuous, and tranquil life, prepares and prompts the mind to raise itself towards its God; the contemplation of the Divine Nature fills the heart with religious devotion; and the fublime effect of Religion is tranquillity. When the mind is once touched with the true precepts of our holy Religion, the vanities of the world lose their charms, and the bosom feels the miseries and torments of humanity with diminished anguish. All around is calm and quiet. The tumultuous din of fociety appears like thunder rolling at a diftance and the pious reclufe joyfully exclaims, in the words of the Poet,

"Bleft be that hand divine, which gently laid "My heart at reft beneath this humble fhed. "The world's a stately bark on dang'rous feas, "With pleasure seen, but boarded at our peril : "Here,

chapel of the Monaftery. His domestics marched thither in funeral proceffion with black tapers in their hands. He himself followed in his fhroud. He was laid in his coffin with much folemnity. The fervice of the dead was chaunted, and CHARLES joined in the prayers which were offered up for the rest of his foul, mingling his tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral. The ceremony closed with sprinkling holy water on the coffin in the ufual form, and all the affiftants retiring, the doors of the chapel were shut. Then CHARLES rose out of the coffin, and withdrew to his apartment, full of those awful fentiments which fuch a fingular folemnity was calculated to inspire.

"Here, on a fingle plank, thrown fafe afhore,
"I hear the tumult of the diftant throng,
"As that of feas remote or dying storms;
"And meditate on scenes more filent ftill;
"Pursue my theme, and fight the fear of Death.
"Here, like a shepherd gazing from his hut,
"Touching his reed, or leaning on his staff,
"Eager Ambition's fiery chase I fee;
"I fee the circling hunt of noisy men

"Burft Law's inclosure, leap the mounds of right,
"Pursuing and purfu'd, each other's prey,
"As wolves for rapine; as the fox for wiles;
"Till Death, that mighty hunter, earths them all.”

WHEN Addifon perceived that he was given over by his phyficians, and felt his end approaching, he sent for Lord Warwick, a young man of very irregular life and loose opinions, whom he had diligently, but vainly, endeavoured to reclaim, but who by no means wanted respect for the person of his preceptor, and was fenfible of the loss he was about to fuftain. When he entered the chamber of his dying friend, Addifon, who was extremely feeble, and whofe life at that moment hung quivering on his lips, obferved a profound filence. The youth, after a long and awful pause, at length faid, in low and trembling accents, "Sir, you "defired to fee me: fignify your commands, and "be affured I will execute them with religious "fidelity." Addison took him by the hand, and with his expiring breath replied, "Observe with "what

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"what tranquillity a Chriftian can die." Such is the consolation which springs from a due fenfe of the principles and a proper practice of the precepts of our holy Religion: fuch the high reward a life of fimplicity and innocence bestows.

RELIGION's force divine is but display'd
In deep desertion of all human aid;

To fuccour in extremes is her delight,

And cheer the heart when terror strikes the fight.
We, disbelieving our own fenfes, gaze,
And wonder what a mortal's heart can raise,
To triumph at misfortunes, fmile in grief,
And comfort those who came to bring relief:
We gaze; and as we gaze, wealth, fame decay,
And all the world's vain glories fade away.

HE who during the retirement of the day feriously studies, and during the filence of the night piously contemplates the auguft doctrines of the Revelation, will be convinced of their power by

* An author of great piety and good fenfe, after defcribing, in a letter on the Dignity of Man, the extraordinary benefits conferred by Revelation, burfts out into the following fpirited apof trophe: "O, bleffed Revelation! that opens fuch wonders!,

dreadful Revelation! if it open them in vain. And are there those with whom they go for nought? Strange men! in pof* feffion of a bleffing, the bare hopes of which fupported the fpi"rits of the wife for four thoufand years under all the calami"ties of life and terrors of death; and know they not that it is

in their hands? or, knowing, caft it away as of no value? A <bleffing, the very shadow of which made the body of the Pa_

triarchal and Jewish Religion! A bleffing, after which the

"whole