A few sensual and voluptuous persons may for a season eclipse this native light of the soul, but can never so wholly smother and extinguish it but that, at some lucid intervals, it will recover itself again, and shine forth to the conviction of their conscience.
If the eye were so acute as to rival the finest microscope, and to discern the smallest hair upon the leg of a gnat, it would be a curse, and not a blessing to us; it would make all things appear rugged and deformed; the most finely polished crystal would be uneven and rough; the sight of our own selves would affright us; the smoothest skin would be beset all over with rugged scales and bristly hair.
Is it not a firmer foundation for tranquillity to believe that all things were created, and are ordered for the best, than that the whole universe is mere bungling and blundering; nothing effected for any purpose or design, but all ill-favorably cobbled and jumbled together by the unguided agitation and rude shuffles of matter.
Queen Elizabeth, in her hard, wise way, writing to a mother who had lost her son, tells her that she will be comforted in time; and why should she not do for herself what the mere lapse of time will do for her?
When Zachariah Fox, the great merchant of Liverpool, was asked by what means he contrived to realize so large a fortune as he possessed, his reply was: “Friend, by one article alone, and in which thou mayest deal too, if thou pleasest, it is civility.”
