than when my mind is so occupied. How many people derive their amusement from vicious propensities? How many more from frivolous and contemptible pursuits ? And, indeed, can human life subsist comfortably, without some resources of this kind? My excellent mistress, Queen Mary, held the want of employment to be the source of all evil; and that any thing that would occupy and interest the mind, without leaving any dregs of evil behind it, ought to fill up those vacant hours, that were not claimed by devotion or business. She and the ladies of her court brought work again into fashion. The object should be to make our occupations not only inoffensive, but useful; and so to manage them, as to improve for those who succeed us, and to supply employment and food for those who are dependent upon us.--Excuse me, my dear friends, if I am too diffuse. My wish is to suggest some of the means, which I have adopted to preclude anxiety of mind, and preserve a constant flow of cheerful and pleasing thoughts. MR. LYTTELTON. Thank you, my dear Lord. You open new light on me, by so forcibly displaying the impropriety of cherishing anxious thoughts. I shall add to my list as the eighth deadly sin, that of ANXIETY OF MIND; and resolve not to be pining and miserable, when I ought to be grateful and happy. - BISHOP HOUGH. I have endeavoured to shew how mental anxiety may be relieved, and habitual cheerfulness obtained, by regular and earnest prayer, by social intercourse, by entertaining books, by pleasant and innocent amusement, and by constant employment; so that every occupation shall have its hour, and every hour its occupation. But there is another source of cheerfulness and complacency of mind in advanced life, which ought not to be forgotten; I mean the pleasure of reflecting, during the infirmity of age, on the benevolent exertions which we have made in the active period of life. -What comfort will not you always derive, Bishop of London, from your endeavours to disperse the mists of popery? The light which you have thus diffused, will shed a lustre round your path, as you descend the hill of life. -And again, may not you and I, my friend, look back with satisfaction, on the active share we took in improving the religious knowledge * * In the beginning of the 18th century great exertions were made for the instruction of the poor, and many Charity Schools founded and endowed; most of which are still existing, and some are now in a state of action and utility. Much good was certainly produced by them, though much remains to be done : for England never had that legal provision for universal education, which Scotland has enjoyed for above a century; nor had it till very lately the benefit of Dr. Bell's invaluable discovery, which will probably render such a legal provision less neces sary. and habits of the poor, at the com- . mencement of the present century? Much was then done under her Majesty's sanction. The effects are already to be traced, in the check which has been given to that extreme profaneness and immorality, which had prevailed from the time of the restoration; and a foundation has been laid for a system of UNIVERSAL EDUCATION, extended to every individual in the country. In all the darkest and most depraved ages of the world, ignorance has been the source of vice and immorality. The SOUL will not be left vacant and unoccupied. To talk of keeping evil out of the mind by ignorance is idle. You must chuse between |
