tion or contempt. The fair prospects which his friends had once entertained of him die away, in proportion as his idleness or extravagance grows; and the only hope which remains is, that some fortunate incident may occur to check his career, and reclaim him to a better mind. In the mean time, the respectable and the grave smile at his follies, and avoid his company. In the midst of some fashionable assemblies he may shine; by some of his fellows he may be admired; but in the world he is of no significance or consequence, any more than the little animals that sport around him. Health, the most valuable of all temporal blessings, is known to be preserved by temperance and a regular life. But, by the men of dissipation, it is readily sacrificed at the shrine of pleasure. To years of health and soundness, they are often so foolish as to prefer a few hours of sensual gratification. Supposing that no extravagant excesses, or vicious pleasures, cut short their health and life, yet what constitution can stand the irregular hours, the disorderly living, the careless indulgence into which the love of pleasure draws those who devote themselves to it? Hence the shattered and debilitated body, and the premature old age. The native vigour and sprightliness of youth is melted down by effeminacy and sensuality. The spirits are weakened and enervated, if not sunk and lost for ever.

The state of their fortune may, for a while, enable them to indulge their pleasures, and to maintain the figure they wish to keep up in the world; but let fortune be ever so affluent, in the possession of such persons, it is in the high road to decay. For to them, attention to business, or to the management of their affairs, becomes a burden, which they studiously shun.

Prudent economy is disdained, as a mean attention, belonging only to vulgar and narrow minds. Their habits of licentiousness require unlimited indulgence. The demands of passion must be immediately supplied, whatever the consequences be. Hence, delivering themselves up to those who can furnish supply for their expense, or who pretend to take charge of their affairs, they become the prey of the crafty, who fatten on their spoils; till at last, in the midst of thoughtless extravagance, and of general waste and profusion, they see nothing remaining to them but the ruins of a broken fortune.

Such are some of the miseries attending habits of dissipation, and the intemperate love of pleasure. We see them daily exemplified in the world, throughout all the stages of this character, from the frivolous and the giddy, up to the rake and the profligate; in some stages, only impairing health and fortune; in others, entirely overthrowing them; in their beginnings, casting a shade on the characters of men; in their completion, exposing them to disgrace and misery. Even abstracting from those ultimate consequences in which irregular pleasures terminate, the gratification, which, in the mean time, they bestow, is dearly paid for. A temporary satisfaction, it is admitted, they afford. They raise the spirits to a degree of elevation above their usual tone, but in that forced elevation they can never long remain; and in proportion to the elevation to which they were raised, is the degree of depression to which they subside. Experience has shown, that no sensual pleasure, except what is regulated by temperance, can be lasting. Every pleasure that is carried beyond it, is no more than a momentary

explosion; a transient gush; a torrent that comes down impetuously, sparkling and foaming in its course, but that soon runs out, and leaves a muddy and polluted channel. Who knows not the languor and dejection that follow every excessive indulgence of pleasure, or a long continuation of amusement of any kind?. From whom do you hear such frequent complaints of low spirits, as from those who spend most of their time in the circles of dissipation and gaiety, or in the revelry of the world? To what wretched and pernicious resources are they obliged to fly, in order to recruit their spirits, and restore some life to their deadened sensations? What melancholy spectacles do they at length exhibit of a wornout frame, and an exhausted mind? So well founded is the assertion in the Text, that there is a mirth, the end of which is heaviness.

ance.

LET us consider, in the second place, the ruin which a life of pleasure and dissipation brings upon the moral state and character of men, as well as on their external condition. This deserves the more attention, as the pursuit of pleasure sometimes sets out at the beginning with a fair and innocent appearIt promises to bestow satisfactions unknown to a duller race of mortals; and, at the same time, to allow virtue and honour to remain. With a great part of mankind, especially with those who are most likely to run the race of pleasure, such as are well-born and have been regularly educated, some attachment to good principles at first is found. They cannot as yet bear the reproach of any thing that is dishonourable or base. Regard to their word, generosity of sentiment, attachment to their friends, and

compassion for the unhappy, prevail for a while in their hearts. But, alas! as the love of pleasure gains ground, with what insidious steps does it advance towards the abolition of all virtuous principles? It has been ever found, that without the assistance of reflection, and of serious thought, virtue cannot long subsist in the human mind. But to reflection and serious thoughts, the men of dissipation are strangers. Absorbed, as they are, in the whirlpool of fashionable life, and hurried along by a rapid succession of amusements, reflection is lost, and good impressions gradually decay. Nothing is regarded but present enjoyment, and plans of improving on that enjoyment, in future. As their taste, and their acquired habits, carry them into the society of licentious company, they must follow the more trained votaries of pleasure who naturally take the lead. They become assimilated to the manners of their loose associates; and, without perceiving it themselves, their whole character by degrees is changed. Former restraints are now laid aside; and, in order to preserve the rank of equality with their companions in every expense, prodigality is the necessary consequence. Prodigality presently opens a way to the worst vices. They become both covetous and profuse; profuse in spending, but covetous to acquire. In order to carry on the splendour of life, and to indulge their inclinations to the full, they now submit to what, at their first outset in life, they would have rejected as mean and base. Now is the creditor defrauded; the tenant racked and oppressed; the tradesman frustrated of the reward of his honest industry; and friends and relations, on whom any impression can be made, are plundered without

mercy. In this manner all the bland and smiling appearances which mirth and gaiety once carried, are transformed into the blackest shapes of vice; and from a character originally stamped only with giddiness and levity, shoots forth a character compounded of dishonesty, injustice, oppression, and cruelty.

Is there any one who will deny, that the intemperate pursuit of pleasure leads frequently into all the vices now mentioned, and that some of them it carries always in its train? I shall not dwell on certain crimes, which none but the most atrocious devotees of pleasure will pretend to justify, though all who partake of that character make too light of them; such as the violation of the marriage-bed, the seduction of the innocent, and the introduction of misery into families once happy and flourishing. These are crimes that require the interposition of the lawgiver and the judge, more than the admonition of the preacher.-Let us only think for a little of that reproach of modern times, that gulf of time and fortune, the passion for gaming, which is so often the refuge of the idle sons of pleasure, and often also the last resource of the ruined. To how many bad passions, to how many base arts, does it give rise? What violent agitations of the mind, sometimes bursting into rage and frenzy, does it occasion? What a shameful traffic of gain does it form among persons, whom their rank in life, and their connections in society, ought to have raised above the thoughts of enriching themselves by such dishonourable means? How many friendships has it broken? How many families has it ruined? In what deadly catastrophes has it often terminated? The gamester sits down at the fatal table with eager spirits and