Such an extravagant cast of mind engages
multitudes of people not only in impertinent terrors, but in
supernumerary duties of life, and arises from that fear and
ignorance which are natural to the soul of man. The horror with
which we entertain the thoughts of death, or indeed of any future
evil, and the uncertainty of its approach, fill a melancholy mind
with innumerable apprehensions and suspicions, and consequently
dispose it to the observation of such groundless prodigies and
predictions. For as it is the chief concern of wise men to retrench
the evils of life by the reasonings of philosophy, it is the
employment of fools to multiply them by the sentiments of
superstition.
For my own part, I should be very much troubled were I endowed with
this divining quality, though it should inform me truly of
everything that can befall me. I would not anticipate the relish of
any happiness, nor feel the weight of any misery, before it actually
arrives.
I know but one way of fortifying my soul against these gloomy
presages and terrors of mind; and that is, by securing to myself the
friendship and protection of that Being who disposes of events and
governs futurity. He sees, at one view, the whole thread of my
existence, not only that part of it which I have already passed
through, but that which runs forward into all the depths of
eternity.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33