less perspirable matter is produced in a given time; hence the bed-clothes receive it longer, before they are saturated; and we may, therefore, sleep longer, before we are made uneasy by their refusing to receive any more. 2d. By using thinner and more porous bed-clothes, which will suffer the perspirable matter more easily to pass through them, we are less incommoded, such being longer tolerable.

10 These are the rules of the art. But though they will generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. I need not mention the case to you, my dear friend but my account of the art would be imperfect without it. The case is, when the person who desires to have pleasant dreams has not taken care to preserve, what is necessary above all things, A GOOD CONSCIENCE.

SECTION III.

TO BENJAMIN VAUGHAN, ESQ.

On luxury, idleness and industry.

1 If there be a nation that exports its beef and linen to pay for the importation of claret and porter, while a great part of its people live upon potatoes, and wear no shirts, wherein does it differ from the sot, who lets his family starve, and sells his clothes to buy drink? Our American commerce is, I confess, a little in this way. We sell our victuals to the Islands for rum and sugar; the substantial necessaries of life for superfluities.

2 Foreign luxuries, and needless manufactures, imported and used in a nation, increase the people of the nation that furnishes them, and diminish the people of the nation that use them. Laws, therefore, that prevent such importations, and, on the contrary, promote the exportation of manufactures to be consumed in foreign countries, increase the wealth, population, and means of subsistence of the people that make them, and produce the contrary effect upon their neighbors.

3 It has been computed by some political arithmetician, that if every man and woman would work for four hours each day on something useful, that labor would produce sufficient to procure all the necessaries and comforts of life, want and misery would be banished out of the world, and the rest of the twenty-four hours might be leisure and pleasure.

4 What occasions then so much want and misery? It is the employment of men and women in works that produce

neither the necessaries nor conveniences of life, who, witn those who do nothing, consume necessaries raised by the la borious. To explain this,

5 The first elements of wealth are obtained by labor, from the earth and waters. I have land, and can raise corn. With this, if I feed a family that does nothing, my corn will be consumed, and at the end of the year I shall be no richer than I was at the beginning. But, if while I feed them, I employ them, some in spinning, others in making bricks, &c. for building, the value of my corn will be arrested, and remain with me, and at the end of the year we may all be better clothed and better lodged.

6 And if instead of employing a man I feed in making bricks, I employ him in fiddling for me, the corn he eats is gone, and no part of his manufacture remains to augment the wealth and convenience of the family. Look round the world and see the millions employed in doing nothing, or something that amounts to nothing, when the necessaries and conveniences of life are in question.

7 A question may be asked; Could all these people now employed in raising, making, or carrying superfluities, be subsisted by raising necessaries? I think they might. The world is large, and a great part uncultivated. Many hundred millions of acres in Asia, Africa, and America, are still in a forest, and a great deal even in Europe. On a hundred acres of this forest, a man might become a substantial farmer.

8 One reflection more, and I will end this long rambling letter. Almost all parts of our bodies require soine expense. The feet demand shoes; the legs stockings; the rest of the body clothing; and the stomach a good deal of victuals. Our eyes, though exceedingly useful, ask, when reasonable, only the cheap assistance of spectacles, which could not much impair our finances. But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture.

SECTION IV.

Extracts of a letter from DR. FRANKLIN, to the Rev. GEORGE WHITEFIELD.

Sir,

*

Philadelphia, June 6, 1753.

1 I received your kind letter of the 2d instant, and am glad to hear that you increase in strength; I hope you will

* One of the founders of the religious Society of Methodists.

continue mending, till you recover your former health and firmness. Let me know whether you still use the cold bath, and what effect it has.

2 As to the kindness you mention, I wish it could have been of more service to you. But if it had, the only thanks I should desire is, that you would always be equally ready to serve any other person that may need your assistance, and so let good offices go round; for mankind are all of a family.

3 For my own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favors, but as paying debts. In my travels, and since my settlement, I have received much kindness from men, to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making the least direct return; and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our services.

4 Those kindnesses from men, I can therefore return only on their fellow men, and I can only show my gratitude for these mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other children, and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and compliments, though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator.

5 The faith you mention has certainly its use in the world: I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I endeavor to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it; works of kindness, charity, mercy, public spirit; not holiday-keeping, sermon-reading or hearing; performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers.

6 The worship of God is a duty; the hearing and reading of sermons may be useful; but if men rest in hearing and praying, as too many do, it is as if a tree should value itself on being watered and putting forth leaves, though it never produced any fruit.

[Note. The preceding selections from the works of Dr. Franklin, have been principally transcribed, for republication in the Moral Instructor, from "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, L.L.D. &c." with the consent of the Proprietor of the copyright. It will be perceived by the reader who is acquainted with the biography of the public as well as private life of Franklin, that his narrative, as published in this work, is extended only to the commencement of his public career. A mere outline or profile of his vast political and philosophical services to his country and to mankind would be impracticable in a work according with the title and intention of this. It is the view of the compiler to exhibit to the American youth, examples for their contemplation and imitation in the scene of general, domestic, and common life, and common sense, rather than of those public pursuits, stations, and distinctions which but a limited number of us can attain to, were we ail equally qualified and competent with a Franklin, a Washington, or a Jefferson.}

U

PART SEVENTH.

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

CHAPTER 1.

SELECTIONS FROM WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.

1 The following disinterested parting advice of the late President Washington, the master-workman in the erection of our Republic, ought to be deeply impressed on the mind of every American youth:

2 In looking forward to the moment which is to terminate the career of my political life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country, for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the stedfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal.

3 If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead-amidst appearances sometimes dubious-vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging-in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism-the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected.

4 Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing wishes, that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence-that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual-that the free constitution which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained—that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue-that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recommend

ing it to the applause, the affection, and the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.

5 Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments, which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.

6 These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.

7 Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence; the support of your tranquillity at home; your peace abroad; of your safety, of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize.

& But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union, to your collective and individual happiness;

9 That you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immoveable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

10 For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country,