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A Remedy for Discontent.

NOMPLAINTS and murmurs are often loudeft and

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most frequent among those who poffefs all the external means of temporal enjoyment. Something is still wanting, however high and opulent their condition, fully to complete their fatisfaction. Suppose an indulgent Providence to accomplish every defire; are they now at laft contented? Alas! no; their uneasiness seems for ever to increase, in proportion as their real -neceffities are diminished. It is in vain then to endeavour to make them happy by adding to their store, or aggrandizing their honours. Their appetite is no lefs infatiable than their taste faftidious.

But there yet may remain a remedy. Let those who are miserable among riches and grandeur, leave, for a moment, their elevated rank, and defcend from their palaces to the humble habitations of real and unaffected woe. If their hearts are not deftitute of feeling, they will return from the fad scenes to their closets, and on their knees pour forth the ejaculations of gratitude to that univerfal Parent, who has given them abundance, and exempted them from the thousand ills, under the preffure of which the greater part of his children drag the load of life. Inftead of fpending their hours in brooding over their own imaginary evils, they will devote them to the alleviation of real mifery among the deftitute fons of indigence, in the neglected walks of vulgar life.

That one half of the world knows not how the other half lives, is a common and just observation. A fine lady, furrounded with every means of accommodation and luxury, complains, in a moment of dejection, that furely no mortal is fo wretched as herself. Her fufferings are too great for her acute fenfibility. She expects pity from all her acquaintance, and pleases herself with the idea that he is an example of fingular misfortune

and

and remarkable patience. Phyficians attend, and with affected folicitude feel the healthy pulfe, which, however, they dare not pronounce healthy, left they should give offence by attempting to fpoil the refined luxury of fancied woe. To be fuppofed always ill, and confequently to be always exciting the tender attention and enquiries of all around, is a ftate fo charming in the ideas of the weak, luxurious, and indolent minds of fome fashionable ladies, that many spend their lives in a perpetual state of imaginary convalefcence. There is fomething fo indelicate in being hale, hearty, and stout, like a rofy milk-maid, that a very fine and very highbred lady is almoft ready to faint at the idea. From exceffive indulgence, the becomes at last in reality, what fhe at first only fancied herself, a perpetual invalid.By a juft retribution, the is really punished with that wretchedness of which the ungratefully and unreasonably complained in the midft of health, eafe, and opu lence.

One might ask all the fifterhood and fraternity of rich and healthy murmurers, Have you compared your fituation and circumstances with that of thofe of your fellow creatures who are condemned to labour in the gold mines of Peru? Have you compared your fituation with that of those of your own country, who have hardly ever seen the fun, but live confined in tin mines, lead mines, ftone quarries, and coal pits? Before you call yourself wretched, take a furvey of the gaols, in which unfortunate and honeft debtors are doomed to pine for life; walk through the wards of an hospital; think of the hardships of a common foldier or failor; think of the galley-flave, the day-labourer; nay, the commonfervant in your own houfe; think of your poor neighbour at the next door; and if there were not danger of its being called unpolite and methodistical, I would add, think of Him who, for your fake, fweated, as it were, drops of blood on Calvary.

It is, indeed, a duty to confider the evils of those who are placed beneath us; for the chief purpose of

Christianity

Christianity is, to alleviate the miseries of that part of mankind, whom, indeed, the world defpifes, but whom He who made them pities, like as a father pitieth his own children. Their miferies are not fanciful; their complaints are not exaggerated. The clergy, when they are called upon to visit the fick, or to baptize newborn infants, are often fpectators of fuch fcenes as would cure the difcontented of every malady. The following representation is but too real, and may be paralleled in many of its circumstances in almost every parish throughout the kingdom.

The minister of a country village was called upon to baptize an infant juft born. The cottage was fituated on a lonely common, and as it was in the midst of the winter, and the floods were out, it was abfolutely neceffary to wade in water through the lower room to a ladder, which ferved instead of stairs. The chamber (and it was the only one) was fo low, that you could not ftand upright in it; there was one window which admitted air as freely as light, for the rags which had been stuffed into the broken panes were now taken out to contribute to the covering of the infant. In a dark corner of the room stood a small bedstead without furniture, and on it lay the dead mother, who had juft expired in labour for want of affiftance. The father was fitting on a little ftool by the fire-place, though there was no fire, and endeavouring to keep the infant warm in his bosom. Five of the feven children, half naked, were asking their father for a piece of bread, while a fine boy, of about three years old, was standing by his mother at the bed-fide, and crying as he was wont to do, "Take me, take me, mammy ?”. "Mammy is afleep," faid one of his fifters, with two tears standing on her cheeks; "mammy is afleep, Johnny, go play with the baby on daddy's knee." The father took him up on his knees; and his grief, which had hitherto kept him dumb, and in a state of temporary infenfibility, burft out in a torrent of tears, and relieved his heart, which feemed ready to break. "Don't cry, pray don't

cry,"

cry," said the eldeft boy, "the nurfe is coming up ftairs with a two-penny loaf in her hand, and mammy will wake prefently, and I will carry her the largest piece." Upon this, an old woman, crooked with age, and clothed in tatters, came hobbling on her little stick in the room, and, after heaving a groan, calmly fat down, dreffed the child in its rags, then divided the loaf as far as it would go, and informed the poor man that the church-wardens, to whom he had gone, would send fome relief, as foon as they had dispatched a naughty baggage to her own parish, who had delivered herself of twins in the 'fquire's hovel. Relief indeed was fent, and a little contribution afterwards raised by the interpofition of the minifter. If he had not feen the cafe, it would have paffed on as a common affair, and a thing of course.

Ministers and medical practitioners are often witnefses to scenes even more wretched than this; where, to poverty, cold, nakednefs, and death, are added the languors of lingering and loathfome difeafes, and the torments of excruciating pain. A feeling heart, among the rich and the great, who are at the fame time que rulous without caufe, would learn a leffon in many à garret of Broad St Giles's or Shoreditch, more efficacious than all the lectures of the moral or divine philofopher.

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The Resignation of the Emperor Charles V.

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HARLES refolved to refign his kingdoms to his fon, with a folemnity fuitable to the importance of the tranfaction; and to perform this last act of fovereignty with fuch formal pomp, as might leave an indelible impreffion on the minds, not only of his subjects, but of his fucceffor. With this view, he called Philip out of England, where the peevish temper of his queen, which increased with her defpair of having iffue, rendered him extremely unhappy; and the jealoufy of the English left him no hopes of obtaining the direction of their affairs. Having affembled the ftates of the Low Countries, at Bruffels, on the twenty-fifth of October, one thousand five hundred and fifty-five, Charles feated himself, for the last time, in the chair of state; on one fide of which was placed his fon, and on the other his fifter the queen of Hungary, regent of the. Netherlands; with a fplendid retinue of the grandees of Spain, and princes of the empire, ftanding behind him. The prefident of the council of Flanders, by his command, explained, in a few words, his intention in calling this extraordinary meeting of the ftates. He then read the inftrument of refignation, by which Charles furrendered to his fon Philip all his territories, jurifdictions, and authority in the Low Countries; abfolving his fubjects there from their oath of allegiance to him, which he required them to transfer to Philip, his lawful heir, and to ferve him with the fame loyalty and zeal which they had manifefted, during fo long a courfe of years, in fupport of his government.

Charles then rofe from his feat, and leaning on the fhoulder of the prince of Orange, because he was unable to stand without support, he addreffed himself to the audience, and, from a paper which he held in his hand, in order to affift his memory, he recounted with dignity, but without oftentation, all the great things which he

had

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