Chap. XXI.

Among the various means employed by Providence to soften human calamity, none are more eminently beneficial than the opiates which time administers to grief. It was finely observed by a novelist (not one of the present school), that none but the guilty are long and completely miserable. ²¹⁰ In vain does the soul, while labouring under the strong paroxysms of calamity or disappointment, renounce all acquaintance with terrestrial pleasures, and, like the Hebrew patriarch, resolve to ‘go down / to the grave mourning.’ ²¹¹ Time will soften the poignancy of regret; a Benjamin may arise to divert affection from the grave of Joseph, ²¹² and the tears of anguish may be converted to those of joy. This supposition, however, premises that the grief did not originate in the depravity of the sufferer. Intervening years may render vice callous or penitent; but the impenetrability of one state, and the apprehensiveness of the other, are alike irreconcilable with the idea of happiness. It has been long acknowledged, that, though the loss of a beloved friend seems at first the most insupportable of all calamities, even affectionate minds sooner acquiesce in such deprivations, than they do in many other kinds of distress. This may sometimes be accounted for upon religious principles; but even when it does not own such exalted motives, it / seems severe to ascribe it to levity of disposition. Existing in the midst of a dying world, we should rather employ our faculties in extracting improvement from scenes of mortality, than waste them in unavailing regret. The bond of friendship is not, indeed, dissolved by death; yet it does not impose incessant woe on the survivor, who must soon journey through the same dark valley which the lamented object has just explored.