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may not be your lot to have a family of children. Should this be your case, it will be your duty, your wisdom, and your happiness, to be entirely submissive to the will of God. It does not become us to be anxious in this matter; for whatever he appoints is best. Therefore, if he withold the fruit of the womb, we ought to be content.

Some arguments might also be taken from the state of the times, were it necessary, to reconcile persons to the want of children.

Thus you perceive, my dear Sir, that before I end the pleasures, I am verging rapidly towards the sorrows of the marriage state. I shall therefore conclude this part of the subject, with an extract from Doctor Watts.

THE ACCOUNT BALANCED.

Should sov'reign love before me stand,
With all his train of pomp and state,
And bid the daring muse relate
His comforts and his cares;

Mitio, I would not ask the sand
For metaphors t'express their weight,
Nor borrow numbers from the stars.
Thy cares and comforts sov'reign love
Vastly outweigh the sand below;
And to a larger audit grow,

Than all the stars above.

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Thy mighty losses and thy gains

Are their own mutual measures; Only the man that knows thy pains Can reckon up thy pleasures. Say, Damon, say, how bright the scene; Damon is half divinely blest, Leaning his head on his Florella's breast Without a jealous thought, or busy care between: Then the sweet passions mix and share; Florella tells thee all her heart;

Nor can thy soul's remotest part

Conceal a thought or wish from the beloved fair.
Say what a pitch thy pleasures fly,

When friendship all-sincere grows up to ecstacy,
Nor self contracts the bliss, nor vice, pollutes the joy.
While thy dear offspring round thee sit,

Or sporting innocently at thy feet

Thy kindest thoughts engage:

Those little images of thee,
What pretty toys of youth they be,
And growing props of age!

But short is earthly bliss! the changing wind
Blows from the sickly south, and brings
Malignant fevers on its sultry wings,

Relentles death sits close behind:

Now gasping infants, and a wife in tears,
With piercing groans, salutes his ears,
Thro' every vein the thrilling torments roll;
While sweet and bitter are at strife
In those dear miseries of life,

Those tenderest pieces of his bleeding soul.

The pleasing sense of love awhile
Mixt with the heart-ache may the pain beguile,
And make a feeble fight:

Till sorrows like a gloomy deluge rise,

Then every smiling passion dies,

And hope alone with wakeful eyes

Darkling and solitary waits the slow returning light.

Here then let my ambition rest,
May I be moderately blest
When I the laws of love obey;
Let but my pleasure and my pain
In equal balance ever reign,
Or mount by turns and sink again,
And share just measures of alternate sway.
So Damon lives, and ne'er complains ;
Scarce can we hope diviner scenes
On this dull stage of clay :

The tribes beneath the northern bear
Submit to darkness half the year,
Since half the year is day.'

If in describing the pleasures of the marriage state, I have mixed some dark shades with the brighter scenes; it is because God has been pleased to blend our pleasures and our sorrows, in such a man. ner, that he who enjoys the former, must also be a partaker of the latter.

Wishing you the enjoyment of all the felicity that love and friendship can produce, I remain, &c.

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In treating on the Sorrows attendant on Matrimony, I preface my letter with the remarks of Beattie.

The real ills of life

Claim the full vigour of a mind prepar'd,
Prepar'd for patient, long, laborious strife,
Its guide experience and truth its guard.
We fare on earth as other men have fared:
Were they successful? Let us not despair.
Was disappointment oft their sole reward?
Yet shall their tale instruct, if it declare
How they have borne the load,
Ourselves are doom'd to bear.'

Though I cannot retract any thing I have stated, respecting the advantages, and the pleasures, of the marriage state; being fully convinced, that they far exceed what I can describe; yet it must be acknowledged, that he who increases his pleasures must at the same time inrease his sorrows. Nevertheless, depend upon it, that the man who remains single to escape the sorrows of the marriage state, will deny himself the enjoyment of some of the most rational, and delight

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ful pleasures which are allotted to us in this world of affliction and sorrow.

I have met with many, (says Dr. Johnson,) who live single for the reason just mentioned; but I never found that their prudence ought to raise envy. They dream away their lives without friendship, without fondness, and are driven to rid themselves of the time, for which they have no use, by childish amusements, or vicious delights. They act as beings under the constant sense of some known inferiority, that fills their minds with rancour, and their tongues with censure, They are peevish at home, and malevolent abroad; and, as the outlaws of human nature, make it their business, and their pleasure, to disturb that society which debars them from its privileges. To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude; it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.'

No man can possibly partake of the inexpressible pleasures, enjoyed by husbands, and fathers; without enduring the

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