Solitude. He comes
with a Relish to all those Goods which Nature has provided for him,
tastes all the Pleasures of the Creation which are poured about him, and
does not feel the full Weight of those accidental Evils which may befal
him.

If we consider him in relation to the Persons whom he converses with, it
naturally produces Love and Good-will towards him. A chearful Mind is
not only disposed to be affable and obliging, but raises the same good
Humour in those who come within its Influence. A Man finds himself
pleased, he does not know why, with the Chearfulness of his Companion:
It is like a sudden Sun-shine that awakens a secret Delight in the Mind,
without her attending to it. The Heart rejoices of its own accord, and
naturally flows out into Friendship and Benevolence towards the Person
who has so kindly an Effect upon it.

When I consider this chearful State of Mind in its third Relation, I
cannot but look upon it as a constant habitual Gratitude to the great
Author of Nature. An inward Chearfulness is an implicit Praise and
Thanksgiving to Providence under all its Dispensations. It is a kind of
Acquiescence in the State wherein we are placed, and a secret
Approbation of the Divine Will in his Conduct towards Man.

There are but two things which, in my Opinion, can reasonably deprive us
of this Chearfulness of Heart. The first of these is the Sense of Guilt.
A Man who lives in a State of Vice and Impenitence, can have no Title to
that Evenness and Tranquillity of Mind which is the Health of the Soul,
and the natural Effect of Virtue and Innocence. Chearfulness in an ill
Man deserves a harder Name than Language can furnish us with, and is
many degrees beyond what we commonly call Folly or Madness.

Atheism, by which I mean a Disbelief of a Supreme Being, and
consequently of a future State, under whatsoever Titles it shelters it
self, may likewise very reasonably deprive a Man of this Chearfulness of
Temper. There is something so particularly gloomy and offensive to human
Nature in the Prospect of Non-Existence, that I cannot but wonder, with
many excellent Writers, how it is possible for a Man to out-live the
Expectation of it. For my own Part, I think the Being of a God is so
little to be doubted, that it is almost the only Truth we are sure of,
and such a Truth as we meet with in every Object, in every Occurrence,
and in every Thought. If we look into the Characters of this Tribe of
Infidels, we generally