here, but to keep an attentive Eye upon that State of Being to
which he approaches every Moment, and which will be for ever fixed and
permanent. This single Consideration would be sufficient to extinguish
the Bitterness of Hatred, the Thirst of Avarice, and the Cruelty of
Ambition.

I am very much pleased with the Passage of Antiphanes a very ancient
Poet, who lived near an hundred Years before Socrates, which represents
the Life of Man under this View, as I have here translated it Word for
Word. Be not grieved, says he, above measure for thy deceased Friends[.
They [3]] are not dead, but have only finished that Journey which it is
necessary for every one of us to take: We ourselves must go to that
great Place of Reception in which they are all of them assembled, and in
this general Rendezvous of Mankind, live together in another State of
Being.

I think I have, in a former Paper, taken notice of those beautiful
Metaphors in Scripture, where Life is termed a Pilgrimage, and those who
pass through it are called Strangers and Sojourners upon Earth. I shall
conclude this with a Story, which I have somewhere read in the Travels
of Sir John Chardin; [4] that Gentleman after having told us, that the
Inns which receive the Caravans in Persia, and the Eastern Countries,
are called by the Name of Caravansaries, gives us a Relation to the
following Purpose.

A Dervise, travelling through Tartary, being arrived at the Town of
Balk, went into the King's Palace by Mistake, as thinking it to be a
publick Inn or Caravansary. Having looked about him for some time, he
enter'd into a long Gallery, where he laid down his Wallet, and spread
his Carpet, in order to repose himself upon it after the Manner of the
Eastern Nations. He had not been long in this Posture before he was
discovered by some of the Guards, who asked him what was his Business in
that Place? The Dervise told them he intended to take up his Night's
Lodging in that Caravansary. The Guards let him know, in a very angry
manner, that the House he was in was not a Caravansary, but the King's
Palace. It happened that the King himself passed through the Gallery
during this Debate, and smiling at the Mistake of the Dervise, asked him
how he could possibly be so dull as not to distinguish a Palace from a
Caravansary? Sir, says the Dervise, give me leave to ask your Majesty a
Question or two. Who were the Persons that lodged in this House when it
was first built? The King repli