uity in his claims upon Providence. He never
will be disappointed either in himself or others. He will act with
precision; and expect that effect and that alone, from his efforts,
which they are naturally adapted to produce.

For want of this, men of merit and integrity often censure the
dispositions of Providence for suffering characters they despise to run
away with advantages which, they yet know, are purchased by such means
as a high and noble spirit could never submit to. If you refuse to pay
the price, why expect the purchase? We should consider this world as a
great mart of commerce, where fortune exposes to our view various
commodities,--riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge.
Everything is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labor, our
ingenuity, is so much ready money which we are to lay out to the best
advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your own
judgment: and do not, like children, when you have purchased one thing,
repine that you do not possess another which you did not purchase. Such
is the force of well-regulated industry, that a steady and vigorous
exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will generally
insure success.

Would you, for instance, be rich: Do you think that single point worth
the sacrificing everything else to? You may then be rich. Thousands have
become so from the lowest beginnings, by toil, and patient diligence,
and attention to the minutest article of expense and profit. But you
must give up the pleasures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free,
unsuspicious temper. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a
coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals
which you brought with you from the schools must be considerably
lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded
prudence. You must learn to do hard if not unjust things; and for the
nice embarrassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary
for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. You must shut your heart
against the Muses, and be content to feed your understanding with plain,
household truths. In short, you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas,
or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep on in one
beaten track, without turning aside either to the right hand or to the
left. "But I cannot submit to drudgery like this: I feel a spirit above
it." 'Tis well: be above it then; only do not repine tha