other kind of virtue that may find employment for those
retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and
destitute of company and conversation: I mean that intercourse and
communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the
great Author of his being.

9. The man who lives under an habitual sense of the divine presence,
keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the
satisfaction of thinking himself in company with the dearest and best of
friends. The time never lies heavy upon him; it is impossible for him to
be alone.

10. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such hours when
those of other men are the most inactive; he no sooner steps out of the
world, but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs
in the consciousness of that presence which every where surrounds him;
or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its
apprehensions, to the great supporter of its existence.

11. I have here only considered the necessity of a man's being virtuous
that he may have something to do; but if we consider further, that the
exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but
that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie
beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from
those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument
redoubles upon us, for putting in practice this method of passing away
our time.

12. When a man has but a little stock to improve, and has opportunities
of turning it all to a good account, what shall we think of him if he
suffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the
twentieth to his ruin or disadvantage? But because the mind cannot be
always in its fervour nor strained up to a pitch of virtue, it is
necessary to find out proper employments for it in its relaxations.

13. The next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time,
should be useful and innocent diversion. I must confess I think it is
below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in such
diversions as are merely innocent, and having nothing else to recommend
them but that there is no hurt in them.

14. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself, I
shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to see persons of
the best sense, passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and
dividing a pac