Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

ΟΝ

A MANLY SPIRIT,

A S OPPOSED то

EFFEMINACY.

HE

E that, in times like thefe, when a mafculine virtue and deportment are become fo unfafhionable, attempts to recommend them, may lay his account with being deemed by the greater part fufficiently aukward, or at best romantic, in his notions. Even of the few, whose minds and manners are not yet enervated by the furrounding contagion, fome will probably apprehend that he takes the subject on too high a key. They are willing, for their own fhare, to be as good and wife as they can in private, and perhaps. fecretly to cultivate the feeds of internal

greatness: but to avow these difpofitions openly, in the present state of the world, they would confider as the certain way to draw upon themfelves a ridicule, which they are not fo well prepared to fuftain. The truth is, that the fentiments of an undaunted and uncomplying probity are now-a-days regarded by the many as mere theatrical rant, or fictitious heroism to be found only in books, and the imagination of here and there an idle vifionary, dreaming in his closet, and wholly ignorant of life and nature. But if a Scipio, if a virtuous heathen, without any other aid than that of innate magnanimity, would not defpair of the commonwealth in a dangerous conjuncture, and was justly applauded for his fortitude, fhall a chriftian. believer, who trufts in the power of God, and in the operation of truth upon the fouls of men, fhall He be thought to blame, for hoping that numbers of his fellowcitizens, degenerate as they are from the fober and manly character of their fore

fathers, may nevertheless be in fome meafure recovered; and that, when they are, their honourable exertions, in union with thofe of others who remain uncorrupted, may under Providence contribute to fave their Country?

That the is in imminent danger from the prodigality, profligacy, and unfeeling luxury of her inhabitants, what confiderate man is not ready to acknowledge Are not the strictnefs, the hardinefs, and the noble spirit of our ancestors, exchanged in the generality of us, who boaft our fuperior improvements, for a selfish and vicious effeminacy? Have not the follies and diforders, which were in former ages confined to the higher claffes, at length. infected the middle ranks of people with a degree of extravagance and vanity that is amazing? And is not the fame madnefs fpreading from them to the lowest of the people, who are paffionately ambitious of imitating those next above them as far

« PoprzedniaDalej »