G-OODNESS OF THE DEITY. 333 



tt? the old. Also, were deaths never sudden, they who are 

 in health would be too confident of life. The strong aud 

 the active, who want most to be warned and checked, would 

 live without apprehension or restraint. On the other hand, 

 were sudden deaths very frequent, the sense of constant 

 jeopardy would interfere too much with the degree of east? 

 and enjoyment intended for us ; and human life be too pre- 

 carious for the business and interests which belong to it. 

 There could not be dependence either upon our own lives, 

 or the lives of those with whom we were connected, suffi- 

 cient to carry on the regular offices of human society. The 

 manner, therefore, in which death is made to occur, con- 

 duces to the purposes of admonition, without overthrowing 

 the necessary stability of human aflairs. 



Disease being the forerunner of death, there is the same 

 reason for its attacks coming upon us under the appearance 

 of chance, as there is for uncertainty in the time of death 

 itself 



The scaso?is are a mixture of regularity and chance. 

 They are regular enough to authorize expectation, while 

 their being, in a considerable degree, irregular, induces, on 

 the part of the cultivators of the soil, a necessity for personal 

 '»ttendance, for activity, vigilance, precaution. It is this 

 necessity which creates farmers ; which divides the profit of 

 the soil between the owner and the occupier ; which by 

 requiring expedients, by increasing employment, and by re- 

 warding expenditure, promotes agricultural arts and agri- 

 cultural life — of all modes of life the best, being the most 

 conducive to health, to virtue, to enjoyment. I believe it 

 to be found in fact, that where the soil is the most fruitful, 

 and the seasons the most constant, there the condition of the 

 cultivators of the earth is the most depressed. Uncertainty, 

 therefore, has its use even to those who sometimes complain 

 of it the most. Seasons of scarcity themselves are not with- 

 out their advantages. They call forth new exertions ; they 

 set contrivance and ingenuity at work , they give birth to 



