CONFERENCE III. 417 men ; and that not merely to the individuals of mankind, but sometimes to tribes, and families, and nations. Some are actually born under the power of tyrants, and they commence and finish their lives in tiresome slavery and bondage : Others exult for seventy years, in free, and rich, and plenteous circumstances, while their neighbours are distressed from their infancy with poverty and pain, and drag on life to old age under many cala- mities. Children of thesame parents shall be oftentimes widely distinguished in the blessings or the sorrows of nature, by the mere providence of God, when, perhaps, theyare equally vir- tuous, or, perhaps, equally wicked. Some are suffered to become blind, or to be born cripples in their limbs, and in their under- standing too, while others of the same village, or thesame house, perhaps, rejoice in the pleasures and the vigorous powers of mind and body. How comes it to pass, Sir, that your genius is so bright and sparkling, while your neighbour Hebetunda, with all the expences of his education, could never construe an ode in Horace, and scarce understands his catechism ? Whence is it, that some families are so poor in their intellectuals, andpro- pagate slothand dulness for half á dozen generations ? And yet, perhaps, at last a hero, a philosopher, or a great divine shall arise amongst them and surprize the world ! 'fell me, Logisto, who' makes the differences in all these instances ? Will you say, it happens thus according to the course of things, and the succession of natural causes ? But pray inform me, who set. natural causes at work ii, this manner, which should produce such very distinguishing circumstances, and that too, perhaps, in persons whose moral character is the same ? Or why is their infancy so much distinguished by blessings or sorrows, before their moral character properly commences ? Whither shall we runto seek the cause of these varieties, but to the will of the Creator and Disposer of all things ? Can you give me any account, Sir, why the Great God should appoint suchparticular human souls to be united to animal bodies, which are born among the rigours and stupidity of Lap- land, or in the midst of Africa or America, where reason is buried under gross and heavy prejudices, and whole nations labour under so many wants and disadvantages, with relation to this world, and the other I How came your soul or mine, to be joined to bodies who drew their first breath in Great Britain, who have ten thousand blessings, in the animal and the rational life, beyond those poor brown or negro savages, that come into the world under brutal parents, whe breed them up ..with cruelty, and sell them for slaves ? What is it, dear Sir, that makes this distinction between us and them, but the sovereign disposal of God and providence, who, whatsoever reasons he may have in his eternal mind, yet gives no account to us of the reasons of his conduct ? Can you, or I, Sir, pretend to any
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=