MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. 433 worms, and squirrels, and learn religion from all the trifles in nature? At church let us be grave, and mind the business of the. church ; but let us not fill our chimney with lessons of godliness, nor sadden our fire -side with devotion ; let us never be so exces- sively religious as to make temples of the fields and the groves, and talk of God and heaven there." Philemus could hold no longer, but, with a solemn and se- vere countenance, gave Ridelio a just rebuke. Must we never think of heaven but at church ? I fear we shall then banish reli- gion out of the world. Hath not the blessed God given us notices of himself among all, the creatures, and must we never dare to take notice of him in any of them, lest we be out of the mode, and ridiculed as unfashionable ? Perish all these fashions of an ungodly world, which would thrust heaven from our thoughts ! Let the fashion of our Saviour obtain among us, who, when he came down from God and dwelt among men, from every occur - rence of lite took oceasion to raise the thoughts of his hearers to things 'divine and heavenly. He drew the lessons of his gospel from the fig -tree and the mustard -seed, from a lost sheep and a louring sky, and there was scarce any occurrence of the meanest kind which he did not improve to holy purposes ; nor does it be- come any man who wears the face of a christian, to laugh at the practice of his Saviour, or to forbid his followers the imitation of so sacred an example. Here follow several Epigrams, Inscriptions, and Fragments of Poesy. PERHAPS there is no person who bath amused himself with verse, from fifteen years old to fifty, but hath sometimes writ upon low and common themes, or mingled fragments of poesy on more important subjects in prose ; and when friends have been innocently entertained with those little things, and copies are once gone abroad into the world, they are in danger of being published in a very imperfect and mangled manner. To avoid this, it is better they should appear as they are, and if they can give any further innocent amusement to young persons who delight in verse, this may serve for an apology for their publication, though they were written in the early parts of life, and especially since most of them bear some divine or moral sentiment. LXV.Fragments of Verse. 1. The Preface of a Letter, written August 1692. E'ER since the morning ofthat day Which bid my dearest friends adieu, And rolling wheels bore use away Far from m_v native town and you ; E'er since I lost, through distant place, The pleasures ofa parent's face,
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