A constant Scene of Temptations and the infection of ill company, is another great danger which conversing in the world exposes to. ’Tis a dangerous thing to have all the opportunities of sinning in our power, and the danger is increas’d by the ill Precedents we daily see of those who take them. _Liberty_ (as some body says) _will corrupt an Angel_, and tho’ it is indeed more glorious to conquer than to fly, yet since our Vertue is so visibly weakened in other instances, we have no reason to presume on’t in this. ’Tis become no easy matter to secure our Innocence in our necessary Civilities and daily Conversations, in which if we have the good luck to avoid such as bring a necessity on us, either of seeming rude to them, or of being really so to GOD Almighty, whilst we tamely hear him, our best Friend and Benefactor affronted and swallow it, at the same time, that we wou’d reckon’t a very pitiful Spirit to hear an Acquaintance traduc’d and hold our Tongue; yet if we avoid this Trial, our Charity is however in continual danger, Censoriousness being grown so modish, that we can scarce avoid being active or passive in it; so that she who has not her pert jest ready to pass upon others, shall as soon as her back is turn’d, become a Jest her self for want of Wit. In consequence of all this, we are insensibly betray’d to a great loss of time, a Treasure whose value we are too often quite ignorant of till it be lost past redemption. And yet considering the shortness and uncertainty of Life, the great work we have to do, and what advantages accrew to us by a due management of our time, we cannot reconcile it with prudence to suffer the least minute to escape us. But besides our own lavish Expences concerning which one may ask as _Solomon_ does of Labour, _What Fruit have we of all that Sport and Pastime we have taken under the Sun?_ so unreasonable is the humour of the World, that those who wou’d reckon it a rudeness to make so bold with out Money, never scruple to waste and rob us of this infinitely more precious Treasure. In the last place, by reason of this loss of time and the continual hurry we are in, we can find no opportunities for thoughtfulness and recollection; we are so busied with what passes abroad, that we have no leisure to look at home, nor to rectifie the disorders there. And such an unthinking mechanical way of living, when like Machines we are condemn’d every day to repeat the impertinencies of the day before, shortens our Views, contracts our Minds, exposes to a thousand practical Errors, and renders Improvement impossible, because it will not permit us to consider and recollect, which is the only means to attain it. So much for the inconveniences of living in the World; if we enquire concerning Retirement, we shall find it does not only remove all these, but brings considerable advantages of its own.