Intolerance without power is simply ridiculous; but becomes most odious when armed with authority. The cry of humanity is ‘Peace with all men.’ If any were excepted, it should be the intolerant. Even they merit no severer punishment, than the inflictions of their own fury. They may attain to deliverance from remorse in their confident delirium, and may count their crimes as virtues, through the influence of self-blindness. But this strange obliquity of the understanding, this horrible intoxication, repels happiness. Joy and peace must fly the soul, of which this spirit has taken possession. In another life, the measure of our felicity in the mansions of the just, will be the happiness we have created for the beings around us in this fleeting existence. A religious man constantly strives to render this, our terrestrial sojourn, more like the abode towards which his thoughts are elevated. His constant occupation is to mitigate suffering, banish prejudice and hatred, and calm the fury of party. All his relations are those of peace and love. Intolerant men! Who, of your number, will hope to hear it said of him in the retribution of the just, ‘much has been forgiven him, because he has loved much?’ LETTER XXIII. OF THE RAPIDITY OF LIFE. In considering the different ages of life, the first sentiment I feel, is gratitude for the variety of pleasures, destined for us by nature. Thrice happy for us, if we knew how to taste the charms of all the situations through which we pass! Instead of this, we first regret infancy, then youth, then mature age. The happy period is always that which is no more. It is a great folly to sadden the present, in looking back upon the past, as though it had been darkened by no shadow of a cloud. The sorrows which nature sends us in infancy, resemble spring showers, the traces of which are effaced by a passing breeze. The pains and alarms of each age have been chiefly the work of men. Who cannot remember the violent palpitations which he felt, when, exposed to the searching eye of his companions, he went forward to excuse his not having prepared his task, his translation or theme, at school? I have seen situations more perilous, since that time, but no misfortunes have awakened more bitterness, than the preference granted by the professor to the theme of another over mine. The beautiful age, for a frivolous being, is youth; for the ambitious, maturity; for the recluse, old age; for a reasonable man, each age: for heaven has reserved peculiar pleasures for each. The second sentiment I experience, in contemplating life, is, regret to see the moments so rapidly gliding away. Time flies, and days and years steal away as rapidly as hours. Still, some complain of the burden of time, and endure cruel suffering from not knowing how to employ it.