That portion of mankind, whose inordinate desires push them on to stick at nothing in acquiring wealth, are seldom the most happy; for covetousness, which never produced one noble sentiment, often urges its votaries to break through the rules of justice, and then deprives them of the expected fruits of their iniquity. Besides great riches and care are almost inseparable; and there is often a quiet and content attending upon people of moderate circumstances, to which the wealthy man is an utter stranger. It has happened, even to monarchs, that their inroads on the possessions of others have tended to the detriment of the aggressor, who has been obliged to resign the rich spoils obtained by unjustifiable hostilities, and to refund the ill-gotten wealth, with a very bad grace: a punishment which Providence has wisely annexed to acts of violence and fraud, as the best security of the possessions of the just and virtuous, against the attempts of the wicked. Some men, from creeping in the lowest stations of life, have in process of time reached the greatest places, and grown so bulky by pursuing their insatiate appetite for money, that when they would have retired, they found themselves too opulent and full to get off. There has been no expedient for them to creep out, till they were squeezed and reduced in some measure to their primitive littleness. They that fill themselves with that which is the property of others, should always be so served before they are suffered to escape. [Illustration] [Page 273] THE EAGLE AND THE FOX. An Eagle that had young ones, looking for something to feed them with, happened to spy a Fox’s Cub that lay basking itself abroad in the sun: she made a stoop, and trussed it immediately; but before she had carried it quite off, the old Fox coming home, implored her, with tears, to spare her Cub, and pity the distress of a poor fond mother, who would think no affliction so great as that of losing her child. The Eagle, whose nest was high in an old hollow tree, thought herself secure from all projects of revenge, and so bore away the Cub to her young ones, without shewing any regard to the supplications of the Fox. But that subtle creature, highly incensed at this outrageous barbarity, ran to an altar, where some country people had been sacrificing a kid in the open fields, and catching up a fire-brand in her mouth, made towards the tree where the Eagle’s nest was, with a resolution of revenge. She had scarcely reached its root, when the Eagle, terrified with the approaching ruin of herself and family, begged of the Fox to desist, and, with much submission, returned her the Cub safe and sound. APPLICATION.