That a man is improved by thinking much, few will deny. If he sits and thinks upon his secular concerns, or employs himself in ambitious speculations, or upon any other of the subjects which beguile the greater part of the human family, we would not say he was improved, at least, but little, by it. But we think a man who now and then gives himself to solitude, will not employ his mind thus. It is a law of our natures, that earthly objects, even the best, and purest, if pursued long, and obtained in profusion, have a tendency to induce satiety and disgust. Most men have had experience of this; for few are there, we think, who have not, after calculating long on the delights of a prospective good, found on its attainment, its comparative worthlessness and insufficiency. Now the man who devotes a few moments to reflection, will have this great inducement to lead his mind off from such subjects as tend only to make him the more of a worldling, viz. that they cannot satisfy. Moreover, if he does not know, or does not remember this, as the result of former experience, he will (unless he be yoked with fetters of iron to the world, and his whole character be different from that of other men) if at first, in his retirement, he gives his mind up to outward objects, or to such as serve his worst passions—after a while, even then, experience the same, or something of the same satiety. The mind then turns somewhere else, for it must have nourishment; and whither, but into itself. It is thus, retirement puts a man in the way of being better.