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From his “Essays.”

=_16._= THE EPHEMERON.  AN EMBLEM.

“It was,” said he, “the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction.  I have lived seven of those hours—­a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time.  How very few of us continue so long!  I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire ...  And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer.  What now avail all my toil and labor in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy!—­what the political struggles I have been engaged in for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general! for in politics what can laws do without morals?  Our present race of ephemera will, in a course of minutes, become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched.  And in philosophy how small our progress!  Alas! art is long, and life is short.  My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name they say I shall leave behind me....  But what will fame be to an ephemeron who no longer exists? and what will become of all history, in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end, and be buried in universal ruin?”

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LATER RELIGIOUS WRITERS AND DIVINES.

=_John Woolman,[5] 1720-1772._=

From his “Life and Travels.”

=_17._= REMARKS ON SLAVERY AND LABOR.

A people used to labor moderately for their living, training up their children in frugality and business, have a happier life than those who live on the labor of slaves.  Freemen find satisfaction in improving and providing for their families; but negroes, laboring to support others who claim them as their property, and expecting nothing but slavery during life, have not the like inducement to be industrious....  Men having power, too often misapply it:  though we make slaves of the negroes, and the Turks make slaves of the Christians, liberty is the natural right of all men equally....  The slaves look to me like a burdensome stone to such who burden themselves with them.  The burden will grow heavier and heavier, till times change in a way disagreeable to us....  I was troubled to perceive the darkness of their imaginations, and, in some pressure of spirits, said the love of ease and gain are the motives, in general, of keeping slaves; and men are wont to take hold of weak arguments to support a cause which is unreasonable....