Our Actual Enjoyments are so few and transient, that Man would be a very miserable Being, were he not endowed with this Passion, which gives him a Taste of those good Things that may possibly come into his Possession. We should hope for every thing that is good, says the old Poet Linus, because there is nothing which may not be hoped for, and nothing but what the Gods are able to give us. [1] Hope quickens all the still Parts of Life, and keeps the Mind awake in her most Remiss and Indolent Hours.  It gives habitual Serenity and good Humour.  It is a kind of Vital Heat in the Soul, that cheers and gladdens her, when she does not attend to it.  It makes Pain easie, and Labour pleasant.

Beside these several Advantages which rise from Hope, there is another which is none of the least, and that is, its great Efficacy in preserving us from setting too high a value on present Enjoyments.  The saying of Caesar is very well known.  When he had given away all his Estate in Gratuities among his Friends, one of them asked what he had left for himself; to which that great Man replied, Hope.  His Natural Magnanimity hindered him from prizing what he was certainly possessed of, and turned all his Thoughts upon something more valuable that be had in View.  I question not but every Reader will draw a Moral from this Story, and apply it to himself without my Direction.

The old Story of Pandora’s Box (which many of the Learned believe was formed among the Heathens upon the Tradition of the Fall of Man) shews us how deplorable a State they thought the present Life, without Hope:  To set forth the utmost Condition of Misery they tell us, that our Forefather, according to the Pagan Theology, had a great Vessel presented him by Pandora: Upon his lifting up the Lid of it, says the Fable, there flew out all the Calamities and Distempers incident to Men, from which, till that time, they had been altogether exempt. Hope, who had been enclosed in the Cup with so much bad Company, instead of flying off with the rest, stuck so close to the Lid of it, that it was shut down upon her.

I shall make but two Reflections upon what I have hitherto said.  First, that no kind of Life is so happy as that which is full of Hope, especially when the Hope is well grounded, and when the Object of it is of an exalted kind, and in its Nature proper to make the Person happy who enjoys it.  This Proposition must be very evident to those who consider how few are the present Enjoyments of the most happy Man, and how insufficient to give him an entire Satisfaction and Acquiescence in them.

My next Observation is this, that a Religious Life is that which most abounds in a well-grounded Hope, and such an one as is fixed on Objects that are capable of making us entirely happy.  This Hope in a Religious Man, is much more sure and certain than the Hope of any Temporal Blessing, as it is strengthened not only by Reason, but by Faith.  It has at the same time its Eye perpetually fixed on that State, which implies in the very Notion of it the most full and the most compleat Happiness.