The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-04-28 00:00:00

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p • mug," upon us by the daily Successien of thousands
iking into the tomh_wittsb our very view : that
which sleep awakes one refleltion and cov,ea our
lies% dnik,tut %erre as a stimulus to warldly m-
usks; we arc hut the more eager in our thirst of
gain, and hunt more keenly after places, .and ho-
uottro, and power : one vinim of death is scarcely
buried—lns ashes scarcely cold—when his place in
the capricious sunray of life is sought by another;
and, infamous as it may sound, venal expeetency
assumes the office of enquiring friendship, or hangs
over the very couch of death, to be foremost in the
throng of gross unblushing solicitation? Did every
human being conic into the world with each the num-
ber of his days registered on his hack would not
every day that passed produce refleition? Would
not the Lone of every hour he felt with the keenest
anxiety ; and is it to be supposed that we would not
begin early to discharge with solicitude the duties
ef Christianity, and lay up for ourselves
leaven
in reven ? Yet, if such a register presented itself
in the congregation then bethre him, perhaps, many
there were who had not a year, a month, a week, a
day, to live ! But although all know they must die,
none are willing to believe the period arrived ; and
this reludance to be informed of what is of the last
and highest consequence for us to know, is foolishly
and criminally indulged by all aroand us : from
what may be termed a tender barbarity, the death-
bed is flattered with the hope of lengthened life, and
the expiring viaim of crethility is cheated out of the
hour ofrepentance, winch he had year after year de-
ferred to that awful period! Foolish and fatal com-
promise with the world !—I .ikc the isiolators (*Cold
who felled the cedar of Lebanon, appropriating IN
most beautiful parts to the decoration of their pa-
laces, while they shaped the most base and worth-
less into agod, so we resign the fairest of our days to
. the indulgence of our appetites, and offer to our
Gad the vile refuse of a wretched abused world !
For the thoughtless and impetuous stage of youth,
when the vigour of the passions league with the se-
thglions of the world, „some excuse might, perhaps,
he admitted; but to see old men and women whose
wrinkles should be their monitors, hobbling forward
with disgusting avidity in the race of folly and of
lice, unchecked by examples of death, as if by age
they but struck deeper root into that earth, with
which they were so soon to mingle,- was such abo-
niinable folly and insensibility of a future state, as
scarcely to leave it within the common means of di-
iae mercy to enlighten or to save them. After
toveliing with further force on this head, and re-
pcesmting the most successful worshipper of riches,
power, and ambition, but as a colossus which, no
sooner relied to the false envy and admiration of
the world, but the hand of death delights to cruni-
• tie in the dust ;he doptiyael in his accustomed
streog;ll and beauty of laaguaee, the consolation
arising in the hour of death from a life dedicated to
the duties ei Christianity—in that awful moment
when the thunders of eternal judgment shall be
l:eard rolling over our heads, no condaitor shall
be found so effealual to avert the bolt of vengeance
as the recolle.%Nrof a well-spent life.
The preacher next elected more immediately into
the object at his discourse, describing the origin and
lettere of the lastitutioa for dispensing Medical As-
testance to the Infant Poor of the metropolis, and
the extent of the benefits resulting therefrom; it
was, he said, an emanation from the enquiry which
tusk piece into the shocking abuses of the Foundling
Hospital, and was set on I.xit by those Ladies, illus-
ti haus in good deeds and charity, who have since
cherished the humane reninnation in the latter es-
tablishment, by their constant superintendence. In
the course of three years, the period during which
the Infant Dispensary has existed, upwards of
11,000 patients had been relieved, and of edual
cares accomplished in cases of the most pitiable,
sho king, and almost hopeless diseaw.
My tisk, said the eloquent preacher, is now
stone. .1 have performed my duty, it remains for you
to perform your's, and on that head 1 can feel no ap-
erehension when I consider the greet and habitual
benevolence of the city of I)ublin.—Let it not be
supposed that I have exaggerated the piclure of those
miseries which you are called upon to relieve; on the
contrary, the subject must have suffered for want of
appropriate colours to depict it. I declare, to you
my brethren, that in iii years experience among
you, the present is, in a particular degree, the case
of all others which I have had to enforce from the
pulpit, wherein a plain statement of faits super-
ceded the nczessity of eloquence, and wherein I
found it most impossible to convey to you the im-
ression made upon my own feelings.—Among the
congregation which I am now addressing, there are
i.nany, whose rank and wealth, though nut exempt
from some trials, mast shield them from the
molest idea of those evils and miseries to which the
pour little petitioners of this day are aubjea—from
such, Heaven SWIMS in mercy to withhold the know-
ledge of calamities, which would disturb ai;d poison
the enjoyments with which it has blessed teem : it
is in their power to to gretetul and to vindicate the
providence of Cud And I have no doubt but this
day will furnish glotioes evidence, that while the
lives of human beings weigh light as air in the scale
of a senguinary and restless ambition, the preset--
Norma of their fellow-creatures is the first care of
the truly benevolent and philentbropie inhabitants
of du metropolis.

N. 4 VAL INTELLIGENCE.

PLYMOUTH, APIS!. es.
Yesterday, at anon, a signal was made fioni the
Afar, of 74 guns, and Spirtiate, of 74 guns, to
Admiral Lord Keith, to go down the harbour to
joUrthe squadron of observation in Cawsand Bay,
which being answered, the Master-Attendants' boats
rowed along-side, and the King's pilots took charge
of both ships; the wind being fair, both ships wont
through the Narrows into the Sound, and came to
at their anchorage in Cawsand Bay in a very grand
stile. The Morgan Star, which went on shore an
the rocks of the Colder's Reach, on Saturday even.
ing last, in the heavy squalls which came on, and
vas then got off by the etertiou of the trawl.
Units, is now along-side the Quay; she was c.rigi-
zially ladm with wine from Bourd.c.aus to Ham-
burgh, :Ind had her main-mast shivered to pieces off
this port, in a violent storm of thunder and rght.
nag, and was towed in here at the expence of fifty.
five guineas, by the pilots, with peat difficulty.
Came in.itent a cruise, the bervile, Funs,
CaptAin Vaughan, with men for the ; also num
Londoa, the Nancy coaster, with groceries.
Arrived from Torbay, being driven there with
contrary winds, La Prevoyamie armed 14.)re-ship,
with hemp sad iron fur this duck-yard ; the left the