Such, likewise, is the precept that directs us to
use the present hour, and refer nothing to a distant
time, which we are uncertain whether we shall
reach: this every moralist may venture to inculcate,
because it will always be approved, and because
it is always forgotten.
This rule is, indeed, every day enforced, by
arguments more powerful than the dissertations of
moralists: we see men pleasing themselves with future
happiness, fixing a certain hour for the completion
of their wishes, and perishing, some at a greater and
some at a less distance from the happy time; all
compplaining of their disappointments, and lamenting
that they had suffered the years which heaven
allowed them, to pass without improvement, and
deferred the principal purpose of their lives to the
time when life itself was to forsake them.
It is not only uncertain, whether, through all the
casualties and dangers which beset the life of man,
we shall be able to reach the time appointed for
happiness or wisdom; but it is likely, that whatever
now hinders us from doing that which our reason
and conscience declare necessary to be done, will
equally obstruct us in times to come.
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