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Article THE CHARGE. ← Page 2 of 7 →
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The Charge.
Capable in so many ways of pleasing them , that it is impossible to contemn pleasure , unless our feelings are perverted , or our doing violence to them . The innumerable comforts poured out by the Creator , meet the powers and desires of man , and call upon him to obey the dictates of Nature in the due enjoyment of them . But this could not be properly the case if man were a solitary
inhabitant of the beauteous scene . The pleasure of such a state Would scarcely deserve to be called so , as it would consist only iii the temporary gratification of the meanest arid most ignoble of the human faculties . Those in which lies his true dignity , would receive no delig ht ; and dissatisfaction , with its infinitely variegated train of evilswould soon intrudeand grievously distress his
, , mind . True pleasure is indeed ordained for man , but without the ' blessings which Friendship and Love possess peculiarly to themselves , pleasure is not complete ; the absolute necessity of Society is , therefore , evident , for the full constitution of humari happiness .
Let the g loomy misanthrope , as being incapable of communicating to , or receiving satisfaction from others , court , in disgust , - i he shady covert of solitude ; and let the fastidious man , with an injudicious apathy , inveigh against social pleasures ; we , feeling ' the full expansion of the faculties which God hath' given us , will look solicitously for every rational p leasure , which a state of So *
ciety ' alone affords . Intellectual pleasure , which is a necessary branch of true happiness , and by which I understand the improvement and exercise of the mind , cannot subsist without the cheering influence of Friend ship ; nor can it be complete , because it cannot be amiable , without that gentle harmonization of the' affectionsthat beautiful
meliora-, tion of the heart , which are produced by Love . Enfolded in these principles lies the nature of that Institution ' to which we have the happiness to belong , and which has subsisted from those asres now buried under the dark ruins of time .
The wide-spread and infinitely diversified state of Society , ' which stands on the broad basis of a wise necessity , and is called the World ,, is not the social state to which these refined principles are strictly to be applied . Vice has diffused itself among the offspring of Adam , in consequence of the extinction of the beatific lig ht which irradiated his mindinto such a variety of appearances adapted to their different
, dispositions , that there is no supposing these principles to be those of Society at large . The application of them to any fraternity , in theiroriginal purity , Would now be absurd ; but we can do and say , that no fraternity admits them more pure and more- extensive than that in which we are engaged .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Charge.
Capable in so many ways of pleasing them , that it is impossible to contemn pleasure , unless our feelings are perverted , or our doing violence to them . The innumerable comforts poured out by the Creator , meet the powers and desires of man , and call upon him to obey the dictates of Nature in the due enjoyment of them . But this could not be properly the case if man were a solitary
inhabitant of the beauteous scene . The pleasure of such a state Would scarcely deserve to be called so , as it would consist only iii the temporary gratification of the meanest arid most ignoble of the human faculties . Those in which lies his true dignity , would receive no delig ht ; and dissatisfaction , with its infinitely variegated train of evilswould soon intrudeand grievously distress his
, , mind . True pleasure is indeed ordained for man , but without the ' blessings which Friendship and Love possess peculiarly to themselves , pleasure is not complete ; the absolute necessity of Society is , therefore , evident , for the full constitution of humari happiness .
Let the g loomy misanthrope , as being incapable of communicating to , or receiving satisfaction from others , court , in disgust , - i he shady covert of solitude ; and let the fastidious man , with an injudicious apathy , inveigh against social pleasures ; we , feeling ' the full expansion of the faculties which God hath' given us , will look solicitously for every rational p leasure , which a state of So *
ciety ' alone affords . Intellectual pleasure , which is a necessary branch of true happiness , and by which I understand the improvement and exercise of the mind , cannot subsist without the cheering influence of Friend ship ; nor can it be complete , because it cannot be amiable , without that gentle harmonization of the' affectionsthat beautiful
meliora-, tion of the heart , which are produced by Love . Enfolded in these principles lies the nature of that Institution ' to which we have the happiness to belong , and which has subsisted from those asres now buried under the dark ruins of time .
The wide-spread and infinitely diversified state of Society , ' which stands on the broad basis of a wise necessity , and is called the World ,, is not the social state to which these refined principles are strictly to be applied . Vice has diffused itself among the offspring of Adam , in consequence of the extinction of the beatific lig ht which irradiated his mindinto such a variety of appearances adapted to their different
, dispositions , that there is no supposing these principles to be those of Society at large . The application of them to any fraternity , in theiroriginal purity , Would now be absurd ; but we can do and say , that no fraternity admits them more pure and more- extensive than that in which we are engaged .