The New Hampshire Gazette

Moralist.
No. I.
For the Gazette.

WHEN they with whom we have long differed in sentiments, or by whom we have imagined ourselves to have been injured, are interred or on the eve of being interred in the silent grave, oh! think then gentle reader, how it ought to affect us, and how contemptible will appear those contingent causes, which have created those malevolent contests and animosities, which we contemplated would have lasted in aeternum; The dreadful moment which now silences them, must make us feel for the folly and absurdity of indulging such inordinate passions. If inhumanity has left one spark of benevolence remaining in our bosoms, the anticipation of DEATH, (our common fate) ought to enliven it; where is the man who, if he was admitted to stand by the death bed of his worst enemy, and behold him enduring the terrible conflict, which we all must sooner or later suffer at the last; would not the hand of friendship be proffered, the voice of forgiveness uttered, and the wish that a perfect reconciliation might ensue before he departs from this world? or when he views the remains of his adversary deposited in the dust; who is there but feels not in that instant some relentings and remorse? when his memory reminds him of their past difputes, and perhaps those merely political, which had subsisted between them, and which had tended to make their lives deplorable, will he not say: there lies the man with whom I have so long contended, cold, senseless and gone forever. He is gone! and short is the interval, before I must follow after; how feeble then is the advantage which I now enjoy. for soon will approximate the time, when we shall be laid together in the dark and gloomy mansions of the dead, and no remembrance made of either of us or our controversies, or even that we ever had an existence.
(To be continued.)