Berkeley And Jefferson Intelligencer

From the Balance.

The whole existence of the little insect called Ephemera is said to be but six hours. In that short space of time, it performs and finishes its allotted business of life and leaves the stage of action to be occupied by succeeding generations.

Let sceptical pride contemplate this insect, and sink into its own nothingness. Vain glorious man, who scoffest at divine religion and deniest and deridest the immortality which the gospel hath brought to light. What art thou but an Ephemera? If this life limits the human existence, and death is an eternal sleep, all the generations of men, as well philosophers and sages as the most ignorant of the vulgar, are placed on the same scale with insects, and must say to the worm, 'thou art our brother.' The usual duration of the existence of man upon earth is indeed inconsiderably longer than that of ephemera. The haughty creature man measures his existence by years, and his life, sometimes, tho' very seldom, is spun out to three score years and ten but what is a year? It is a little fragment of time, that is ever on the wing it slips away imperceptibly, and when it is gone it appears like a dream. The commencement of the year, that is now closing seems like yesterday. 'We spend our years as a tale that is told.' One year follows another in rapid and imperceptible succession, till the curtain drops and the drama of life is closed. The longevity of the man of four or five score years is a theme of admiration- yet even his life, tho comparatively long is but a vapor. When he looks back on the scenes of early childhood, the progress of his life, during the intervening space of time, seems like the flight of an eagle in the air that leaves no track behind. In short every attempt to destroy or weaken our expectations of an immortal existence, not only tends generally to demoralize mankind, and to rob the good of their dearest hopes and comforts but also to sink human nature nearly down to a level with the nature of brutes and insects.