a man has passed eighty, he is intirely exempt from the bitter
fruits of sensual enjoyments, and is intirely governed by the
dictates of reason. Vice and immorality must then leave him; hence
God is willing he should live to a full maturity of years; and has
ordained that whoever reaches his natural term, should end his days
without sickness by mere dissolution, the natural way of quitting
this mortal life to enter upon immortality, as will be my case. For
I am sure to die chanting my prayers; nor do the dreadful thoughts
of death give me the least uneasiness, though, considering my great
age, it cannot be far distant, knowing, as I do, that I was born to
die, and reflecting that such numbers have departed my life without
reaching my age.

Nor does that other thought, inseperable from the former, namely the
fear of those torments, to which wicked men are hereafter liable,
give me any uneasiness; because I am a good Christian, and bound to
believe, that I shall be saved by the virtue of the most sacred
blood of Christ, which he has vouchsafed to shed, in order to free
us from those torments. How beautiful is the life I lead! how happy
my end! To this, the young gentleman, my antagonist, had nothing to
reply, but that he was resolved to embrace a sober life, in order to
follow my example; and that he had taken another, more important,
resolution, which was, that, as he had been always very desirous to
live to be old, so he was now equally impatient to reach that period,
the sooner to enjoy the felicity of old age.

The great desire I had, my lord, to converse with you at this
distance, has forced me to be prolix, and still obliges me to
proceed; though not much farther. There are many sensualists, my
lord, who say, that I have thrown away my time and trouble in writing
a treatise on Temperance, and other discourses on the same subject,
to induce men to lead a regular life; alledging, that it is
impossible to conform to it, so that my treatise must answer as
little purpose as that of Plato on government, who took a great deal
of pains to recommend a thing impracticable; whence they inferred,
that as his treatise was of no use, mine will share the same fate.
Now this surprises me the more, as they may see by my treatise, that
I had led a sober life for many years before I had composed it; and
that I should never have composed it, had I not previously been
convinced, that it was such a life as a man might lead; and be