or honourable, or
whatever else we place our Happiness in, may after all prove
unsuccessful; whereas if we constantly and sincerely endeavour to make
our selves happy in the other Life, we are sure that our Endeavours will
succeed, and that we shall not be disappointed of our Hope.

The following Question is started by one of the Schoolmen. Supposing the
whole Body of the Earth were a great Ball or Mass of the finest Sand,
and that a single Grain or Particle of this Sand should be annihilated
every thousand Years. Supposing then that you had it in your Choice to
be happy all the while this prodigious Mass of Sand was consuming by
this slow Method till there was not a Grain of it left, on Condition you
were to be miserable for ever after; or, supposing that you might be
happy for ever after, on Condition you would be miserable till the whole
Mass of Sand were thus annihilated at the Rate of one Sand in a thousand
Years: Which of these two Cases would you make your Choice?

It must be confessed in this Case, so many Thousands of Years are to the
Imagination as a kind of eternity, tho' in reality they do not bear so
great a Proportion to that Duration which is to follow them, as a Unite
does to the greatest Number which you can put together in Figures, or as
one of those Sands to the supposed Heap. Reason therefore tells us,
without any Manner of Hesitation, which would be the better Part in this
Choice. However, as I have before intimated, our Reason might in such a
Case be so overset by the Imagination, as to dispose some Persons to
sink under the Consideration of the great Length of the first Part of
this Duration, and of the great Distance of that second Duration which
is to succeed it. The Mind, I say, might give it self up to that
Happiness which is at Hand, considering that it is so very near, and
that it would last so very long. But when the Choice we actually have
before us is this, Whether we will chuse to be happy for the space of
only three-score and ten, nay perhaps of only twenty or ten Years, I
might say of only a Day or an Hour, and miserable to all Eternity; or,
on the contrary, miserable for this short Term of Years, and happy for a
whole Eternity: What Words are sufficient to express that Folly and want
of Consideration which in such a Case makes a wrong Choice?

I here put the Case even at the worst, by supposing (what seldom
happens) that a Course of Virtue makes us miserable in this Life: But if
we