The Pleasing instructor, or Entertaining moralist. Consisting of select essays, relations, visions, and allegories. / Collected from the most eminent English authors. ; To which are prefixed, new thoughts on education.

The HISTORY of SANTON BARSISA: showing the fatal Effects of encouraging bad Thoughts.

Short is the course of every lawless pleasure; Grief, like a shade, on all its footsteps waits, Scarce visible in joy's meridian height; But downwards, as its blaze declining spreads, The dwarfish shadow to a giant grows. MILTON.

THERE was formerly a Santon, whose name was Barsisa, who, for the space of an hundred years, very fre|quently applied himself to prayer; and scarce ever went out of the grotto in which he made his residence, for fear of exposing himself to the danger of offending God. He fasted in the day time, and watched in the night; all the inhabitants of the country had so great a veneration for him, and so highly valued his prayers, that they com|monly applied to him when ••hey had any favours to beg of heaven. When he made vows for the health of a sick person, the patient was immediately cured.

It happened that the daughter of the king of that country fell into a dangerous distemper, the cause of which the physicians could not discover, yet they con|tinued prescribing remedies by guess; but instead of helping the Princess, they only augmented her disease. In the mean time, the King was inconsolable, for he passionately loved his daughter: wherefore one day, find|ing all human assistance vain, he declared it as his opinion, that the Princess ought to be sent to the Santon Barsisa.

All the Beys applauded his sentiment, and the King's officers conducted her to to the Santon; who, notwithstand|ing his frozen age, could not see such a beauty, without being sensibly moved. He gazed on her with pleasure; and the devil taking this opportunity, whispered in his ears thus "Oh, Santon! do not let slip such a fortunate minute: tell the King's servants, that it is requisite for the Princess to pass this night in the grotto, to see whether it will please God to cure her; that you will put up a prayer for her, and that they need only come to fetch her to-morrow.

How weak is man! the Santon followed the devil's advice, and did what he suggested to him. But the offi|cers, before they would yield to leave the Princess, sent one of their number to know the King's pleasure. That

monarch, who had an entire confidence in Barsisa, never in the least scrupled the trusting of his daughter with him. I consent, said he, that she stay with that holy man, and that he keep her as long as he pleases: I am wholly satisfied on that head.

When the officers had received the King's answer, they retired, and the Princess remained alone with the Hermit. Night being come, the devil presented himself to the San|ton, saying, "Canst thou let slip so favourable an oppor|tunity with so charming a creature? Fear not her telling of the violence you offer to her; if she were even so indis|creet as to reveal it, who will believe her? The court, the city, and all the world are too much prepossessed in thy favour, to give any credit to such a report. You may do any thing unpunished, when armed by the great reputa|tion for wisdom which you have acquired." The unfor|tunate Barsisa was so weak as to hearken to the enemy of mankind. He approached the Princess, took her into his arms, and in a moment cancelled a virtue of an hundred years duration.

He had no sooner perpetrated the crime, than a thou|sand avenging horrors haunted him night and day. He thus accosted the devil: "Oh wretch, says he, it is thou who hast destroyed me! thou hast encompassed me for a whole age, and endeavoured to seduce me; and now thou hast at last gained thy end." "Oh. Santon! answered the devil, do not repro••ch me with the pleasures thou hast enjoyed. Thou mayest repent: but what is unhappy for thee is, that the Princess is impregnate, and thy sin will become public: thou wilt become the laughing-stock of those who admire and reverence thee at present, and the King will put thee to an ignominious death."

Barsisa, terrified by this discourse, says to the devil, "What shall I do to prevent the publication of my shame?" "To hinder the knowledge of your crime, you ought to commit a fresh one, answered the devil. Kill the Princess, bury her in a corner of the grotto, and when the King's messengers come to-morrow, tell them you have cured her, and that she went from the grotto very early in the morning: they will believe you, and search for her all over the city and country; and the King her father will be in great pain for her; but after several vain searches, it will wear off."

The Hermit, abandoned by God, pursuant to this ad|vice; killed the Princess, buried her in a corner of the grotto, and the next day told the officers what the devil bade him say. They made diligent inquiry for the King's daughter; but not being able to hear of her, they despaired of finding her, when the devil told them that all their searches for the Princess were in vain; and relating what had passed betwixt her and the Santon, he told them the place where she was interred. The officers immediately went to the grotto, seized Barsisa, and found the Princess's body in the place to which the devil had directed them; whereupon they took up the corpse, and carried it and the Santon to the palace.

When the King saw his daughter dead, and was in|formed of the whole event, he broke out into tears and bitter lamentations; and assembling the doctors, he laid the Santon's crime before them, and asked their advice how he should be punished. All the doctors condemn|ed him to death; upon which the gibbet was erected. When the Hermit went up the ladder, and was going to be turned off, the devil whispered in his ear these words, O Santon! if you will worship me, I will extricate you out of this difficulty, and transport you two thousand leagues from hence, into a country where you shall be reverenced by men, as much as you were before this ad|venture." "I am content, says Barsisa; deliver me, and I will worship thee." "Give me first a sign of adoration," replied the devil; whereupon the Santon bowed his head, and said, "I give myself to you." Then the devil raising his voice, said, "O, Barsisa, I am satisfied; I have obtained what I desired:" and with these words, spitting in his face, he disappeared; and the deluded Santon was hanged.

From this may be inferred, that evil thoughts will sometimes start up even in the best of minds, which, when checked as soon as noticed, can never be deemed crim|inal, but ought to be carefully stified in embrio, as the first incitements to sin; for vice naturally begets vice, and the least digression from virtue is frequently succeed|ed by such a train of evils, as leads on imperceptibly to certain ruin.