Man you aren't kidding.

My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel

against what he foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his

chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly

with me upon this subject. He asked me what reasons, more than a mere

wandering inclination, I had for leaving father’s house and my native

country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising

my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure.

He told me it was men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring,

superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon adventures, to rise

by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out

of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me or

too far below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be called

the upper station of low life, which he had found, by long experience,

was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness, not

exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labour and sufferings of the

mechanic part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury,

ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind. He told me I might

judge of the happiness of this state by this one thing—viz. that this was

the state of life which all other people envied; that kings have

frequently lamented the miserable consequence of being born to great

things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two

extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his

testimony to this, as the standard of felicity, when he prayed to have

neither poverty nor riches.

He bade me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of

life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind, but that the

middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many

vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not

subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses, either of body or mind,

as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on the

one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or

insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distemper upon themselves by

the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station

of life was calculated for all kind of virtue and all kind of enjoyments;

that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that

temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable

diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the

middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly

through the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the

labours of the hands or of the head, not sold to a life of slavery for

daily bread, nor harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the

soul of peace and the body of rest, nor enraged with the passion of envy,

or the secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but, in easy

circumstances, sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the

sweets of living, without the bitter; feeling that they are happy, and

learning by every day’s experience to know it more sensibly.

After this he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate manner,

not to play the young man, nor to precipitate myself into miseries which

nature, and the station of life I was born in, seemed to have provided

against; that I was under no necessity of seeking my bread; that he would

do well for me, and endeavour to enter me fairly into the station of life

which he had just been recommending to me; and that if I was not very

easy and happy in the world, it must be my mere fate or fault that must

hinder it; and that he should have nothing to answer for, having thus

discharged his duty in warning me against measures which he knew would be

to my hurt; in a word, that as he would do very kind things for me if I

would stay and settle at home as he directed, so he would not have so

much hand in my misfortunes as to give me any encouragement to go away;

and to close all, he told me I had my elder brother for an example, to

whom he had used the same earnest persuasions to keep him from going into

the Low Country wars, but could not prevail, his young desires prompting

him to run into the army, where he was killed; and though he said he

would not cease to pray for me, yet he would venture to say to me, that

if I did take this foolish step, God would not bless me, and I should

have leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his counsel when

there might be none to assist in my recovery.

I observed in this last part of his discourse, which was truly prophetic,

though I suppose my father did not know it to be so himself—I say, I

observed the tears run down his face very plentifully, especially when he

spoke of my brother who was killed: and that when he spoke of my having

leisure to repent, and none to assist me, he was so moved that he broke

off the discourse, and told me his heart was so full he could say no more

to me.