_The Pennsylvania Gazette_, April 4, 1734
_The Death of Infants_
_Ostendunt Terris hunc tantum Fata, neque ultra
Esse sinunt_. -------- Virgil.
It has been observ'd Sir _William Petty_ in his _Political
Arithmetick_, that one half of Mankind, which are born into this
World, die, before they arrive to the age of _Sixteen_, and that an
half of the remaining part never measure out the short Term of
_Thirty_ Years. That this Observation is pretty just, every
inquisitive Person may be satisfied by comparing the several Bills of
Mortality, published in _Europe_, for some Years past; even a cursory
View of any common Burial-place may, in a great measure evidence the
Truth of it.
Many Arguments, to prove a _Future State_, have been drawn from
the unequal Lot of good and bad Men upon Earth, but no one seems to
carry a greater Degree of Probability in it, than the foregoing
Observation. -- , To see Virtue languish and repine, to see Vice
prosperous and triumphant, to see a _Dives_ faring deliciously every
Day, and rioting in all the Excess of Luxury and Wantonness; to see a
_Lazarus_ poor, hungry, naked, and full of Sores, lying at his Door,
and denied even the Crumbs that fall from his Table, the Portion of
his Dogs, which Dogs are more charitable, more human than their
Master: Such a View, I confess, raises in us a violent Presumption
that there is another State of Retribution, where the Just and the
Unjust will be equally punished or rewarded by an impartial Judge.
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