"In this view then, we may innocently desire that his gifts of some good qualities to us, should be the instruments of conveying his gift also of some benefit or pleasure to our fellow-creatures; and that, in return, they should, in a lower degree, be pleased with us?" "I think so indeed." "But what say you to the duty of setting a good example, and contributing, so far as private persons can, to keep virtue and religion in countenance ?" "It is surely a very important one: but it requires a daily, hourly guard over the heart, to see that no secret vanity poisons the good intention." "And what is to be said of affability, good-humour, easy behaviour, and endeavouring to make ourselves agreeable ?" "Let but your whole behaviour flow uniformly from one fixed principle of duty, and you may always be secure. Be, therefore, equally affable to all kinds of people: study to please even those who are far from pleasing you: make yourself agreeable to those whose praise you are sure you do not seek: study to oblige the heavy, the low, the tedious and in whatever company you are, never aim at what is called shining. Do all this, and you may very allowably strive to please in agreeable company too; and may be satisfied you act from sociable good humour, and not from vanity.” "But tell me; is it possible to see one's self in the right, and another in the wrong, without feel. ing a little superiority?" Yes; if you will consider the matter a little coolly over, you will see it to be very possible to adhere to your own better judgment, without the least triumph, and indeed, with the truest humility." "Instruct me, I beseech you." "Consider, first, this very inclination to be overpleased, is a very dangerous weakness; one that you are ashamed to own; since any expressions of self-esteem are contrary to all rules of true politeness; and true politeness has its foundation in the nature of things. Therefore, whenever you feel any sentiment that you should be ashamed to express, be assured that you ought equally to be ashamed of indulging it in silence. The first emotions of the mind are, indeed, in some measure, involuntary: the giving encouragement to them is all for which we shall be accountable, and the thought may very commendably pass through the mind, that becomes faulty if it dwells there.* Selfapplause of any thing ever so praise-worthy, is like Orpheus conducting Eurydice: it must needs accompany it; but if the pleasure of looking back and Evil into the mind of God or man May come and go, so unapproved, and leave Par. Lost, Book Y. admiring be indulged, the fair frail object vanishes into nothing." "So, while you take breath after that simile, let me ask a few more questions." "I have not done with the last yet: you will say, how can we be even the more humble for seeing other people's faults?" "Not improbably." "Why, are we not partakers of the self-same erring nature? Are not we as liable to err as they?" "No surely there is a difference between good and bad, knowing and ignorant, prudent and rash." "Is there? Well, what do you imagine, then, of our first parents, formed in the highest perfection of uncorrupted nature, conversant daily with celestial visitors, and by them instructed ?" "I see your inference, and it is strictly just. They fell. What then are we? Yet we, in this blessed period of the world, in this its last two thousand years, have higher advantages, and surer supports, and stronger assistances." "Most true: but are these to make us vain or to make us humble?" "Humble, I own it. We have nothing we can call our own; nothing that pride and self-conceit may not forfeit and the greater our advantages, the more terrifying is the possibility of losing them." : "Reflect, in every history you read, what impression it leaves on you of the gross of mankind: then think, all these passions, all these weaknesses, are originally, more or less, in every one of us. If you were still liable to the infection of the small-pox, and were hourly exposed to it in a town where it raged among almost all the inhabitants; with what kind of sentiments should you see them labouring under all its dreadful circumstances, and what kind of triumph and self-approbation should you feel from your own high health and smooth complexion ?" "I should only, with fear and trembling, double my caution to preserve them, if possible." "And were you safe got through the illness, how strong would be your sympathy with those yet suffering?" "Yet, might I not, and ought I not, to prescribe to them such methods of cure, or even of present relief and ease, as I had experienced to be most successful?" "Yes; but would the praise be yours or your physician's?" "All characters upon record are not thus ter : rifying we partake the same nature with saints and heroes." "Can that raise any vanity? A noble and an honest pride it may; a glorious, a laudable ambition to imitate their virtues. But to see others of our own nature mounted up so high, our eye can scarcely follow them, is, surely, to us, poor, dull, and weak creatures of short sight and feeble pinion, mortifying enough." "You teach me the best lesson that can be learned from history, a deep, a practical, and unfeigned humility. Society, with all its various scenes, will teach the same; and all those things, which, if vanity engross us, minister so abundantly to selfconceit, contempt, disdain, and every evil disposition of the heart, will, if humility be our directress, heighten in us every right affection: our hearts will overflow with gratitude to our Supreme Benefactor, and pour themselves out in the most earnest desires of his continual assistance and protection; they will melt with the kindest commiseration to our erring fellow-creatures; and they will, without forming one ambitious scheme, be most happily and meekly content with whatever situation Providence allots us." "The disposition of humility being thus valuable, let me add one consideration more, which may help to confirm it, and may teach us to avoid that great danger it incurs, from our knowing ourselves at any time in the right. The more strong we are in our opinion; the more lively our dislike is of the op |