441B TTìt;. ATJVANTAGES OF HUM1LITY [SECT. Tv, or some innocent mirth at another time is thought to be unseasonably introduced. Let the cause be what it will, the ear receives the sudden offence, pride feels the affront, the soul ferments into wrath, the tongue gives reproof in thunder and sets the softer part of the house- hold all in tears. The next day a plate is let fall from a servant's hand, or a glass is broken and the wine spilled on the floor ; and if one were tojudge of the mischief done by the degree of the sudden clamour, one would be ready to imagine that the pillars of the house were shaken or thrown down, and the outcry gave notice of immediate ruin and death. My reader, it may be, will presently enquire, where this house stands ? and where is this wretched character to be found ? I confess I was never yet so unhappy as to live in such a family, nor was I ever an eye-witness to these disorders. must acknowledge also that I know not the persons nor the door of their house : Perhaps they are dead, and the rising generation may be grown calmer and wiser : Nor will Í presume to saywhere any of their kindred dwell : but I fear we need not go far to seek them. It is well if there be any street in this great city which cannot slew us such an inhabitant : It is well if a month can pass away in any town in Great- Britain, without some such ferment of pride and passion, some domestic tumult which has this unhappy original.* Mark the tempestuous scene, O my soul, mark it wheresoever it occurs with just and everlasting abhor- rence ; and stand aloof from the vice that raised it. Pursue and practise, O my heart, the lovely virtue of humility : Acquire and maintain a low idea of thyself : then thou wilt bear to have thy humour thwarted, and thy own will opposed without such clamorous and sound- * I almost reprove myself here and suspect my friends will reprove me for introducing such low scenes of life, and such trivial occurrences into a grave discourse. I have put the matter into the balances as welt as I can, and weighed the case, and the result is this ; General and distant declar inations seldom strike the conscience with such conviction as particular representations do : and since this iniquity often betrays itself in these tri- vial instances, it is better perhaps to set them forth in their full and proper light than that the guilty should never feel a reproof, who by the very nature of their distemper are unwilling to see or-learn their own folly, un- less it is set in a glaring view.
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