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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 to
judge
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 say
where 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.