46 HUMILITY REPRESENTED. served so ? Have ye all conspired that I shall eat a cold dinner to day."' And yet this man possesses to be a philosopher, a man of virtue ; he disdains to be led by that mean and brutal thing called appetite, and talks much of subduing the passions. I wish he could suppose he had any to be subdued. Or perhaps a word is inadvertently spoken ìn the dining room which used to be for- bidden there ; perhaps somegrave and serious theme is started in a jovial hour, or some innocent mirth at another time is thought to be unseasonably introduced. Let the causebe what it will, the ear receives the sudden offence, pride feels the affront, the sold ferments into wrath, the tongue gives reproof in thunderand sets the softer part of the household 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 onewere.. to judge of the mischief done by the degree of the sudden cla- mour, one would be ready to imagine that thepillarsof the house were shaken or throwlí down, and the outcry gave notice of im- mediate 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 dis- orders. I must acknowledge also that I know not the persons nor the door oftheir house : Perhaps they are dead, and the rising ge- neration may hegrown calmer and wiser : Nor will I presume to say where any of their kindred dwell : But I fear we neednot go far to seek them. It is well if therebe any street in this great city whichcannot shew us such an in habitant : It is well ifa month can pass away inally town in Great Britain without some such fer- ment of pride and passion, some domestic tumult which has this unhappy original*. Mark the tempestuous scene, O my soul, mark it wheresoeveritoccurs with just and everlasting abhorrence ; 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 clamarous at.a sounding consequences ; thou wilt bear the cross incidents of-life without the ruffle and disturbance of thy own inward powers, without the pain and terror ofthy kindred and friends, and with- out giving half the street notice of thy 'folly. But, " strange doctrine is this," saith the master of the * I almost reprove myself here and suspect my friends will reprove me for introducingsuch luw scenes of life, and such trivial occurrencesinto a grave dis- course. I have put the matter into the balances aswell as I can, and weighed the case, and the result is this : General and distant declamations seldom strike the conscience with such conviction as particular representations do ; and since this iniquity often betrays itself in these trivial 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 ore unwilling to one or learn their own folly, unless it is set in a glaring view.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=