368 MISCELLANEOUS TIIOIJGIlTS. return. But ere I am aware they will come to their old native seat again; in spite of all the laws and rules of reason and re- ligion ; they overleap all the bars and fences that I raise perpe- tually to keep them out. This wicked pride is a home-born and domestic enemy, it knows every avenue of the soul, and is hardly excluded even by the severest watchfulness. We are so fond to appear always in the right, that I find myself to need a good degree of self- denial, in order to believe that truth is truth, when nave happened to fall into a different senti- ment; and what is this but pride of heart? I need not go far backward in my life, to find an instance of this folly or madness ; something of this kind so often occurs. Three days ago I was relating an affair of great consequence, and was opposed in my narrative by a friend, who knew the whole story perfectly : I felt my heart unwilling to yield to his opposition, though the reasonings that attended his narration car- ried superior light and force in them; I was hardly convinced that I was in the wrong, till I had left the company, and be- thought myself. This cursed conceit, how it blinds the eyes to reason, and bars our conviction 1 And it is the same disease of the mind that prevents our confesssion of an error, even when we are inwardly convinced of it. It is pride that cramps the organs of speech, and makes these words, " I was mistaken," so hard to pronounce in every language. When I am debating a point of controversy, how much am I pleased when I overcome ! and how ready do I find my tongue to contend for victory too often with greater solicitude than for truth ! -- I feel the mischief working, though I bate it. I look in- ward, I blush, and chide myself; but in the next company na- ture returns, the inward distemper stirs again, I am ambitious of conquest in the next dispute ; yet I profess to be a philosopher, a disciple of wisdom, and a -loveroftruth; but I feel I am a son of Adam. I watch against the first risings of this inbred evil ; but it is beforehand with me : I resolve to speak my sentii tints with a modest air, but vanity sits upon my lips, and forms the sentence, or at least gives some swelling accents to the sound : Then I sigh inwardly at the sudden reproach. What a vain wretch am I ! and ,should condemn myself as the very vilest piece of human nature, -if I did not observe the same folly working at my right -hand and at my lift, and shewing itself all round mein a variety of shapes. Were all the progeny of Eve to be summoned to the bar of God, mid tried upon this indictment, " Alas for poor mankind ! nor sex nor age is free " What would become of man? What would become of me ?" Vanisso was in company while this paper was read, wherein
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=