Remark. Thales of Miletus, one of the seven sages of Greece, was asked, "What is there that can console us in misfortune?" He replied, "The sight of an enemy more wretched than ourselves." How opposite a sentiment from the above precept! And these are the men who are set up by modern philosophers, as teachers of a morality, as pure, beneficial, and lovely, as that of the merciful Jesus! The perfect hero passeth through the multitude, as a man that neither disdains a people, nor yet is any thing tickled with their flattery, Remark. The result of magnanimity, when made the object of public notice, is generally glory: but as its principle is, to pass through the multitude, as a man that neither disdains them, nor is tickled by their flattery; it would not be less magnanimous, were it to suffer, to bear, and to surmount, in the secrecy of a dungeon. Real greatness wants not the sanction of man, to make it what it is. the Almighty sees His servant, and needs no witness to validate his worth. 12. It is greater greatness, to give a kingdom than to get a kingdom. Remark. By this much in the scale of greatness, doth Washington outweigh most other popular dictators. They, whom history records, generally confirmed their power, by seizing the throne; while he, bent on the establishment of public freedom, resigned his seat the moment his guidance was no longer necessary. CONTEMPT OF RICHES. No man is moved with part that neglect the whole. Remark. The best comment on this aphorism, is th story of the Roman Fabricius. Whether does he, who shews himself beyond the influence of gold; or he who thinks that "the highest virtue has its price;" manifest the magnanimity of a prince? Every honest mind can reply to this question, and every generous one will subscribe to it, although they cannot but confess gold to be a good in life. The means of acquiring is the point in debate: the sordid shrink from no baseness by which they may grub up gold; the generous must win it like men of honour, or are resolved to strive to be contented without it. Those who plume themselves on wealth, and those who despise it, are equally faulty. Riches are, in them selves good; and the tide of kindness never warmed the heart of him who covets them not. Is there a man so lost to every beneficent feeling, so dead to the sympathies of nature, as to be insensible to the pure joy resulting from the blessed consciousness of being extensively beneficial to his fellow-creatures? Let such a man, with an unqualifying contempt, contemn riches. How happy is that fortune which every day enables us to do good to thousands! Are riches to be inveighed against, because there are men who abuse them? By this rule we should inveigh against genius, against learning, against religion.— Let men, then, leave off peevish, petulant exclamations against wealth, and consider richest in their true light; namely, a treasury of blessings, when possessed by the worthy; and an abused good in the hands of the ostentatious and unfeeling. FREEDOM. SHALL virtue become a slave to those that be slaves to vice. Better is it to consent to die: what death is so evil, as unworthy servitude? Remark. There is a private vassalage, as well as a public slavery: and the spirit that was formed for bondage, will find a yoke for itself, under any circumstance, and in any country. Pride, indolence, and the love of pleasure, are the sources of this baseness. For the sake of gratifications for which such nfen disdain to labour, and which they will not want, they sell their birth-right: sell it for a mere mess of pottage, when compared with the invaluable privileges of industry and independence. Many boast of mental independence, who are for ever thrusting their persons into the levees of the great; and if they do not receive that no |