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We are too apt to calculate our own character unfairly in two ways, by referring to some one signal act of generosity, as if such acts were the common habit of our lives, and by treating our habitual faults, not as common habits, but occasional failures. There is scarcely any fault in another which offends us more than vanity, though perhaps there is none that really injures us so little. We have no patience that another should be as full of self-love as we allow ourselves to be; so full of himself as to have little leisure to attend to us. We are particularly quick-sighted to the smallest of his imperfections which interferes with our self-esteem, while we are lenient to his more grave offences, which by not coming in contact with our vanity, do not shock our self-love.

Is it not strange that though we love ourselves so much better than we love any other person, yet there is hardly one, however little we value him, that we had not rather be alone with, that we had not rather converse with, that we had not rather come to close quarters with, than ourselves? Scarcely one whose private history, whose thoughts, feelings, actions and motives we had not rather pry into than our own? Do we not use every act and contrivance to avoid getting at the truth of our own character? Do we not endeavour to keep ourselves ignorant of

what every one else knows respecting our faults, and do we not account that man our enemy, who takes on himself the best office of a friend, that of opening to us our real state and condition ?

The little satisfaction people find when they faithfully look within,makes them fly more eagerly to things without. Early practice and long habit might conquer the repugnance to look at home, and the fondness for looking abroad. Familiarity often makes us pleased with the society which while strangers, we dreaded. Intimacy with ourselves might produce a similar effect.

We might perhaps collect a tolerably just knowledge of our own character, could we ascertain the real opinion of others respecting us; but that opinion being, except in a moment of resentment, carefully kept from us by our own precautions, profits us nothing. We do not chuse to know their secret sentiments, because we do not chuse to be cured of our error ; because we" love darkness rather than light;" because we conceive that in parting with our vanity, we should part with the only comfort we have, that of being ignorant of our own faults.

Self-knowledge would materially contribute to our happiness, by curing us of that self-sufficiency which is continually exposing us to

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mortifications. The hourly rubs and vexations which pride undergoes is far more than an equivalent for the short intoxications of plea-sure which it snatches.

The enemy within is always in a confederacy with the enemy without, whether that enemy be the world or the devil. The domestic foe accommodates itself to their allurements, flatters our weaknesses, throws a veil over our vices, tarnishes our good deeds, gilds our bad ones, hoodwinks our judgment, and works hard to conceal our internal springs of action.

Self-love has the talent of imitating whatever the world admires even though it should happen to be the Christian virtues. It leads us from our regard to reputation to avoid all vices, not only which would bring punishment but discredit by the commission. It can even assume the zeal and copy the activity of Christian charity. It communicates to our conduct those proprieties and graces, manifested in the conduct of those who are actuated by a sounder motive. The difference lies in the ends proposed. The object of the one is to please God, of the other to obtain the praise of man.

Self-love judging of the feelings of others by its own, is aware that nothing excites so much odium as its own character would do, if nakedly

exhibited. We feel, by our own disgust at its exhibition in others, how much disgust we ourselves should excite did we not invest it with the soft garb of gentle manners and a polished address. When therefore we would not condescend "to take the lowest place, to think others better than ourselves, to be courteous and piti-. ful," on the true Scripture ground, politeness steps in as the accredited substitute of humility, and the counterfeit brilliant is willingly worn by those who will not be at the expense of the jewel.

There is a certain elegance of mind which will often restrain a well-bred man from sordid pleasures and gross voluptuousness. He will be led by his good taste perhaps not only to abhor the excesses of vice, but to admire the theory of virtue. But it is only the crapule of vice which he will abhor. Exquisite gratifications, sober luxury,incessant but not unmeasured enjoyment, form the principle of his plan of life, and if he observe a temperance in his pleasures, it is only because excess would take off the edge, destroy the zest, and abridge the gratification. By resisting gross vice he flatters himself that he is a temperate man and that he has made all the sacrifices which self-denial imposes. Inwardly satisfied he compares himself with those who haye sunk into coarser indulgences, enjoys his

own superiority in health, credit' and unimpaired faculties, and triumphs in the dignity of his own character.

There is, if the expression may be allowed, a sort of religious self-deceit an affectation of humility which is in reality full of self, which is entirely occupied with self, which resolves all importance into what concerns self, which only looks at things as they refer to self. This religious vanity operates in two ways.-We not only fly out at the imputation of the smallest individual fault, while at the same time we affect to charge ourselves with more corruption than is attributed to us; but on the other hand, while we are lamenting our general want of all goodness, we fight for every particle that is disputed. The one quality that is in question always happens to be the very one to which we must lay claim, however deficient in others. Thus, while renouncing the pretension to every virtue, “ we depreciate ourselves into all." We had rather talk even of our faults than not occupy the foreground of the canvas.

Humility does not consist in telling our faults, but in bearing to be told of them, in hearing them patiently and even thankfully; in correcting ourselves when told, in not hating those who tell us of them. If we were little in our own

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