truth preserved where its spirit is violated! a, indiscretions for which no reparation can be de. Again, it is surprising to mark the common deviations from strict veracity which spring, not from enmity to truth, not from intentional deceit, not from malevolence or envy, not from the least design to injure; but from mere levity, haoitual inattention, and a current notion that it is not worth while to be correct in small things. But here the doctrine of habits comes in with great force, and in that view no error is small. The cure of this disease in its more inveterate stages being next to impossible, its prevention ought to be one of the earliest objects of education.* Some women indulge themselves in sharp raillery, unfeeling wit, and cutting sarcasms, from the consciousness, it is to be feared, that they are secure from the danger of being called to account; this license of speech being encouraged by the very circumstance which ought to suppress it. To be severe, because they can be so with impunity, is a most ungenerous reason. It is taking a base and dishonourable advantage of their sex, the weakness of which, instead of tempting them to commit offences because they can commit them with safety, ought rather to make them more scrupulously careful to avoid *See the chapter on the use of defi itions. VOL. I. The grievous fault of gross and obvious detrac tion which infects conversation, has been so heavily and so justly condemned by divines and moralists, that the subject, copious as it is, is exhausted. But there is an error of an opposite complexion, which we have before noticed, and against which the peculiar temper of the times requires that young ladies of a better cast should be guarded. From the narrowness of their own sphere of observation, they are sometimes addicted to accuse of uncharitableness, that dis tinguishing judgment which, resulting from a sound penetration and a zeal for truth, forbids persons of a very correct principle to be indis. criminately prodigal of commendation without inquiry and without distinction. There is an affectation of candour, which is almost as mischievous as calumny itself; nay, if it be less injurious in its individual application, it is perhaps, more alarming in its general principle, as it lays waste the strong fences which separate good from evil. They know, as a general principle (though they sometimes calumniatu) that calumny is wrong; but they have not been told that flattery is wrong also; and youth, being apt to fancy that the direct contrary to wrong must necessarily be right, are apt to be driven into violent extremes. The dread of being only sus pected of one fault, makes them actually guilty of the opposite; and to avoid the charge of harsh. ness or of envy, they plunge into insincerity and falsehood. In this they are actuated either by an unsound judgment which does not see what is right, or an unsound principie which prefers what is wrong. Some also commend to conceal envy; and others are compassionate to indulge superiority. · In this age of high-minded independence when our youth are apt to set up for themselves, and every man is too much disposed to be his own legislator without looking to the established law of the land as his standard; and to set up for his own divine, without looking to the revealed will of God as his rule-by a candour equally vicious with cur vanity, we are also complai santly led to give the latitude we take : and it is become too frequent a practice in our tolerating young ladies, when speaking of their more erring and misled acquaintance, to offer for them this flimsy vindication, that what they do is right if it appear right to them :'-' if they sec the thing in that light, and act up to it with sincerity, they cannot be materially wrong.' But the standard of truth, justice, and religion, must neither be elevated nor depressed, in order to accommodate it to actual circumstances; it must never be lowered to palliate error, to justify folly, or to vindicate vice. Good natured young peo ple often speak favourably of unworthy, or extra vagantly of common characters, from one of these motives; either their own views of excel lence are low, or they speak respectfully of the undeserving, to purchase for themsol as the re putation of tenderness and generosity; or they lavish unsparing praise on almost all alike, in the usurious hope of buying back universal com mendation in return; or in those captivating characters in which the simple and masculine language of truth is sacrificed to the jargon of affected softness; and in which smooth and pliant manners are substituted for intrinsic worth, the inexperienced are too apt to suppose virtues, and to forgive vices. But they should carefully guard against the error of making manner the criterion of merit, and of giving unlimited credit to strangers for possessing every perfection, only because they bring into company the engaging exterior of urbanity and alluring gentle. ness. They should also remember that it is an easy, but not an honest way of obtaining the praise of candour, to get into the soft and popular habit of saying of all their acquaintance, when speaking of them, that they are so good! True Christian candour conceals faults, but it does not invent virtues. It tenderly forbears to expose the evil which may belong to a character, but it dares not ascribe to it the good which does not exist. To correct this propensity to false judgment and insincerity, it would be well to bear in mind, that while every good action, come from what source it may, and every good quality, be it found in whomsoever it will, deserves its fair proportion of distinct and willing commendation; yet no character is GOOD, in the true sense of the word, which is not RELIGIOUS. In fine-to recapitulate what has been said, with some additional hints:-Study to promote both intellectual and moral improvement in conversation; labour to bring into it a disposition to bear with others, and to be watchful over yourself; keep out of sight any prominent talent of your own, which, if indulged, might discourage or oppress the feeble minded; and try to bring their modest virtues into notice. If you know any one present to possess any particular weakness or infirmity, never exercise your wit by maliciously inventing occasions which may lead her to expose or betray it; but give as favourable a turn as you can to the follies which appear, and kindly help her to keep the rest out of sight. Never gratify your own humour, by hazarding what you suspect may wound any one present in their persons, connexions, professions in life, or religious opinions; and do not forget to examine whether the laugh your wit has raised be never bought at this expense. Give credit to those who, without your kindness, will get none; do not talk at any one whom you dare not talk to, unless from motives in which the golden rule will bear you out. Seek neither to shine nor to triumph; and if you seek to please, take care that it be in order to convert the influence you may gain by pleasing to the good of others. Cultivate truc politeness, for it grows out of true principle, and is consistent with the Gospel of Christ; but avoid those feigned attentions which are not stimulated by good will, and those stated professions of fondness which are not dictated by esteem. Remeinber that the pleasure of being thought amiable by strangers may be too dearly purchased, if it be purchased at the expense of truth and simplicity, remember that simplicity is the first charm in manner as truth is in mind; and could truth make herself visible, she would appcar invested in simplicity. Remember also that true Christian good na. ture is the soul, of which politeness is only the garb. It is not that artificial quality which is taken up by many when they go into society, in order to charm those whom it is not their particular business to please; and is laid down when they return home to those to whom to appear amiable is a real duty. It is not that fascinating but deceitful softness, which, after having actec over a hundred scenes of the most lively sympa. thy and tender interest with every slight ac. quaintance; after having exhausted every phrase of feeling, for the trivial sicknesses or petty sur rows of multitudes who are scarcely known, leaves it doubtful whether a grain of real feeling or genuine sympathy be reserved for the dearest connexions; and which dismisses a woman to her immediate friends with little affection, and to her own family with little attachment. True good-nature, that which alone deserves the name, is not a holyday ornament, but an every-day habit. It does not consist in servile complaisance, or dishonest flattery, or affected sympathy, or unqualified assent, or unwarrantable compliance, or eternal smiles. Before it can be allowed to rank with the virtues, it must be wrought up from a humour into a principle, from an occasional disposition into a habit. It must be the result of an equal aud well-governed mind, not the start of casual gayety, the trick of designing vanity, or the whim of capricious fondness. It is compounded of kindness, forbearance, forgiveness, and self-denial; it secketh not its own,' but is capable of making continual sacrifices of its own tastes, humours, and self-love; yet knows that among the sacrifices it makes, it must never include its integrity. Politeness on the one hand, and insensibility on the other, assume its name, and woar its ho nours; but they assume the honours of a triumph, without the merit of a victory; for po liteness subdues nothing, and insensibility has nothing to subdue. Good-nature of the true cast, and under the foregoing regulations, is above all price in the common intercourse of domestic society; for an ordinary quality, which is constantly brought into action by the perpetually recurring through minute events of daily life, is of higher value than more brilliant qualities which are less frequently called into use; as small pieces of ordinary current coin are of more importance in the commerce of the world than the medals of the antiquary. And, indeed, Christianity has given that new turn to the cha racter of all the virtues, that perhaps it is the best test of the excellence of many that they have little brilliancy in them.-The Christian religion has degraded some splendid qualities from the rank they held, and cievated those which were obscure into distinction. CHAP. XVI. On the danger of an ill-directed Sensibility. Ix considering the human eind with a view o its improvement, it is prudent to endeavour to discover the natural bent of the individual character and having found it, to direct your force against that side on which the warp lies, that you may lessen by counteraction the defect which you might be promoting, by applying your aid in a contrary direction. But the misfortune is, people who mean better than they judge are apt to take up a set of general rules, good perhaps in themselves, and originally gleaned from experience and observation on the nature of human things, but not applicable in all cases. These rules they keep by them as nostrums of universal efficacy, which they therefore often bring out for use in cases to which they do not apply. For to make any remedy effectual, it is not enough to know the medicine, you must study the constitution also; if there be not a congruity between the two, you may be injuring one patient by the means which are requisite to raise and restore another. In forming the female character it is of im. portance that those on whom the task devolves should possess so much penetration as accurately to discern the degree of sensibility, and so much judgment as to accommodate the treatment to the individual character. By constantly stimulating and extolling feelings naturally quick, those feelings will be rendered too acute and irritable. On the other, hand, a calm and equable temper will become obtuse by the total want of excitement: the former treatment convorts the feelings into a source of error, agitation, and calamity; the latter starves their native energy, deadens the affections and produces a cold, dull, selfish spirit; for the human mind is an instrument which will lose its sweetness if strained too high, and will be deprived of its tone and strength if not sufficiently raised. It is cruel to chill the precious sensibility of an ingenuous soul, by treating with supercilious coldness and unfeeling ridicule every indication of a warm, tender, disinterested, and enthusiastic spirit, as if it exhibited symptoms of a deficiency in understanding or in prudence. How many are apt to intimate, with a smile of mingled pity and contempt, in considering such a character, that when she knows the world, that is, in other words, when she shall be grown cunning, selfish, and suspicious, she will be ashamed of her present glow of honest warmth, and of her lovely susceptibility of heart. May she never know the world, if the knowledge of it must be acquired at such an expense! But to sensible hearts, every indication of genuine feeling will be dear, for they well know that it is this temper which, by the guidance of the Divine Spirit, may make her one day become more enamoured of the beauty of holiness; which, with the co-operation of principle, and under its direction will render her the lively agent of Providence in diminishing the misery that is in the world; into which misery this temper will give her a quicker intuition than colder characters possess. It is this temper which, when it is touched and purified by a live coal from the altar," will give her a keener taste for the spirit of religion, and a quicker Isaiah, vi. 6. zeal in discharging its duties. But let it be remembered likewise, that as there is no quality in the female character which more raises its tone, so there is none which will be so likely to en danger the peace, and to expose the virtue of the possessor; none which requires to have its luxuriances more carefully watched, and its wild shoots more closely lopped. For young women of affections naturally warm but not carefully disciplined, are in dan ger of incurring an unnatural irritability; and while their happiness falls a victim to the excess of uncontrolled feelings, they are liable at the same time to indulge a vanity of all others the most preposterous, that of being vain of their very defect. They have heard sensibility highly commended, without having heard any thing of those bounds and fences which were intended to confine it, and without having been imbued with that principle which would have given it a beneficial direction. Conscious that they possess the quality itself in the extrenic, and not aware that they want all that inakes that quality safe and delightful, they plunge headlong into those sins and miseries from which they conceitedly and ignorantly imagine, that not principle, but coldness, has preserved the more sober-minded and well-instructed of their sex. As it would be foreign to the present design to expatiate on those criminal excesses which are some of the sad effects of ungoverned passion, it is only intended here to hazard a w remarks on those lighter consequences of it which consist in the loss of comfort without ruin of character, and occasion the privation of much of the happiness of life without involving any very censurable degree of guilt or discredit. It may, however, be incidentally remarked, and let it be carefully remembered, that if no women have risen so high in the scale of moral excellence as those whose natural warmth has been conscientiously governed by its true guide, and directed to its true end; so none have furnished such deplorable instances of extreme depravity as those who, through the ignorance or the dereliction of principle, have been abandoned by the excess of this very temper to the violence of ungoverned passions and uncontrolled inclinations. Perhaps, if we were to inquire into the remote cause of some of the blackest crines which stain the annals of mankind, profligacy, murder, and especially suicide, we might trace them back to this original principle, an ungoverned sensibility. Notwithstanding all the fine theories in prose and verse to which this topic has given birth, it will be found that very exquisite sensibility con. tributes so little to happiness, and may yet be made to contribute so much to usefulness, that it may perhaps be generally considered as be stowed for an exercise to the possessor's own virtue, and at the same time, as a keen instru ment with which he may better work for the good of others. Women of this cast of mind are less careful to avoid the charge of unbounded extremes, than to escape at all events the imputation of insen sibility. They are little alarmed at the danger of exceeding, though terrified at the suspicion of coming short, of what they take to be the extreme point of feeling. They will even resolve to prove the warmth of their sensibility, though at the expense of their judgment, and sometimes also of their justice. Even when they earnestly desire to be and to do good, they are apt to employ the wrong instrument to accomplish the right end. They employ the passions to do the work of the judgment; forgetting, or not knowing, that the passions were not given us to be used in the search and discovery of truth, which is the office of a cooler and more discriminating faculty; but to animate us to warmer zeal in the pursuit and practice of truth, when the judgment shall have pointed out what is truth. * оп obsequious qualities are the soft green," which the soul loves to repose itself. But it is not a refreshing or a wholesome repose; we should not select, for the sake of present ease, a soothing flatterer, who will lull us into a pleas ing oblivion of our failings, but a friend who, valuing our soul's health above our immediate comfort, will rouse us from torpid indulgence to animation, vigilance, and virtue. An ill-directed sensibility also leads a woman to be injudicious and eccentric in her charities; she will be in danger of proportioning her bounty to the immediate effect which the distressed object produces on her senses; and will therefore be more liberal to a small distress presenting itself to her own eyes, than to the more pressing Through this natural warmth, which they wants and better claims of those miseries of have been justly told is so pleasing, but which which she only hears the relation. There is a perhaps, they have not been told will be conti- sort of stage effect which some people require nually exposing them to peril and to suffering, for their charities; and such a character as we their joys and sorrows are excessive. Of this are considering, will be apt also to desire, that extreme irritability, as was before remarked, the object of her compassion shall have some the ill-educated learn to boast as if it were a de. thing interesting and amiable in it, such as cided indication of superiority of soul, instead shall furnish pleasing images and lively pic of labouring to restrain it as the excess of a tem-tures to her imagination, that in her charities per which ceases to be amiable when it is no longer under the control of the governing faculty. It is misfortune enough to be born more liable to suffer and to sin, from this conformation of mind, it is too much to nourish the evil by unrestrained indulgence; it is still worse to be proud of so misleading a quality. as well as in every thing else, and engaging subjects for description; forgetting she is to be a follower of Him who pleased not himself:' forgetting that the most coarse and disgusting object may be as much the representative of Him, who said, 'Inasmuch as ye do it to one of the least of these ye do it unto me,' as the Flippancy, impetuosity, resentment, and vio- most interesting. Nay, the more uninviting Jence of spirit, grow out of this disposition, which and repulsive cases may be better tests of the will be rather promoted than corrected, by the principle on which we relieve, than those which system of education, on which we have been abound in pathos and interest, as we can have animadverting; in which system emotions are less suspicion of our motive in the latter case too early and too much excited, and tastes and than in the former. But while we ought to nefeelings are considered as too exclusively mak-glect neither of these supposed cases, yet the ing up the whole of the female character; in less our feelings are caught by pleasing circum. which the judgment is little exercised, the rea-stances, the less will be the danger of our insoning powers are seldom brought into action, and self-knowledge and self-denial scarcely in cluded. dulging self-complacency, and the more likely shall we be to do what we do for the sake of Him who has taught us, that no deeds but what are performed on that principle shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.' But through the want of that governing principle which should direct her sensibility, a tender-hearted woman, whose hand, if she be actu ally surrounded with scenes and circumstances to call it into action, is The propensity of mind which we are considering, if unchecked, lays its possessors open to unjust prepossessions, and exposes them to all the danger of unfounded attachments. In early youth, not only love at first sight, but also friend. ship of the same instantaneous growth, springs up from an ill-directed sensibility, and in afterlife, women under the powerful influence of this Open as day to melting charity; temper, conscious that they have much to be borne with, are too readily inclined to select for nevertheless may utterly fail in the great and their confidential connexions, flexible and flat- comprehensive duty of Christian love, for she tering companions, who will indulge and per- has feelings which are acted upon solely by lohaps admire her faults, rather than firm and ho- cal circumstances and present events. Only reaest friends, who will reprove and would assist move her into another scene, distant from the in curing them. We may adopt it as a general wants she has been relieving; place her in the maxim, that an obliging, weak, yielding, com- lap of indulgence, so entrenched with ease and plaisant friend, full of small attentions, with lit. pleasure, so immersed in the softness of life, tle religion, little judgment, and much natural that distress no longer finds any access to her acquiescence and civility, is a most dangerous, presence, but through the faint and dull medium though generally a too much desired confidante: of a distant representation; remove her from the she soothes the indolence, and gratifies the va- sight and sound of that misery, which, when nity of her friend, by reconciling her to her present, so tenderly affected her she now for faults, while she neither keeps the understand-gets that misery exists; as she hears but little, ing nor the virtues of that friend in exercise; and sees nothing of want and sorrow she is but withholds from her every useful truth, which by opening her eyes might give her pain. These Burke's Sublime and Beautiful' ready to fancy that the world is grown happier than it was in the meantime, with a quiet conscience and a thoughtless vanity, she has been lavishing on superfluities that money, which she would cheerfully have given to a charitable case, had she not forgotten that any such were in existence, because pleasure had blocked up the avenues through which misery used to find its way to her heart; and now, when again such a case enforces itself into her presence, she laments with real sincerity that the money is gone which should have relieved it. In the mean time, perhaps, other women of less natural sympathy, but whose sympathies, are under better regulation, or who act from a principle which requires little stimulus, have, by an habitual course of self-denial, by a constant determination to refuse themselves unnecessary indulgences, and by guarding against that dissolving PLEASURE which melts down the firmest virtue that allows itself to bask in its beams, have been quietly furnishing a regular provision for miseries, which their knowledge of the state of the world teaches them are every where to be found, and which their obedience to the will of God tells them it is their duty both to find out and relieve; a general expectation of being liable to be called upon for acts of charity, will lead the conscientiously charitable always to be prepared. admiration and attachment; but by a kind o unconscious idolatry, they rather make a merit of loving supremely things and persons which ought to be loved with moderation and in a subordinate degree the one to the other. Unfor tunately, they consider moderation as so necessarily indicating a cold heart, and narrow soul, and they look upon a state of indifference with so much horror, that either to love or hate with energy is supposed by them to proceed from a higher state of mind than is possessed by mole steady and equable characters. Whereas it is in fact the criterion of a warm but well-directed sensibility, that while it is capable of loving with energy, it must be enabled, by the judgment which governs it, to suit and adjust its degree of interest to the nature and excellence of the ob ject about which it is interested; for unreason. able prepossession, disproportionate attachment, and capricious or precarious fondness, is not sensibility. Excessive but unintentional flattery is another fault into which a strong sensibility is in danger of leading its possessor. A tender heart and a warm imagination conspire to throw a sort of radiance round the object of their love, till they are dazzled by a brightness of their own creating. The worldly and fashionable borrow the warm language of sensibility without having the really warm feeling; and young ladies get such a habit of saying, and especially of writing such over-obliging and flattering things to each other, that this mutual politeness, aided by the self-love so natural to us all, and by an unwillingness to search into our own hearts, keeps up the illusion, and we acquire a habit of taking our character from the good we hear of ourselves, which others assume, but do not very wel: know, rather than from the evil we feel in ourselves, and which we therefore ought to be ton thoroughly acquainted with to take our opinion of ourselves from what we hear from others. On such a mind as we have been describing, Novelty also will operate with peculiar force, and in nothing more than in the article of charity. Old established institutions, whose continued existence must depend on the continued bounty of that affluence to which they owed their origin, will be sometimes neglected, as presenting no variety to the imagination, as having by their uniformity ceased to be interesting; there is now a total failure of those springs of more sensitive feeling which set the charity a-going, and those sudden emotions of tenderness and gusts of pity, which once were felt, must now be ex- Ungoverned sensibility is apt to give a wron cited by newer forms of distress. As age comes direction to its anxieties; and its affection often on, that charity which has been the effect of falls short of the true end of friendship. If mere feeling, grows cold and rigid: this hard- object of its regard happen to be sick, whot, ness is also increased by the frequent disap-inquiries! what prescription! what an accumu pointments charity has experienced in its too lation is made of cases in which the remedy its high expectations of the gratitude and subse- fondness suggests has been successful! What quent merit of those it has relieved; and by an unaffected tenderness for the perishing body! withdrawing its bounty, because some of its ob- Yet is this sensibility equally alive to the imjects have been undeserving, it gives clear proof mortal interests of the sufferer? Is it not silent that what it bestowed was for its own gratifica- and at ease when it contemplates the dearest tion; and now finding that self-complacency at friend persisting in opinions essentially dan an end, it bestows no longer. Probably too the gerous; in practices unquestionably wrong? cause of so much disappointment may have Does it not view all this, not only without a been, that ill choice of the objects to which feel-generous ardour to point out the peril, and rescue ing, rather than a discriminating judgment, has led. The summer showers of mere sensibility soon dry up, while the living spring of Christian charity flows alike in all seasons. The impatience, levity, and fickleness, of which women have been somewhat too generally accused, are perhaps in no small degree aggravated by the littleness and frivolousness of female pursuits. The sort of education they commonly receive, teaches girls to set a great price on small things.-Besides this, they do not always learn to keep a very correct scale of degrees for rating the value of the objects of their the friend; but if that friend be supposed to be dying, does it not even make it the criterion of kindness to let her die, undeceived as to her truc state? What a want of real sensibility, to feel for the pain but not for the danger of thoso we love? Now see what sort of sensibility the Bible teaches? Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart, but thou shalt in any wise rebuke him, and shalt not suffer sin upon him.'* But let that tenderness which shrinks from the idea of exposing what it loves to a momentary pang * Leviticus, xix. 17 |