But at any rate they will preserve your innocence, give you the deserved reputation of wisdom and moderation, and keep up the serenity and composure of your mind. Passion and anger make a man unfit for anything that becomes him as a man or a Christian.

SIR MATTHEW HALE.

In the following anecdote, we have a proof that the above eminent lawyer exemplified in practice, what he taught in precept: Having on one occasion dismissed a jury, because he was convinced it had been illegally chosen to favour the Protector, the latter was highly displeased with him, and when Sir Matthew returned from the circuit, Cromwell told him in anger that he was not fit to be a judge, to which all the answer he made was, that it was very true.

We should consider the possibility of mistaking the motives from which the conduct that offends us proceeded; how often offences have been the effect of thoughtlessness, when they were mistaken for malice; the inducement which prompted our adversary to act as he did, and how powerfully the same inducement has at one time or other operated in ourselves; that he is suffering perhaps under a contrition of which he is' ashamed, or wants opportunity to confess; and how ungenerous it is to triumph, by coldness or insult, over a spirit already humbled in secret; that the returns of kindness are sweet, and that there is neither honour, nor virtue, nor use, in resisting them. We may remember that others have their passions, their prejudices, their favourite aims, their fears, their cautions, their interests, their sudden impulses, their varieties of apprehension as well as we; we may recollect what hath sometimes passed in our own minds when we got on the wrong side of a quarrel, and imagine the same to be passing in our adversary's mind now; how we were affected by the kindness, and felt the superiority of a generous and ready forgiveness; how persecution revived our spirits with our enmity, and seemed to justify the conduct in ourselves which we before blamed. Add to this the indecency of extravagant anger; how it renders us the scorn and sport of all about us; the inconveniences and misconduct into which it betrays us; the friendships it has lost us; the distresses in which it has involved

us, and the sore repentance which it has always cost us. But the reflection calculated above all others to allay the haughtiness of temper, which is ever finding out provocations, is that which the Gospel proposes, viz., that we ourselves are, or shortly shall be, suppliants for mercy and pardon at the judgment-seat of God. Imagine our secret sins all disclosed and brought to light; imagine us thus humbled and exposed, trembling under the hand of God; casting ourselves on his compassion; crying out for mercy:-Imagine such a creature to talk of satisfaction and revenge, refusing to be entreated, disdaining to forgive, extreme to mark and to resent what is done amiss:-Imagine, I say, this, and you can hardly form to yourself an instance of more impious and unnatural arrogance.

PALEY.

AMBITION.

THE desire of preferment or honour; derived from the Latin verb Ambio, which is formed of am or ambi, about, and eo, I go; it therefore literally means, I go about (seeking for honour); I desire something higher than what I have at present. AMBITIOUS, eager of advancement; AMBITIOUSLY, in an ambitious manner; AMBITIOUSNESS, the quality of being ambitious, &c., are also forms in which this word is used.

Fling away ambition; by that sin fell the angels.

How can man, then, the image of his Maker, hope to win by it? SHAKSPEARE.

Too often those who entertain ambition expel remorse and nature. SHAKSPEARE.

A purchased slave has but one master; an ambitious man must be a slave to all who may conduce to his aggrandizement. LA BRUYERE. Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude. SIR WALTER SCOTT.

If kings would only determine not to extend their dominions, until they had filled them with happiness, they would find the smallest territories too large, and the

longest life too short, for the full accomplishment of so grand and noble an ambition. COLTON.

Those great objects of self-interest, of which the loss or acquisition, quite changes the rank of the person, are the objects of the passion properly called ambition; a passion, which, when it keeps within the bounds of prudence and justice, is always admired in the world, and has even sometimes a certain irregular greatness which dazzles the imagination, but which, when it passes the limits of both these virtues, is not only unjust but extravagant. Hence, the general admiration for heroes and conquerors, and even for statesmen, whose projects have been very daring and extensive, though altogether devoid of justice; such as those of the Cardinals Richelieu and Ritz. The objects of avarice and ambition differ only in their greatness. miser is as ambitious about a half-penny, as a man of ambition about the conquest of a kingdom.

But let eternal infamy pursue

ADAM SMITH.

The wretch to nought but his ambition true,
Who, for the sake of filling with one blast
The post-horns of all Europe, lays her waste.
Think yourself station'd on a towering rock,
To see a people scatter'd like a flock,
Some royal mastiff panting at their heels,
With all the savage thirst a tiger feels;
Then view him self-proclaim'd in a gazette
Chief monster that has plagued the nations yet,
The globe and sceptre in such hands misplaced,
Those ensigns of dominion, how disgraced!
The glass, that bids man mark the fleeting hour,
And death's own scythe would better speak his power;
Then grace the bony phantom in their stead
With the king's shoulder-knot and gay cockade;
Clothe the twin brethren in each other's dress,
The same their occupation and success.

COWPER.

A

Alexander the Great demanded of a pirate whom he had taken, by what right he infested the seas? "By the same right," replied he, "that Alexander enslaves the world. But I am called a robber because I have only one small vessel; and he is styled a conqueror because he commands great fleets and armies." We too often judge of men by the splendour, and not by the merit of their actions.

Antoninus Pius, the Roman Emperor, was an amiable

and good man. When any of his courtiers attempted to inflame him with a passion for military glory, he used to answer: "That he more desired the preservation of one subject, than the destruction of a thousand enemies." The insatiable ambition of Napoleon Buonaparte led him to become one of the greatest destroyers of his fellowmen that ever existed; according to an account which is derived from his own official journal, The Moniteur, he slaughtered two millions and a-half, at the lowest computation, of his own subjects; if to these be added the thousands and tens of thousands of Germans, Swiss, Poles, Italians, Neapolitans, and Illyrians, whom he forced to fight his battles, the number cannot fall short of three millions. It is obviously just to assume that the number who fell on the side of his adversaries, was equal to that against which they were brought. Thus we are justified in asserting, that the latter years of his glory were purchased at no less expense than six millions of human

lives.

Ah! why will kings forget that they are men?
And men that they are brethren? Why delight
In human sacrifice? Why burst the ties
Of nature, that should knit their souls together
In one soft bond of amity and love?

Yet still they breathe destruction, still go on
Inhumanly, ingeniously to find out

New pains for life, new terrors for the grave;
Artificers of death! still monarchs dream
of universal empire, growing up

From universal ruin. Blast the design

Great God of Hosts, nor let thy creatures fall
Unpitied victims of Ambition's shrine !

BISHOP PORTEUS.

ARBITRATION.

THE determination of a cause by a judge mutually agreed on by the parties contending.

This word is derived from the Latin noun Arbiter, a judge or umpire; from whence also comes ARBITRATE, to decide; ARBITRATOR, One who decides between opposite parties; and ARBITRARY, capricious, absolute; hence we say an arbitrary disposition, an arbitrary prince, &c.

AN UNEXCEPTIONABLE SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR.Instead of settling the disputes of nations by fighting, the Peace Society proposes that a CONGRESS OF NATIONS should be held for the purpose of agreeing upon a CODE OF RULES, for the fair and friendly arbitration of any differences that may arise between them; and that a COURT OF NATIONS should be established, whose office it should be TO ADJUDICATE on such cases, according to those rules. The following extract shows the vast superiority of arbitration over war :—

"First, it is observable that War pays no regard to the merits of a case. Its rule is might not right. But arbitration does consider those merits. Again; the stronger party being more likely than the weaker to be the aggressor, a resort to war, in the case, renders it probable that the injured party will receive additional injury, instead of obtaining redress: whereas, by arbitration, that party would in all probability obtain redress. In cases where two parties are nearly equal in strength, by resorting to war they generally leave off where they begin, nothing being decided, and both parties being sadly injured. Arbitration in such cases also, would answer a better purpose in both respects. And in cases where the stronger party is the injured one, although by a resort to war redress is generally obtained, how hard the way of obtaining it! Arbitration would afford it in an easier way. In every case, then, the ends of justice are better subserved by arbitration than by war, and all the evils of war are prevented besides.

"Furthermore, war is an infringement of the independence of nations. Surely it is such an infringement, for one nation to dictate to another, and to attempt to enforce its dictation, as is always done by one of the parties in war. But arbitration respects national sovereignty. Here is no dictation, no coercion, nothing but friendly counsel. Once more; by resorting to war, nations violate one of the plainest dictates of reason, viz., that parties should not be judges in their own cases, which they always assume to be in war. Arbitration respects this dictate, by providing a disinterested party as a judge. Then again; the custom of war affords the strong an opportunity to oppress the weak, and the ambitious to pursue their schemes of conquest and aggrandizement. Arbitra