the place where Providence had set him, 'the light of the world,' and the salt of the earth,' will leave the station to which God had called them, and seclude themselves within the walls of a monastery; and then, in proportion as the influence of good men is removed more and more, society will become every day worse and worse. The business and pleasures of the world will be looked upon as necessarily sinful, and those who mix in them as necessarily unholy; and the thought of using them as a discipline in godliness, and learning how to use this world without abusing it,' will be lost out of men's minds; till at last, by the working of such a system, all appearance of piety will really be confined to the monasteries, and the common state of society, and the ordinary course of life, will be tainted with impurity, and disturbed by violence, and the world will seem again, as it did in heathen times, to lie in wickedness.' When the SALT is thus drawn away from the mass, and collected to particular spots, the remainder is left to putrefy.

'Let us illustrate this by an example. Some, even Englishmen, who have visited Slave-States, are satisfied at being told that the slaves are far better off and more civilized there than in their own barbarian countries; which is, probably, for the most part true. But why have the African countries continued so long in gross barbarism? They have long had intercourse with Europeans, who might have taught them to raise sugar and cotton, &c., at home, for the European markets, and in other ways might have civilized them. And it cannot be said that they are incapable of learning; since free negroes in various countries, though they have the disadvantage of being a degraded caste, are yet (however inferior to us) far advanced beyond the savage tribes of Africa.

'But it is the very slave-trade itself that has kept them barbarians, by encouraging wars for the purpose of taking captives to be sold as slaves, and the villanous practices of kidnapping, and trading in each other's happiness and liberties. It is the very system itself, which men seek to excuse by pointing out the comfortable state of slaves when they are caught and sold, that, to a great extent, produces, and must, if persisted in, perpetuate, the barbarous condition with which this comparative comfort is contrasted. The whole of these African tribes might, under a better system, have enjoyed in freedom, far, very far,

greater comfort in their native land, than that which some of them now possess, as slaves, in a foreign land.

'So, also, in the case of the monasteries. Those who shut themselves up there might have exercised a much better and more rational piety (like the Apostles and first Christians) out of them, and in the world; and if they had lived amongst their fellow-men, would have helped to raise the whole tone of society around them. And it was just the same evil system which buried some good men (like lamps in sepulchries) in the cells of monasteries, and made the general mass of society outside the walls of those establishments so bad, that it seemed to excuse their withdrawal from it.

It is to be acknowledged, indeed, that some monks sometimes did some good for the rest of the world. They were often engaged in education, attendance on the poor, copying of manuscripts, agriculture, &c., and all these were really useful occupations. It is not to these things we object, when we object to monasteries; for with monasteries these have no necessary connexion.

Let associations be formed FOR a good object, when need ful; instead of first forming an association as an end in itself, and then looking out for something for it to do; else, that something, being a secondary matter, will sometimes be ill done, or neglected, and sometimes will be what had better be left undone.'

'There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as a man's self.'

I have already remarked, in the notes on 'Truth,' that men are in danger of exercising on themselves, when under the influence of some passion, a most pernicious oratorical power, by pleading the cause, as it were, each, before himself, of that passion. Suppose it anger, for instance, that he is feeling; he is naturally disposed to dwell on, and amplify the aggravating circumstances of the supposed provocation, so as to make out a good case for himself. This of course tends to heighten his resentment, and to satisfy him that he doth well to be angry;'

or perhaps to persuade him that he is not angry, but is a model of patience under intolerable wrongs. And the like takes place, if it be selfish cupidity, unjust partiality, party-spirit, or any other passion that may be operating. For, universally, men are but too apt to take more pains in justifying their propensities, than it would cost to control them.

But besides the danger of self-deceit, when under the immediate influence of a passion, many a man deceives himself as to what really are his own natural tendencies. For instance, one who is somewhat inclined to the love of money may fancy himself remarkably liberal; because every act of liberality will have cost him such an effort, that he will think much of it, as a most heroic sacrifice. A man, again, who has much self-esteem, may fancy himself peculiarly modest and humble, because he will view, as it were, through a magnifying-glass any act of condescension, and will seem to himself to be lowering his own just pretensions, when he is taking upon himself less than he thinks he has a fair claim to, though, in reality, more than is right. And so in other cases.

Now, as the advice of a good physician may be of use in helping us to understand our own bodily constitution, so a judicious friend, a wise and candid counsellor, may perform a like service in the important point of self-knowledge, and help to guard us against this kind of self-deceit. It is said that, according to the Hindu law, the penalty denounced against a breach of conjugal fidelity is remitted only in case of the inducement to its commission having been the present of an elephant,this being considered a douceur too magnificent for any one to be expected to refuse. Now, in Europe, though an actual elephant is not the very thing that offers the strongest temptation, there is in most people's conscience something analogous to it; and different things are elephants' to different people. Happy is that man who has a faithful friend to remind him to be on the lookout for, and to help him to discover, his 'elephant.'

"Observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for

our case,

It will always be improper for our case, unless we make the right use of such observation,-which is, so to estimate the

temptations of others that we may the better understand our

own.

'How is it, men, when they in judgment sit
On the same faults, now censure, now acquit?
'Tis not that they are to the error blind,
But that a different object fills the mind.
Judging of others, we can see too well

Their grievous fall; but not, how grieved they fell:
Judging ourselves, we to our minds recall,

Not how we fell, but how we grieved to fall."1

But though ten thousand of the greatest faults in others are, to us, of less consequence than one small fault in ourselves, yet self-approval is so much more agreeable to us than self-examination--which, as Bacon says, 'is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive,'-that we are more ready to examine our neighbours than ourselves, and to rest satisfied with finding, or fancying, that we are better than they; forgetting that, even if it really is so, better does not always imply good; and that our course of duty is not like a race which is won by him who runs, however slowly, if the rest are still slower. It is this forgetfulness that causes bad examples to do much the greatest amount of evil among those who do not follow them. For, among the four kinds of bad examples that do us harm—namely, those we imitate those we proudly exult over-those which drive us into an opposite extreme--and those which lower our standard,— this last is the most hurtful. For one who is corrupted by be coming as bad as a bad example, there are ten that are debased by being content with being better.

But though this observing of faults in another is thus 'sometimes improper for our case '—and though, at any time, to dwell on the faults of another is wrong,-yet in the case of a friend, though not of a stranger, we are perhaps ready to fall into the opposite error, of overlooking them altogether, or of defending them. Now, it is absolutely necessary to perceive and acknowledge them: for, if we think ourselves bound to vindicate them in our friend, we shall not be very likely to condemn them in ourselves. Self-love will, most likely, demand

1 Crabbe, Tales of the Hall.

fair play, and urge that what is right in our friend is not wrong in us; and we shall have been perverting our own principles of morality; thus turning the friendship that might yield such fair fruit' into a baneful poison-tree.

The two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment) follow the last fruit, which is, like the pomegranate, full of many kernels . .

The manifold use of friendship.'

One of these manifold uses of friendship is, the advantage, not noticed by Bacon, to be derived from a very, very discreet and pure-minded friend; that you may trust him to conceal from you some things which you had better not know. There are cases in which there is an advantage in knowing, and an advantage in not knowing; and the two cannot of course be combined, except by the thing being known to your other self-your 'alter ipse,'--and kept back from you.

For instance, a man may have done something amiss; your friend may say to him, 'I have not told my friend of this, and will not, provided you take care to discontinue the practice-to rectify what is done wrong,-to keep clear of any repetition, &c., as the case may be.' And he will be more encouraged to do so if he knows that your estimation of him is not as yet impaired. And yet such a person has need to be carefully looked after; which of course your friend will take care to do.

And there are other cases also in which such a concealment will be advantageous. But of course one who can be so trusted must be, as has been said, one of consummate wisdom and integrity.

It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted, form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of old wood to take, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees.