ries as below him; and acts by equity and reason, not by passion. No. 54.] PATRIOTISM. [FRIDAY. LOVE of our country is one of the noblest passions that can warm and animate the human breast. It includes all the personal and particular affections to our parents, children, friends, neighbours, fellow citizens and countrymen. Whenever the love of our country prevails in its genuine vigour and extent; it swallows up all sordid and selfish regards; it conquers the love of ease, power, pleasure and wealth; nay, when the amiable partialities of friendship, gratitude, private affection, or regards to a family, come in competition with it, it will teach us to sacrifice all, in order to maintain the rights, and promote and defend the honour aud happiness of our country. No. 55.] PATRIOTISM (continued). [SATURDAY. THIS love of our country does not import an attachment to any particular soil, climate, or spot of earth, where perhaps we first drew our breath, though those natural ideas are often associated with the moral ones, and, like external signs, or symbols, help to ascertain and bind them; but it imports an affection to that moral system or community, which is governed by the same laws and magistrates, and whose several parts are variously connected one with the other, and all united upon the basis of a common interest. No. 56.] : OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. [SUNDAY. THE Old Testament is not contrary to the New for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man, being both God and man. Although the law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments called moral. No. 57.] HUMILITY. The good man in the blaze of wisdom and of art, [MONDAY. Preserves a lowly mind; and to his God, Is as a child in meek simplicity! No. 58.] COMPLAISANCE. [TUESDAY. "THAT no man should give any preference to himself," is the universal axiom in which all complaisance is included. If we would have the kindness of others, we must endure their failings. He who cannot persuade himself to withdraw from society, must be content to pay a tribute of his time to a multitude of tyrants. To the loiterer, who makes appointments which he never keeps; to the consulter, who asks advice which he never takes; to the boaster, who blusters only to be praised; to the complainer, who whines only to be pitied; to the projector, whose happiness, is to entertain his friends with expectations, which all but himself know to be vain; to the politician, who predicts the fate of battles and breach of alliances; to the usurer, who compares the different funds; and to the talker, who talks only because he loves to be talking. No. 59.] APHORISMS. [WEDNESDAY. THAT charity is best of which the consequences are most extensive. Things may be seen differently, and differently shown; but actions are visible, though motives are secret. Avarice is always poor, but poor by her own fault. Ability and necessity dwell near each other. Diligence in employments of less consequence is the most successful introduction to greater enterprises. No evil is insupportable, but that which is accompanied with consciousness of wrong. No. 60.] PATIENCE. [THURSDAY. THE evils by which life is embittered may be reduced to these four. 1. Natural evils. 2. The consequences of imprudence or vice. 3. Persecutions. 4. The conflict of opinions or characters. Under all these evils, patience is not only necessary, but useful. It is fancy, not the reason of things, that makes life so uneasy to us. It is not the place, nor the condition, but the mind alone that can make any person happy or miserable. When I am evil spoke of, I take it thus: if I have not deserved it, I am never the worse; if I have, I will mend. Men will have the same veneration for a person that suffers adversity without dejection, as for demolished temples, the very ruins whereof are reverenced and adored. No. 61.] ENGLISH PROVERBS. [FRIDAY. "EVERY man thinks his own Geese Swans." This proverb intimates that self-love is the mother of vanity, pride, and mistake. It blinds the understanding, and perverts the judgement. It makes a man so fondly conceited of himself, that his vices seem to him virtues, and his deformities, beauties. "Good wine needs no bush." This proverb intimates, that Virtue is valuable for itself; and that internal goodness stands in need of no external ornaments. No. 62.] AMBITION, [SATURDAY, No passion has produced more dreadful effects than ambition, and yet it is not à vice but in a vicious mind. In a virtuous mind it is a virtue, and will be found to take its colour from the character in which it is mixed. "Ambition is at distance |