Its necessary difference of error is the character it most esteemeth:
Give a man all things short of liberty, thou shalt have no thanks,
And little wilt thou speed with thine opponent, by proving points he will
concede.

The tost sand darkeneth the waves; and clear had been the pages of truth,
Had not the glosses of men obscured the simplicity of faith.

In all things consider thine own ignorance, and gladly take occasion to be taught;

But suffer not excess of liberality to neutralize thy mental independence. The faults and follies of most men make their deaths a gain;

But thou also art a man, full of faults and follies;

Therefore sorrow for the dead, or none shall weep for thee,

For the measure of charity thou dealest, shall be poured into thine own bosom.

That which vexeth thee now, provoking thee to hate thy brother,
Bear with it; the annoyance passeth, and may not return for ever:
The same combinations and results which aggravate thy soul to-day,
May not meet again for centuries in the kaleidoscope of circumstance;
For men and matters change, new elements mixing in continually,
And, as with chemical magic, the sour is transmuted into sweetness,
A little explained, a little endured, a little passed over as a foible,
And, lo, the jagged atoms fit like smooth mosaic.

Thou canst not shape another's mind to suit thine own body,
Think not, then, to be furnishing his brain with thy special notions.
Charity walketh with a high step, and stumbleth not at a trifle :
Charity hath keen eyes, but the lashes half conceal them:
Charity is praised of all, and fear not thou that praise,

God will not love thee less because men love thee more (28)

OF SORROW.

I SAID, I will seek out sorrow, and minister the balm of pity:
So I sought her in the house of mourning: but peace followed in her train,
Then I marked her brooding silently in the gloomy cavern of Regret;
But a sunbeam of heavenly hope gleamed on her folded wing.

So I turned to the cabin of the poor, where famine dwelt with disease;
But the bed of the sick was smoothed, and the ploughman whistled at his

labour.

So I stopped, and mused within myself, to remember where sorrow dwelt,
For I sought to see her alone, uncomforted, uncompanioned.

I went to the prison, but penitence was there, and promise of better times;
I listened at the madman's cell, but it echoed with deluded laughter.
Then I turned me to the rich and noble; I noted the sons of fashion :
A smile was on the languid cheek, that had no commerce with the heart;
Unhallowed thoughts, like fires, gleamed from the window of the eye,
And sorrow lived with those whose pleasures add unto their sins.

His infancy wanted not guilt; his life was continued evil:

He drew in pride with his mother's milk, and a father's lips taught him cursing.

I marked him as the wayward boy; I traced the dissolute youth:

I saw him betray the innocent, and sacrifice affection to his lust.

I saw him the companion of knaves, and a squanderer of ill-got gain,

I heard him curse his own misery, while he hugged the chains that gall

ed him :

For well had experience declared the bitterness of guilty pleasure,

But habit, with its iron net, involved him in its folds.

Behind him lowered the thunder-storm, which the caldron of his wicked

ness had brewed;

Before him was the smooth steep cliff, whose base is ruin and despair.

So he madly rushed on, and tried to forget his being:

The noisy revel and the low debauch, and fierce excitement of play, With dreary interchange of palling pleasures, filled the dull round of existence:

Memory was to him as a foe, so he flew for false solace to the wine-cup, And stunned his enemy at even, but she rent him as a giant in the morning.

I TURNED aside to weep; 1 lost him a little while:

I looked, and years had past: he was hoar with the winter of his age.
And what was now his hope? where was the balm for his sadness?
The memory of the past was guilt: the feeling of the present, remorse.
Then he set his affections on gold, he worshipped the shrine of Mammon,
And to lay richer gifts before his idol, he starved his own bowels;
So, the youth spent in profligacy ended in the gripings of want:
The miser grudged himself husks, to take deeper vengeance of the prod-
igal.

And I said, this is sorrow; but pity cannot reach it.

This is to be wretched indeed, to be guilty without repentance.

OF JOY.

My soul was sickened within me, so I sought the dwelling-place of Joy : And I met it not in laughter; I found it not in wealth or power;

But I saw it in the pleasant home, where religion smiled upon content, And the satisfied ambition of the heart rejoiced in the favour of its God. Behold the happy man, his face is rayed with pleasure,

His thoughts are of calm delight, and none can know his blessedness: I have watched him from his infancy, and seen him in the grasp of death,

Yet never have I noted on his brow the cloud of desponding sorrow.

He hath knelt beside his cradle; his mother's hymn lulled him to sleep: In childhood he hath loved holiness, and drank from that fountain-head

of peace.

Wisdom took him for her scholar, guiding his steps in purity :

He lived unpolluted by the world; and his young heart hated sin.

But he owned not the spurious religion engendered of faction and mo

roseness,

Neither were the sproutings of his soul seared by the brand of super

stition.

His love is pure and single, sincere, and knoweth not change:

For his manhood hath been blest with the pleasant choice of his youth: Behold his one beloved, she leaneth on his arm,

And he looketh on the years that are past, to review the dawn of her affection.

Memory is sweet unto him as a perfect landscape to the sight;

Each object is lovely in itself, but the whole is the harmony of

nature.

Behold his little ones around him, they bask in the sunshine of his

smile;

And infant innocence and joy lighten their happy faces;

He is holy, and they honour him: he is loving, and they love him :

He is consistent, and they esteem him; he is firm, and they fear him.

His friends are the excellent among men ; and the bands of their friené

ship are strong;

His house is the palace of peace: for the Prince of Peace is there.

As the wearied man to his couch, as the thoughtful man to h

musings,

Even so, from the bustle of life, he goeth to his well-ordered home.
And though he often sin, he returneth with weeping eyes:

For he feeleth the mercies of forgiveness, and gloweth with warme

gratitude.

THUS did he walk in happiness, and sorrow was a stranger to his soul; The light of affection sunned his heart, the tear of the grateful bedewed

his feet,

He put his hand with constancy to good, and angels knew him as a

brother,

And the busy satellites of evil trembled as at God's ally:

He used his wealth as a wise steward, making him friends for fu

turity;

He bent his learning to religion, and religion was with him at the

last:

For I saw him after many days, when the time of his release was

come,

And I longed for a congregated world, to behold that dying saint,

As the aloe is green and well-liking, till the last best summer of its

age,

And then hangeth out its golden bells to mingle glory with corruption;
As a meteor travelleth in splendour, but bursteth in dazzling light;
Such was the end of the righteous: his death was the sun at his
setting.

Look on this picture of joy, and remember that portrait of sorrow:
Behold the beauty of holiness, behold the deformity of sin!