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their principles. Believing that "to love our neighbour as ourselves " is the only true principle of action, we must fearlessly carry it out in all our doings. Thus, and thus only, can the disciples of the Lord's second coming realize the state involved in His words,that thou shouldest take them out of the world; but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." Z.

MATERIALS FOR MORAL CULTURE.

[Continued from page 181.]

"Keep the channel open."-No. CCL.

CCCCLXX.*

66

pray not

THE most common of the spurious humilities, is that by which a general language of self-disparagement is substituted for a distinct discernment and specific acknowledgment of our faults. In this case, each item of sinfulness being denied, the general sinfulness turns out to be an accumulation of ciphers!

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CCCCLXXI.

Real humility is quite compatible with a just and truthful judgment of ourselves. My son (says the son of Sirach) glorify thy soul in meekness, and give it honour according to the dignity thereof."

CCCCLXXII.

A wilful blindness to our own real principles of goodness and truth is no part of true humility. Whatever we may have that is good, we must be aware of it, as something received from heaven, before we can give God the glory of it. No humility can be thoroughly sound which is not thoroughly truthful.

CCCCLXXIII.

The shame that conceals a fault from reprehension, tends more to amendment than that kind of humility which boasts of its openness to conviction, and plumes itself on its patient endurance of reproof.

CCCCLXXIV.

There is such a thing as a sorrowful penitence which, being substituted for amendment, is washed away in its own tears.

*The greater portion of what follows is taken from, or suggested by, Henry Taylor's "Notes on Life," a very sensible production.

CCCCLXXV.

"God forbid," said John Wesley, "that we should not be the laughing stock of mankind!" Whether does this exclamation indicate greater pride or humility? Did not the author of it believe that all the laughers were in danger of hell-fire? True humility is grounded in charity, and therefore never courts persecution or martyrdom, being unwilling that others should commit sin, for their own sakes, by persecuting their fellow-creatures.

CCCCLXXVI.

There are incorporate or real marriages, through the unity of good and the unity of truth; also, simulative incorporate marriages, through unity of sentiment without unity of good, or without inter-penetration of the interior affections; also additament marriages, or marriages of convenience, where there is only the outward unity of politeness. The latter marriages are contracted only from a regard to worldly and bodily advantages; in them, therefore, there is no new interior creation of sympathy by unity, but only somewhat added outwardly, which being so far desirable, creates something like a common interest between the parties.

CCCCLXXVII.

A man who marries a frivolous, showy woman, fancies he has hung a trinket round his neck, but he soon finds it to be a mill-stone.

CCCCLXXVIII.

Meekness is the true test of wisdom. A wise man, says the apostle James, is one who, in the blameless intercourse of life, exhibits in his actions"the meekness of wisdom."

CCCCLXXIX.

Wisdom is that exercise of reason into which the renewed heart enters,—a structure of the understanding rising out of the moral and spiritual nature. "God is love;" and, "God is light:" whence it follows that love is light, or that light in its origin is love.

CCCCLXXX.

Pride can meanly bend to undue, or unreasonably resist legitimate authority; humility will do neither. Of the tyrant it wants nothing ; and to legitimate rule it cheerfully yields what is due.

CCCCLXXXI.

A false and cheap, but popular humility, is that which affects never to censure, on the ground that human infirmity is common to all; as if it understood the meaning of the command, "Judge not lest ye be

judged," to be "Take no account of the distinction between right and wrong,"

CCCCLXXXII.

To excuse faults by pleading the cause of them (as poverty, &c.), is contrary to reason. All effects have causes, and if we are to excuse all but causeless wickedness, there is an end of condemnation.

CCCCLXXXIII.

Only the humble man is independent of the selfish passions, and, consequently, humility is the only real ground of a rightly independent spirit. The reverse is the case with pride, which therefore has little claim to the independence of character it commonly arrogates to itself exclusively.

CCCCLXXXIV.

Democratic pride, and aristocratic pride, are from the same source, namely, an unregulated self-love. The only difference is, that the former quarrels with those above it, and the latter, with those below it.

"Cloth of gold, be not too nice,

Though thou be matched with cloth of freize;

Cloth of freize, be not too bold,

Though thou be matched with cloth of gold."*

CCCCLXXXV.

There is no more personal merit in being the possessor of a great intellect, than there is in being the possessor of a great estate: to be proud of either, is mere fatuity.

CCCCLXXXVI.

Even when united to great talents, the pride of intellect cannot but confine its view to the narrow circle of its own individuality, for it sees little worthy of notice beyond it. It is only with humility that real capaciousness or true greatness can exist; for to this state of mind only the exhaustless treasures of knowledge existing around it-in God, and in God's likenesses,—are available.

CCCCLXXXVII.

With a great affectation of enlargement, the new intellectual school of self-relying, self-inspired professors, must needs be dependent on the narrow resources contained within themselves, while they vainly imagine that self-development (by self,-not by the Revealed Word) is the drawing forth of the God within them. On their principle, they cannot

* Old couplets, where "matched" has the sense of two contending parties matched against each other.

conceive of anything but what themselves contain, and therefore they must (if consistent) debar themselves from the entrance of all wisdom from without. They are a kind of intellectual quakers; for while religious quakers pass by the Word to obtain Christian inspiration inwardly, these either reject the Word altogether, or as a medium of instruction, and demand to receive an immediate inward communication from the Fountain of wisdom instead, and on subjects assumed to be greatly superior to those which the Word contains, or upon which it

treats.

CCCCLXXXVIII.

Intelligent men sometimes act foolishly while they speak wisely. This is not the case with wise men. When merely intelligent men speak wisely, they do so by borrowing their wisdom of wiser men: it is not their own, made such by wise action, and therefore they are not wise men.

CCCCLXXXIX.

Similarity of taste in marriage is of great importance, for our taste originates and lies deep in our very nature, being, indeed, the expres sion of it; it is the prevailing taste that strikes the key-note with which outward circumstance is to harmonize.

CCCCXC.

The best man makes the best husband; and the best woman the best wife, supposing no incompatibility of taste or temper to exist. Can they be of this opinion who marry for the additaments of money, station, or beauty?

CCCCXCI.

We all need resistance to our errors. “Woe unto us, then, when all men shall speak well of us," and give way to us.

CCCCXCII.

As to the getting of money.-It behoves a man to bear in mind what are the uses of money, and what are the proportions and proprieties to be observed in saving, getting, and spending.

Yet in thy thriving still mistrust some evil,

Lest gaining gain on thee, and make thee dim
To all things else.

CCCCXCIII.

As to the saving of money.—This, like the getting, should be intelligent of a purpose beyond. It should not be saving for saving sake, but for the sake of some worthy object to be accomplished by the money saved.

CCCCXCIV.

As to the spending of money.-Prodigality is the vice of a weak nature, as avarice is of a strong one. The thought that in spending we are promoting the welfare of the industrious producers of the productions we purchase, accompanied with a sense of joy and gratitude to God that we are able to do so, will sanctify and elevate any personal gratification to our natural wishes resulting from such purchase, and thus inspire our expenditure with a spirit of life, by which it will be redeemed from the death of selfishness.

CCCCXCV.

As to the giving of money.-We should never take credit for our generosity. Self-merit is the poison of acts of beneficence. But to take credit for an act of generosity when we deny ourselves nothing to practise it, is the invention of a falsehood to deceive ourselves. The essence of generosity is self-sacrifice, cheerfully undergone, and then dismissed from the thoughts. Give to no man what he ought not to take. Ally not his inferior against his superior nature.

CCCCXCVI.

As to the lending of money.-Never lend money to a friend unless you are satisfied that he does wisely and well in borrowing it. Borrowing is one of the most ordinary ways by which weak men sacrifice the future to the present, and thence it is, that the gratitude of borrowers is proverbially evanescent. If you conspire with your self-deceiving friend to make his present difficulty future, you must expect that when it comes upon him, he will regard you with a feeling of annoyance and displeasure, in the character of his creditor. Better incur his present displeasure by refusing to lend, and meet it as you may, than lay up for future discord by complying with his wish.

CCCCXCVII.

As to borrowing money.-Avoid it if possible; and regard it as being, in itself, a great evil. To rejoice at having borrowed, is like rejoicing to go into captivity. It is by no means a good sign. Nothing brings down a man's truthfulness more surely than pecuniary embarrassment; and this will certainly come to pass if the borrower feels it no trouble to be in debt. In this case he will regard the loan as if it were an acquisition of property, and take no pains to provide for its repayment!

CCCCXCVIII.

The abuse of the powers of the understanding, by taking no pains to consider, judge, and argue, justly and truly, is too lightly regarded.

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