regard of Him, whom the least deviation from to calm the conscience by some settled method, rectitude made inexorable for ever; and every man would naturally withdraw his thoughts from the contemplation of a Creator, whom he must consider as a governor too pure to be pleased, and too severe to be pacified; as an enemy infinitely wise, and infinitely powerful, whom he could neither deceive, escape, nor resist. have produced, as they are diversified in their effects by various tempers and principles, most of the disquisitions and rules, the doubts and solutions, that have embarrassed the doctrine of repentance, and perplexed tender and flexible minds with innumerable scruples concerning the necessary measures of sorrow, and adequate degrees of self-abhorrence; and these rules, corrupted by fraud or debased by credulity, have, by the common resiliency of the mind from one extreme to another, incited others to an open contempt of all subsidiary ordinances, all prudential caution, and the whole discipline of regulated piety. Where there is no hope, there can be no endeavour. A constant and unfailing obedience is above the reach of terrestrial diligence; and therefore the progress of life could only have been the natural descent of negligent despair fro:n crime to crime, had not the universal persuasion of forgiveness, to be obtained by proper Repentance, however difficult to be practised, means of reconciliation, recalled those to the is, if it be explained without superstition, easily paths of virtue whom their passions had solicited understood. "Repentance is the relinquishment aside; and animated to new attempts and firmer of any practice, from the conviction that it has perseverance, those whom difficulty had dis-offended God." Sorrow, and fear, and anxiety, couraged, or negligence surprised. are properly not parts, but adjuncts of repentance; yet they are too closely connected with it to be easily separated, for they not only mark its sincerity, but promote its efficacy. In times and regions so disjoined from each other, that there can scarcely be imagined any coramunication of sentiments either by commerce or tradition, has prevailed a general and uniform expectation of propitiating God by corporal austerities, of anticipating His vengeance by voluntary inflictions, and appeasing His jus-gency of remorse. He who is fully convinced tice by a speedy and cheerful submission to a less than penalty, when a greater is incurred. Incorporated minds will always feel some inclination towards exterior acts and ritual observances. Ideas not represented by sensible objects are fleeting, variable, and evanescent. We are not able to judge of the degree of conviction which operated at any particular time upon our own thoughts, but as it is recorded by some certain and definite effect. He that reviews bis life in order to determine the probability of his acceptance with God, if he could once establish the necessary proportion between crimes and sufferings, might securely rest upon his performance of the expiation; but, while safety remains the reward only of mental purity, he is always afraid lest he should decide too soon in his own favour, lest he should not have felt the pangs of true contrition; lest he should mistake satiety for detestation, or imagine that his passions are subdued when they are only sleeping. From this natural and reasonable diffidence arose, in humble and timorous piety, a disposition to confound penance with repentance, to repose on human determinations, and to receive from some judicial sentence the stated and regular assignment of reconciliatory pain. We are never willing to be without resource: we seek in the knowledge of others a succour for our own ignorance, and are ready to trust any that will undertake to direct us when we have no confidence in ourselves. This desire to ascertain by some outward marks the state of the soul, and this willingness No man commits any act of negligence or obstinacy by which his safety or happiness in this world is endangered without feeling the pun that he suffers by his own failure can never forbear to trace back his miscarriage to its first cause, to image to himself a contrary behaviour, and to form involuntary resolutions against the like fault, even when he knows that he shall never again have the power of committing it. Danger, considered as imminent, naturally produces such trepidations of impatience as leave all human means of safety behind them: he that has once caught an alarm of terror is every moment seized with useless anxieties, adding one security to another, trembling with sudden doubts, and distracted by the perpetual occurrence of new expedients. If, therefore, he whose crimes have deprived him of the favour of God can reflect upon his conduct without disturbance, or can at will banish the reflection; if he who considers himself as suspended over the abyss of eternal perdition only by the thread of life, which must soon part by its own weakness, and which the wing of every minute may divide, can cast his eyes round him without shuddering with horror or panting with security, what can he judge of himself but that he is not yet awakened to sufficient conviction, since every loss is more lamented than the loss of the Divine favour, and every danger more dreaded than the danger of final condemnation? Retirement from the cares and pleasures of the world has been often recommended as useful to repentance. This at least is evident that every one retires whenever ratiocination and recollection are required on other occasions; and surely the retrospect of life, the disentanglement of actions complicated with innumerable circum stances, and diffused in various relations, the discovery of the primary movements of the heart, and the extirpation of lusts and appetites deeply rooted and widely spread, may be allowed to demand some secession from sport and noise, and business and folly. Some suspension of common affairs, some pause of temporal pain and pleasure, is doubtless necessary to him that deliberates for eternity, who is forming the only plan in which miscarriage cannot be repaired, and examining the only question in which mistake cannot be rectified. Austerities and mortifications are means by which the mind is invigorated and roused, by which the attractions of pleasure, are interrupted and the chains of sensuality are broken. It is observed by one of the fathers, that "he who restrains himself in the use of things lawful will never encroach upon things forbidden." Abstinence, if nothing more, is at least a cautious retreat from the utmost verge of permission, and confers that security which cannot be reasonably hoped by him that dares always to hover over the precipice of destruction, or delights to approach the pleasures which he knows it fatal to partake. Austerity is the proper antidote to indulgence; the diseases of mind as well as body are cured by contraries, and to contraries we should readily have recourse if we dreaded guilt as we dread pain. The completion and sum of repentance is a change of life. That sorrow which dictates no caution, that fear which does not quicken our escape, that austerity which fails to rectify our affections, are vain and unavailing. But sorrow and terror must naturally precede reformation, for what other cause can produce it? He, therefore, that feels himself alarmed by his conscience, anxious for the attainment of a better state, and afflicted by the memory of his past faults, may justly conclude that the great work of repentance is begun, and hope by retirement and prayer, the natural and religious means of strengthening his conviction, to impress upon his mind such a sense of the Divine presence as may overpower the blandishments of secular | delights, and enable him to advance from one degree of holiness to another, till death shall set him free from doubt and contest, misery and temptation. What better can we do than prostrate fall ON FORGIVENESS AND REVENGE. "But oh! revenge is sweet.' Thus think the crowd; who, eager to engage, Take quickly fire, and kindle into rage. Not so mild Thales, nor Chrysippus thought, Nor that good man who drank the pois'nous draught -Dryden. No vicious dispositions of the mind more obstinately resist both the counsels of philosophy and the injunctions of religion than those which are complicated with an opinion of dignity, and which we cannot dismiss without leaving in the hands of opposition some advantage iniquitously obtained, or suffering from our own prejudices some imputation of pusillanimity. For this reason, scarcely any law of our Redeemer is more openly transgressed, or more industriously evaded, than that by which He commands His followers to forgive injuries, and prohibits, under the sanction of eternal misery, the gratification of the desire which every man feels to return pain upon him that inflicts it. Many who could have conquered their anger are unable to combat pride, and pursue offences to extremity of vengeance lest they should be insulted by the triumph of an enemy. But certainly no precept could better become Him at whose birth peace was proclaimed to the earth. For what would so soon destroy all the order of society, and deforia life with violence and ravage, as a permission to every one to judge his own cause, and to apportion his own recompense for imagined injuries. It is difficult for a man of the strictest justice not to favour himself '00 much in the calmest moments of solitary neditation. Every one wishes for the distinct tons for which thousands are wishing at the same time, in their own opinion, with better claims. He that, when his reason operates in its full force, can thus, by the mere prevalence of self-love, prefer himself to his fellow-beings, is very unlikely to judge equitably when his passions are agitated by a sense of wrong, and his attention wholly engrossed by pain, interest, or danger. Whoever arrogates to himself the right of vengeance shows how little he is qualified to decide his own claims since he certainly demands what he would think unfit to be granted to another. Nothing is more apparent than that, however injured or however provoked, some must at last be contented to forgive. For it can never be hoped that he who first commits an injury will contentedly acquiesce in the penalty required: the same haughtiness of contempt and vehemence of desire that prompt the act of injustice will more strongly incite its justification, and resentment can never so exactly balance the punishment with the fault, but there will remain an overplus of vengeance which even he who con. demns his first action will think himself entitled to retaliate. What then can ensue but a con tinual exacerbation of hatred, an unextinguishable feud, an incessant reciprocation of mischief, a mutual vigilance to entrap, and eagerness to destroy? Since then the imaginary right of vengeance must be at last remitted, because it is impossible to live in perpetual hostility, and equally impossible that of two enemies either should first think himself obliged by justice to submission, it is surely eligible to forgive early. Every passion is more easily subdued before it has been long accustomed to possession of the heart; every idea is obliterated with less difficulty as it has been more slightly impressed and less frequently renewed. He who has often brooded over his wrongs, pleased himself with schemes of malignity, and glutted his pride with the fancied supplications of humbled enmity, will not | easily open his bosom to amity and reconciliation, or indulge the gentle sentiments of benevolence and peace. It is easiest to forgive while there is yet little to be forgiven. A single injury may be soon dismissed from the memory, but a long succession of ill offices by degrees associates itself with every idea; a long contest involves so many circumstances that every place and action will recall it to the mind, and fresh remembrance of vexation must still enkindle rage and irritate revenge. A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. He that willingly suffers the corrosions of inveterate hatred, and gives up his days and nights to the gloom of malice and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be said to consult his ease. Resentment is a union of sorrow with malignity, a combination of a passion which all endeavour to avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief and to exasperate his own rage, whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and contrivances of ruin, whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own sufferings but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable of human beings, among those who are guilty without reward, who have neither the gladness of prosperity nor the calm of in nocence. Whoever considers the weakness both of himself and others will not long want persuasives to forgiveness. We know not to what degree of malignity any injury is to be imputed, or how much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of him that committed it, would be extenuated because we have made ourselves delicate and tender; we are on every side in danger of error and of guilt, which we are certain to avoid only by speedy forgiveness. From this pacific and harmless temper, thus propitious to others and ourselves, to domestic tranquillity and to social happiness, no man is withheld but by pride, by the fear of being insulted by his adversary or despised by the world. It may be laid down as an unfailing and universal axiom, that "all pride is abject and mean." It is always an ignorant, lazy, or cowardly acquiescence in a false appearance of excellence, and proceeds not from consciousness of our attainments, but insensibility of our wants. Nothing can be great which is not right. Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity of the human mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which our own heart approves; to give way to anything but conviction; to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice or overpower our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to resign the right of di recting our own lives. The utmost excellence at which humanity can arrive is a constant and determinate pursuit of virtue without regard to present dangers or advantage: a continual reference of every action to the Divine will; an habitual appeal to everlasting justice; and an unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the reward which perseverance only can obtain. But that pride which many who presume to boast of generous sentiments allow to regulate their measures has nothing nobler in view than the approbation of men; of beings whose superiority we are under no obligation to acknowledge, and who, when we have courted them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent reward; of beings who ignorantly judge of what they do not understand, or partially determine what they never have examined, and whose sentence is therefore of no weight till it has received the ratification of our own conscience. He that can descend to bribe suffrages like these at the price of his innocence; he that can suffer the delight of such acclamations to with. hold his attention from the commands of the universal Sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself upon the greatness of his mind: whenever he awakes to seriousness and reflection, he must become despicable in his own eyes, and shrink with shame from the remembrance of his cowardice and folly. Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indisby mistake, precipitance, or negligence: we can-pensably required that he forgive. It is therenot be certain how much more we feel than was fore superfluous to urge any other motive. On intended to be inflicted, or how much we increase this great duty eternity is suspended: and to the mischief to ourselves by voluntary aggrava-him that refuses to practise it, the throne of tions. We may charge to design the effects of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the accident; we may think the blow violent only world has been born in vain. its way into these abodes of poverty and gloom: ANNINGAIT AND AJUT: A GREENLAND Lapland and Iceland have their historians, their move. critics, and their poets; and love, that extends his dominion wherever humanity can be found, perhaps exerts the same power in the Greenlander's hut as in the palaces of eastern monarchs. In one of the large caves to which the families of Greenland retire together to pass the cold months, and which may be termed their villages or cities, a youth and maid, who came from different parts of the country, were so much distinguished for their beauty that they were called by the rest of the inhabitants Anningait and Ajut, from a supposed resemblance to their ancestors of the same names, who had been transformed of old into the sun and moon. No man can give to his own plantations the fragrance of the Indian groves, nor will any Anningait for some time heard the praises of precepts of philosophy enable him to withdraw | Ajut with little emotion, but at last, by frequent his attention from wounds or diseases. But the interviews, became sensible of her charms, and negative infelicity which proceeds not from the first made a discovery of his affection by invitpressure of sufferings, but the absence of enjoying her, with her parents, to a feast, where he ments, will always yield to the remedies of placed before Ajut the tail of a whale. Ajut reason. One of the great arts of escaping superfluous uneasiness is to free our minds from the habit of comparing our condition with that of others on whom the blessings of life are more bountifully bestowed, or with imaginary states of delight and security perhaps unattainable by mortals. Few are placed in a situation so gloomy and distressful as not to see every day beings yet more forlorn and miserable from whom they may learn to rejoice in their own lot. No inconvenience is less superable by art or diligence than the inclemency of climates, and therefore none affords more proper exercise for this philosophical abstraction. A native of England, pinched with the frosts of December, may lessen his affection for his own country by suffering his imagination to wander in the vales of Asia, and sport among woods that are always green and streams that always murmur; but if he turns his thoughts towards the polar regions, and considers the nations to whom a great portion of the year is darkness, and who are condemned to pass weeks and months amidst mountains of snow, he will soon recover his tranquillity, and, while he stirs his fire, or throws his cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to Providence, that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia. The barrenness of the earth and the severity of the skies in these dreary countries are such as might be expected to confine the mind wholly to the contemplation of necessity and distress, so that the care of escaping death from cold and hunger should leave no room for those passions which, in lands of plenty, influence conduct or diversify characters; the summer should be spent only in providing for the winter and the winter in longing for the summer. seemed not much delighted by this gallantry; yet, however, from that time was observed rarely to appear but in a vest made of the skin of a white deer; she used frequently to renew the black dye upon her hands and forehead, to adorn her sleeves with coral and shells, and to braid her hair with great exactness. The elegance of her dress, and the judicious disposition of her ornaments, had such an effect upon Anningait, that he could no longer be restrained from a declaration of his love. He, therefore, composed a poem in her praise, in which, among other heroic and tender sentiments, he protested, that "she was beautiful as the vernal willow, and fragrant as thyme upon the mountains; that her fingers were white as the teeth of the morse, and her smile grateful as the dissolution of the ice; that he would pursue her, though she should pass the snows of the midland cliffs, or seek shelter in the caves of the eastern cannibals; that he would tear her from the embraces of the genius of the rocks, snatch her from the paws of Amarock, and rescue her from the ravine of Hafgufa." He concluded with a wish, that "whoever shall attempt to hinder his union with Ajut might be buried without his bow, and that, in the land of souls, his skull might serve for no other use than to catch the droppings of the starry lamps." This ode being universally applauded, it was expected that Ajut would soon yield to such fervour and accomplishments: but Ajut, with the natural haughtiness of beauty, expected all the forms of courtship; and before she would confess herself conquered, the sun returned, the ice broke, and the season of labour called all to their employments. Anningait and Ajut for a time always went out in the same boat, and divided whatever was Yet learned curiosity is known to have found caught. Anningait, in the sight of his mistress. lost no opportunity of signalising his courage; he attacked the sea-horses on the ice, pursued the seals into the water, and leaped upon the back of the whale while he was yet struggling with the remains of life. Nor was his diligence less to accumulate all that could be necessary to make winter comfortable; he dried the roe of fishes and the flesh of seals; he entrapped deer and foxes, and dressed their skins to adorn his bride; he feasted her with eggs from the rocks, and strewed her tent with flowers. It happened that a tempest drove the fish to a distant part of the coast before Anningait had completed his store; he therefore entreated Ajut that she would at last grant him her hand, and accompany him to that part of the country whither he was now summoned by necessity. Ajut thought him not yet entitled to such condescension, but proposed, as a trial of his constancy, that he should return at the end of summer to the cavern where their acquaintance commenced, and there expect the reward of his assiduities. "O virgin, beautiful as the sun shining on the water, consider," said Anningait, "what thou hast required. How easily may my return be precluded by a sudden frost or unexpected fogs! Then must the night be passed without my Ajut. We live not, my fair, in those fabled countries which lying strangers so wantonly describe; where the whole year is divided into short days and nights; where the same habitation serves for summer and winter; where they raise houses in rows above the ground, dwell together from year to year, with flocks of tame animals grazing in the fields about them; can travel at any time from one place to another, through ways inclosed with trees, or over walls raised upon the inland waters; and direct their course through wide countries by the sight of green hills or scattered buildings. Even in summer we have no means of crossing the mountains, whose snows are never dissolved; nor can remove to any distant residence, but in our boats coasting the bays. Consider, Ajut, a few summer days, and a few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end. Night is the time of ease and festivity, of revels and gaiety; but what will be the flaming lamp, the delicious seal, or the soft oil, without the smile of Ajut?" her lover, or so much overpowered by his magnificence, that she followed him to the sea-side; and, when she saw him enter the boat, wished aloud that he might return with plenty of skins and oil; that neither the mermaids might snatch him into the deeps, nor the spirits of the rocks confine him in their caverns. She stood a while to gaze upon the departing vessel, and then returning to her hut, silent and dejected, laid aside, from that hour, her white deerskin, suffered her hair to spread unbraided on her shoulders, and forbore to mix in the dances of the maidens. She endeavoured to divert her thoughts by continual application to feminine employments, gathered moss for the winter lamps, and dried grass to line the boots of Anningait. Of the skins which he had bestowed upon her, she made a fishing-coat, a small boat, and tent, all of exquisite manufacture; and, while she was thus busied, solaced her labours with a song, in which she prayed, "That her lover might have hands stronger than the paws of the bear, and feet swifter than the feet of the reindeer; that his dart might never err, and that his boat might never leak; that he might never stumble on the ice, nor faint in the water; that the seal might rush on his harpoon, and the wounded whale might dash the waves in vain." The large boats in which the Greenlanders transport their families, are always rowed by women; for a man will not debase himself by work which requires neither skill nor courage. Anningait was therefore exposed by idleness to the ravages of passion. He went thrice to the stern of the boat, with an intent to leap into the water and swim back to his mistress; but recollecting the misery which they must endure in the winter, without oil for the lamp or skins for the bed, he resolved to employ the weeks of absence in provision for a night of plenty and felicity. He then composed his emotions as he could, and expressed in wild numbers and uncouth images his hopes, his sorrows, and his fears. "O life!" says he, "frail and uncertain! where shall wretched man find thy resemblance but in ice floating on the ocean? It towers on high, it sparkles from afar, while the storms drive and the waters beat it, the sun melts it above, and the rocks shatter it below. What art thou, deceitful pleasure, but a sudden blaze streaming from the north, which plays a moment on the eye, mocks the traveller with the hopes of light, and then vanishes for ever? Anningait, however discomposed by the dila- What, love, art thou, but a whirlpool, which tory coyness of Ajut, was yet resolved to omit no we approach without knowledge of our danger, tokens of amorous respect; and therefore pre-drawn on by imperceptible degrees, till we have sented her at his departure with the skins of seven lost all power of resistance and escape? Till I white fawns, of five swans, and eleven seals, with fixed my eyes on the graces of Ajut, while I had three marble lamps, ten vessels of seal oil, and not yet called her to the banquet, I was careless a large kettle of brass, which he had purchased as the sleeping morse, I was merry as the singers from a ship, at the price of half a whale and two in the stars. Why, Ajut, did I gaze upon thy horns of sea-unicorns. graces? why, my fair, did I call thee to the Ajut was so much affected by the fondness of banquet? Yet, be faithful, my love, remember The eloquence of Anningait was vain; the maid continued inexorable, and they parted with ardent promises to meet again before the night of winter. |