be forgotten, as the kindling spark is forgotten when the flames begin to spread. Power, especially if it be hereditary, depends upon accident; influence upon personal qualities. Power is maintained by pageantry, by chicanery, by brute force; influence by the cultivation of those commanding qualities from which it first arose.

While, therefore, we reject, as the object of desire, all arbitrary power, we cannot too earnestly desire those means of influence by which we may lead others freely to their own good.

Emulation, or the desire of superiority, is classed by Stewart and others among the original desires. By others it is regarded as a modification of the desire of power. So I regard it. At least I hardly know where else to place it, though the desire of esteem often seems to be involved in it, quite as much as that of power. If the contests in which emulation is excited were not public, and the results were never to be known, probably the emulation would be but slight. My reason for not classing it with the original desires will be found in the principle already stated. I do not see that it would be necessary to the perfection of the mind.

Of this as a principle of action much has been said, and moralists are not agreed respecting it. This may be, in There can be no

part, from some ambiguity in the term. emulation unless a man pursues an object in common with others. Here other principles are brought in, and we need to discriminate.

There is in many animals an instinctive feeling that produces in them the effects of emulation. It may be seen in two horses drawing together, or attempting to pass each other. This feeling has in it nothing malignant. It is probably a modification of their social instincts.

In man there may be something of the same instinct, joined with the higher influence of sympathy. Of sympathy the influence is so great that Adam Smith made it the foundation of his moral system. If we see others laugh, we are disposed to laugh also; if they are in grief, our feelings and countenance conform in some degree to their emotions; and whatever feeling may be vividly expressed, if it does not shock our sense of propriety, we have a tendency to enter into and sympathize with. This is natural and right. If, now, in a class of young men studying together, and doing as little as possible, we suppose that one of them should wake up to a love of knowledge, and to a sense of his responsibility, and enter independently upon a course of work, it would be strange, since we sympathize with almost every other feeling, if something of his spirit should not be transferred to others. So far from being wrong in them to feel it, it would imply a baseness if they did not, and if this feeling should pervade the class, it would be a blessing to all. It would be simply a manifestation of our social nature in one of its higher and better forms. That there is in it nothing of malignity or personal feeling is clear, because the same feeling may be excited by reading the lives of those who are dead. What was it that brought tears into the eyes of Julius Cæsar, when, at the age of thirty-two, he saw the picture of Alexander the Great? What is it that causes the bosom of the young missionary to burn when he reads the lives of Brainerd and of Martyn? And if we may be thus stimulated by those who have gone before us, how much more by those who walk with us. It is in this effect and propriety of sympathy that we find not only the benefit of social study and work, but the obligation of setting a good example. If any deny the propriety of being stimulated, not

merely in view of the thing to be done, but also in view of what others have done, they destroy the obligation to set a good example. This principle is recognized in the Bible. "Consider," says the apostle, not simply the excellence of the end, but "one another, to provoke — yes provoke-unto love and good works." "I speak not this," says he, "by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others." He says, too, by way of commendation, and as what he rejoiced in, “And your zeal hath provoked very many "—not to do more than others, but what they could.

Thus, when we pursue an object in common with others, our motives are mixed. We have some love of the thing itself, we have some sympathy, some desire of the esteem connected with distinguished success, and we may also have a desire of superiority for its own sake. It is this last only that is properly emulation. So it is defined by Butler, and Reid, and Stewart, and Whewell; but in supposing this to be an original part of our nature, and in their discussions upon it, I cannot believe that they wholly separated it from the elements above mentioned.

That this love of superiority, taken by itself, is either a natural or a justifiable principle, I cannot suppose. It does not contemplate our doing what we can, which is all that is required of us, but more than another, and involves our unhappiness if we do not. It is nowhere commanded in the Bible that we should be above others. To desire to be above him simply for the love of it, is incompatible with loving our neighbor as ourselves. It is a pleasure gained at his expense; but there is no legitimate pleasure that is necessarily at the expense of another. God has not so constituted his creatures. It is closely, though perhaps not necessarily, associated with pride on the one hand

and envy on the other. It cannot blend with that love which is the fulfilling of the law. To suppose one person to be endeavoring to love God more than another is preposterous.

It is supposed by some that emulation is forbidden in the Scriptures, because "emulations" are classed by the apostle Paul with "wrath, strife, envyings, murder,” etc. But in the Scriptures language is employed with the same latitude as in common life. The term is found in them but twice, and in the other instance is used by the same apostle as that which he was desirous of producing. "If," says he, "by any means I might provoke to emulation' them. which are my flesh, and might save some of them." There is, therefore, an emulation to be commended as well as one to be condemned; and, doubtless, men often dispute on this subject, who, if they would be careful to understand each other, wouid find themselves perfectly agreed.

We have now considered, in its various forms, the desire of power. The vanity of those pursuits to which men are impelled by it, when in excess, is a common topic with moralists. Doubtless, the objects of it are less valuable when attained than they appear in the distance. The elevation is apparently smooth and inviting, but the way to it is hazardous, and when reached it is often found barren and comfortless. That those who enter upon this pursuit should be deceived is almost a necessity. By men who are in power, and have wealth, while they seem to have everything at command, their care, their weakness, their misery, are carefully concealed. They often spend more thought and labor to appear to be happy than to be so. Than our judgments respecting the happiness of others nothing can be more uncertain. The evils that we do not see we readily suppose not to exist, and often envy those who are far

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more wretched than ourselves. The impression of pain is much more vivid than that of pleasure, and a man apparently happy may have his life embittered in a thousand ways which we do not suspect.

But, laying aside the evils common to all men, power and wealth have cares and troubles peculiar to themselves.

"The needy traveller, serene and gay,

Walks the wild heath and sings his toil away ;
Does envy bid thee crush the upbraiding joy?
Increase his riches, and his peace destroy.
Now fears in dire vicissitude invade,

The rustling brake alarms, and quivering shade,
Nor light nor darkness brings his pain relief,
One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief."

"For heaven's sake let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings ;

How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed —

All murdered,—for within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court, and there the Antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene

To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life

Were brass impregnable; and honored thus,

Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle-wall-and-farewell king.

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence.”

If these and similar evils of wealth and power are more than compensated by peculiar advantages, the balance in their favor is but slight. What is most to be desired and