which shows the unspeakable worth of a sensible, righthearted, and well educated woman.

In the arbitrary and odious reign of one of the Stuarts, there came before judge Croke a case between the crown and a subject; a case, upon the issue of which the liberties of the nation were suspended. The judge, dependent on the crown for a livelihood, liable at any moment to be thrust from office, and having a family to support, had resolved to give his opinion in favor of the royal prerogative; when his tutelar angel-his wife-rescued his sinking virtue. She told him "she hoped he would do nothing against his conscience, for fear of any danger or prejudice to him or his family; and that she would be content to suffer want, or any misery with him, rather than be an occasion for him to do or say any thing against his judgment or conscience."

She prevailed; the decision was given in favor of the rights of the people, and the nation was saved from civil oppression and thraldom'by her means.

CHAP. LXXX.

Of officiously meddling with, and a total disregard of, the affairs of others.

SOCIETY has been infested, in all ages of the world, with persons prone to intrude themselves into the concerns of their neighbors; with tattlers and busy-bodies. Indeed some of this sort are quite ingenious in their way; their minds resembling a fertile soil, which for want of proper culture, bears nothing but weeds and poisonous plants.

Not but that an officious intermeddler, or even a talebearer, may mean no harm; the one being actuated by an undue opinion of his own importance, and the other from the vanity of appearing to know the characters and the concerns of all about him. But intentional sowers of discord, who, from envy, malice, or the love of mischief, employ themselves in breeding dissentions in families and neighborhoods, are as pestilent as thieves

and robbers; and the less they are punishable by civil law, the more should they be made to feel that species of punishment which public opinion inflicts.

Parents and preceptors can hardly do a better service for their children, than by principling their minds and fixing their hearts against faults so pernicious to society and so ruinous to character: faults which are curable when they first appear in the young mind, but which grow into inveterate habits by the indulgence of neglect. It is hardly conceivable what a vast amount of evil might be prevented if the young were taught as generally and as carefully in this particular, as they are in the first rudiments of learning.

By those who, from habit or from temper, make it their business and delight to pry into and publish the failings of others, be it remembered, "that at that day when the failings of all shall be made manifest, the attention of each individual will be fixed only on his own.”

There is a fault, however, directly opposite to that of officiously meddling with the concerns of our neighbors: I mean the absence of all heartfelt concern for any but ourselves and our near relations. This fault, however artfully it may be covered, springs, for the most part, from sordid selfishness, or from apathy of heart.

Selfishness, which is the love of self and every thing else for the sake of self, has the power of keeping some persons at a vast distance from interfering with their neighbors' affairs, for which they care not a whit any farther than such extraneous affairs have a bearing upon their own personal interests. So also the cold-hearted, in whose bosoms is the perpetual calm of apathy, trouble not their neighbors as busy bodies in their matters; because they have not enough energy of soul either to love or to hate in good earnest. Now it is often the case, that some, belonging to each of these two classes, value themselves highly upon their practical abstraction from all concerns but their own, and boast of it as a shining virtue. "We are not meddlers, not we. It is our manner to mind our own business, and to let all other folks alone." Nevertheless, if they would open the folds of their own hearts and observe fairly what is going on there, they would find that their not being

meddlers is owing to any thing else, rather than to a pure principle of virtue.

And here it is not unimportant to remark, that it is no less the purpose and business of proper education to foster and encourage the social feelings of our nature, than it is to eradicate dispositions of intrusive meddling; for if one without warmth of heart any way, be seldom tempted to become a busy-body in other men's matters, he as seldom is much better than a mere blank in society-doing little mischief, and as little good.

Am I my brother's keeper?-We know who said it. And so, in numerous instances, when one is ruining himself and family by the mismanagement of his affairs, or when one betrays the symptoms of an inceptive vice, which, growing into a habit, would land him in perdition; his neighbors coolly look on, saying in their hearts, and to one another, "It is his own affair." Not employing a single effort to save him, though, often, betwixt themselves, they shake the head and remark, that he is in the road to ruin. Perhaps it is a youth, that is supposed to have stepped into this fatal road; a young man of good promise, or a young woman of amiable dispositions, but wanting discretion. Perhaps that youth is an orphan, and errs for lack of the guiding hand of a parent. It is all the same. Every body is sorry, distressingly sorry indeed! but no body moves the tongue, or lifts a finger, for the purpose of rescue or prevention.

It is not so that we act in other respects. We struggle hard to save a fellow being that is drowning before our eyes. Should we see a man stand upon the brink of a frightful precipice, and unconscious of his danger, doubtless we would instantly give him warning. Hardly would we neglect to snatch either the empoisoned bowl from the lips of one that mistook the poison for a wholesome beverage, or the knife or razor from the throat of a man or woman in the act of committing suicide. Common humanity impels us to acts of this sort. And yet when we see in scarcely less jeopardy of another kind, a neighbor, an acquaintance-one whom the offices of discreet and faithful friendship might perhaps rescue and restore-we are listless-we let him alonewe'll not meddle-'tis his own affair!

Apathy is the Limbo of the mind-an intermediate state, equi-distant from the two opposites, happiness and misery. As they who have no care but for themselves, have at the same time very little comfort but from themselves, their lot, in a comparative view, is not to be envied.

CHAP. LXXXI.

Of a restless desire to know what others say of us.

"Take no heed to all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee." SOLOMON.

PERHAPS no weakness of our fallen, feeble, and erring nature, is more disquieting to ourselves, or more troublesome to our acquaintances, than an eager curiosity to know what is said of us.

A person of this turn is never at his ease. Jealousy is, in him, an ever-waking sentinel. Even his familiars, he fears, will slander or undervalue him; and if he happens to hear that any one of them has spoken of him disrespectfully, he instantly regards that one as his foe, and thenceforward is the more jealous of all the rest.

In company, he views every look with a suspicious eye. He reads a plot against himself even in a nod, or a whisper. If what he finds to have been said of him can admit of a double meaning, he gives it the worse meaning of the two. If he finds himself commended as to his general character, but censured in some particular instance, he is wounded, just as though the whole of his character had fallen under reprobation.

This restless curiosity to know what is said of him, keeps his mind perpetually as upon the rack. Day by day he is anxiously inquisitive upon this point. If he fail of the object of his inquiries, and can hear of little or nothing said about him, either one way or the other; then he is stung at the heart with imagined neglect. And, on the contrary, if he chance to find that which he so anxiously inquires after, he often finds it to his own cost and discomfort. He will have gained an article of

intelligence which he had better been without.

His experience, peradventure, will have accorded with what we are plainly advertised of in the above cited pithy admonition of the Wise Man.

The distemper of mind here spoken of, may arise from an ardent desire of esteem and the consequent dread of contempt, and it may be found in persons possessed of some very estimable qualities of heart. But whatever be its origin, or in whomsoever to be found, it is the cause of a great deal of useless disquietude, and ever exposes one to wanton sport and ridicule. To indulge in busy and anxious conjecture upon the thoughts that others entertain of us, is weaving for ourselves the web of wo.

Now, it being a great pity, that persons who are estimable in some respects, and yet labor under this infirmity, should not reason themselves out of it; I crave leave to lay before them the following considerations:

1. Those even, whose characters are good in the main, must be sensible, if they have any competent measure of self-knowledge, that they are not quite perfect. And why then should they be angry that others, toe, are sensible of it, and that their imperfections are sometimes spoken of? It is by no means certain that there is in this thing any enmity or real ill will.

2. Persons possessed of this morbid or excessive sensibility with regard to their own reputations, cannot but remember that themselves, one time or other, and in free conversation, have remarked on the foibles and faults of those whom they highly esteemed upon the whole, and for whom they had at the same time a sincere friendship. And assuredly it is unreasonable for one to be angry for receiving the same measure which one metes. If a person you thought your friend, hath spoken slightingly of you in some one single respect; what then? Have you not yourself, sometimes, and in some particulars, spoken slightingly of those whom you were inclined to rank in the number of your friends? If you have done it, you should not be angry when the same is done to yourself.

3. In a fit of levity, or of ill humor, it is not uncommon for some folks to speak with partial disrespect