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the rushing crowd, without having examined the victim, to know if any symptoms of disease were visible.

In this way, but few there are, who have not been involuntarily drawn into the vortex of petty scandal, and have become instrumental agents of injustice, without a desire to injure, or wound a fellow being.

If more caution was used, less mischief would be effected by dealers in detraction. If they had no hearers, they would not preach their tales of scandal. Rebuke has a magic effect upon this tribe of paltry cowards. It suffocates them, and brings them down, as quickly as the fumes of burning brimstone will a wild turkey from a tree. Let the sword of rebuke be drawn upon the dealers in backbiting, wherever they show their Janus faces. The murky waters of falsehood will not then so often stain the fair fame of the innocent, and poison the happiness of the most amiable in community.

Professing Christians are often led astray by this natural propensity. I have known churches that were cursed with envious babblers, who would make a common sewer of their minister, paralyze religion, and convert the sanctuary into a boiling cauldron-disgraceful to those concerned, and a stigma on their profession of religion. Let all deprecate and cautiously avoid petty scandal, as they would a scorpion.

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SCORN.

SCORN is the offal of pride, and an awfully disgusting propensity. It courts the displeasure, and draws down the wrath of those who are the special objects of its notice, with no power to control them, as Franklin did the forked lightning. It repudiates the homely adage, It is better to have the good, than the ill-will of a dog. Scorn violates courtesy, is pharisaical, antirepublican, and renders disgusting aristocracy more repulsive. Upon its unfortunate possessors it exerts an influence, not unlike that of the devils that were cast out of Mary Magdalene, and is harder to get rid of. No wounds are more obstinate to cure, than those inflicted by this fiery serpent. The finger of scorn makes more havoc of feeling, than the arrow of Abaris, the Scythian priest, did of the body, which is said to have carried destruction into the ranks of the enemies of the Scythians, but spared some, to tell the sad fate of the rest. Scorn rouses all the bitter feelings of the scorned, and converts them into the most implacable enemies. No time will obliterate the look of disdain, the contemptuous airs of the scornful; a striking evidence in favor of the doctrine, that all are born free and equal. Scorners are somewhat of a paradox-by raising themselves above their fellows, in their own conceit, they sink themselves below every body, in the opinion of others. None are more prone to imbibe this offal of pride, than those who are raised suddenly from poverty to wealth; the last, of all others, who should exercise it. The man who perpetrated the following saying,

must have had such a scorner in view. Put a beggar on horseback and he will ride to the devil.

A great fault on this point is too prevalent among some parents. They make scorners of their children, by teaching them to scorn the children of others, who are less wealthy. Children may be properly taught to shun the company, as associates, of children that are vicious, because they are so, but to treat them kindly, and not to scorn any. If this lesson was taught to children, and they were made to understand, that all children are as good by nature as they; and that poor children, who behave properly, are entitled to the same respect as the rich; it would do much towards reducing the number of scorners. Teach them that worth not wealth, makes the man; and teach them, that religion has no distinction of rank.

SELFISHNESS.

The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels.-Thompson.
Thou canst not name a tender tie,

But here, dissolv'd, its relics lie.-Scott.

SELF is the Sahara of the human heart, where all the nobler powers of the soul are deeply buried in the scorching sand of avarice, on which we may pour showers of human wo and kindness, without producing the least appearance of sympathy or gratitude. The blighting Sirocco of indifference sweeps over the desert mind, increases the powers of absorption, and destroys all that is cheering, amiable, and lovely.

Man was created a social being; benevolent, sym

pathetic, kind, affectionate; quick to feel, and prompt to alleviate the miseries of his fellow man. Selfishness is one of the foul blots imprinted on human nature by Lucifer, and should be hurled back to Pandemonium, from whence it came. It dwells only in little minds, and pinches them, as a dandy-boot does the foot, covering them with excrescences, painful as corns and chilblains. The man, who is a slave to self, could look calmly on the wreck of nature, and the crush of worlds, if it would add one item to his wealth. Haggard poverty he spurns from his door; the favors of fortune he receives, as obligations paid. He is tormented with envy, withered with covetousness, and pained with jealousy. Like Franklin's boy, he grasps at more than he can hold, cries because he cannot carry all, and would be an Atlas if he could. His soul is shrivelled like Pharaoh's lean kine, without the power of devouring; his benevolence is always confined with the gout of contraction, his charity is always hid behind the clouds of suspicion, the whole man becomes comparatively, the aurelia of a minnow, with more room in a barrel of water, than a porpoise has in the Atlantic ocean. If his benevolence inadvertently passes the circumference of a half dime, he is in as much agony as a lost child, and involuntarily calls for the bellman. He renders himself miserable, knows nothing of the sweets of social enjoyment, incurs the scorn and contempt of those around him; and is worse than a blank in community. Self has often baffled, and always cripples the powers of religion. Like the leprosy, it requires a miracle to cure it, and then is hard to stay cured. The mournful obsequies of death cannot shame it. So powerfully does this all-absorbing propensity operate

upon some persons, that they are lost to all propriety and decency, in language and action on this subject, and openly avow their desires, and manifest their joys and regrets, when circumstances occur to forward or frustrate their selfish wishes. I have heard heirs wish the "old man" or "old woman" dead, that they might come in possession of an estate, showing, that the base passion of selfishness had banished all natural affection, and left their hearts fit receptacles for the filth and scum of selfishness. I have seen heirs thrown into an ecstacy of delight, on the death of a kind and indulgent but wealthy father, proving clearly, they placed a greater estimate on his money, than on him. They could scarcely wait to have his cold form laid in the grave, and shed a crocodile tear over it, for appearance sake; before they urged the examination of his will-nay, I have known one instance, where the will was opened before the body was put in the coffin. Many may think human nature is not so depravedit is true-and more—there have been instances of men purloining wills in presence of a corpse, and substituting forged ones in their places.

Frederick, the Great, was one of these selfish, narrow-minded brutes. In the midst of a furious battle, his nephew, hereditary Prince of Prussia, was shot by his side, when he exclaimed with apparent delight, Ah! the Prince of Prussia is killed-let his equipage be saved. I knew a good man, whose wife was so immured in self, that when he died, the first exclamation she uttered after he expired, was, "Poor dear husband, you have gone, and ha'n't finished my milk-room." Get behind me, thou Lucifer!

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