action is said to have originated should if possible be assigned. with still greater hesitation, because it lies in the heart-it hides in a vail of impenetrable secrecy-it is unseen by every eye save Omniscience-it is written on no record save the book of judgment-it remains untold till that awful day when the universe shall hear it-when the worlds shall assemble round our Redeemer's throne, and listen to the revelations of justice. There is no subject that demands more time and more investigation than a question of character; yet how seldom do men think of suspending their judgment-how rash and how presumptuous in their decisions-how prone to malicious interpretation in cases that are ambiguous-how fond of indulging in the eloquence of invective, and how elated with the malignant pleasure of throwing ridicule on the absent, and sending the tale of detraction through the country. It is a peculiarity which you must all have observed, that where the case is positively uncertain the general propensity is to give it on the side of condemnation-to attach to it the most malignant construction. of which it is susceptible to dress it up in the colours of infamy, and to give all the confidence of truth to what are at best but the fancies of a suspicious temper. It is in this way that the world is ever doing the grossest injustice to individuals -that the innocent are at times repelled by the scowl of suspicion that virtue labours under the contempt of a deluded people that the man whose heart rises in all the warmth of affection can often meet with no eye of kindness to cheer him, no friend to enlighten the solitude of his bosom. There is a worth that escapes the eye of an unthinking world--a deed of exalted charity that they never hear of a tear of secret affection that shrinks from notice, and courts the indulgence of retirement a life spent in unseen acts of beneficence which are only recorded in the book of heaven. To all this the world is a stranger; it sees not the heart; it forms its estimate upon the appearances of a delusive exterior; it overlooks the intention, and in the temerity of its heedless decisions, will lacerate and deform the best of characters. The world is the slave of manners. It will love you if you can put on the smil

ing countenance of affection; it will give you credit for a social and benevolent heart if you can lead your company to mirth, and maintain the frank and open air of an undissembled honesty. But how many of the first of our race are incapable of manner-are oppressed by the embarrassments of modesty -shrink from the observation of the world-give themselves up to the silence of an awkward timidity, and under the disguise of a cold and unpromising exterior, are received in every company with the frowns of antipathy and disgust. The character of such a man is not known beyond the little circle of his friends and of his family-of those poor whom his bounty sustains, and those cottages which his charity enlightens. He lives to obscurity, and dies in forgetfulness; no epitaph to blazon his virtues-no pomp of heraldry to embalm his remembrance. His death is never heard of among the tidings of the market-place. His only memorial is the memorial of simple and unnoticed virtue-the tears of his children, and the regret of his humble neighbourhood.

Let the sense of our ignorance restrain a disposition to rash and unthinking calumny. The action is often transformed by the errors of inadvertence, or the artifices of a wilful misrepresentation. The motive is as often disguised from the secret and unknown circumstances on which it is founded. To tell the motive we must fathom the mysteries of the heart which sits in an invisible retirement, and eludes the penetration of mortals. In deciding upon a partial view of circumstances we run the risk of a total misconception; the addition of a single fact will often suffice to reverse the judgment we had formed, and to convince us that that action is laudable which, in the temerity of our unthinking ignorance, we had before pronounced to be criminal. When a man shuts himself up in retirement, and abstains from the expenses of hospitality, calumny will immediately denounce him as an avaricious and unsocial character; but calumny should stop its mouth when it hears that all the savings of this frugality are given to support the infirmity of an aged parent. When a man gives up the laborious exercises of his employment, and becomes an humble

VOL. VI.

B

dependent on the charity of others, calumny will instantly ascribe it to the love of ease and of indolence; but calumny should soften its decision when it hears that his strength is wasted by the secret and unnoticed visitations of disease. When a man keeps back from the celebration of a sacrament, calumny will talk of his impious contempt for ordinances; but calumny should assume a milder tone when it hears that under the death of a beloved child he has withdrawn himself to the grief of solitude, and labours under all the agitations of a dark and disordered melancholy. When a man turns away from solicitations of charity, calumny may say that it is the gripe of avarice; but calumny should reserve its sentence when it hears that he is on the eve of falling in the tide of bankruptcy, and that he will surrender the wreck of his fortune to satisfy the higher claims of justice and of his creditors. Ignorant then as we are of motives and of circumstances, we should learn to be cautious and hesitating on a question of character, to check every slanderous and malignant propensity, to feel how much is due to truth and justice, and if not able to hush, to abhor the tale of infamy. Let us at least withdraw our countenance from its propagation, and blush to prostitute our testimony to the unsupported assertions of a petty and contemptible scandal. What can be said of those who sit in close convention and plot the massacre of a virtuous reputation, who delight to survey human nature in its most odious and degrading attitudes, who look with an exulting eye over the deformed exhibitions of vice and folly, who seem to feast on the melancholy picture of another's guilt, whose ears are only opened to the tale of detraction, and whose mouths are only opened to traduce and to vilify? If anything can add to our indignation it is the midnight and impenetrable secrecy under which these proceedings are conducted, the artful insinuations they practise against him whom they have singled. out as the victim of their calumny, the cowardly advantages that they take of his absence, the smile of affection and civility which they can force into their countenance, while their heart is brooding over the most dark and malignant purposes.

pany.

Let it be remembered that we may be guilty of calumny without speaking evil. This is the most odious and disgusting of all calumny; not an open and intrepid assertion, but a cowardly insinuation, a hint, a sneaking indirect artifice, an expression of regret, a distant allusion to set malignity to the work of conjecture, and to awaken the suspicion of your comThis is calumny in fact, though not in form. It is sure to be accompanied with all the mischief of calumny. It gives sufficient foundation for a tale to circulate through the country, an impression to run through all the workshops of scandal in the neighbourhood, a groundwork from which a diseased fancy will conjure up its images of guilt and of profligacy, a report which, however trifling in its commencement, will rise through successive additions to a ruinous and malignant falsehood. Let the tale of detraction be listened to with distrust. Much is to be deducted; all the errors that gradually creep into representations from the inaccuracy of the careless, or the knowing and deliberate fabrications of the malignant; all the errors that proceed from our ignorance of other circumstances by which the merit of the action may be most essentially affected; and above all, the errors that proceed from our ignorance of the heart, and of its secret and unfathomable mysteries. Such is the openness of the public ear to the tale of detraction that calumny is too often successful even in her most base and unprincipled efforts. No virtue however exalted can escape her foul and pestilential attacks; she can array the loveliness of innocence in the garb of infamy, and turn the scowl of every eye against the most pure and upright and gentle of characters. This is an awful combination of wickednessthe combination of malignity and falsehood-a combination against all that is sacred in truth, and all that is endearing in domestic tranquillity—a combination against the happiness of families and the peace of society-a combination against the reign of virtue in the world, and against the best comforts which cheer and alleviate the lot of humanity.

This leads me to the second head of discourse-The sufferings which calumny inflicts upon its unhappy victim. All are

born to feel the salutary control of public opinion. It is a most powerful engine for the preservation of virtue. Men will compass sea and land to gain the applause of their countrymen. Enough for them the reward of honourable distinction. It is the voice of glory to which they listen, and the voice is omnipotent. It is to the inspiration of her voice that we owe all that is exalted in patriotism, in war, in philosophy. For her the statesman will bravely maintain his integrity, and to be the man of the people he will renounce the favour of princes and the gains of a petty ambition. For her the commander will meet death with a fearless countenance, and eye with intrepid composure the scenes of blood and of violence into which he is entering. For her the student sits by the light of the midnight taper, and in the animating anticipations of future eminence can renounce without a sigh the charms of indolence and of gaiety. Even to the home-bred walks of life and of business the voice of glory is not a stranger. You will meet with ambition in the lowest cottages of the country. Its aim is humble, but it is only the obscurity of eircumstances which restrains it. In kind and in character it is the same with that ambition which figures to the eye of the world on a more exalted theatre-the same unwearied and persevering constancy in the prosecution of its object, the same jealousy of reputation, the same insatiable appetite for applause, the same triumphant elevation in the moment of success, the same misery under the sufferings of disappointment. To see man it is not necessary to traverse all countries, or to witness all the varieties of religion and government. It is not necessary to step beyond the limits of the little town or hamlet in which Providence has placed you. You will meet with all the elements of human character in the rustic abodes of simplicity and nature. You will there meet with that ambition which if placed in a higher sphere would scatter disorder among the nations, and strive to control the destiny of empires. You will meet with that cruelty which, if at the head of a victorious army, would carry outrage and violence into the habitations of the innocent, and kindle in malignant joy at the barbarity of war. You will meet