rally inclined to violate them; people who never give except by constraint, who tear away, as it were, what they bestow on the necessities of the poor; and who never cut off those dear parts of themselves without taking the most affectionate leave of them? Envy and jealousy are dispositions of the kind, which we call spiritual. They have their seat in the soul. There are many persons, who acknowledge the injustice and baseness of these vices, and who hate them, and who nevertheless are not sufficient masters of themselves to prevent the dominion of them, at least to prevent a repetition of them, and not to find sometimes their own misery in the prosperity of other persons.

As we feel in our constitution obstacles to virtue, and propensities to vice, so we perceive also inclinations to error, and obstacles to truth. These things are closely connected; for if we find within us natural obstacles to virtue, we find for that very reason natural obstacles to truth; and if we be born with propensities to vice, we are born on that very account prone to error. Strictly speaking, all ideas of vice may be referred to one, that is to error. Every vice, every irregular passion openly or tacitly implies a falsehood. Every vice, every irregular passion includes this error, that a man, who gratifies his passion, is happier than he, who restrains and moderates it. Now every man judging in this manner, whether he do so openly or covertly, takes the side of error. If we be then naturally inclined to some vices we are naturally inclined to some errors, I mean, to admit that false principle, on which the irregular passion establisheth the vice it would commit, the desire of gratification. An impassionate man is not free to discern truth from falsehood at least, he cannot without extreme constraint discern the one from the other.

He is inclined to fix his mind on whatever favors his passion, changes its nature, and disguises vice in the habit of virtue; and to say all in one word, he is impelled to fix his mind on whatever makes truth appear false, and falsehood true.

I conclude, the disposition of mind, of which Solomon speaks, and which he describes by ruling the spirit, supposes labor, constraint, and exercise. A man, who would acquire this noble disposition of mind, a man who would rule his spirit, must in some sort re-create himself; he finds himself at once, if I may be allowed to say so, at war with nature; his body must be formed anew; his humors and his spirits must be turned into another channel; violence must be done to all the powers of his soul.

2. Having considered man in regard to his natural dispositions, observe him secondly in regard to surrounding objects. Here you will obtain a second exposition of Solomon's words, He, that ruleth his spirit; you will have a second class of evidences of that exercise, labor and constraint, which true heroism supposes. Society is composed of many enemies, who seem to be taking pains to in crease those difficulties, which our natural dispositions oppose against truth and virtue.

Examine the members of this society among whom we are appointed to live, consult their ideas, hear their conversation, weigh their reasonings, and you will find almost every where false judgments, errors, mistakes, and prejudices: prejudices of birth, taken from our parents, the nurses who suckled us, the people who made the habits, in which we were wrapped in our cradles: prejudices of education, taken from the masters to whom the care of our earliest days was committed, from some false ideas, which they had imbibed in their youth, and

from other illusions which they had created themselves: prejudices of country, taken from the genius of the people among whom we have lived, and, so to speak, from the very air we have breathed: prejudices of religion, taken from our catechists, from the divines we have consulted, from the pastors by whom we have been directed, from the sect we have embraced: prejudices of friendship, taken from the connections we have had, and the company we have kept: prejudices of trade and profession, taken from the mechanical arts we have followed, or the abstract sciences we have studied: prejudices of fortune, taken from the condition of life in which we have been, either among the noble or the poor. This is only a small part of the channels, by which error is conveyed to us. What efforts must a man make, what pains must he take with himself to preserve himself from contagion, to hold his soul perpetually in equilibrium, to keep all the gates of error shut, and incessantly to maintain amidst so many prejudices that freedom of judgment, which weighs argument against objection, objection against argument, which deliberately examines all that can be advanced in favor of a proposition, and all that can be said against it, which considers an object in every point of view, and which makes us determine only as we are constrained by the irresistible authority, and by the soft violence of truth, demonstration and evidence?

As the men, who surround us, fascinate us by their errors, so they decoy us into vice by their example. In all places, and in all ages, virtue had fewer partizans than vice: in all ages and in all places, the friends of virtue were so few in comparison of the partizans of vice, that the saints complained, that the earth was not inhabited by men of the first kind, and that the whole world was oc

cupied by the latter, the godly man ceaseth; the faithful fail from among the children of men. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men; to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no not one, Psal. xii. 1. and xiv. 2, 3. An exaggeration of the prophet, I grant, but an exaggeration for which the universality of human depravity hath given too much occasion. Cast your eyes attentively on society, you will be, as our prophet was, astonished at the great number of the partizans of vice; you will be troubled as he was, to distinguish in the crowd any friends of virtue; and you will find yourself inclined to say, as he said, there is none that doeth good, no not one.

But how difficult is it to resist example, and to rule the spirit among such a number of tyrants, who aim only to enslave it! In order to resist example, we must incessantly oppose those natural inclinations, which urge us to imitation. To resist example, we must not suffer ourselves to be dazzled either with the number, or the splendor of such as have placed vice on a throne. To resist example, we must brave persecution, and all the inconveniences, to which worldly people never fail to expose them, who refuse to follow them down the precipice. To resist example, we must love virtue for virtue's sake. To resist example, we must transport ourselves into another world, imagine ourselves among those holy societies, who surround the throne of a holy God, who make his excellencies the continual matter of their adoration and homage, and who fly at the first signal of his hand, the first breath of his mouth. What a work, what a difficult work for you, poor mortal, whose eyes are always turned toward the earth, and

whom your own involuntary and insurmountable weight incessantly carries downward!

Finally, we must acknowledge what labor, pains and resistance the disposition, of which Solomon speaks, requires, if we consider man in regard to the habits, which he hath contracted. As soon as we enter into the world, we find ourselves impelled by our natural propensities, stunned with the din of our passions, and, as I just now said, seduced by the errors, and carried away by the examples of our companions. Seldom in the first years of life, do we surmount that natural bias, and that power of example, which impel us to falsehood and sin. Most men have done more acts of vice than of virtue, consequently, in the course of a certain number of years, we contribute by our way of living to join to the depravity of nature, that which comes from exercise and habit. A man, who would rule his spirit, is then required to eradicate the habits, which have taken possession of him. What a task!

What a task, when we endeavor to prevent the return of ideas, which for many years our minds have revolved! What a task, to defend one's self from a passion which know's all the avenues of the mind, and how to facilitate access by means of the body! What a task, to turn away from the flattering images, and seducing solicitations of concupiscence long accustomed to gratification! What a task, when we are obliged to make the greatest efforts in the weakest part of life, and to subdue an enemy, whom we have been always used to consider as unconquerable, and whom we never durst attack, when we had no other arms than what we chose to give him, and enjoyed no other advantages than such as we thought proper to allow ! Such labor, such pains and constraint must he expe