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the whole case.

And then it is more than probable that you will find that what had displeased you was said or done in mere thoughtlessness, and without any meaning either to show you a slight, or to do you an injury. The whole matter may have been exaggerated, or may have originated in a mere mistake. Nay, perhaps, you yourselves have given the first provocation, and may be the most to blame.

But you will think this calm examination, which I thus recommend to you, no easy task. How, you will say, is it possible to make it in the heat of passion?

Difficult as it may be, it is nevertheless your duty to make it, on your own account, as well as on that of others. On account of others, that you may not be guilty of any injustice towards them; and on your own account, that you may avoid the shame, the regret, the self-reproach, of finding that, while you are blaming others, you are perhaps yourselves the first aggressors. And though this calm examination is certainly difficult, to those who have never subjected their minds

to religious control, it is not difficult to those who strive after "lowliness and meekness," and who are sincerely desirous to "forbear one another in love."

But suppose that you have not to blame yourselves in the least in the matter; suppose that you have to complain of a real injury, of an injury inflicted on you by the carelessness, or the neglect, or even the malice of others. Even in this case, it will be well for you again to examine carefully your own selves before you proceed to resent it. For although you may not be to blame in this particular case, yet an accurate review of your own hearts will always tend to lessen your resentment towards those who have injured you. You will then see that you too can be careless, that you too can be negligent, and may not, perhaps, be altogether without guile. You have all of you cause to exclaim with David, "Who can tell how often he offendeth?" and these considerations ought to teach you humility, ought to banish all pride and self-confidence, which may yet cling

to your minds, and teach you to have patience with the faults of others.

You may be assured also, my dear children, that if you thus accustom yourselves to examine your own hearts, and your own conduct, you will avoid many sorrows and heart-burnings, and causes of repentance. Those amongst you who are of a captious temper will cease to irritate and make each other angry. Those of you who are amiable and peaceable will not be made unhappy by the ill-humours of others. And if all would but practise the rule set forth in the text, great indeed would be the increase in the happiness of the world.

My dear young friends, when we look at this beautiful, this great, this glorious world, and know that we are placed in it by our beneficent Creator to enjoy the good things he hath so abundantly provided for us, ought we not to shudder at our own folly, our own wickedness, if by our own bad tempers we destroy or lessen to ourselves or others the enjoyment of these blessings? Young as you are, you must many of you have seen the happiness of a whole family disturbed by the

malicious, the fretful temper of a single individual. In whatever way that temper is shown, whether by open violence, sly contrivance, or by stupid obstinacy, the guilt is the same, and so also, perhaps, the misery.

But all this misery would cease, the world would be a scene of happiness and harmony, if we would all study to "walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love."

SERMON XIII.

ON HONESTY.

"Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another."-Leviticus xix. 2.

You, my dear young friends, may feel, that amongst the many sins to which you are liable, you are under no temptation to the sin of stealing; that this is a vice into which. you are not likely to fall. And indeed all dishonesty is doubly sinful in those who are guilty of it only from want of principle, and from a depraved nature, and not from the plea of want. But as no one, unless he be properly armed, can know how he will be able to resist temptation if it assail him, it may be well, even for those who are in the most abounding and prosperous circumstances, to engrave deeply in their hearts this solemn command of God: "Thou shalt not steal." This command is in fact broken oftener than you may suppose, if not in great

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