enemy? let it be in deeds that will do good both to him and to thyself. Aristotle taught Alexander: "Most of all do I adjure thee to hate no man in the world; for next to the knowledge of God there is no higher truth than this: Love all men, good and bad." Practice humility; and humility means to suffer wrong without revenge, to curb anger, and to live at peace with thy neighbor. And let thy conduct be the same to the stranger as to the Jews, thy brethren.

Avoid vainglory, and fly from those that are swollen with pride; nor consider unworthy of thee any lawful labor that is necessary for thy maintenance. Rather live thou with a fool than with one that is proud of spirit; for the proud one thinketh himself better than other men, sets himself apart, and is ruthless in his behavior to those around him; and he demands on the other hand respect and consideration from all; and in the end all men become his enemies.

Value faithfulness and honesty; but be also honest in thy words, as our Sages have said: "Let thy yea be yea, and let thy nay be nay."

XVIII.

The School of Affliction.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes.-Psalm cxix. 71.

may be boldly affirmed that good men generally reap more substantial benefits from their afflictions than bad men from their prosperities; and what they lose in wealth and pleasure, they gain in goodness, wisdom, and tranquility. If some are refined like gold in the furnace of affliction, there are others, that, like chaff, are consumed in it. Mirth is by no means a remedy for grief; on the contrary, it raises and inflames it. None should despair, because God can help them; and none should presume, because God can crop them. He that is puffed up with the first gale of prosperity, will bend beneath the first blast of adversity.

Reproof in adversity has a double sting. Events which have the appearance of misfortunes often prove a source of future felicity; this consideration should help us to support affliction with calmness and fortitude; since we cannot know "what comes after it," as Koheleth writes.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long-
Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong.

XIX.

The Dignity of Man.

Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.—Psalm xxxvii. 37. A good man shall be satisfied of himself.-Proverbs xiv. 14.

MUST confess that there is nothing that more pleases me, in all that I read in books, or see in mankind, than such passages as represent human nature in its proper dignity. As man is a creature made up of different extremes, he has something in him very great and very mean. A skillful artist may draw an excellent picture of him in either of these views. The finest authors in antiquity have taken him on the more advantageous side. They cultivate the natural grandeur of the soul, raise in her a generous ambition, feed her with hopes of immortality and perfection, and do all they can to widen the partition between the virtuous and the vicious, to make the difference between them as between gods and brutes. In short, it is impossible to read a page in Plato, in Tully, and a thousand other ancient moralists without being a greater and a better man for it. I think it is one of Pythagoras's golden sayings: "That a man should take care above all things

to have a due respect for himself." The very design of dress, good breeding, outward ornament and ceremony were to lift up human nature and set it off to an advantage. Architecture, painting, and statuary were invented with the same design, as indeed every art and science contributes to the embellishment of life, and to the wearing off and throwing into shades the mean and low parts of our nature; and poetry carries on this end, more than all the rest.

XX.

The Apostle af Conscience.

A great strong wind rent the mountains and rent to pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still, small Voice. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in a mantle and went out and stood in the entering of the cave. And there came a voice to him, saying: What doest thou here, Elijah ?—I Kings xi. 11–13.

Y the merciful assistance of the Most High I have desired to labor in Europe, in America, with English, with barbarians, yea, and also I have longed

after some dealing with Jews themselves, for whose hard measure, I fear, the nations and England have yet a score to pay. I desire not that liberty for myself I would not freely and impartially weigh out to all the consciences of the world besides. All those consciences ought freely and impartially to be permitted their several respective worships, and what way of maintaining them, they freely chose.

It hath been told one that I labored for a contentious and licentious people; I have been charged with folly for that freedom and liberty which I have always stood for. But, Gentlemen, blessed be God who faileth not, and blessed be His name for His wonderful Providences by which alone this town and colony, and that grand cause of Truth and Freedom of Conscience, hath been upheld to this day. ROGER WILLIAMS.

ET still there whispers the small voice within,

Heard through Gain's silence and o'er Glory's din,

Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,

Man's conscience is the oracle of God.

XXI.

The Prophet of Soul-Liberty.

There is no man that hath power over the spirit, to hinder the spirit, as little as he hath power in the day of death.

-Ecclesiastes viii. 8.

ALL experience tells us that public peace and love is

better than abundance of corn and cattle.

I have