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mind, we look to the appropriate example, in preference to the well-reasoned system: when we lay it down in obedience to an imperative decree, we more readily sympathize with a fellow-sufferer, than reason ourselves into apathy in concert with an alien to our afflictions.
The great Roman dramatist has delivered down to us a sentiment, the excellence of which has caused it to degenerate into a proverbial triteness: "I am a man; and consider nothing as foreign to my purpose, which relates to the character and condition of humanity." The greatest possible latitude will readily be allowed to a father, who adopts this motto, when speaking in private of a heavy and recent loss: the propriety with which he may venture to interest the public in its personal application, when time has wrested from him the plea of a pardonable rashness, must depend on the facts which he has to produce, and the fidelity with which he brings them forward.
