men. Our minds are full of passion, envy, malice, and pride, and is it an easy task to hold all these in restraint? If one's character is to be simple and unaffected, humility is the one thing necessary. Some persons display a mock modesty: some are made humble by fear, others by trouble and misfortune. Humility of this kind is but transient. If humility is to be an enduring and permanent quality, such sentiments as these should be firmly fixed in our minds. Our Creator, He is all-powerful, omniscient, without spot, or stain: ourselves, we are here to-day, gone to-morrow. Our strength, what is it? Our learning, what is it? Every moment of our lives we are subject to error, evil thoughts and evil deeds: where then is the ground for pride? Such humility as this being implanted in the mind, passion, envy, malice, and pride, all are dwarfed, and the mind becomes simple and sincere. Where this is the case, we derive no pleasure from a display of our own learning or intelligence, our own pride of wealth or place, which can only anger others; neither is our envy excited by the sight of the prosperity of others. We have no desire, either to abuse others, or to think meanly of them neither does an injury we may have received from another arouse our anger, or hatred against him. Our thoughts are directed solely to the purification of our own minds, or to other's welfare. But much harsh self-discipline is necessary before this result can be attained. It is wonderful, the pride that springs up in the mind of the man possessed of but a modicum of wit: his own words, his own deeds, stand forth, in the estimation of such a man, as superior to those of all others; nothing that others may say or do is worthy of the slightest attention on his part.
Becharam.-- Ah, my dear friend, how it refreshes me to hear you talk! I have been all along wishing to have such an opportunity.
