to gratify their own contempt, and to mortify and overbear their inferiors? It comes from

wounded pride; which will not allow them to judge impartially. Why is it so delicate a thing to advise, even where the utility of advising would be certain, and the right to it incontestable? Why is it, that, merely for want of being able to render the truth palatable to him whom it concerns, and to whom it is of importance, is one obliged to wink at so many abuses, to allow so many serious affairs to go wrong, to suppress so many salutary counsels? Why are the simplest and most obvious admonitions of the truth, often rejected with indignation and rudeness, by those whose best course would have been to listen to them with docility, and to turn them to profit? Why is fraternal reproof, among us, a thing, in one word, impossible? Why is the exercise of the ministry in a manner confined to the pulpit and to the poor; and why do they, whose office it is to take care of men's souls, find themselves almost excluded from giving advice, exhortation, and reproof, to him who is wandering from the

right way, and to whom such aid would frequently be of incalculable benefit? It is because our overgrown self-love no longer allows us to lend a patient hearing to truths which give us pain, but is offended by them, whatever care may have been taken by the charity of the adviser to soften them down; because, so far from contributing to our amendment, they often only tend to blind us more, and to thrust us further on in the destructive path whence they were meant to recall us: we make poison of medicine, and never allow the physician to administer it but with dread.You yourself you, My Brother, who are perhaps at this moment disposed to accuse me of drawing an exaggerated picture, allow me to examine your own heart, and consent to join with me in the scrutiny. Call to mind your conduct, the inmost sentiments of your bosom; the opinions, comparisons, and wishes, which are at times suggested to you by the thought of your connections, your neighbours, your relations and judge yourself. Would you WASH THE FEET of your inferiors-that is,

would you, in order to serve them, overlook the distance which separates you? Would it not vex you, to see them or others forgetting it? Would you listen with patience to the harsh but just advice of your equals? Do you frankly and honestly admit the superiority of those who are better than you? Or rather, would not self-love, concealed in every secret passage of your heart, find means, in all these cases, to pervert your judgment, to change the figure and the distance of every object that surrounds you, and to urge you on perhaps to some violent step, disgraceful to you and to your religion? Alas! Alas! need I wait for a reply, or is there one among us who recognises not himself in this picture? Yet do we call ourselves Christians, nevertheless, and really think that we love one another, and imitate Jesus!-happy still, if we do not take pleasure in our pride, and deck it out in the attractions of some high-sounding name; not perceiving -so blinded are we!-that, under every point of view, its absurdity and hatefulness are manifest; whether considered with reference

to God or man, to the natural state of things or to the Gospel, to the present life or the future, to duty or to interest. By how many arguments might we convince you of this! We could demonstrate to you, that this want of humility in the various relations of life, makes your entire course through it rugged and thorny; that it is an injury done to society at large-a source of evil, public and private. We could tell We could tell you, that it makes you mean and ridiculous in the eyes of men, and is productive of an effect precisely contrary to that which we look for. We could hold up to your admiration the dignified character of the true Christian; who, uniting humility with charity, and superior to all the littlenesses of self-love, shows himself great-because he is simple, because he is ingenuous, because he is indifferent to self, because he is not subject to irritation, because he "thinketh no evil," because he excuses every thing hopes every thing-endures every thing! We could draw the delightful picture of a community, whose members have learned, in obedience to the

precepts of Christianity, to subdue their haughty tempers, and to look upon all men at all times as brethren; we could paint to you the most opposite conditions in such a community, connected by confidence and lovecharity, public spirit, patriotism, displayed with new and irresistible energy-subordination maintained-abuses prevented-improvement facilitated--the state prosperous--families united, and individuals happy. But, unanswerable as such arguments would be, we cannot produce them now-a spectacle, at once too

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affecting and too solemn, is before our eyes, and excludes the aid of all secondary argument and every appeal to human motives.

Jesus-the example of Jesus-it is this which is to-day presented to us, and which claims our undivided thoughts! Jesus-his actions-his discourses-his life, here is matter enough to cover us with shame! You who call yourselves his disciples, and who yet behave towards each other with harshness and with pride, to what page can you turn in the Gospel of Christ, in which his example does not give you cause to