viction, from strong feeling. He hopes to accomplish a great good, to prevent a serious evil-perhaps the greatest of all evils, the perversion of a human soul from God, its degradation and misery. But while he shews how weighty he believes the mission to be which he has undertaken, he will never permit himself to lose his self-command or pass from earnestness to anger. In the moment when the reprover oversteps this boundary, he forfeits an incalculable advantage. Calm self-possession on his part checks the irritation which the prospect of receiving reproof excites, and predisposes the mind for listening to it with an obedient ear. But if this self-possession is lost, the reprover and the reproved change places; he who came to convince another of his fault, stands before him in the character of a culprit, convicted of the fault of losing his temper. And as passion perverts the judgment, the advice and exhortation of one who is manifestly under its influence are generally thrown away. Threats may attain the purpose of terrifying the obstinate into obedience the more readily, from the passion with which they are uttered; but threats have no tendency to produce conviction and repentance. They address only the principle of fear, and there is no virtue in actions which are prompted by that servile feeling. Some selfish motive is naturally suspected when reproof degenerates into passion; for why should pure, disinterested love and pity for an erring brother call up such unseemly emotions? Besides, as iron sharpens iron, so passion provokes passion; angry altercation takes the place of friendly conference, and amidst the bad feelings thus excited, truth, candour and charity are lost on the one side, respect and docility on the other.

One sure effect of allowing passion to intrude upon the province of reproof is, that it leads to exaggeration. It inflames the imagination, which is always prone to magnify objects beyond their real size, to distort their forms, to heighten their colouring, and thus give them an aspect altogether different from the reality. It is well adapted to the purpose of the orator or the advocate who wishes to rouse the indignation of

an audience against a supposed wrong committed by another; but if your object be to convince a man that he himself has done wrong, the simplest, plainest, least impassioned statement of the truth will serve your purpose best. A charge untrue in degree is, to the extent of its inexactness, a calumny; it is resented and repelled as such. The object of it feels himself unjustly treated, and his self-love, fixing only on that portion which is unfounded, contrives to overlook what is true. Thus is the purpose of reproof defeated. The wise reprover must know himself, and if he be prone to hasty and passionate outbreaks of temper, must watch himself with double care, or he will never obtain the obedient ear.

4. The wise reprover will never destroy the self-respect of the person whom he admonishes, by using reproachful and contemptuous language. This would be a great inconsistency. On what do you build your hope that your reproof will be heard with conviction and sorrow, and be followed by repentance and obedience? It is by moral means that you must hope to succeed. You take for granted that there is in the human bosom a sense of right and wrong, a love of goodness, a reverence for duty, a desire to fulfil it. If these never existed or have been utterly destroyed, you are indeed scattering the seed in stony places, when you reprove, rebuke and exhort. You undertake the task, no doubt, in the belief that they do exist, though the judgment may have been clouded, though the voice of conscience may have drowned for a season. There is then enough in an erring, even in a sinning fellowcreature, to claim our respect. Suppose that by the expression of our contempt we could make him despise himself, should we increase the probability of his amendment? Rather we should reduce him to despair, and lead him to renounce all hope of reforming himself, in the belief that one so degraded can never recover the forfeited esteem of his fellow-creatures. Our aim should be to make him feel that there is yet in him a power and a capacity of good, and to assist him in exerting them. The breath of quiet remonstrance and respectful

counsel may rekindle the smoking flax; one rude blast of contemptuous invective may extinguish it for ever. He probably already feels a secret humiliation in the consciousness of having done wrong; it is the office of the wise reprover not to make that feeling more deep and painful, but to direct him how he may throw it off and regain that self-respect which is one of the most effective securities of virtue. It is the spring within; its elasticity has been impaired and needs to be restored; but if we lay a still heavier weight upon it, we may prevent the possibility of its ever rising again; or if there be still power enough left in it, its reaction will shew itself in the indignant rejection of our reproof, as involving undeserved degradation. Rebuke may require to be made sharp, that it may penetrate a callous conscience; but upbraiding and reproach can never be salutary.

Let us guard our tempers and keep watch over our words with especial care, when we have occasion to reprove those whom rank or station or worldly condition place much below us. We are apt to be unmindful of their feelings, or perhaps to suppose that they are less acute than our own, and therefore to address them in language going far beyond the necessary purpose of pointing out their faults or their omissions, and by a sarcastic bitterness tending to degrade them in their own eyes. It is unmanly to avail ourselves of the superiority which accident has given us, to make them feel more keenly the difference of condition. It is unwise to adopt habitually a mode of blaming them, which, if they consider it as anything more than passion and ill-temper on our part, must make them doubt their power to fulfil their duties so as to gain our approbation. For if they have no self-respect, which our language tends to destroy, we can only look for eye-service from them, instead of the faithfulness and zeal which are the free growth of principle and affection. It is inhuman and unchristian to inflict in wantonness unnecessary pain, whether by word or deed. Instead of allowing ourselves greater licence of blame in finding fault with our inferiors, we should be

especially careful to measure our words by the justice of the case. Reproof falls heavier and sinks deeper according to the height from which it descends, and the very nature of their dependent relation to us may forbid reply or even just selfdefence.

5. Once more, the wise reprover will be patient, as well as kind, calm and considerate. He will exercise his office "with all long suffering." He undertakes it with the conviction that, though there is in the human heart a mixture of good and evil, its unperverted feelings are good rather than evil— that in the work of reformation he has not to create but to develop, to bring to light the original workmanship of a benevolent God, by removing the incrustations with which error and sin have hidden and deformed it. But how rapid is often the incrustation! how laborious the process of removal! If the force of habit has been added to the violence of passion, there is still greater call for patience. Recovery from evil habit is a steep and toilsome ascent, and we must expect that one whom we have taken by the hand and are helping to climb the hill, will occasionally slide back a step, or at all events will need prolonged and constant encouragement to persevere. A great moral and religious change is not to be reckoned upon as a sudden result; nor is any one qualified to accomplish it who is not prepared to labour in patience and hope, though his first efforts may promise little success. Many causes may make the beginning discouraging. However friendly may be the purpose with which we approach the person whom we wish to instruct or reclaim, we must remember that we appear before him in a character which is likely to arouse his self-love. He regards us as censurers, and puts himself in an attitude of defence; he feels a certain repugnance to our interference; and we can only hope by degrees to overcome this first impression, and win our way to the ear and to the heart. We may be partially ignorant of the circumstances upon which our reproof is founded, and must not refuse to listen to explanation and counter-statement, as

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though the infallibility of our judgment was thereby called in question. To be discouraged by a first or even a second failure, would shew a mind ignorant of the work it had undertaken or ill prepared for it. The Son of Man could cast out an evil spirit by a single rebuke; his humbler followers must restore health to a diseased mind by soothing words, by judicious treatment, by patient watchfulness. HE to whom the spirit of power as well as of knowledge was given without measure, could recal the dead to life by a word speaking; the prophet of more limited inspiration prayed earnestly to the Lord, and twice stretched himself upon the child, before warmth and breath returned to him.* True brotherly affection is inventive as well as patient; it thinks little of the time that must be sacrificed in varied trials, or the self-denial that must be practised, in order "to save a soul from death." A man of genuine Christian feeling will never find his conscience satisfied by saying, when his first counsel or his first reproof is rejected, "I have fulfilled my duty, I am free from all further responsibility; he will not bear rebuke, nor follow sound advice; he must be left to reap the bitter fruits of his obstinacy and folly; his blood be upon his own head." He will feel such confidence in the force of truth, as to be convinced that if it has not been embraced, it is because it has not been fully understood. He will study to discover if there have been anything in his manner of presenting it which may have caused its rejection. He will try to gain access to the conscience by some new avenue. He will hail the first slight symptom of yielding to the voice of admonition, and encourage every manifestation of the returning influence of better principles. Such labours of patient love will have one blessing at least; they will be an admirable discipline for a man's own temper, promoting the growth of meekness, humility, and all those virtues which are the most characteristic of a Christian and most difficult of acquirement. They will probably have

* 2 Kings iv. 33.