this diffusion with us of one common being and to yield our affection, only as we discover the virtue which alone is worthy of it, is almost the same thing as to consult for our own virtue. The vice of him whom we love,the vice which we must palliate to every censurer, and which we strive to palliate even to our own severe judgment, will soon cease to appear to us what it is; and it will require but a little longer habit of palliation, and a little longer intercourse of cordial regard, to win from us that occasional conformity, which, with us too, may soon become a habit. Even though we escape from the vices of the wicked, however, it would be impossible for us to escape from their misery. We must share the embarrassments and vexations, the fear and the disgrace, to which their moral errors must inevitably lead them; and, though the friendship of the virtuous had no other superiority of attraction than this one, it would still be enough to determine the choice of the wise, that, in becoming the friends of the good, they would have nothing to fear but misfortunes, which require pity only, and consolation, not shame; that, if they had no reason to blush for themselves, they would have no reason to blush for those, whom, by their selection, they had exhibited to the world as images of their own character; nor to feel, in the very innocence of their own heart, by the moral perplexities in which their sympathies involved them, if not what is hateful in guilt, at least all which is wretched in it.

A single line of one of our old poets conveys, in this respect, a most sententious lesson, in bidding us consider what sort of a friend he is likely to prove to us, who has been the destroyer, or at least the constant disquieter, of his own happiness.

1

"See if he be

Friend to himself, who would be friend to thee."

The necessity of virtue, then, in every bosom of which we resolve to share the feelings, would be sufficiently evident, though we were to consider those feelings only; but all the participation is not be on our part. We are to place confidence, as well as to receive it, we are not to be comforters only, but sometimes too, the comforted;—and our own conduct may require the defence, which we are sufficiently ready to afford to the conduct of our friend. Even with respect to the pleasure of the friendship itself,—if it be a pleasure on which we set a high value, it is not a slight consideration, whether it be fixed on one, whose regard is likely to be as stable as ours, or on one, who may in a few months, or perhaps, even in a few weeks, withhold from us the very pleasure of that intimacy, which before had been profusely lavished on us. In every one of these respects, I need not point out to you the manifest superiority of virtue over vice. Virtue only is stable, because virtue only is consistent; and the caprice which, under a momentary impulse, begins an eager intimacy with one, as it began it from an impulse, as momentary with another, will soon find a third, with whom it may again begin it, with the same exclusion, for the moment, of every previous attachment. Nothing can be juster than the observation of Rousseau on these hasty starts of kindness, that "he that treats us at first sight, like a friend of twenty years standing, will, very probably, at the end of twenty years, treat us as a stranger, if we have any important service to request of him."

If without virtue, we have a little to hope in stability, have we, even while

the semblance of friendship lasts, much more to hope, as to those services of kindness which we may need from our friends? The secrets, which it may be of no importance to divulge, all may keep with equal fidelity; because nothing is to be gained by circulating, what no man would take sufficient interest in hearing, to remember after it was heard; but, if the secret be of a kind, which, if made known, would gain the favour of some one, whose favour it would be more profitable to gain than to retain ours, can we expect fidelity from a mind, that thinks only of what is to be gained by vice, in the great social market of moral feelings, not of what it is right to do? Can we expect consolation in our affliction, from one, who regards our adversity only as a sign, that there is nothing more to be hoped from our intimacy; or trust our virtues to the defence of him, who defends or assails as interest prompts, and who may see his interest, in representing us as guilty of the very crimes, with which slander has loaded us! In such cases, we have no title to complain of the treacheries of friendship,--for it was not friendship in which we trusted,-the treachery is as much the fault of the deceived as of the deceiver; we have ourselves violated some of the most important duties of friendship, the duties which relate to its commence

ment.

When friendship has commenced, after all those necessary cautions, which form its first set of duties, a new set of duties begin their obligation. We have chosen cautiously; and we are now to confide;--we have chosen one whom it is virtuous to love, and we are to perform to him all the services of love.

We are to confide, in the first place, not with that timid, irresolute communication of our plans and wishes, which almost provokes to the very infidelity that appears to be suspected, but with that full opening of the heart, without which there is no confidence, and therefore none of the advantages of confidence. "If you think any one your friend," a Roman moralist says, "in whom you do not put the same confidence as in yourself, you know not the real power of friendship. Consider long, whether the individual whom you view with regard, is worthy of being admitted to your bosom; but when you have judged, and found him truly worthy, admit him to your very heart. You should so live, indeed, as to trust nothing to your conscience, which you would not trust to your enemy; but, at least to your friend, let all be open. He will be the more faithful, as your confidence in his fidelity is more complete. "Si aliquem amicum existimas, cui non tantundem credis quantum tibi, vehementer erras, et non satis nosti vim veræ amicitiæ. Tu vero omnia cum amico delibera, sed de ipso prius. Post amicitiam credendum est, ante amicitiam judicandum. Isti vero præpostere officia permiscent, qui contra præcepta Theophrasti, cum amaverint judicant, et non amant cum judicaverint. Diu cogita, an tibi in amicitiam aliquis recipiendus sit; cum placuerit fieri, toto illum pectore admitte. Tam audacter cum illo loquere quam tecuin. Tu quidem ita vive, ut nihil tibi committas, nisi quod committere etiam inimico possis: sed quia interveniunt quædam, quæ consuetudo facit arcana, cum amico omnes curas, omnes cogitationes tuas misce. Fidelem si putaveris facies."*

He who is worthy of our confidence is worthy of our kindness; and, therefore, of all the aid which our kindness can bestow. I need not say that

* Senec. Ep. iii. Vol. II. p. 6. Amst.

we are guilty of a breach of duty, if with the power of furthering his advancement in life, we withhold our assistance. If he be in want, we should consider it not as a favour on our part, but as an additional value which he has conferred on our wealth, that he has given us an opportunity of making a more delightful use of it, than any to which we could have known how to apply it, in any other circumstances. If he be in grief, we have an affection that knows how to diffuse a tender pleasure over sadness itself; and that, if it cannot overcome affliction, can thus, at least, alleviate it. If he be suffering unmerited ignominy, we have a heart that knows his innocence, and a voice that can make itself be heard, wherever virtue is allowed to speak. These duties are easy to be performed. The only duty which is not easy, but which is still more necessary than the others, is that which relates to moral imperfections that may truly arise in him, or may become visible in him, only after our friendship has been given and received; imperfections, which, slight as they may be at first, may, if suffered to continue, vitiate that whole character, which it is so delightful to us to love; and which, in every important respect, is still so worthy of being loved. The correction of these is our chief duty; and every effort which it is in our power to use for this moral emendation, is to be employed sedulously, anxiously, urgently;—but with all the tenderness which such efforts admit. If in presenting to him that form of perfect virtue, to the imitation of which we wish to lead him, we make him feel more his own imperfection, than the tenderness of that regard which seeks his amendment above every other object, the error is not his alone.

The duty which leads us to seek the moral reformation of our friend, whenever we perceive an imperfection that requires to be removed, is, as I have said, the highest duty of friendship, because it is a duty that has for its object the highest good which it is in our power to confer; and he who refrains from the necessary endeavour, because he fears to give pain to one whom he loves, is guilty of the same weakness which, in a case of bodily accident or disease, would withhold the salutary potion, because it is nauseous, or the surgical operation which is to preserve life, and to preserve it with comfort-because the use of the instrument, which is to be attended with relief and happiness, implies a little momentary addition of suffering. To abstain from every moral effort of this sort, in the mere fear of offending, is, from the selfishness of the motive, a still greater breach of duty, and almost, too, a still greater weakness. He, whom we truly offend, by such gentle admonitions as friendship dictates-admonitions of which the chief authority is sought in the very excellence of him whom we wish to make still more excellent-is not worthy of the friendship which we have wasted on him; and, if we thus lose his friendship, we are delivered from one who could not be sincere in his past professions of regard, and whose treachery, therefore, we might afterwards have had reason to lament. If he be worthy of us, he will not love us less, but love us more; he will feel that we have done that which it was our duty to do;-and we shall have the double gratification, of witnessing the amendment which we desired, and of knowing that we have contributed to an effect, which was almost like the removal of a vice from ourselves, or a virtue added to our own moral character.

The last set of duties, in relation to friendship, are those which regard its close.

When friendship has been fixed, where alone it should be fixed, the close of

friendship is only the termination of the existence of those who feel it. But' with all the caution which it is possible for the best and wisest to employ in selection, it is still possible that they may be deceived, even as to important defects of character; or, though they may not be deceived as to the essential virtues of the character, they may at least have failed to remark unfortunate circumstances of temper or general disposition, which may frustrate, afterwards, all the care that can be used to avoid what might lead to irritations and fretful suspicions, incompatible with permanent confidence. Friendship, then-that is to say, the cordial intimacy of friendship,-may cease, while those still live who were its subjects; but, when it ceases, from causes that would render it impossible to be renewed with the same interest as before, or that would render the renewal of it unwise, even though it were possible, it should be a cessation of intimacy, and nothing more. The great duty of fidelity still remains; and in some measure too,-unless where there has been the provocation of injustice that cancels the past, because it shows the seeming affection of the past, even when affection was credited, to have been deceit, there remains still the duty of an interest, stronger than we should feel in the welfare of a stranger, who had never been connected with us by any tie of peculiar regard. Even when there has been such a discovery of guilt, as would render immoral this remaining interest, the duty of fidelity, as I have said, remains in all its force. What was confided to us, in years of confidence, should still be as safe in our bosom as before. The only dispensation, by which it can be morally allowable for us to violate the trust, is the slander of our reputation by the confider himself, if he dare to assail our character, when the disclosure of the secret which he has trusted to us, would render manifest our innocence. His very attack, in that case, may be considered as a sort of tacit intimation to us, that his trust is at an end.

When friendship, after continuing uninterrupted through life, not merely without diminution, but with perpetual accessions of confidence and happiness, is at last broken by the death of one of the parties, its duties do not terminate to the survivor. He has a source of new duties in the remembrances of the past, in the glory of his friend, which is ever present with him, -and in the expectation of that future life, in which he hopes to rejoin him, and which, by this very hope, presents a new motive to his own virtues.

"Some persons," says the Marquise de Lambert, "believe that there are no longer any duties to be fulfilled beyond the tomb; and there are but few who know how to be friends to the dead. Though the most magnificent funeral pomp be the tears and the silent sorrow of those who survive, and the most honourable sepulture be in their hearts, we must not think that tears which are shed from the sensibility of the moment, and sometimes too from causes, which in part at least, relate, to ourselves, acquit us of all our obligation. The name of our friends, their glory, their family, have still claims on our affection, which it would be guilt not to feel. They should live still in our heart by the emotions which subsist there,-in our memory, by our frequent remembrance of them,-in our voice, by our eulogiums,-in our conduct, by our imitation of their virtues.”*

After our consideration of the duties of friendship, which necessarily involve in them many feelings of gratitude for kindnesses received, it cannot require any long discussion to convince you of the duty of gratitude to our benefactors in general.

Euv. Tome I. p. 248

Of this, indeed, I have already treated so fully, in a former part of the course, when, in examining our moral emotions, I considered the emotion of gratitude itself as one of these,--that it would be almost superfluous to make any further remarks on it.

It is one of the most pleasing proofs of the benevolence of Heaven, that the very production of good by one human being to another, is not attended with delight only to him who receives the favour, but with equal delight to him who confers it; and, with respect to the future also, that the desire of new beneficent exertions is not more deeply impressed on the mind of the beneficent, by every repetition of his kindness, than on the mind of him who is the object of the kindness. Both are made happier,-both are made more eager to render happy. Our first emotion, on receiving good, is love of him from whom we receive it; our second emotion, is the wish of being able to render to him some mutual service; and he, whose generous life is a continued diffusion of happiness, may thus delight himself with the thought, that he has not diffused happiness only, but that, in diffusing it, he has been, at the same time, the diffuser of virtue,—at least, of wishes that were virtue for the time, and required nothing to convert them into beneficence, but the means of exercising them.

So ready is gratitude to arise in almost every mind, that ingratitude to a benefactor, in every age of the world, has been regarded almost with the same species of abhorrence, as the violation of the dearest duties of consanguinity itself. He who could plunge a dagger into the heart of one who had conferred on him any signal service, would be viewed by us almost with the same fearful astonishment, with which we gaze on the parricide, who plunged his dagger into the heart that gave him life.

The tie which connects the benefactor with him on whom he has conferred a kindness, does not, however, give its whole duties to one party, though its principal duties belong to one. It is the duty of one, to love him from whom he has received important kindnesses,-to study the interests of him, by whom his own have been promoted, and in every service which requires only zeal, and not a sacrifice of virtue, to be assiduous in repaying what can be repaid, not from an eager wish to shake off the obligation, which is truly in itself a species of ingratitude, but from the sincere desire of increasing the happiness of one who is sincerely loved, and who has given so much reason to love him.

These are the duties of the obliged. But though we are not much accustomed to think of the duties of benefactors, the obliger too has moral obligations to fulfil, and obligations which, while they are as truly incumbent as the duties of the obliged, are far more difficult to be fulfilled;-the duty of making his benefits press as lightly, as benefits to the same amount can press, by unfailing attentions to him whom he has obliged,-a condescension, that makes itself felt, however, not as condescension, which would recall the obligation more powerfully, but only as kindness, which seems to arise without any thought of former benefits, from the overflowing goodness of a benevolent heart. It would be manifestly cruel to repeat to any one, on whom we had conferred an important favour, "Remember the favour which I conferred on you;" but since it is not in the direct words only that such a meaning can be conveyed, it is cruel also, by excessive and ill placed forms of ostentatious civility, to seem constantly to say to him, that we are thus very kind, and that we have never forgotten the generosity which we showed him, at the distance, perhaps, of many years.