ngerous compliances. She
who hears innocence maligned without vindicating it, falsehood
asserted without contradicting it, or religion prophaned without
resenting it, is not gentle but wicked.

TO give up the cause of an innocent, injured friend, if the popular cry
happens to be against him, is the most disgraceful weakness. This was
the case of Madame de Maintenon. She loved the character and admired the
talents of Racine; she caressed him while he had no enemies, but
wanted the greatness of mind, or rather the common justice, to protect
him against their resentment when he had; and her favourite was
abandoned to the suspicious jealousy of the king, when a prudent
remonstrance might have preserved him.--But her tameness, if not
absolute connivance in the great massacre of the protestants, in whose
church she had been bred, is a far more guilty instance of her weakness;
an instance which, in spite of all her devotional zeal and incomparable
prudence, will disqualify her from shining in the annals of good women,
however she may be entitled to figure among the great and the
fortunate. Compare her conduct with that of her undaunted and pious
countryman and contemporary, Bougi, who, when Louis would have prevailed
on him to renounce his religion for a commission or a government,
nobly replied, "If I could be persuaded to betray my God for a marshal's
staff, I might betray my king for a bribe of much less consequence."

MEEKNESS is imperfect, if it be not both active and passive; if it
will not enable us to subdue our own passions and resentments, as well
as qualify us to bear patiently the passions and resentments of
others.

BEFORE we give way to any violent emotion of anger, it would perhaps be
worth while to consider the value of the object which excites it, and to
reflect for a moment, whether the thing we so ardently desire, or so
vehemently resent, be really of as much importance to us, as that
delightful tranquillity of soul, which we renounce in pursuit of it. If,
on a fair calculation, we find we are not likely to get as much as we
are sure to lose, then, putting all religious considerations out of the
question, common sense and human policy will tell us, we have made a
foolish and unprofitable exchange. Inward quiet is a part of one's self;
the object of our resentment may be only a matter of opinion; and,
certainly, what makes a portion of our actual happiness ought to be too
dear to us, to be sacrificed for a