, or do any thing else which you might
know is in itself wrong. But you are to avoid these things, not because
there are any rules in this school against them, for there are
none;--but because they are in _themselves wrong_;--in all places and
under all circumstances, wrong. The universal and unchangeable
principles of duty are the same here as elsewhere. I do not make rules
pointing them out, but expect that you will, through your own conscience
and moral principle, discover and obey them.

Such a case as this, for example, once occurred. A number of little
girls began to amuse themselves in recess with running about among the
desks in pursuit of one another, and they told me, in excuse for it,
that they did not know that it was "_against the rule_."

"It is not against the rule;" said I, "I have never made any rule
against running about among the desks."

"Then," asked they, "did we do wrong?"

"Do you think it would be a good plan," I inquired, "to have it a common
amusement in the recess, for the girls to hunt each other among the
desks?"

"No sir," they replied simultaneously.

"Why not? There are some reasons I do not know, however whether you
will have the ingenuity to think of them."

"We may start the desks from their places," said one.

"Yes," said I, "they are fastened down very slightly, so that I may
easily alter their position."

"We might upset the inkstands," said another.

"Sometimes," added a third, "we run against the scholars who are sitting
in their seats."

"It seems then you have ingenuity enough to discover the reasons. Why
did not these reasons prevent your doing it."

"We did not think of them before."

"True; that is the exact state of the case. Now when persons are so
eager to promote their own enjoyment, as to forget the rights and the
comforts of others, it is _selfishness_. Now is there any rule in this
school against selfishness."

"No sir."

"You are right. There is not. But selfishness is wrong,--very wrong, in
whatever form it appears,--here, and every where else; and that, whether
I make any rules against it or not."

You will see from this anecdote that though there is but one rule of the
school, I by no means intend to say that there is only _one way of doing
wrong here_. That would be very absurd. You _must not do any thing which
you may know, by proper reflection, to be in itself wrong_. This however
is an universal principle of duty, not a _rule_ of the Mt. V