ibility to the Author of all that is beneficent and good.

LEAVING OFF CONTENTION BEFORE IT BE MEDDLED WITH.

WE are advised to leave off contention before it be meddled with, by
one usually accounted a very wise man. Had he never given the world any
other evidence of superior wisdom, this admonition alone would have been
sufficient to have established his claims thereto. It shows that he had
power to penetrate to the very root of a large share of human
misery. For what is the great evil in our condition here? Is it not
misunderstanding, disagreement, alienation, contention, and the passions
and results flowing from these? Are not contempt, and hatred, and
strife, and alteration, and slander, and evil-speaking, the things
hardest to bear, and most prolific of suffering, in the lot of human
life? The worst woes of life are such as spring from, these sources.

Is there any cure for these maladies? Is there anything to prevent or
abate these exquisite sufferings? The wise man directs our attention to
a remedial preventive in the advice above referred to. His counsel to
those whose lot unites them in the same local habitations and name
to those who are leagued in friendship or business, in the changes
of sympathy and the chances of collision, is, to suppress anger or
dissatisfaction, to be candid and charitable in judging, and, by all
means, to leave off contention before it be meddled with. His counsel to
all is to endure injury meekly, not to give expression to the sense of
wrong, even when we might seem justified in resistance or complaint. His
counsel is to yield something we might fairly claim, to pardon when we
might punish, to sacrifice somewhat of our rights for the sake of peace
and friendly affection. His counsel is not to fire at every provocation,
not to return evil for evil, not to cherish any fires of revenge,
burning to be even with the injurious person. His counsel is to curb
our imperiousness, to repress our impatience, to pause in the burst of
another's feeling, to pour water upon the kindling flames, or, at the
very least, to abstain from adding any fresh fuel thereto.

One proof of the superior wisdom of this counsel is, that few seem to
appreciate or perceive it. To many it seems no great virtue or wisdom,
no great and splendid thing, in some small issue of feeling or opinion,
in the family or among friends, to withhold a little, to tighten
the rein upon some headlong propensity, and await a