yments, and suspecting sin in the most lawful indulgences, I took
the liberty to tell her how little acceptable uncommanded austerities
and arbitrary impositions were to the God of mercies. I observed to her
that the world, that human life, that our own sins and weaknesses, found
us daily and hourly occasions of exercising patience and self-denial;
that life is not entirely made up of great evils or heavy trials, but
that the perpetual recurrence of petty evils and small trials is the
ordinary and appointed exercise of the Christian graces. To bear with
the failings of those about us, with their infirmities, their bad
judgment, their ill-breeding, their perverse tempers; to endure neglect
where we feel we have deserved attention, and ingratitude where we
expected thanks; to bear with the company of disagreeable people, whom
Providence has placed in our way, and whom he has perhaps provided on
purpose for the trial of our virtue: these are the best exercises; and
the better because not chosen by ourselves. To bear with vexations in
business, with disappointments in our expectations, with interruptions
of our retirement, with folly, intrusion, disturbance, in short, with
whatever opposes our will, and contradicts our humor; this habitual
acquiescence appears to be more of the essence of self-denial than any
little rigors or inflictions of our own imposing. These constant,
inevitable, but inferior evils, properly improved, furnish a good moral
discipline, and might well in the days of ignorance have superseded
pilgrimage and penance. It has this advantage too over the other, that
it sweetens the temper and promotes humility, while the former gives
rigidness instead of strength, and inflexibility instead of firmness."

"I have often thought," said I, when Mr. Stanley made a pause, "that we
are apt to mistake our vocation by looking out of the way for occasions
to exercise great and rare virtues, and by stepping over those ordinary
ones which lie directly in the road before us. When we read, we fancy we
could be martyrs, and when we come to act, we can not even bear a
provoking word."

Miss Stanley looked pleased at my remark, and in a modest tone observed
that "in no one instance did we deceive ourselves more than in fancying
we could do great things well, which we were never likely to be called
to do at all; while, if we were honest, we could not avoid owning how
negligently we performed our own little appointed duties, an