g rather than himself, running after trifles
which would not only dishonor Christian, but would disgrace a child. As
to my very virtues, if I dare apply such a word to myself, they
sometimes lose their character by not keeping their proper place. They
become sins by infringing on higher duties. If I mean to perform an act
of devotion, some crude plan of charity forces itself on my mind, and
what with trying to drive out one, and to establish the other, I rise
dissatisfied and unimproved, and resting my sole hope, not on the duty I
have been performing, but on the mercy I have been offending."

I assured her with all the simplicity of truth, and all the sincerity of
affection, that this confession only served to raise my opinion of the
piety she disclaimed; that such deep consciousness of imperfection, so
quick a discernment of the slightest deviation, and such constant
vigilance to prevent it, were the truest indications of an humble
spirit; and that those who thus carefully guarded themselves against
small errors, were in little danger of being betrayed into great ones.

She replied, smiling, that "she should not be so angry with vanity, if
it would be contented to keep its proper place among its vices; but her
quarrel with it was, that it would mix itself among our virtues, and
rob us of their reward."

"Vanity, indeed," replied I, "differs from the other vices in this;
_they_ commonly are only opposite to the one contrary virtue, while this
vice has a kind of ubiquity, is on the watch to intrude everywhere, and
weakens all the virtues which it can not destroy. I believe vanity was
the harpy of the ancient poets, which, they tell us, tainted whatever it
touched."

"Self-deception is so easy," replied Miss Stanley, "that I am even
afraid of highly extolling any good quality, lest I should sit down
satisfied with having borne any testimony in its favor, and so rest
contented with the praise instead of the practise. Commending a right
thing is a cheap substitute for doing it, with which we are too apt to
satisfy ourselves."

"There is no mark," I replied, "which more clearly distinguishes that
humility which has the love of God for its principle, from its
counterfeit--a false and superficial politeness--than that while this
last flatters, in order to extort in return more praise than its due,
humility, like the divine principle from which it springs, seeketh not
even its own."

In answer to some further remark of