Page:Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse.pdf/86

 that this dominion should he broken, and the first step towards it is to think humbly of ourselves. We are beings who have received much, and are accountable for it; placed in a state of trial, with a law of rectitude before us, to see whether we will obey, or swerve from it; subject to many afflictions, liable to many errors, bearing within us much which needs to be regulated, reformed, or taken away, and bound to an eternal destination of happiness or misery. What is there in this inscription to justify vanity? Every thing around excites us to watchfulness; every thing within to humility. We should esteem it a great unhappiness to have a friend whose real sentiments were concealed from us, and whose character we could not investigate; how much more uncomfortable and dangerous, to remain ignorant of our own. Self knowledge is not the growth of an hour, or matured by a single experiment, but is attainable by perseverance, and amply rewards its toil. It is necessary to self government; for we must become acquainted with our prevailing errors, and their probable sources, before we can be successful in reforming them; we must understand the disease, before we apply the remedy. The mind, from a knowledge of her most vulnerable parts, knows better where to apply her strongest guards, how to arouse her slumbering energies to some difficult virtue, and how to quell those mutinous passions which strive