At vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa,
Nempe hoc indocti.------------
Chrysippus non dicet idem, nec mite Thaletis
Ingenium, dulcique senex vicinus Hymetto,
Qui partem adceptae saeva inter vincla Cicutoe
Adcusatori nollet dare.----
----------------Quippe minuti
Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas
Ultio. JUV. Sat. xiii. 180.
BUT O! REVENGE IS SWEET.
Thus think the crowd; who, eager to engage,
Take quickly fire, and kindle into rage.
Not so mild Thales nor Chrysippus thought,
Nor that good man, who drank the poisonous draught
With mind serene; and could not wish to see
His vile accuser drink as deep as he:
Exalted Socrates! divinely brave!
Injur'd he fell, and dying he forgave!
Too noble for revenge; which still we find
The weakest frailty of a feeble mind. DRYDEN
NO vicious dispositions of the mind more
obstinately resist both the counsels of philosophy
and the injunctions of religion, than those which
are complicated with an opinion of dignity; and
which we cannot dismiss without leaving in the
hands of opposition some advantage iniquitously
obtained, or suffering from our own prejudices some
imputation of pusillanimity.
For this reason scarcely any law of our Redeemer
is more openly transgressed, or more industriously
evaded, than that by which he commands his followers
to forgive injuries, and prohibits, under the
sanction of eternal misery, the gratification of the
desire which every man feels to return pain upon
him that inflicts it. Many who could have conquered
their anger, are unable to combat pride, and pursue
offences to extremity of vengeance, lest they should
be insulted by the triumph of an enemy.
But certainly no precept could better become
him, at whose birth PEACE was proclaimed TO THE EARTH.
For, what would so soon destroy all the order of
society, and deform life with violence and ravage, as
a permission to every one to judge his own cause,
and to apportion his own recompense for imagined
injuries?
It is difficult for a man of the strictest justice not
to favour himself too much, in the calmest moments
of solitary meditation. Every one wishes for the
distinctions for which thousands are wishing at the
same time, in their own opinion, with better claims.
He that, when his reason operates in its full force,
can thus, by the mere prevalence of self-love,
prefer himself to his fellow-beings, is very unlikely to
judge equitably when his passions are agitated by
a sense of wrong, and his attention wholly engrossed
by pain, interest, or danger. Whoever arrogates to
himself the right of vengeance, shews how little he
is qualified to decide his own claims, since he
certainly demands what he would think unfit to be
granted to another.
Nothing is more apparent than that, however
injured, or however provoked, some must at last be
contented to forgive. For it can never be hoped,
that he who first commits an injury, will contentedly
acquiesce in the penalty required: the same
haughtiness of contempt, or vehemence of desire,
that prompt the act of injustice, will more strongly
incite its justification; and resentment can never so
exactly balance the punishment with the fault, but
there will remain an overplus of vengeance which
even he who condemns his first action will think
himself entitled to retaliate. What then can ensue
but a continual exacerbation of hatred, an
unextinguishable feud, an incessant reciprocation of
mischief, a mutual vigilance to entrap, and eagerness to
destroy.
Since then the imaginary right of vengeance must
be at last remitted, because it is impossible to live
in perpetual hostility, and equally impossible that
of two enemies, either should first think himself
obliged by justice to submission, it is surely eligible
to forgive early. Every passion is more easily
subdued before it has been long accustomed to possession
of the heart; every idea is obliterated with less
difficulty, as it has been more slightly impressed,
and less frequently renewed. He who has often
brooded over his wrongs, pleased himself with
schemes of malignity, and glutted his pride with
the fancied supplications of humbled enmity, will
not easily open his bosom to amity and reconciliation,
or indulge the gentle sentiments of benevolence and peace.
It is easiest to forgive, while there is yet little to
be forgiven. A single injury may be soon dismissed
from the memory; but a long succession of ill offices
by degrees associates itself with every idea; a
long contest involves so many circumstances, that
every place and action will recall it to the mind,
and fresh remembrance of vexation must still enkindle
rage, and irritate revenge.
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because
he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer
it to pass away in unnecessary pain. He that
willingly suffers the corrosions of inveterate hatred, and
gives up his days and nights to the gloom of malice,
and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be
said to consult his ease. Resentment is an union of
sorrow with malignity, a combination of a passion
which all endeavour to avoid, with a passion which
all concur to detest. The man who retires to
meditate mischief, and to exasperate his own rage; whose
thoughts are employed only on means of distress
and contrivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses
from the remembrance of his own sufferings, but to
indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of
another, may justly be numbered among the most
miserable of human beings, among those who are
guilty without reward, who have neither the gladness
of prosperity, nor the calm of innocence.
Whoever considers the weakness both of himself
and others, will not long want persuasives to
forgiveness. We know not to what degree of malignity
any injury is to be imputed; or how much its guilt,
if we were to inspect the mind of him that committed
it, would be extenuated by mistake, precipitance,
or negligence; we cannot be certain how
much more we feel than was intended to be inflicted,
or how much we increase the mischief to ourselves
by voluntary aggravations. We may charge to design
the effects of accident; we may think the blow
violent only because we have made ourselves delicate
and tender; we are on every side in danger of errour
and of guilt; which we are certain to avoid only by
speedy forgiveness.
From this pacifick and harmless temper, thus
propitious to others and ourselves, to domestick
tranquillity and to social happiness, no man is
withheld but by pride, by the fear of being insulted
by his adversary, or despised by the world.
It may be laid down as an unfailing and universal
axiom, that "all pride is abject and mean." It is
always an ignorant, lazy, or cowardly acquiescence
in a false appearance of excellence, and proceeds
not from consciousness of our attainments, but
insensibility of our wants.
Nothing can be great which is not right. Nothing
which reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity
of the human mind. To be driven by external
motives from the path which our own heart approves,
to give way to any thing but conviction, to
suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice, or
overpower our resolves, is to submit tamely to the
lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to resign
the right of directing our own lives.
The utmost excellence at which humanity can
arrive, is a constant and determinate pursuit of
virtue, without regard to present dangers or
advantage; a continual reference of every action to
the divine will; an habitual appeal to everlasting
justice; and an unvaried elevation of the
intellectual eye to the reward which perseverance only can
obtain. But that pride which many, who presume
to boast of generous sentiments, allow to regulate
their measures, has nothing nobler in view than the
approbation of men, of beings whose superiority
we are under no obligation to acknowledge, and
who, when we have courted them with the utmost
assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent
reward; of beings who ignorantly judge of what
they do not understand, or partially determine
what they never have examined; and whose sentence
is therefore of no weight till it has received
the ratification of our own conscience.
He that can descend to bribe suffrages like these,
at the price of his innocence: he that can suffer the
delight of such acclamations to withhold his attention
from the commands of the universal Sovereign,
has little reason to congratulate himself upon the
greatness of his mind; whenever he awakes to
seriousness and reflection, he must become despicable
in his own eyes, and shrink with shame from
the remembrance of his cowardice and folly.
Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is
indispensably required that he forgive. It is therefore
superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great
duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses
to practise it, the Throne of mercy is inaccessible,
and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.