There is no maxim which deserves more frequent repetition, and if the
heart be capable of amendment by precept and admonition, no virtue
should be more strongly enforced and recommended than gratitude.
Where sentiments of this kind are wanting, our natures soon become
debased, and our minds depraved. Ingratitude has ever been justly
branded as the blackest of crimes, and, as it were, comprehending
all other vices within it. Nor can we say that this opinion is too
severe: for if a man be capable of injuring his benefactor, what will
he scruple doing towards another? We may fairly conclude that he
who is guilty of ingratitude, will not hesitate at any other crime
of an inferior nature. Since there are no human laws to punish this
infamous prevailing vice, it would only be doing an act of justice, and
supplying the want, to point out criminals of this description to the
reprobation of mankind, that men of worth might avoid all intercourse
and communication with them. The ingrate should also bear in mind, that
he strips himself of the protection which might have been afforded by
his friends, and exposes himself to the shafts of his enemies, who will
not fail to take advantage of the defenceless state to which his folly
and depravity have reduced him.
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