It is properly that part of the great virtue of
charity, which makes us unwilling to give pain to any of our brethren.
Compassion prompts us to relieve their wants. Forbearance prevents us
from retaliating their injuries. Meekness restrains our angry passions;
candour, our severe judgments. Gentleness corrects whatever is
offensive in our manners, and, by a constant train of humane attentions,
studies to alleviate the burden of common misery. Its office, therefore,
is extensive. It is not, like some other virtues, called forth only on
peculiar emergencies; but it is continually in action, when we are
engaged in intercourse with men. It ought to form our address, to
regulate our speech, and to diffuse itself over our whole behaviour.
We must not, however, confound this gentle "wisdom which is from above"
with that artificial courtesy, that studied smoothness of manners, which
is learned in the school of the world. Such accomplishments the most
frivolous and empty may possess. Too often they are employed by the
artful as a snare; too often affected by the hard and unfeeling as a
cover to the baseness of their minds. We cannot, at the same time, avoid
observing the homage, which, even in such instances, the world is
constrained to pay to virtue.
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