Certainly there are men whose charities are limited, if not dried up, by their concentrated domestic anxieties and relations. But there are others whose charities are more diffused, as well as healthier and warmer, through the strength of their domestic affections. Wordsworth speaks strongly of the evils of ordaining men as clergymen in places where they had been born or brought up, or in the midst of their own relatives: “Their habits, their manners, their talk, their acquaintanceships, their friendships, and let me say, even their domestic affections, naturally draw them one way, while their professional obligations point out another.” If this were true universally, or even generally, it would be a strong argument in favour of the celibacy of the Roman Catholic clergy, which certainly is one element, and not the least, of their power. [Illustration] 22. Landor says truly: “Love is a secondary passion in those who love most, a primary in those who love least: he who is inspired by it in the strongest degree is inspired by honour in a greater.” “Whatever is worthy of being loved for any thing is worthy to be preserved.” Again:—“Those are the worst of suicides who voluntarily and prepensely stab or suffocate their own fame, when God hath commanded them to stand on high for an example.” “Weak motives,” he says, “are sufficient for weak minds; whenever we see a mind which we believed a stronger than our own moved habitually by what appears inadequate, we may be certain that there is—to bring a metaphor from the forest—_more top than root_.” Here is another sentence from the same writer—rich in wise sayings:— “Plato would make wives common to abolish selfishness; the very mischief which, above all others, it would directly and immediately bring forth. There is no selfishness where there is a wife and family. There the house is lighted up by mutual charities; everything achieved for them is a victory; everything endured a triumph. How many vices are suppressed that there may be no _bad_ example! How many exertions made to recommend and inculcate a _good_ one.” True: and I have much more confidence in the charity which begins in the home and diverges into a large humanity, than in the world-wide philanthropy which begins at the outside of our horizon to converge into egotism, of which I could show you many and notable examples. [Illustration] All my experience of the world teaches me that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the safe side and the just side of a question is the generous side and the merciful side. This your mere worldly people do not seem to know, and therein make the sorriest and the vulgarest of all mistakes. “_Pour être assez bon il faut l’être trop_:” we all need more mercy than we deserve. How often in this world the actions that we condemn are the result of sentiments that we love and opinions that we admire! [Illustration] 23.