He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds; who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candor, consideration, indulgence: he throws himself into the minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He knows the weakness of human reason as well as its strength, its province and its limits. If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound and large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it; he is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions as venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not assent; he honors the ministers of religion, and it contents him to decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of religious toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling, which is the attendant on civilization. THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER _By_ ALEXANDER POPE Father of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! Thou Great First Cause, least understood: Who all my sense confined To know but this, that Thou art good, And that myself am blind; Yet gave me, in this dark estate, And binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will. What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than hell to shun, That, more than heaven pursue. What blessings Thy free bounty gives, Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man receives: T' enjoy is to obey. Yet not to earth's contracted span Thy goodness let me bound, Or think Thee Lord alone of man, When thousand worlds are round. If I am right, Thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh! teach my heart To find that better way. Save me alike from foolish pride, Or impious discontent, At aught Thy wisdom has denied, Or aught Thy goodness lent. Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.