Then we have (not to dwell on a matter already spoken of) a peculiar privilege in the peculiar loveliness which the image of Death assumes to us. In our long leisure, all sweet and soothing associations of rest,--of relief from anxiety and wearing thought,--of re-entrance upon society,--(a society how sanctified!)--of the realisation of our best conceptions of what is holy, noble, and perfect,--all affections, all aspirations gather round the idea of Death, till it recurs at all our best moments, and becomes an abiding thought of peace and joy. When we hear or read of the departure of any one we knew,--of the death even of the youngest or the most active,--a throb of congratulatory feeling is our first emotion, rather than the shock which we used to experience, and which we now see sustained by those around us. Reflection, or tidings of survivors may change our view; but so does the image of Death become naturally endeared to us, that our first spontaneous thought is of favour to those who are selected for it. I am not recommending this impression as rational, but intimating it as characteristic of a peculiar condition. It is no slight privilege, however, to have that great idea which necessarily confronts every one of us all clothed with loveliness instead of horror, or mere mystery. Till now, we never knew how any anticipation may be incessantly filling with sweetness. It may be doubted whether there is a more heartfelt peace experienced at any point of our moral progress than in the right reception of calumnious injury. In the immediate return from the first recoil into the mood of forgiveness, there is something heavenly even to the novice. In the compassion for one’s calumniator there is pain; and it is a pain which increases with experience of life, and with our insight into the peril and misery of an unjust and malicious habit of mind; but in the act of pitying forgiveness, there is a solace so sweet as to make one wonder how long men will be in adopting this remedy for their injuries. Any one who has been ambitious, and with success, will, if he be wise, be ready to declare that not the first breath of fame was to him so sweet as the first emotions of forgiveness, the first stirrings of the love of enemies, after his earliest experience of the calumny by which all public effort is sure to be assailed. I am not supposing cowardly acquiescence in insult and injury. I am supposing the due self-assertion made, or defence found not to be practicable. This is all that others have to do with. A man’s self-communion on the matter is his own private affair: and little know the systematic calumniators, who for party’s or prejudice’s sake, assail those who can only return silence, how they really work in some hearts they seek to wound. In some they may excite rage or bitter anguish; but there are others,--probably many,--in which they cause no severer pain than a pitying sorrow for themselves,