If a passionate person give you ill language, you ought rather to pity than be angry with him, for anger is a species of disease. And to correct one evil, will you make another? If his being angry is an evil, will it mend the matter to make _another_ evil, by indulging in passion yourself? Will it cure his disease, to throw yourself into the same distemper? But if not, then how foolish is it to indulge improper feelings at all! On the same principles, and for the same reasons, you should avoid returning railing for railing; or reviling for reproach. It only kindles the more heat. Besides, you will often find silence, or at least very gentle words, as in the case of the Quaker just mentioned, the best return for reproaches which could be devised. I say the best 'return;' but I would not be understood as justifying any species of _revenge_. The kind of _return_ here spoken of is precisely that treatment which will be most likely to cure the distemper in the other, by making him see, and be sorry for, his passion. If the views taken in this section be true, it is easy to see the consummate folly of all violence, whether between individuals or collective bodies, whether it be by _striking_, _duelling_, or _war_. For if an individual or a nation has done wrong, will it annihilate that wrong to counteract it by _another_ wrong? Is it not obvious that it only makes two evils, where but one existed before? And can two _wrongs_ ever make one _right_ action? Which is the most rational, when the choice is in our power, to add to one existing evil, another of similar or greater magnitude; or to keep quiet, and let the world have but one cup of misery instead of two? Besides, the language of Scripture is _every where_ full and decided on this point. 'Recompense to no man evil for evil,' and 'wo to him by whom the offence cometh,' though found but once or twice in just so many words, are in fact, some of the more prominent doctrines of the New Testament; and I very much doubt whether you can read many pages, in succession, in any part of the bible, without finding this great principle enforced. The daily example of the Saviour, and the apostles and early Christians, is a full confirmation of it, in practice. CHAPTER II. On the Management of Business. SECTION I. _On commencing Business._ Young men are usually in haste to commence business for themselves. This is an evil, and one which appears to me to be increasing. Let me caution my readers to be on their guard against it.