“Never,” said my aunt, “be mean in anything; never be false, never be cruel.  Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.”

C. Dickens, in David Copperfield.

* * * * *

Sympathy.

Wherefore it is evident that even the ordinary exercise of this faculty of sympathy implies a condition of the whole moral being in some measure right and healthy, and that to the entire exercise of it there is necessary the entire perfection of the Christian character, for he who loves not God, nor his brother, cannot love the grass beneath his feet and the creatures that fill those spaces in the universe which he needs not, and which live not for his uses; nay, he has seldom grace to be grateful even to those that love and serve him, while, on the other hand, none can love God nor his human brother without loving all things which his Father loves, nor without looking upon them every one as in that respect his brethren also, and perhaps worthier than he, if in the under concords they have to fill their part is touched more truly.

Ruskin.

* * * * *

Mercy.

    The quality of mercy is not strained;
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
    Upon the place beneath:  it is twice blessed;
    It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes: 
    ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest:  it becomes
    The throned monarch better than his crown: 
    His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
    The attribute to awe and majesty,
    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 
    But mercy is above this sceptred sway: 
    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
    It is an attribute to God himself;
    And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
    When mercy seasons justice.  Therefore,... 
    Though justice be thy plea, consider this,—­
    That, in the course of justice, none of us
    Should see salvation.  We do pray for mercy;
    And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
    The deeds of mercy.

Shakespeare:  Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Sc. 1.

* * * * *

Results and duties of man’s supremacy.

And in that primeval account of Creation which the second chapter of Genesis gives us, the first peculiar characteristic of the Human Being is that he assumes the rank of the Guardian and Master of every fowl of the air and every beast of the field.  They gather round him, he names them, he classifies them, he seeks for companionship from them.  It is the fit likeness and emblem of their relation to him in the course of history.  That “earnest expectation of the creature” which the Apostle describes, that, “stretching forth the head” of the whole creation towards a brighter and better state as ages