A tender heart is the kind boon of heaven, and forgiveness is a virtue too little exercised in the common intercourse of life.  Men are too apt to be in character Pharisees.  They are too apt to love those that love them, and hate their enemies.  Retaliation is inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel, and is a vice deeply to be stigmatized and deprecated by all lovers of peace and morality.  By retaliation, we are to understand the injuring of another because he has injured us.  This spirit of revenge betrays a contracted mind in which the feelings of compassion and forbearance never found a permanent abode.  A man of a peevish, irritable and revengeful temperament, is to be pitied, instead of being injured in return.  By retaliating the evil he may have done, you involve yourself in the same condition of meanness, and in your turn become the injurer.

All those men, whose names are rendered illustrious and immortal, have been distinguished for a spirit of forbearance, kindness and mercy.  Were there no examples of rashness—­no failings and imperfections among men, there would, then, be no opportunity to distinguish ourselves by a spirit of forgiveness.  God has so constituted the present existence of his creatures, that the perfections of his divine character might be manifested to them in the unchanging exercise of his paternal compassion and forgiveness; and thus afford them an opportunity to imitate himself in the exercise of those exalted feelings, which emanate from heaven.

We are not, however, to understand that tenderness of heart and forgiveness are to be exercised to the utter exclusion of the principles of honor and justice.  If our children offend, or our dearest earthly friend do wrong, we are to manifest the feelings of tenderness and forgiveness, but these ought not to induce us to overlook their crimes or faults, by remaining silent in regard to their vices.  This would be suffering our compassion to degenerate into weakness.  It would in fact be hardness of heart.  It would betray a spirit of indifference to their dearest interest, as by our silence, they might remain in blindness to the demerit of their deeds, and hurry on to the ruin of their reputation, and consequently, of their earthly happiness.  True tenderness of heart makes us watchful over the conduct of those we love, and with whom we are connected in life—­ moves us to lay naked before them their faults, so that they may early correct them, and thus inspires their hearts with tenderness, and prompts them to regard the happiness, feelings and welfare of others.  It is immaterial how near and dear your friend may be, you should, by the feelings of mercy, be induced to tell him his faults, however much it may wound his heart.  The wise man says “the wounds of a friend are faithful; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”  Too many parents, for want of determination of character, and for suffering their compassion to degenerate into weakness and remaining blind to the faults of their