WHO is the most wretched man living?  This question might constitute a very fair puzzle to those of our readers whose kind hearts have given them, in their own experience, no clue to the true answer.  It is a species of happiness to be rich; to have at one’s command an abundance of the elegancies and luxuries of life.  Then he, perhaps, is the most miserable of men who is the poorest.  It is a species of happiness to be the possessor of learning, fame, or power; and therefore, perhaps, he is the most miserable man who is the most ignorant, despised, and helpless.  No; there is a man more wretched than these.  We know not where he may be found; but find him where you will, in a prison or on a throne, steeped in poverty or surrounded with princely affluence; execrated, as he deserves to be, or crowned with world-wide applause; that man is the most miserable whose heart contains the least love for others.

It is a pleasure to be beloved.  Who has not felt this?  Human affection is priceless.  A fond heart is more valuable than the Indies.  But it is a still greater pleasure to love than to be loved; the emotion itself is of a higher kind; it calls forth our own powers into more agreeable exercise, and is independent of the caprice of others.  Generally speaking, if we deserve to be loved, others will love us, but this is not always the case.  The love of others towards us, is not always in proportion to our real merits; and it would be unjust to make our highest happiness dependent on it.  But our love for others will always be in proportion to our real goodness; the more amiable, the more excellent we become, the more shall we love others; it is right, therefore, that this love should be made capable of bestowing upon us the largest amount of happiness.  This is the arrangement which the Creator has fixed upon.  By virtue of our moral constitution, to love is to be happy; to hate is to be wretched.

Hatred is a strong word, and the idea it conveys is very repulsive.  We would hope that few of our readers know by experience what it is in its full extent.  To be a very demon, to combine in ourselves the highest possible degree of wickedness and misery, nothing more is needful than to hate with sufficient intensity.  But though, happily, comparatively few persons are fully under the influence of this baneful passion, how many are under it more frequently and powerfully than they ought to be?  How often do we indulge in resentful, revengeful feelings, with all of which hatred more or less mixes itself?  Have we not sometimes entertained sentiments positively malignant towards those who have wounded our vanity or injured our interests, secretly wishing them ill, or not heartily wishing them happiness?  If so, we need only consult our own experience to ascertain that such feelings are both sinful and foolish; they offend our Maker, and render us wretched.