against religious offences, whether it shall be death, or exile, or fine, or imprisonment, or any other, becomes a mere political question, just as in the case of the penalties for other crimes.

But if, on the contrary, we are to understand and comply with, in the simple and obvious sense, our Lord's injunction to 'render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's;' and his declaration that his kingdom is not of this world;' and if we are to believe his Apostles sincere in renouncing, on behalf of themselves and their followers, all design of propagating their faith by secular force, or of monopolizing for Christians as such, or for any particular denomination of Christians, secular power and political rights, then, all penalties and privations, great or small, inflicted on purely religious grounds, must be equally of the character of persecution (though all are not equally severe persecution), and all alike unchristian. Persecution, in short, is not wrong because it is cruel, but it is cruel because it is wrong.

ESSAY IV. OF REVENGE.

EVENGE is a kind of wild justice, which the more Man's

REVER

nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out for as for the first wrong, it does but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon: and Solomon, I am sure, saith, 'It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence."1 That which is past is gone and irrecoverable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that labour in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like; therefore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy: but then, let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still beforehand, and it is two for one.

Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh: this is the more generous; for the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent: but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.

Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. 'You shall read,' saith he, 'that we are commanded to forgive our enemies, but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends.' But yet the spirit of Job3 was in a better tune: Shall we,' saith he, 'take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also?' and so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would

1 Proverbs xix. II. 2 Neglecting. Neglectful; negligent.

3 Job ii. 10.

heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Cæsar; for the death of Pertinax ; for the death of Henry III. of France; and many more. But

in private revenges it is not so; nay, rather vindictive persons live the life of witches, who, as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate.

'Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it cometh.'

It is certainly, as Bacon remarks, more generous'—or less ungenerous-to desire that the party receiving the punishment should know whence it cometh.' Aristotle distinguishes opyn -('Resentment' or 'Anger') from Mooç,-'Hatred,' (and when active, Malice')-by this. The one who hates, he says, wishes the object of his hatred to suffer, or to be destroyed, no matter by whom; while Resentment craves that he should know from whom, and for what, he suffers. And he instances Ulysses in the Odyssey, who was not satisfied with the vengeance he had

1 See, in Guy Mannering, Pleydell's remark, that if you have not a regular chimney for the smoke, it will find its way through the whole house.

taken, under a feigned name, on the Cyclops, till he had told

him who he really was.

So Shakespere makes Macduff, in his eager desire of vengeance on Macbeth, say,

'If thou be slain, and with no sword of mine,

My wife's and children's ghosts will haunt me still.'

'In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior,' &c.

Bacon, in speaking of the duty, and of the difficulty, of forgiving injuries, might have remarked that some of the things hardest to forgive are not what any one would consider injuries -i.e., wrongs, at all.

Many would reprobate the use, in such a case, of the word forgive. And the word ought not to be insisted on; though that most intelligent woman, Miss Elizabeth Smith, says (in her commonplace-book, from which posthumous extracts were published) that a woman has need of extraordinary gentleness and modesty to be forgiven for possessing superior ability and learning.' She would probably have found this true even now, to a certain degree; though less than in her time.

But not to insist on a word, say, instead of 'forgive,' that it is hard to judge fairly of' and to 'feel kindly towards,'

(1.) One who adheres to the views which were yours, and which you have changed. This was, doubtless, one of the Apostle Paul's trials. But in his case, the miracle he had experienced, and the powers conferred on himself, could leave no doubt on his mind. But the trial is much harder when you hear arguments used against you which you had yourself formerly employed, and which you cannot now refute; and when you rest on reasons which you had formerly shown to be futile, and which do not quite satisfy you now; and when you know that you are suspected, and halfsuspect yourself, of being in some way biassed. Then it is that you especially need some one to keep you in countenance; and are tempted to be angry with those who will not, however they may abstain from reproaching you with apostasy.

Of course there is a trial on the opposite side also; but it is far less severe. For, a change implies error, first or last; and this is galling to one's self-esteem. The one who had adhered to his system, sect, or opinion, may hug himself on his (so-called)

consistency; and may congratulate himself—inwardly, if not openly,―on the thought that at least he may be quite right all through; whereas the other must have been wrong somewhere. 'I stand,' he may say to himself, where he was; I think as he thought, and do what he did; he cannot at any rate tax me with fickleness; nor can he blame anything in me which he was not himself guilty of.' All this is as soothing to the one party, as the thought of it is irritating to the other.

(2.) One who has proved right in the advice and warning he gave you, and which you rejected.

'I bear you no ill will, Lizzy' (says Mr. Bennet, in Miss Austen's Pride and Prejudice), for being justified in the warning you gave me. Considering how things have turned out, I think this shows some magnanimity.'

(3.) One who has carried off some prize from you; whether the woman you were in love with, or some honour, or situation, -especially if he has attained with little exertion what you had been striving hard for, without success.

This is noticed by Aristotle (Rhetoric, Book ii.) as one great ground of envy (pdovos).

(4.) One who has succeeded in some undertaking whose failure you had predicted: such as the railroad over Chat Moss, which most of the engineers pronounced impossible; or the Duke of Bridgewater's aqueduct, which was derided as a castle in the air.

Again, with some minds of a baser nature, there is a difficulty, proverbially, in forgiving those whom one is conscious of having injured and, again, those (especially if equals or inferiors) who have done very great and important services, beyond what can ever receive an adequate return. Rochefoucault even says that to most men it is less dangerous to do hurt than to do them too much good.' But then it was his system to look on the dark side only of mankind.

Tacitus, also, who is not very unlike him in this respect, says that benefits are acceptable as far as it appears they may be repaid; but that when they far exceed this, hatred takes the place of gratitude.' It is only, however, as has been said, the basest natures to whom any of these last mentioned trials can occur, as trials.

In all these and some other such cases, there is evidently no