KINDNESS. ON KINDNESS IN GENERAL. The weakness of man, and the way in which he is at the mercy of external accidents in the world, has always been a favourite topic with the moralists. They have expatiated upon it with so much amplitude of rhetorical exaggeration, that it has at last produced in our mmds a sense of unreality, against which we rebel. Man is no doubt very weak. He can only be passive in a thunderstorm, or run in an earthquake. The odds are against him when he is managing his ship in a hurricane, or when pestilence is raging in the house where he lives. Heat and cold, drought and rain, are his masters. .He is weaker than an elephant, and subordinate to the east wind. This is all very true. Nevertheless man has considerable powers, considerable enough to leave him, as proprietor of this planet, in possession of at least as much comfortable jurisdiction, as most landed proprietors have in a free country. He has one power in particular, which is not Table of Contents KINDNESS; PAGE; 1 Kindness in general, ?• i; 2 Kind Thoughts, » ,* >• 19; 3 Kind Words, » 32; 4* Kind Actions, •• •• #» »? 44; U DEATH; t The Aspects of Death, « •# » 59; 2 The Characteristics of Death, •? 82; 3 Preparation for Death, no; 4 A Death precious in the sight of God, •• •• 131; III SELF-DECEIT; 1 Simplicity, ?• # •» 1^3; 2 The Fountains of Self-deceit, •• 168; 3 The Varieties of Self-deceit, ?» •• 185; 4 The Characteristics of Self-deceit, 227; contents; iv, why so little comes of frequent confession, « *; v weariness in welldoing, vi wounded feelings, vii confidence the only worship, viii taking- scandal,; • ? • •; # * * ? •; * * •; ix a taste for reading- considered as a help in the spiritual life, ; x the monotony of piety,; xi heayen and hell, ; xn, all men have a special vocation, ;