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Chap. V.] CULTIVATION OF PERSONAL RELIGION.

worthy arts to acquire popularity. It is scarcely going too far, inthis particular, to apply to him, all that Lord Mansfield claimedfor himself. “ I ‘wish for popularity ; ” said that great jurist,“ but it is that popularity which follows, not that which is runafter. It is that popularity, which sooner or later, never fails todo justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means. I willnot do that which my conscience tells me is wrong upon thisoccasion, to gain the huzzas of thousands, or the daily praise ofall the papers which come from the press. I will not avoid doingthat which I think is right, though it should draw on me thewhole artillery of libels, all that falsehood and malice can invent,or the credulity of a deluded populace can swallow. I can say,”continues he, “ with another great magistrate, upon an occasionand under circumstances not unlike, Ego hoc animo semperfui , ut invidiam virtute partam, gloriam , non invidiam , puta-rem.” * In thus adverting to the life of Dr. Franklin, to illustratethe duty of cultivating the personal virtues, I am justified, if notso much by the practice of modern writers, yet by the greatwriters of antiquity, with whom this was a favorite mode of illus-tration. It is in this way, that Cicero and Seneca have illustratedthe moral doctrines and principles which they taught, by availingthemselves of the acts, habits, traits of character, and example,not only of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, but of Cato, Fabius,Lselius, Scipio, and a host of other patriots and statesmen whosenames adorn the Roman history, f

* Quoted in Story’s u Miscellaneous Writings,” p. 415.

t Dr. Franklin had it in mind, during many years, to write and publish awork on practical morals; and he was only prevented from executing his inten-tion by the pressure of his private business, in the earlier part of his life, and,later in life, by public business. He proposed to entitle it, “ The Art of Virtue ,because,” says he, “ it would have shown the means and manner of obtainingvirtue, which would have distinguished it from the mere exhortation to be good,that does not instruct and indicate the means.” It was his design to explain andenforce this doctrine, u that vicious actions are not hurtful, because they areforbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone con-sidered ; that it was, therefore, the interest of every one to be virtuous, whowished to be happy, even in this world;” and, from this circumstance, it wasfurther his intention to “ endeavour to convince young persons, that no qualitiesare so likely to make a poor man’s fortune as those of probity and integrity.”(Franklin’s Works, Vol. I. pp. 96, 97.) It must be admitted, that Dr. Franklin’smorals were by far too exclusively utilitarian in their character, and his intend-

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