Chap. I.]

FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES.

373

I. The rule of forgiveness, when injury has been done to us,is, of all the rules of conduct, best adapted both to the moraland physical constitution of man. As a general principle, if wewish to know what will be the effect of a certain course of con-duct on others, we have only to turn our attention inward , andinquire, what would be its effect on ourselves ? We all know,that the natural effect of anger in others towards us is to exciteanger in ourselves ; of kindness, to excite feelings of kindness.It seems to be a universal law of nature, that like should produceits like. The herb yields seed, and the fruit-tree fruit, each afterits kind ; and on the regularity and certainty of this law the hus-bandman relies with the utmost confidence. Something like thesame law prevails in regard to many diseases to which the hu-man body is subject. Fever flies from one individual to another,and is, in kind, the same disease. The same law prevails in theintellectual and moral world. In all that is said about the forceof example, this is taken for granted. It is upon this principle, ^also, that we account for the power of sympathy. The naturaltendency of mirth is to awaken mirth, and of grief to producegrief. So also of the benevolent and the malignant passions.Does not unkindness towards us from others excite unkindfeelings towards them in our own breasts ?

As a necessary consequence of this law, therefore, we, byretaliation, or returning evil for evil, are only adding fuel to theflame. It was, probably, some unkindness on our part, eitherreal or imagined, which first excited the hostile feelings towardsus. By increasing that unkindness if real, or by making it realif it was imaginary, do we expect to remove the hostile feelings ?We might as well expect to remove an infection from an individ-ual by filling his lungs with the fatal miasma which has caused it.We might as well expect, that, in agriculture, corn will not yieldcorn, and wheat will not yield wheat. We might as well laugh,and expect others to weep ; or weep, and expect others to laugh.There is, then, a two-fold wrong in returning evil for evil. Weare cherishing the same angry feelings in our own minds whichwe condemn in others ; and, in the minds of others, we are in-creasing and perpetuating the same feelings. u As coals are to