rative of the case of
those who, without injury to themselves, (the injury to our neighbour
is, as I said before, a different part of the subject,) may attend the
ball-room, the theatre, and the race-course. Those animals lowest in the
scale of creation, those who scarcely manifest one of the energies of
vitality, are also those which are the least susceptible of suffering
from external causes. The medusae are supposed to feel no pain even in
being devoured, and the human zoophyte is, in like manner, comparatively
out of the reach of every suffering but death. Have you not seen some
beings endowed with humanity nearly as destitute of a nervous system as
the medusae, nearly as insusceptible of any sensation from the accidents
of life. Some of these, too, may possess virtue and piety as well as the
animal qualities of patience and sweetness of temper, which are the mere
results of their physical organization. No degree of effort or
discipline, however, (indeed they bear within themselves no capabilities
for either,) could enable such persons to become eminently useful,
eminently respected, or eminently loved. They have doubtless some work
appointed them to do, and that a necessary work in God's earthly
kingdom; but theirs are inferior duties, very different from those which
you, and such as you, are called on to fulfil.

Have I in any degree succeeded in reconciling you to the
unvaryingly-accompanying penalties necessary to qualify the glad
consciousness of possessing intellectual powers, a warm heart, and a
strong mind? Your high position will indeed afford you far less
happiness than that which may belong to the lower ranks in the scale of
humanity; but the noble mind will soon be disciplined into dispensing
with happiness;--it will find instead--blessedness.

If yours be a more difficult path than that of others, it is also a more
honourable one: in proportion to the temptations endured will be the
brightness of that "crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them
that love him."[94]

But there is, perhaps, less necessity for trying to impress upon your
mind a sense of your superiority than for urging upon you its
accompanying responsibility, and the severe circumspection it calls upon
you to exercise. Thus, from what I have above written, it necessarily
follows that you cannot evade the question I am now pressing upon you by
observing the effect of dissipation upon others, by bringing forward the
example of man