ey are careless in the choice of good advisers, or
despise their salutary counsels; if they fail to make their own example
a speaking voice; if they are idle in the establishment of the reign of
God, and of reason, and of justice; if they fail to protect the
innocent, to reward public services, and to chastise the guilty and
disobedient; if they are not solicitous to foresee and to provide for
the troubles which may arise, or to turn aside, by careful diplomacy,
the storms which darken the horizon; if favour rather than merit
dictates their choice of ministers for the high offices of the kingdom;
if they do not immovably establish the state in its rightful power; if
they do not on all occasions prefer public interests to private
interests; then, however upright their life may otherwise be, they will
be found far more guilty than those who actively transgress the
commandments and the laws of God. And if kings or magistrates make use
of their power to commit any injustice or violence which they cannot
commit as private persons, they commit a king's or a magistrate's sin,
which has its source in their authority, and one for which the King of
Kings will doubtless demand a searching account on the day of judgement.

* * * * *

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Confessions

Rousseau's "Confessions" were written in England at Wootton,
in Staffordshire, where he had taken refuge after his
revolutionary ideas incurred the displeasure of the
authorities in France. They were first published in 1782. From
this refuge he was pursued from place to place by his
delusions through miserable years, until he died, near Paris,
on July 2, 1778. In no circumstances or relation of his life
was Rousseau a pleasant spectacle. The "Confessions,"
unexpurgated, are often revolting to any sane mind, and have
been proved to be untrustworthy even as a record of fact. But
almost incredible baseness was coupled with extraordinary
gifts, and it is impossible to overestimate Rousseau's
influence upon the modern world, and upon its literature and
its whole point of view and way of thinking. (Rousseau,
biography: see FICTION.)

I am undertaking a task for which there is no example, and one which
will find no imitator. It is to exhibit a man in the whole truth of
nature; and the man whom I shall reveal is myself. Myself alone; for I
verily believe I