verted to; and if every other resource fail
us, we come at last to the same conclusion as the Brothers adopted, that
after all, those rigorous clauses require some allowance, and a
favourable interpretation, and ought to be understood "cum grano salis."

But when the law both in its spirit and its letter is obstinate and
incorrigible, what we cannot bend to our purpose we must break--"Our
sins we hope are of the smaller order; a little harmless gallantry, a
little innocent jollity, a few foolish expletives which we use from the
mere force of habit, meaning nothing by them; a little warmth of
colouring and licence of expression; a few freedoms of speech in the
gaiety of our hearts, which, though not perhaps strictly correct, none
but the over-rigid would think of treating any otherwise than as venial
infirmities, and in which very grave and religious men will often take
their share, when they may throw off their state, and relax without
impropriety. We serve an all-merciful Being, who knows the frailty of
our nature, the number and strength of our temptations, and will not be
extreme to mark what is done amiss. Even the less lenient judicatures of
human institution concede somewhat to the weakness of man. It is an
established maxim--'De minimis non curat lex.' We hope we are not worse
than the generality. All men are imperfect. We own we have our
infirmities; we confess it is so; we wish we were better, and trust as
we grow older we shall become so; we are ready to acknowledge that we
must be indebted for our admission into a future state of happiness, not
to our own merit, but to the clemency of God, and the mercy of our
Redeemer."

But let not this language be mistaken for that of true Christian
humiliation, of which it is the very essence to feel the burden of sin,
and to long to be released from it: nor let two things be confounded,
than which none can be more fundamentally different, the allowed want of
universality in our determination, and our endeavour to obey the will of
God, and that defective accomplishment of our purposes, which even the
best of men will too often find reason to deplore. In the persons of
whom we have been now speaking, the unconcern with which they can amuse
themselves upon the borders of sin, and the easy familiarity with which
they can actually dally with it in its less offensive shapes, shew
plainly that, distinctly from its consequences, it is by no means the
object of their aversion; t