with God, and with themselves. They practise a thousand little arts that indirectly distort the truth. Alas! every

man is a liar; those even who are naturally upright, sincere, and ingenuous, and who are what is called simple and natural, still have this jealous and sensitive reference to self in everything, which secretly nourishes pride and prevents that true simplicity which is the renunciation and perfect oblivion of self.

But it will be said, How can I help being occupied with myself? A crowd of selfish fears troubles me, and tyrannize over my mind, and excite a lively sensibility. The principal means to cure this is to yield yourself up sincerely to God; to place all your interests, pleasures, and reputation in His hands; to receive all the sufferings that He may inflict upon you in this scene of humiliation, as trials and tests of your love to Him, neither to fear the scrutiny, nor to avoid the censure of mankind. This state of willing acquiescence produces true liberty, and this liberty brings perfect simplicity. A soul that is liberated from the little earthly interests of self-love becomes confiding, and moves straight onward, and its views expand even to infinity, just in proportion as its forgetfulness of self increases, and its peace is profound even in the midst of trouble.

I have already said that the opinion of the world conforms to the judgment of God upon this noble simplicity. The world admires, even in its votaries, the free and easy manners of a person who has lost sight of self. But the simplicity, which is produced by a devotion to external things, still more vain than self, is not the true simplicity; it is only an image of it, and cannot represent its greatness. They who cannot find the substance, pursue the shadow; and shadow as it is, it has a charm, for it has some resem

blance to the reality that they have lost. A person full of defects, who does not attempt to hide them, who does not seek to dazzle, who does not affect either talents or virtue, who does not appear to think of himself more than of others, but to have lost sight of this self of which we are so jealous, pleases greatly, in spite of his defects. This false simplicity is taken for the true. On the contrary, a person full of talents, of virtues, and of exterior graces, if he appear artificial, if he be thinking of himself, if he affect the very best things, is a tedious and wearisome companion that no one likes.

Nothing, then, we grant, is more lovely and grand than simplicity. But some will say, Must we never think of self? We need not practise this constraint; in trying to be simple, we may lose simplicity. What, then, must we do? Make no rule about it, but be satisfied that you affect nothing. When you are disposed to speak of yourself from vanity, you can only repress this strong desire by thinking of God, or of what you are called upon by Him to do. Simplicity does not consist in false shame or false modesty, any more than in pride or vainglory. When vanity would lead to egotism, we have only to turn from self; when, on the contrary, there is a necessity of speaking of ourselves, we must not reason too much about it: we must look straight at the end. But what will they think of me? They will think I am boasting; I shall be suspected in speaking so freely of my own concerns. None of these unquiet reflections should trouble us for one moment. Let us speak freely, ingenuously, and simply of ourselves when we are called upon to speak. It is thus that St. Paul spoke often in his Epistles. What true greatness there is in speaking with simplicity of one's self!

Vainglory is sometimes hidden under an air of modesty and reserve. People do not wish to proclaim their own merit, but they would be very glad that others should discover it. They would have the reputation both of virtue and of the desire to hide it.

As to the matter of speaking against ourselves, I do not either blame or recommend it. When it arises from true simplicity, and that hatred with which God inspires us ⚫ for our sins, it is admirable, and thus I regard it in many holy men. But usually the surest and most simple way is not to speak unnecessarily of one's self, either good or evil. Self-love often prefers abuse to oblivion and silence; and when we have often spoken ill of ourselves, we are quite ready to be reconciled, just like angry lovers, who, after a quarrel, redouble their devotion to each other.

This simplicity is manifested in the exterior. As the mind is freed from this idea of self, we act more naturally, all art ceases, and we act rightly without thinking of what we are doing, by a sort of directness of purpose that is inexplicable to those who have no experience of it. To some we may appear less simple than those who have a more grave and practised manner; but these are people of bad taste, who take the affectation of modesty for modesty itself, and who have no knowledge of true simplicity. This true simplicity has sometimes a careless and irregular appearance, but it has the charm of truth and candor, and sheds around it I know not what of purity and innocence, of cheerfulness and peace; a loveliness that wins us when we see it intimately and with pure eyes.

How desirable is this simplicity! who will give it to me? I will quit all else to obtain it, for it is the pearl of great price.

SPEECH WHEN UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH

BY ROBERT EMMET

MY LORDS, what have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me according to law? I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce and I must abide by. But I have that to say which interests me more than life and which you have labored (as was necessarily your office in the present circumstances of this oppressed country) to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it. I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your minds can be so free from impurity as to receive the least impression from what I am going to utter-I have no hopes that I can anchor my character in the breast of a court constituted and trammeled as this is-I only wish, and it is the utmost I expect, that your lordships may suffer it to float down your memories, untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable harbor to shelter it from the storm by which it is at present buffeted.

Was I only to suffer death after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the sentence of law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of that law, labor in its own vindication to consign my character to obloquy-for there must be guilt somewhere: whether in the sentence of the court or in the catastrophe, posterity must determine.

A man in my situation, my lords, has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune and the force of power over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the difficulties of established prejudice: the man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me.

When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field in defense of their country and of virtue, this is my hope: I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its dominion by blasphemy of the Most High-which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest; which sets man upon his brother and lifts his hand in the name of God against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or a little less than the government standard-a government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which it has made

[Here Lord Norbury interrupted Mr. Emmet, saying that the mean and wicked enthusiasts who felt as he did were not equal to the accomplishment of their wild designs.]

I appeal to the immaculate God-I swear by the throne of heaven, before which I must shortly appear by the blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before methat my conduct has been, through all this peril and all my purposes, governed only by the convictions which I