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Article ON SUBDUING OUR PASSIONS. ← Page 3 of 3
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On Subduing Our Passions.
If the difficulty accompanying this conflict should dismay us , the gloty that awaits it ought to raise our courage ; for heaven sees nothing more illustrious , and the earth bears nothing more glorious , than a man that commands his Passions ; all the crowns in the world cannot worthil y adorn his head , all praises fall short of his merits , eternity alone can reward so exalted a virtue ; even its shadows
are agreeable , and its reality has such engaging charms , that it commands a sort of adoration : We do not revere Socrates and Caf . o , but because they had some tincture df it , and we do not rank them , in the number of sages , but for having triumphed over our basest passions . The glory of the , se great men exceeds b y far in purity thatof the Alexanders and Ctesarstheir victory has made
, ; no widows nor orphans ; their conquests have not depopulated kino-doms ; their battles bave caused no blood , nor tears to be shed : and ° in order to set themselves at liberty , the 3 * have made no prisoners nor slaves . All their acts are read with pleasure , and in the whole course of their innocent life , we meet with no objects that inspire horror ; they were born for the good of the world they laboured for the re
-; pose of mankind ; no nations are observed to be uneasy at their happiness , nor to rejoice at their death : And now , what " honour should a conqueror expect , who is indebted for all his greatness to his injustice , who is illustrious only because he is criminal , and who would not have been mentioned in history , if he had not slaughtered men ,
sacked towns , ruined provinces , and laid waste kingdoms ? . Those who have waged war against their Passions , enjoy a more real j > leasure , and such innocent conquerors receive from us the tribute of a more glorious praise . We raise them above the conditions of monarchs , we model our actions by theirs , we borrow their weapons for fi ghting against the enemy they have defeated , we read their lives
as conquerors do that of CEesar , we form ourselves to virtue b y them , and we remark in them the fine maxims they held to , the innocent stratagems they practised , and the noble designs they undertook for gaining such famous victories . Their most assured maxims were , not to rely on their own strength ,, to implore the assistance of Heavenand to hope for more from than from nature : If thou
, grace desirestto conquer *; says St . Augustine , do not presume of thyself ; but assign to him the glory of the victo ^* , by whom thou expectest to be crowned . Their more ordinary stratagems were to prevent their passions , to deprive them of strength in order to deprive them of courage , to attack them in their birth , and not to wait till riper ao-e had rendered them more vi Their more memorable
entergorous . prizes were to make incursions on their enemies territoty , to consider their countenance , to observe their designs , and to remove all the objects that mi ght set them in motion : These means will succeed happily with us , if we do but employ them , and we shall not fail of succours , all moral virtues being so many faithful allies that fi ght for our liberty , and- supply us with arms for ' subduing our Passions . Z .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On Subduing Our Passions.
If the difficulty accompanying this conflict should dismay us , the gloty that awaits it ought to raise our courage ; for heaven sees nothing more illustrious , and the earth bears nothing more glorious , than a man that commands his Passions ; all the crowns in the world cannot worthil y adorn his head , all praises fall short of his merits , eternity alone can reward so exalted a virtue ; even its shadows
are agreeable , and its reality has such engaging charms , that it commands a sort of adoration : We do not revere Socrates and Caf . o , but because they had some tincture df it , and we do not rank them , in the number of sages , but for having triumphed over our basest passions . The glory of the , se great men exceeds b y far in purity thatof the Alexanders and Ctesarstheir victory has made
, ; no widows nor orphans ; their conquests have not depopulated kino-doms ; their battles bave caused no blood , nor tears to be shed : and ° in order to set themselves at liberty , the 3 * have made no prisoners nor slaves . All their acts are read with pleasure , and in the whole course of their innocent life , we meet with no objects that inspire horror ; they were born for the good of the world they laboured for the re
-; pose of mankind ; no nations are observed to be uneasy at their happiness , nor to rejoice at their death : And now , what " honour should a conqueror expect , who is indebted for all his greatness to his injustice , who is illustrious only because he is criminal , and who would not have been mentioned in history , if he had not slaughtered men ,
sacked towns , ruined provinces , and laid waste kingdoms ? . Those who have waged war against their Passions , enjoy a more real j > leasure , and such innocent conquerors receive from us the tribute of a more glorious praise . We raise them above the conditions of monarchs , we model our actions by theirs , we borrow their weapons for fi ghting against the enemy they have defeated , we read their lives
as conquerors do that of CEesar , we form ourselves to virtue b y them , and we remark in them the fine maxims they held to , the innocent stratagems they practised , and the noble designs they undertook for gaining such famous victories . Their most assured maxims were , not to rely on their own strength ,, to implore the assistance of Heavenand to hope for more from than from nature : If thou
, grace desirestto conquer *; says St . Augustine , do not presume of thyself ; but assign to him the glory of the victo ^* , by whom thou expectest to be crowned . Their more ordinary stratagems were to prevent their passions , to deprive them of strength in order to deprive them of courage , to attack them in their birth , and not to wait till riper ao-e had rendered them more vi Their more memorable
entergorous . prizes were to make incursions on their enemies territoty , to consider their countenance , to observe their designs , and to remove all the objects that mi ght set them in motion : These means will succeed happily with us , if we do but employ them , and we shall not fail of succours , all moral virtues being so many faithful allies that fi ght for our liberty , and- supply us with arms for ' subduing our Passions . Z .