Alexandria Daily Advertiser

BENEVOLENCE.

WHEN we examine the various characters and distinctions among men, if any of them claim our pure love, friendship and esteem, it is the man who possesses the genial traits of genuine benevolence; and it is he who is entitled to our first and highest encomiums; for benevolence is a principle of the heart, by and through which we receive the pleasure resulting from true inward happiness, the continuance of which will last until the indiscriminating hand of death summons the soul from its tabernacle of clay, to wing its course through the aetherial skies, to the blessed mansions above, the residence of those whose virtues and perfections have crowned their heads with laurels of immortal glory. Let us never withhold from the memory of those men, the praises which their virtues have obtained, but suffer the apologies of human nature to plead in their behalf—as perfection on this earth, has not nor never will be obtained; the wisest as well as the best of men have erred, humanum est errare. The benign influence of this godlike attribute benevolence, has a powerful tendency when it operates upon the human mind, to eradicate therefrom the sting of vice and immorality, with which it has been poisoned. To do a good action is a good man's secular study, and to promote the felicity of his fellow creatures his supreme delight. It is not so much his enquiry, who are, as where are the objects of pity and compassion, but to inform him is meritorious, because their wants are immediately meliorated by the administration of his help and assistance. The benevolent man harbours not a malicious thought, neither doth he take pleasure in exposing the faults of his fellow men; he is contented in concealing them from a slanderous world, and admonishing them in secret. "Happy the man who inherits this virtue; his days are days of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace."