| | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| H.| | | | | | | |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of
the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great
guard was to avoid every the least offence against Temperance,
leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking
every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week
I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I suppos'd
the habit of that virtue so much strengthen'd and its opposite
weaken'd, that I might venture extending my attention to include
the next, and for the following week keep both lines clear of spots.
Proceeding thus to the last, I could go thro' a course compleat
in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who,
having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad
herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works
on one of the beds at a time, and, having accomplish'd the first,
proceeds to a second, so I should have, I hoped, the encouraging
pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue,
by clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end,
by a number of courses, I should he happy in viewing a clean book,
after a thirteen weeks' daily examination.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142