Miscellaneous Works Author:Henry Mackenzie Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: husband I am willing to expiate (as, alas ! he knows I do), by penitence and by suffering; yet for his own sake, and for the warning of others, let me ask him, i... more »f, for these injuries to him, and sufferings to me, he never imputes any blame to himself? I am told he is loud in his charges of my ingratitude and perfidy. I again repeat, that I will not otter to apologize for my weakness or my crimes. But it would be more dignified in him, as well as more just, were he to forget rather than to reproach the woman whose person he bought, whose affections he despised, whose innocence he corrupted,—whose ruin he has caused! Sophia M .. [No. 82. Saturday, August 26, 1786.] Je n'armc centre lui que le fruit de son crime.—Crebillon. The effects of moral instruction and precept on the mind have been rated very highly by some grave and worthy men, while by others the experience of their inefficacy, in regulating the conduct of the hearer or reader, has been cited as an indisputable proof of their unimportance. Among those, say they, on whom moral eloquence has employed all her powers, who have been tutored by the wisest and most virtuous teachers, and have had the advice and direction of the ablest and most persuasive guides, how few are there whose future conduct has answered to the instruction they received, or the maxims which were so often repeated to them. Natural disposition or acquired habits regulate the tenor of our lives ; and neither the sermon that persuades, nor the relation that moves, has any permanent effect on the actions of him who listens or who weeps. Yet, though examples of their efficacy are not very frequent, it does not altogether follow that the discourse or the story are useless and vain. Stronger motives will no doubt overpower weaker ones, and those whic...« less