We will then point out the criterion of pure virtue in an
example first, and, imagining that it is set before a boy, of say
ten years old, for his judgement, we will see whether he would
necessarily judge so of himself without being guided by his teacher.
Tell him the history of an honest man whom men want to persuade to
join the calumniators of an innocent and powerless person (say Anne
Boleyn, accused by Henry VIII of England). He is offered advantages,
great gifts, or high rank; he rejects them. This will excite mere
approbation and applause in the mind of the hearer. Now begins the
threatening of loss. Amongst these traducers are his best friends, who
now renounce his friendship; near kinsfolk, who threaten to disinherit
him (he being without fortune); powerful persons, who can persecute
and harass him in all places and circumstances; a prince, who
threatens him with loss of freedom, yea, loss of life. Then to fill
the measure of suffering, and that he may feel the pain that only
the morally good heart can feel very deeply, let us conceive his
family threatened with extreme distress and want, entreating him to
yield; conceive himself, though upright, yet with feelings not hard or
insensible either to compassion or to his own distress; conceive
him, I say, at the moment when he wishes that he had never lived to
see the day that exposed him to such unutterable anguish, yet
remaining true to his uprightness of purpose, without wavering or even
doubting; then will my youthful hearer be raised gradually from mere
approval to admiration, from that to amazement, and finally to the
greatest veneration, and a lively wish that be himself could be such a
man (though certainly not in such circumstances).
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