Complete Works of Laurence Sterne

by Laurence Sterne

  And could we look into the hearts of those who know they deserve ill, we should find many an instance, where a kindness from an injured hand, where there was least reason to expect one, has struck deeper and touched the heart with a degree of remorse and concern, which perhaps no severity or resentment could have reached. This reflection will in some measure help to explain this difficulty, which occurs in the story. For it is observable, that when the injury they had done their brother was first committed, and the fact was fresh upon their minds, and most likely to have filled them with a sense of guilt, we find no acknowledgment or complaint to one another of such a load, as one might imagine it had laid upon them; and from that event, through a long course of years to the time they had gone down to Egypt, we read not once of any sorrow or compunction of heart, which they had felt during all that time, for what they had done. They had artfully imposed upon their parent — (and as men are ingenious casuits in their own affairs,) they had, probably, as artfully imposed upon their own consciences; — and possibly had never impartially reflected upon the action, or considered it in its just light, till the many acts of their brother’s love and kindness had brought it before them, with all the circumstances of aggravation which his behaviour would naturally give it. — They then began maturely to consider what they had done, — that they had first undeservedly hated him in his childhood for that, which if it was a ground of complaint, ought rather to have been charged upon the indiscretion of the parent than considered as a fault in him. That upon a more just examination and a better knowledge of their brother, they had wanted even that pretence. — It was not a blind partiality which seemed first to have directed their father’s affection to him, — though then they thought so, — for doubtless so much goodness and benevolence as shone forth in his nature, now that he was a man, could not lay all of it so deep concealed in his youth, but the sagacity of a parent’s eye would discover it, and that in course their enmity towards him was founded upon that which ought to have won their esteem. — That if he had incautiously added envy to their ill will in reporting his dreams, which presaged his future greatness, it was but the indiscretion of a youth unpractised in the world, who had not yet found out the art of dissembling his hopes and expectations, and was scarce arrived at an age to comprehend there was such a thing in the world as envy and ambition: — that if such offences in a brother, so fairly carried their own excuses with them, what could they say for themselves, when they considered it was for this they had almost unanimously conspired to rob him of his life; — and though they were happily restrained from shedding his blood upon Reuben’s remonstrance, that they had nevertheless all the guilt of the intention to answer for. — That whatever motive it was, which then stayed their hands, their consciences told them, it could not be a good one, since they had changed the sentence for one no less cruel in itself, and what to an ingenuous nature was worse than death, to be sold for a slave. — The one was common to all, — the other only to the unfortunate. That it was not compassion which then took place, for had there been any way open to that, his tears and entreaties must have found it, when they saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought and they would not hear. — That if aught still could heighten the remorse of banishing a youth without provocation for ever from his country, and the protection of his parent, to be exposed naked to the buffetings of the world, and the rough hand of some merciless master, they would find it in this reflection,

  “That many afflictions and hardships, which they might naturally have expected would overtake the lad, consequent upon this action, had actually fallen upon him.”

  That besides the anguish of suspected virtue, he had felt that of a prison, where he had long lain neglected in a friendless condition; and where the affliction of it was rendered still sharper by the daily expectations of being remembered by Pharoah’s chief butler, and the disappointment of finding himself ungratefully forgotten. — And though Moses tells us, that he found favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison, yet the Psalmist acquaints that his sufferings were still grievous; — That his feet were hurt with fetters, and the iron entered even into his soul. And no doubt, his brethren thought the sense of their injury must have entered at the same time, and was then rivetted and fixed in his mind for ever.

  It is natural to imagine they argued and reflected in this manner, and there seems no necessity of seeking for the reason of their uneasiness and distrust in Joseph’s conduct, or any other external cause, since the inward workings of their own minds will easily account for the evil they apprehended. — A series of benefits and kindnesses from the man they had injured, gradually heightened the idea of their own guilt, till at length they could not conceive, how the trespass could be forgiven them; — it appeared with such fresh circumstances of aggravation, that though they were convinced his resentment slept, yet they thought it only slept, and was likely some time or other to awake, and most probably then, that their father was dead, when the consideration of involving him in his revenge had ceased, and all the duty and compassion he owed to the grey hairs and happiness of a parent was discharged, and buried with him.

  This they express in the consultation held amongst themselves in the words of the text; and in the following verse, we find them accordingly sending to him to deprecate the evil they dreaded; and either, because they thought their father’s name more powerful than their own, in this application — or rather, that they might not commit a fresh injury in seeming to suspect his sincerity, they pretend their father’s direction; for we read they sent messengers unto Joseph saying, Thy father did command before he died saying, — so shall ye say unto Joseph, —

  “Forgive I pray thee now the trespass of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil: and now we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father.”

  The address was not without art, and was conceived in such words as seemed to suggest an argument in their favour, — as if it would not become him, who was but a fellow servant of their father’s God, to harbour revenge, or use the power their father’s God had given him against his children. Nor was there a reason in any thing, but the fear of a guilty conscience to apprehend it, as appears from the reception which the address met, which was such as bespoke an uncommon goodness of nature; for when they thus spake unto him, — the historian says, he wept. Sympathy, for the sorrow and distress of so many sons of his father, now all in his power, — pain at so open and ingenuous a confession of their guilt, — concern and pity for the long punishment they must have endured by so stubborn a remorse, which so many years seemed not to have diminished. The affecting idea of their condition, which had seemed to reduce them to the necessity of holding up their hands for mercy, when they had lost their protector, — so many tender passions struggling together at once overcame him; — he burst into tears, which spoke what no language could attempt. It will be needless therefore to enlarge any further upon this incident, which furnishes us with so beautiful a picture of a compassionate and forgiving temper, that I think no words can heighten it; — but rather let us endeavour to find out by what helps and reasoning, the patriarch might be supposed to attain to so exalted and engaging a virtue. Perhaps you will say, “That one so thoroughly convinced, as Joseph seemed to be, of the over-ruling providence of God, which so evidently made use of the malice and passions of men, and turns them as instruments in his hands to work his own righteousness and bring about his eternal decrees, — and of which, his own history was so plain an instance, could not have far to seek for an argument to forgiveness, or feel much struggle in stifling an inclination against it. — But let any man lay his hand upon his heart and say, how often, in instances where anger and revenge had seized him, has this doctrine come in to his aid. — In the bitterness of an affront, how often has it calmed his passions, and checked the fury of his resentment? — True and universally believed as the doctrine is amongst us, it seldom does this service, though so well suited for it, and like some wise statute, never execut
ed or thought of, though in full force, lies as unheeded as if it was not in being.

  ’Tis plain ’twas otherways in the present instance, where Joseph seems to acknowledge the influence it had upon him, in his declaration, —

  “That it was not they, but God who sent him.”

  And does not this virtue shine the brightest in such a pious application of the persuasion to so benevolent a purpose?

  Without derogating from the merit of his forbearance, he might be supposed to have cast an eye upon the change and uncertainty of human affairs which he had seen himself, and which had convinced him we were all in another’s power by turns, and stand in need of one another’s pity and compassion: — and that to restrain the cruelties, and stop the insolences of men’s resentments, God has so ordered it in the course of his providence, that very often in this world — our revenges return upon our own heads, and men’s violent dealings upon their own pates.

  That besides these considerations, — that in generously forgiving an enemy; he was the truest friend to his own character, and should gain more to it by such an instance of subduing his spirit, than if he had taken a city. — The brave know only how to forgive; — it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue, human nature can arrive at. — Coward shave done good and kind actions, — cowards have even fought — nay sometimes even conquered; — but a coward never forgave. — It is not in his nature; — the power of doing it flows only from a strength and greatness of soul, conscious of its own force and security, and above the little temptations of resenting every fruitless attempt to interrupt its happiness. Moreover, setting aside all considerations of his character, in passing by an injury, he was the truest friend likewise to his own happiness and peace of mind; he neither felt that fretful storm of passions, which hurry men on to acts of revenge, or suffered those pangs of horror which pursue it. — Thus he might possibly argue, and no further; — for want of a better foundation and better helps, he could raise the building no higher; — to carry it upwards to its perfection we must call in to our aid that more spiritual and refined doctrine introduced upon it by Christ; namely, to forgive a brother, not only to seven times, but to seventy times — that is, without limitation.

  In this, the excellency of the gospel is said by some one, to appear with a remarkable advantage;

  “That a christian is as much disposed to love and serve you, when your enemy, as the mere moral man can be, when he is your friend.”

  — This no doubt is the tendency of his religion — but how often, or in what degrees it succeeds, — how nearly the practice keeps pace with the theory, the all-wise searcher into the hearts of men, alone is able to determine. But it is to be feared, that such great effects are not so sensibly felt, as a speculative man would expect from such powerful motives; and there is many a christian society, which would be glad to compound amongst themselves for some lesser degrees of perfection on one hand, were they sure to be exempted on the other, from the bad effects of those fretful passions which are ever taking, as well as ever giving the occasions of strife; the beginnings of which, Solomon aptly compares to the letting out of waters, the opening a breach which no one can be sure to stop, till it has proceeded to the most fatal events.

  With justice therefore might the son of Syrach conclude, concerning pride, that secret stream, which administers to the overflowings of resentments, that it was not made for man, nor furious anger for him that is born of a woman. That the one did not become his station, and that the other was destructive to all the happiness he was intended to receive from it. How miserably then must those men turn tyrants against themselves, as well as others, who grow splenetic and revengeful not only upon the little unavoidable oppositions and offences they must meet with, in the commerce of the world; but upon those which only reach them by report, and accordingly torment their little souls with meditating how to return the injury, before they are certain they have received one? Whether this eager sensibility of wrongs and resentment arises from that general cause, to which the son of Syrach seems to reduce all fierce anger and passion; or whether to a certain soreness of temper, which stands in every body’s way, and therefore subject to be often hurt, from which ever cause the disorder springs, the advice of the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus is proper:

  “Admonish a friend, says he, it may be he hath not done it; and if he have, that he do it not again. Admonish thy friend, it may be he hath not said it; and if he have, that he speak it not again. There is that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart; and who is he, who hath not offended with his tongue?”

  I cannot help taking notice here of a certain species of forgiveness, which is seldom enforced or thought of, and yet is no way below our regard. I mean the forgiveness of those, if we may be allowed the expression, whom we have injured ourselves. One would think that the difficulty of forgiving could only rest on the side of him, who has received the wrong; but the truth of the fact is often otherwise. The consciousness of having provoked another’s resentment, often excites the aggressor to keep before-hand with the man he has hurt, and not only to hate him for the evil he expects in return, but even to pursue him down, and put it out of his power to make reprisals.

  The baseness of this is such, that it is sufficient to make the same observation, which was made upon the crime of parricide amongst the Grecians: — it was so black, — their legislators did not suppose it could be committed, and therefore made no law to punish it.

  SERMON XIII. DUTY OF SETTING BOUNDS TO OUR DESIRES.

  2 KINGS IV. 13.

  And he said unto him, Say now unto her, Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care; — what is to be done for thee? — wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or the captain of the host? — And she answered, I dwell among mine own people.

  THE first part of the text is the words, which the prophet Elisha puts into the mouth of his servant Gehazi, as a message of thanks to the woman of Shunem for her great kindness and hospitality, of which, after the acknowledgment of his just sense, which Gehazi is bid to deliver in the words; —

  “Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care;”

  — he directs him to enquire, in what manner he may best make a return in discharge of the obligation, —

  “What shall be done for thee? Wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or the captain of the host?”

  The last part of the text is the Shunamite’s answer, which implies a refusal of the honor or advantage which the prophet intended to bring upon her, by such an application, which she indirectly expresses in her contentment and satisfaction, with what she enjoyed in her present station;

  “I dwell among mine own people.”

  This instance of self-denial in the Shunamite, is but properly the introduction to her story, and gives rise to that long and very pathetic transaction, which follows in the supernatural grant of a child, which God had many years denied her. — The affecting loss of him as soon as he was grown up — and his restoration to life by Elisha after he had been some time dead; the whole of which, though extremely interesting, and from such incidents as would afford sufficient matter for instruction, yet as it will not fall within the intention of this discourse, I shall beg leave at this time barely to consider these previous circumstances of it, to which the text confines me, upon which I shall enlarge with such reflections as occur, and then proceed to that practical use and exhortation, which will naturally fall from it.

  We find that after Elisha had rescued the distressed widow and her two sons from the hands of the creditor, by the miraculous multiplication of her oil; — that he passed on to Shunem, where, we read, was a great woman, and she constrained him to eat bread; and so it was, that as often as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread. The sacred historian speaks barely of her temporal condition and station in life, —

  “That she was a great woman,”

  but describes not the more material part of her, her virtues and character, because they were more e
vidently to be discovered from the transaction itself, from which it appears, that she was not only wealthy, but likewise charitable, and of a very considerate turn of mind. For after many repeated invitations and entertainments at her house, finding his occasions called him to a frequent passage that way; — she moves her husband to set up and furnish a lodging for him, with all the conveniencies which the simplicity of those times required.

  “And she said unto her husband, Behold now I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually; let us make him a little chamber I pray thee on the wall, and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick; and it shall be when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.”