Palestine Notes and Other Papers (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... expectation that he will sometime or other make a more beautiful front to the market house than has yet been seen in any place. " If you ask what it is that has secured Negotius from all scandalous vices, it is the same thing that has kept him from all strictness of devotion, his great business. He has always had too many important things in his head to suffer him to fall, either into any courses of rakery, or to feel the necessity of an inward, solid piety. If Negotius was asked, What is it which he drives at in life? he would be as much at a loss for an answer as if he were asked what any other person is thinking of. For though he always seems to himself to know what he is doing and has many things in his head which are the motives of his actions, yet he cannot tell you of anyone general end of life that he has chosen with deliberation as being truly worthy of all his labour and pains. He has several confused notions in his head, such as this: That it is something great to have more business than other people. A thing that seems to give Negotius the greatest life and spirit is an expectation that he shall die richer than any of his business ever did. The generality of people when they think of happiness think upon Negotius, in whose life every instance of happiness is supposed to meet; sober, prudent, rich, prosperous, generous and charitable." Here we have him, the patron of church or chapel, the ideal Parliamentary candidate, the honoured public man. How quietly William Law disrobes him But how terrible is his nakedness. Yet we feel, as we read, an uneasy consciousness that it is not some one else we may be thinking of, but our very self that Law is seeking to uncover. Has the spirit of Negotius a lodgment, even ever so little, in our own...