148 FABLES. 



sheepish one in a soldier. We should not set up 

 for correctors of the faults of others, whilst we 

 labour under the same ourselves. Good advice 

 ought always to be followed, without our being 1 pre- 

 judiced upon account of the person from whom it 

 comes; but it is seldom that men can be brought to 

 think us worth minding, when we prescribe cures 

 for maladies with which we ourselves are afflicted. 

 Physician heal thyself, is too scriptural, not to be 

 applied upon such an occasion ; and if we would 

 avoid being the jest of an audience, we must be 

 sound and free from those diseases of which we 

 would endeavour to cure others. How shocked 

 must people have been to hear a preacher for a 

 whole hour declaim against drunkenness, when his 

 own weaknesses have been such that he could 

 neither bear nor forbear drinking, and perhaps was 

 the only person in the congregation who made the 

 doctrine at that time necessary! Others, too, have 

 been very zealous in censuring crimes, of which 

 none were suspected more than themselves : but let 

 such silly hypocrites remember, that they w r hose 

 eyes want couching, are the most improper people 

 in the \vorld to set up for oculists. 



