Mischief

“ And if a man fall into it, there followeth upon it a whole flood of all unhappy mischief: arrogant manner, high solemn bearing, overlooking the poor in word and countenance, displeasant and disdainful behaviour, ravine, extortion, oppression, hatred and cruelty. ”

“ But when he called to mind the frightful consequences to which the belief of this opinion has led, the cruelties which have been exercised, the crimes which have been perpetrated, the miseries which have been inflicted and endured, it made him shudder at perceiving that the most absurd error may produce the greatest mischief to society, if it be accompanied with presumption, and if any real or imaginary interest be connected with maintaining it. ”

“ The great mischief-maker, and that is malice. Even where there is no manifest occasion of strife, yet hatred seeks occasion and so stirs it up and does the devil's work. Those are the most spiteful ill-natured people that can be who take a pleasure in setting their neighbours together by the ears, by tale-bearing, evil surmises, and misrepresentations, blowing up the sparks of contention, which had lain buried, into a flame, at which, with an unaccountable pleasure, they warm their hands. ”

“ But, if a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked.” Prov. xxix. 12, 14.
‘And to thee, who hast set forth this book of mischief, I say with the Scriptures, “Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous, spoil not his resting place. For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again; but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” Prov. xxiv. 15, 16. See also Mich. vii. 8.
J. N.’ ”

“ The great world of moral agency turns glibly upon its pivots, by the momentum of habit and the association of ideas: mischief attends the attempt to urge its onward force, by more motive or reason, in any instance, than is wanted. ”

“ His infernal honour being thus pledged, the work of mischief was instantly begun, by his commanding his ministers and their satellites to redouble their vigilence, by throwing the mists of ignorance over the minds of the rulers and teachers of mankind, and to fill their minds with superstition, bigotry, pride, and arrogant zeal. All the imps of minor consideration were also ordered to direct the unreasoning, lazy, envious, wicked, gross, vulgar herd of mankind, high and low, into the paths which lead to misery. ”

“ The mischief is when you, after listening to sound arguments, and all agreeing in their justice, sit to hear with equal favor those who try to defeat and pervert them; not that you are ignorant of the men; (you are certain at the first glance, who speak for hire and are Philip's political agents, and who speak sincerely for your good;) ”

“ Secondly, whether in the cases where mischief sometimes is perceived, and no other purpose appears to be effected, we do not almost as uniformly lay the blame on our own ignorance, and conclude, not that the arrangement was made without any design, and that mischief arises without any contriver, but that if we knew the whole case we should find a design and contrivance, and also that the apparent mischief would sink into the general good? ”

“ I fully admit that the mischief which a person does to himself may seriously affect, both through their sympathies and their interests, those nearly connected with him, and in a minor degree, society at large. When, by conduct of this sort, a person is led to violate a distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or persons, the case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to moral disapprobation in the proper sense of the term. ”

“ The gross misconduct of some who ought to have set him the best example must have wounded deeply his innocent heart, while it impressed him strongly with the deadly evil of sin and the mischief resulting inevitably from the relaxation of morals among the rulers of the people and the ministers of religion. ”

“ March 13.—With the returning day commenced the same round of insult and irritation—the boys assembled to beat the hog, and the men and women to plague the Christian. It is impossible for me to describe the behaviour of a people who study mischief as a science, and exult in the miseries and misfortunes of their fellow-creatures. ”

“ So that the Mischief done by them, their Ravages, Devastations, and Robberies, must be only the Consequences of Cowardice in the Sufferers, who are harrassed and oppressed only because they suffer it without Resistance. ”

“ He is necessarily, also, called into action in cases when all the worst passions of our nature—our hatred and revenge, and our self-interest—are set in motion. Consider the mischief which might be constantly done on a grand scale in society, if the vast majority of attorneys and solicitors were not honorable, and able men! ”

“ Now if, her weak nature being overcome by those impulses towards mischief and malice with which she is peculiarly endowed, she is tempted to commit trivial derelictions of conduct—derelictions which, after all, are but faults of discernment—is there any reason why we should make such a fuss about it? ”

“ But the spiritual riches escape all these occasions of mischief and are superior to all abuse of this kind, laughing to scorn both robbers, and housebreakers, and slanderers, and false accusers and death itself. ”

“ He is the cause of mischief falling upon others. How true is this in social life. A message, coloured in its delivery, to gratify some selfish purpose, may divide men who would have been friends, if it had not been for the third person. And its omission, through carelessness, may bring about a like mischief. ”

“ Where no human agency whatever is interposed, and the calamity comes without any one being to blame for it, the mischief seems a step, and a large step, nearer the creative or the superintending cause, because it is, as far as men go, altogether inevitable. ”

“ We see the evil in a course of events and lay the blame on someone who should have acted differently, and whom perhaps we take as an instance of how good men cause mischief; but we do not see the greater evil which would otherwise have ensued. ”

“ At whatever point, and by whatever means, the evil disposed, were exercising their machinations against what he conceived to be the honest fame, and real interest of his country, wherever subtlety and artifice were employed, by misrepresentations, to mislead, or by fallacies to attempt imposition on the public, there was his vigilance prepared to detect, and his firmness resolved to check any effectual operation of the mischief. ”

“ It is the terrible attribute of this sort of mischief, however, that it is at once cause and effect. Peril to life, of this particular kind, generates the immorality which, in its turn, creates the recklessness which again imperils life. ”

“ No one returns with good will to the place which has done him a mischief. ”

“ The mischief would be greater than ever, the people would be wrapped in yet grosser error than before and his Divine Majesty too insufferably offended, if matters continued in their present state, or if it befell that this woman were delivered or retaken, as we are told, is wished, plotted and endeavoured by divers of our enemies, by all secret ways and by what is even worse by bribe or by ransom. ”

“ Mischief is meat and drink to them; they feed and feast upon it. They eat the bread of the wickedness (they eat up my people as they eat bread, Ps. xiv. 4) and drink the wine of violence (v. 17) , drink iniquity like water, Job xv. 16. All they eat and drink is got by rapine and oppression. Do wicked men think the time lost in which they are not doing hurt? Let good men make it as much their business and delight to do good. Amici, diem perdidi—Friends, I have lost a day. ”

“ Mischief and punishment are bound to go together. We can enjoy mischief-making with some show of spirit because it is accompanied by certain consequences. Where does one expect to see the dastardly spirit which hungers for mischief-making without punishment, in vogue? The fellows who like to borrow money but not pay it back, are surely such as these students here after they are graduated. ”

“ Such beings, after that speedy and appropriate removal from their sphere of mischief which all good and humane men must of course desire, will, he takes for granted by parity of reason, meet with a punishment, an ignominy, and a retaliation, as much severer than other wicked men, as their guilt and its consequences were more enormous. ”

“ Whether the people who mean no harm, but are weak in the essential powers necessary to the performance of one's duties in life, or those who are [20] malicious and vicious, do the more mischief, is a question not easy to answer. ”

“ But the mischief does not come from that side alone; it is in things of small beginnings, but fearful in their growth. One of these is the propensity of men to lose sight of fundamental principles, when passing abuses are to be corrected. ”

“ The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts: but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do? ”

“ But acts may produce mischief in various other ways; which, together with those already specified, may all be comprised by the following abridged analysis. Mischief may admit of a division in any one of three points of view. ”

“ It may remain a quiescent spectator of evil, or, if strong enough and indignant with the wrongdoing, may endeavour to abate the mischief by remonstrance, and, in the last resort, by taking sides against the offender. ”

“ and, in every deed of mischief, he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute. ”

“ And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. ”

“ It is a world of mischief that may be done by one single example of avarice or luxury. ”

“ This is the original sin which has created all the mischiefs which gentlemen pretend to throw on the impressment of our seamen, and God knows what. This is the cause of those mischiefs which existed years ago. ”

“ But what renders your injustice toward the pious still more cruel, is, that it is your own examples, your irregularities, and even your censures, which stagger, weaken, and force them sometimes to imitate you; it is the corruption of your manners which becomes the continual and the most dangerous snare to their innocence; it is those foolish derisions with which you continually assault virtue, that force them reluctantly to shelter themselves under the appearances of guilt. ”

“ Unspeakable misery will arise in the world from this baleful fountain. (Offences are all things whereby any one is turned out of, or hindered in, the ways of God.) For it must be that offences come. Such is the nature of things; such the wickedness, folly and weakness of mankind. But Wo to that man, miserable is that man, by whom the offence cometh. Wherefore if thy hand, thy foot, thine eye cause thee to offend—If the most dear enjoyment, the most beloved and useful person, turn thee out of, or hinder thee in the way, pluck it out, cut them off, and cast them from thee. ”

“ He had seen similar evils to those which we have seen and suffered. “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun as an error which proceedeth from the ruler: folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.” ”

“ Whether you examine the conduct of the nation at large, or that of its chiefs and leaders, your feelings revolt at the one, and your integrity despises the other. You see the idols erected by Folly, degraded by Caprice;—the authority obtained by Intrigue, bartered by Profligacy;—and the perfidy and corruption of one side so balanced by the barbarity and levity of the other, that the mind, unable to decide on the preference of contending vices, is obliged to find repose, though with regret and disgust, in acknowledging the general depravity. ”

“ Hardened and impenitent sinner! the measure of your iniquity is full: the 321 price of crime has been paid: here shall your spirit dwell for ever, and for ever. You have dreamed away life’s joyous hour, nor made atonement for error, nor denied yourself aught that the fair earth presented you. ”

“ Whence it comes to pass, that in their results we have sometimes found the same spirit of cruelty and revenge, of malice and pride, the same blindness and obstinacy and unsteadiness, the same ungovernable rage and anger, the same injustice, sophistry, and fraud, that ever lodged in the breast of any individual. ”

“ Is any one inclined to dispute the possibility of a happy change in society? Do they say that the nature of man is corrupt, and that he was made for misery and wickedness? Be it so. Certain as are opposite conclusions, I will concede the truth of his, for a moment.—What are the means which I take for melioration? Violence, corruption, rapine, crime? Do I do evil, that good may come? ”

“ Thus in a word, to avoid a long detail, those suspicious attachments, loose conversations, ridiculous compliances, and desires of pleasing, too much attended, have filled you with dispositions so nearly allied to guilt and debauchery, that you are no longer capable of resistance against any of their attacks; the corruption prepared by the whole train of your past actions, will be lighted up in an instant; your weakness will overcome your reflection; your heart will go against glory, duty, and yourself. ”

“ To say nothing of those evils one man brings upon another, as poverty, imprisonment, infamy, dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches, actions, deceits--but I'm got into as endless a work as numbering the sands--for what offenses mankind have deserved these things, or what angry god compelled them to be born into such miseries is not my present business. ”

“ He who makes presents to a lady, or a minister of justice, attempts their corruption by the act, and in his imagination supposes he has effected it. You ought, therefore, [Pg 9] my Son, to consider every one who attempts to gain your favour by such means, as an enemy to your conscience, and as a person dangerous to, and one who would injure your honour; and you should look upon him as a man, more deserving of your contempt and indignation, than your courtesy. ”