APPLICATION.
The early prejudices of a wrong education can only be eradicated from the strongest minds. The weak retain them through life. This Fable is a pretty image of the vain fears and empty terrors, with which our weak misguided nature is so apt to be alarmed and disturbed. If we hear but ever so little noise which we are not able to account for, immediately, nay, often before we give ourselves time to consider about it, we are struck with fear, and labour under a most unmanly and unreasonable trepidation; more especially if the alarm happens when we are alone, and in the dark. These fears are ingrafted into our minds very early, and therefore it is the more difficult, even when we are grown up, and ashamed of them, to root them out of our nature. They are chiefly the offspring of the nursery, and originate in the many terrific tales, and lying stories, of those who have the management there; and though every pains be afterwards taken to free the mind from the impression of such groundless fears, the weaker part of mankind are still apt to be terrified at the empty phantoms of ghosts, spectres, apparitions, and hobgoblins. But whatever effect such phantasies may have upon the guilty mind, innocence has nothing to dread from supernatural causes. Fear is however a natural passion, and its use is to put us upon our guard against danger, by alarming the spirits; but it, like all our other passions, should be kept in a state of subjection: for though they are all good and useful servants, yet if once they get the better of our reason, they prove the most domineering tyrants imaginable; nor do any of them treat us in so abject and slavish a manner as fear: it unnerves and enfeebles our limbs, while it fetters our understandings; and at the same time that it represents a danger near at hand, disarms and makes us incapable of defending ourselves from it. But we ought to call forth a sense of honour and shame, to correct such weaknesses; and for this purpose it will be useful to remember the Fable of the Lion and the Frog.
