SECTION 8.
SELF-WRITTEN BIOGRAPHY—ITS SUPERIOR VALUE AND CLAIM TO CREDENCE.
On the occasion of this portion of history, it seems particularly material, to bring to view an observation, which, on the occasion of every portion of history, it will, it is believed, be of no small use to have in remembrance.
In comparison of self-written biography, scarcely does any other biography deserve the name.
Faint, indeterminate, uninstructive, deceptive, is the information furnished by any other hand, of whatsoever concerns the state of the mental frame, in comparison of what is furnished by a man's own. Even of those particulars which make against himself,—even of those motives and intentions which he would most anxiously conceal,—more clear and correct, as far as it goes, if not more complete—is the information given by him, than any which is commonly afforded, even by an impartial hand. By a man's own hand, not unfrequently is information afforded, of a sort which makes against himself, and which would not, because it could not, have been afforded by any other hand, though ever so hostile. He states the self-condemnatory mental facts, the blindness of self-partiality concealing from his eyes the condemnatory inference: or, even with his eyes open, he lays himself under the imputation: bartering merit in this or that inferior shape, for the merit of candour, or for the hope of augmenting the probative force of his own self-serving evidence, in favour of every other merit for which it is his ambition to gain credence.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Gal. i. 18. "Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days."
[21] Of any mention made of Galatia, in any of the Books of the New Testament, the following are, according to Cruden's Concordance, the only instances: 1 Cor. xvi. 1. "... have given order to the churches at Galatia." Times, assigned to these Epistles, A.D. 59. 2 Tim. iv. 10: "Crescens is departed to Galatia." A.D. 66. 1 Pet. i. 1: "to the strangers scattered in Galatia." Date A.D. 60.
[22] Acts xv. 1-4. 1. "And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.—When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the Apostles and Elders about this question.—And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.—And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the Church, and of the Apostles and Elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them."