When his safety is effectually provided for, it then becomes the office of a friend to urge his faults and vices with all the energy of enlightened affection, to paint them in their most vivid colors, and to bring the moral patient to a better habit.
Burke posits that once a person's safety is assured, it is a friend's duty to candidly address their faults to encourage better behavior.
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More from Edmund Burke
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
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