“The foundation of all great character must be laid in a change wrought upon the heart by Divine influence. We say a change of the heart, because the qualities which we bring with us into the world can never be so improved and polished as to lead us to act in the manner which the Divine law requires. Some of the evil propensities of our nature may be checked, the force of some passions may be weakened, and that of others guided into a new direction; but in the change of which we speak, and which we affirm to be the foundation of all true character, these passions are extirpated altogether, and the virtues of patience, self-denial, and fortitude, are implanted in their room.”

It would not be easy to name a question of more vital interest than the importance of character to the individual and the world. The subject is peculiarly interesting at present, when, as we apprehend, a new era is opening on society, in which character shall be more than ever necessary. By character we mean qualities of soul; as these are noble or ignoble, so is your character, and so shall be the influence of your life. When we see a young woman entering upon a career of sin, it is not the amount of wrong that alarms us most; it is the fact that she is forming a character which will pursue her through life, and urge her forward in her evil ways, till rushing headlong down the paths of vice, she falls at last into hopeless dishonour here and misery hereafter. When, on the other hand, we see a young woman giving herself to the cultivation of right dispositions and good principles,—when we see her consistently subjecting the inferior principles of her nature to reason, and her lusts and passions to her conscience, and all her powers to the control of religion and the fear of God,—it is not this or that particular good thing that pleases us most; it is the fact that she is forming a character which will become to her like a guardian angel, bearing her up in the rough places of life, and at last enabling her to dwell in the purer and happier atmosphere of heaven itself. To all, as individuals, as parents, as members of a family, and as members of society in general, there is something of solemn importance in the fact that none can stand neutral: all must take one of two courses of life,—the right or the wrong,—the good or the bad,—the true or the false.

The end of Providence, as a system of moral discipline, is the formation of character. The ultimate design of all the trials and disappointments and sorrows, the afflictions bodily and mental, personal and relative, to which all are subject, and from which none are exempt, is the restoration of that character which sin has destroyed. Heaven, as to its substance, consists in the perfection of character. Mental philosophy renders it a matter of certainty that the soul possesses an inherent capacity of receiving happiness or enduring misery to an extent at present wholly inconceivable. Generally speaking, the powers of your inner nature are asleep during life; but no sooner shall death have loosed the fetters that now confine them, than they will awake, never more to slumber or sleep: they will start up like the fiery whirlwind, and begin their sweep along their mighty orbit, rendering the path of the spirit one of eternal blackness and desolation; or they will then move on without let or hindrance in their path of light and joy, like the white-robed planet of the heavens around the great source of gravitation.

All those great revolutions by which the world has been extensively and permanently benefited have been brought about mainly by the influence of character. Genius has discovered the sciences and perfected the arts, and these have given us almost unlimited dominion over the world on which we dwell. So many and so substantial have been the benefits genius has conferred, that it may seem at first sight as if she had been the great benefactress of the world. But it is not difficult to show that the progress of art or science, unless their application be regulated by sound moral principle, is even dangerous to the world: they must be either a blessing or a curse, according as they are used or abused. From a variety of causes, the planting of Christianity in the world was the hardest task ever assigned to any of the human race. Alas! mere genius could have done little in that great work. Her vocation is to shine, and the promulgation of Christianity required suffering. The first Christians were not distinguished for their learning or eloquence, but they were endowed with power from on high to proclaim faithfully and courageously the great facts of which they had been the eye-witnesses. How manifest it is that we owe the spread of Christianity, not to talent, but to character. In the contest which resulted in the glorious Reformation, mere genius would soon have been foiled; heroic hardihood of soul, unbounded homage for truth, and unmeasured contempt for error, were necessary to burst the fetters of superstition. Talent could detect the errors of the Romish system, lash the vices of the clergy, and consign the Pope to ever-burning fires; but character was needed to accomplish the more difficult task of emancipating Europe. That character is superior to talent is evident from the maxim, now become trite, that example is better than precept. It is also more valuable than rank. You may be proud of your pedigree, and point with imperial gusto to the family crest; but remember that rank is an accident over which you have no control, and titles will be felt to be empty things when you lie pining on a bed of sickness. In the present state of the world, reputation may rank higher than character, but it should be borne in mind that the former is merely the symbol of the latter. Maintain your character, be not over-anxious about your reputation. Character is the woman—reputation is only what the woman is said to be.

It has been thought by some that all human minds are originally constituted alike: that as you can move eastward or westward, according as you choose to set your face in the one direction or the other; so it depends entirely on the determination of the will in what department of effort you shall excel. But we need scarcely remark that all children are not alike precocious, and all adults are not alike capable of learning and teaching. Original constitution, out of which women as well as men are made, is infinitely varied. As from a few elements the endless forms of matter are built up, so out of different proportions of mental and moral qualities the endless diversities of human character are formed. In the world of matter, an almost infinitesimally small portion of foreign substance may quite alter the chemical character of a compound; and in the world of mind, the smallest excess or defect in any given faculty or feeling may make all the difference between the best and the worst, the dullest and the brightest, of mankind. Some seem to have all the most characteristic elements of greatness heaped upon their heads, or intensified in their constitutions; and so they become wonders to the world. Others have minds so obtuse that none but the plainest elements of knowledge are attainable by them, and souls so torpid that they are never able to originate a poetic thought.

If we turn to external nature, we behold endless diversity. How various the forms of animal life, whether considered in existing species, or traced back through endless ages to the first dawn of time! In the mineral kingdom, what forms and hues may we trace, from the diamonds of royal crowns down to the rocks of the everlasting hills! So in the vegetable domain. The weed flourishes in the bed of the sea—the moss on the summits of our highland hills—the lichen amidst the ice and snow of Nova Zembla—the palm in India—the cedar in Lebanon—and the pine in Norway. Shall not God’s resources find their amplest illustration in His last and noblest work—humanity? It is contrary to all analogy to expect uniformity of faculty or temperament among the human species. Be it observed, also, that as in the animal kingdom, structure necessitates function and habit; that as in the mineral kingdom there are fixed laws which we cannot alter; and that as in the vegetable kingdom nature determines her own growths: so in the world of mind, in the formation of character, while God permits moral agency, he asserts His own sovereignty. We do not believe that you are children of circumstances, as socialists and fatalists affirm, so that your character is formed for you, and not by you; still it would be the utmost folly to deny that circumstances exercise a mighty influence. As the storms affect the flight of the eagle and the speed of the steam-ship, but do not determine their course: so your original constitution influences you, but does not necessarily determine your character.

The discussions which have of late occupied the public mind regarding the polemics of education, have, we fear, had an injurious influence on the real progress of education amongst us. Some tell us that it is the bounden duty of the State to educate the democracy; and others inform us that the Church of the country is the proper instructress of the people. Without attempting to expose by facts, or assail in abstractions, the reasoning of these different classes, we would remark, that in the world children have to toil, to struggle, to resist, to endure—to labour long, and to wait patiently for a distant and even, to a certain extent, precarious result; and the school for the kind of lore which fits for that is around the domestic hearth.

A powerful influence is exerted by the family circle, in the formation of character. While all real formation must be self-formation, we cannot deny the moulding agencies of home life. Indeed the plastic power of home is so great as to be almost appalling. Home society works on the very foundations of character, and at no stage of life is social influence so strong as in youth; and no influence is so powerful as that of a mother over a daughter. Whence issues that moral influence which, to the tender mind, is paramount over all formal teaching? Primarily and supremely from the mother. The histories of all who have risen above the level of their compeers, shows that the largest and most potent share of influence lies with the mother. God’s plan of reforming communities is to train families. When an architect was asked how he built one of the lofty chimneys which stud some parts of Lancashire, he replied, “I built it up from within.” Nations are built up in the same manner. The future mothers of a people are the best protectresses of a state from moral deteriorations. When every cottage in our land shall be blest with a well educated female, bearing the noble distinctions of wife, mother, and Christian! we may hope that the vilest wanderer will be reclaimed to the sweet bonds of household allegiance.

“How pleasing,” says Dr. Winter Hamilton, “are the touches of domestic tenderness and order, which some incidental passage, in a classical author unfolds, as marking the Roman common life. We are accustomed to think of it only in its severer forms. We call up before our minds unrelenting sternness and stoicism. But the parental character was not despoiled of its nature. It was beheld in the most ardent desire to train offspring for all social duties. While it assiduously prepared them for the state, it resigned not that business to it. Thus in the Adelphi of Terence, the wit of Syrus does not hide from us the paternal influence in education. ‘Ut quisque suum vult esse, ita est.’ Nor does the weakness of Demea conceal the indefatigable earnestness of that influence:—

An education not provided in this manner, an apparatus set up independently of a popular choice and control, can never be valued as it must be to be availing.”

We gladly turn from the institutes of man to the ordinances of God. In the laws of that religion by which Jehovah reigned before His ancient people gloriously, there is no enactment which dissolves parental responsibility in the education of children; and none which transfers it. He spake of the great ancestor of that people the encomium which contained the germ of their government: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the law, to do justice and judgment.” This was to be the rule of transmission. “Teach them thy sons and thy sons’ sons.” “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house.” “He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children.” Not less tender, distinct, and authoritative is the Christian law: “Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” No one can doubt that the Bible enjoins on parents the duty of carefully training up their children, and of making it the grand purpose of this life to prepare them for heaven.

By a beautiful provision for keeping up the healthy interaction of the social forces, when the period of adolescence is reached, the sympathies burst the boundary of the domestic circle, and, through delicate and often inscrutable affinities, seek objects of attachment in the outer world. The upper, the middle, and the lower classes, for various reasons must go out into society. That principles of character can be imparted is one of the plainest doctrines of the Bible, as well as one of the commonest facts of human experience. For this express purpose, all the educative agencies of home, the school, the platform, the press, and the pulpit, have been instituted, are kept in operation. The Christian Church was formed by its Divine Head that all those to whom His words are spirit and life, should impart them to others. Christianity is a propagandist system, and is designed to revolutionize not the opinions so much as the ideas and motives of humanity. When we look at hundreds of girls, in pairs and triads, engaged in incessant and animated conversation; when we think of the influences under which their characters are forming, and remember that these characters, in all probability, will last through life,—we almost shrink back from the reflection, that here are the mothers of the next generation! If there is contamination here, the consequences are more disastrous than we are able to compute. Mutual influence is a law that embraces all worlds, pervades all the kingdoms of nature, and reaches its climax in humanity. All the elements and laws of the lower kingdom are summed up here; and magnetism, affinity, and gravitation find their spiritual archetypes in the influence of mind on mind. The character is like a piece of potter’s clay, which when fresh and new, is easily fashioned according to the will of those into whose hands it falls; but its form once given, and hardened, either by the slow drying of time, or by its passage through the ardent furnace of the world, any one may break it to atoms, but never bend it again to another mould.

To borrow the language of a writer in the Quarterly Review: “However difficult it may be to account philosophically for what is called national character—to explain precisely in what it consists, or how exactly it is formed—no one will venture to deny that there is such a thing; some secret influence of climate and soil, combining with the still more inexplicable peculiarities of the races of men, and which seems to a considerable degree independent even of education or individual qualities. The steady English, the wary Scotch, the testy Welsh, the volatile French, the phlegmatic Dutch, the artistic Italian, the solemn Spaniard,—all these are crowded into so small a space of the earth’s surface as some twenty degrees of latitude and longitude; and having most of the essential circumstances of social influence common to all, yet are each marked with a national stamp, indelible in natives, and still frequently distinguishable for two or three generations in families that have migrated into other countries.” But although in each of the great national circles of society, we find characteristics which mark it out socially and morally from others, we must not judge individuals nationally. All the English are not freighted to the water with stability; nor are all the Scotch remarkably cautious; nor are the tempers of all the Welsh like touchwood or tinder; nor are all the French frivolous; nor are all the Dutch lazy; nor are all the Italians painters; nor are all the Spaniards distinguished for gravity. Still nations, as such, have their idiosyncrasies, as attested by well authenticated history and by present facts.

If we narrow the social circle, we find that where association is closer, characteristics are more distinct. Every religious denomination has its own features clearly marked and firmly set. In every province, city, and town, we see the influence of association in the formation of character. It is illustrated in every circle, from the kitchen of the maid-servant to the throne of the British queen.

All are conscious of a desire to imbue others with their sentiments. This ambition is always strong in a mind of high intensity. It is the natural yearning of active powers for appropriate activity—the mind’s impulse to develope its energies and extend its dominion. Minds that burn with the fire of genius, or the nobler fires of zeal and love, cannot repress their energies; but seek to distinguish themselves, and to influence those with whom they come in contact. There are magnetic souls that penetrate with their looks, and inspire with their ideas. In all ages and countries the gentler sex afford illustrations of a desire to impart themselves and mould others.

What then are those elements,—those sources of power and strength which are the vital mainsprings in the formation of your character?

Imitation plays an important part in this great work. The same passion that impels you to seek society, impels you to take part with your companions in their interests and inclinations. Insensibly you fall into their customs and manners, adopt their sentiments, their passions, and even their foibles. This principle is especially active in children; hence they love to mimic whatever strikes the organ of sense; and soon as the young idea begins to shoot, and the embryo of the character to appear, they form themselves unconsciously after the similitude of those with whom they converse. But for this their progress would be very slow, and their conformity to persons and things around them very slight. With this faculty spontaneously active, how soon they learn to talk, to adopt the peculiarities of others, and copy the mechanical and other inventions! Now, women are but children of larger growth, and are mightily influenced by imitation. Follow, therefore, the example of good women. As the moral virtues constitute the highest order of human excellence and endowment, copy them wherever you find them. Theatricals are the legitimate product of imitation. Shall they be patronized? Undoubtedly they might be so conducted as to become a great public blessing; but as they are at present managed, they are undoubtedly a great curse. Still, those who deplore the influence of the theatre should labour to correct it, rather than seek to demolish it altogether; for it is founded on a natural element of the human mind, and must live as long as humanity exists. Destroyed it can never be, any more than hunger or any other natural or legitimate product of any other faculty. All that remains is to sanctify and rightly wield its mighty power for good. Nevertheless, we must express our unequivocal disapproval of the theatre as now conducted, and warn you especially against it.

There is in human nature a strong tendency to sympathise with others in their modes of thought and feeling. All know something about the readiness with which the act of yawning is induced in a company if a single person begins to yawn; the facility with which hysterical convulsions are induced in a female hospital ward by a single case; the fascination of its prey by the serpent, apparently by the power of the eyes; the similar power exerted by so-called electro-biologists and mesmerists, and by which some can control even the fiercest carnivora. Sympathy is a mighty power, and may aid you mightily in the formation of your character. In no country is it more deeply felt than our own, where a free press, free speech, and free association, are in full operation. Just as matter has a tendency to conform to the temperature of surrounding matter, so mind has a tendency to cool or kindle with surrounding minds. An effort to benefit others operates beneficially upon those who put it forth; thus proving that people cannot be made a blessing to others without enjoying an enlarged blessing themselves. The great events of life, which stir the deepest feelings of the human heart—birth, marriage, death—occur in every household, lighting up with a common joy, or involving in the shadow of a common gloom, the palace and the cottage alike. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” How near does our beloved queen seem to be to the poorest widow in the land, now that, amid all the pomp of her royalty and the splendour of her unrivalled station, she is suffering from the painful sense of her great bereavement. Moreover, the heart of the country at once thrills with sympathy when tidings are heard of some great disaster, that has brought death to many, and desolation and misery to more; though they may be the poorest of the poor, and dwellers in some far-off land. It is not more true, however, that we weep with those who weep, than that we rejoice with those who rejoice. There is a charm in general gladness that steals upon us without our perceiving it; and if we have no cause of sorrow, it is sufficient for our momentary happiness that we be in the company of the happy.

We would now direct your attention to habit—one of the most obvious and important elements in the formation of character. Its influence is felt in every sphere of your activity, its power extends to every faculty of your nature, and affects your personal, social, civil, and religious thought, feeling, and conduct. The nature of habit may be considered in two lights: first, an ease and excellence in doing a thing from having done it frequently; and secondly, a disposition to perform certain actions in the same way as you have done them before. Habit is thus the specific law of repetition. Dr. Reid explains the law of association by that of habit, and thus ascribes the effect of habit to a peculiar ultimate principle of the mind. He says, “That the trains of thinking, which, by frequent repetition, have become familiar, should spontaneously offer themselves to our fancy, seems to require no other original quality but the power of habit.” To this error, which others have fallen into, Sir W. Hamilton’s reply is unanswerable: “We can as well explain habit by association, as association by habit.” The first form of the influence of habit, then, which we have to consider, is that by which it occasions greater facility and skill in the performance of particular actions. In the lower animals, habits arise from the force of mere instinct, and, properly speaking, are not acquired by repetition. The bee builds its first cell, and gathers honey from the first flower, as easily and as well as at any future period. The bird selects the same material for its first nest that it selects for its last, and constructs it in the same sort of place, and of the same shape; and all as perfectly and easily the first time as ever afterwards. The beaver fells his first tree, and makes his first dam, with as little difficulty and as much skill as in any after period of his life. You have much more of reason than of instinct, and consequently acquire habits by repetition. Having chosen a certain course of action, you find that as you proceed you get on better, and that what was at first difficult, in course of time becomes easy. The pianist, sweeping the keys of her instrument, and emitting melodious notes and melting harmony; the rope-dancer, performing her wondrous feats, and keeping the exact point of equilibrium and graceful attitude, are illustrations—not so much of native talent, as of the degree to which habit may be developed. The second kind of influence which habit exercises, is a tendency to repeat the same actions under the same circumstances. Dr. Brown thus illustrates the power of indulged habit: “In the corruption of a great city, it is scarcely possible to look around, without perceiving some warning example of that blasting and deadening influence, before which, everything that was generous and benevolent in the heart has withered, while everything which was noxious has flourished with more rapid maturity; like those plants which can extend their roots, indeed, even in pure soil, and fling out a few leaves amid balmy airs and odours, but which burst out in all their luxuriance only from a soil that is fed with constant putrescency, and in an atmosphere which it is poison to inhale. It is not vice—not cold and insensible and contented vice, that has never known any better feelings—which we view with melancholy regret. It is virtue—at least what was once virtue—that has yielded progressively and silently to an influence, scarcely perceived, till it has become the very thing it abhorred. Nothing can be more just than the picture of this sad progress described in the well-known lines of Pope:

“In the slow progress of some insidious disease, which is scarcely regarded by its cheerful and unconscious victim, it is mournful to mark the smile of gaiety as it plays over that very bloom, which is not the freshness of health, but the flushing of approaching mortality; amid studies, perhaps, just opening into intellectual excellence, and hopes and plans of generous ambition that are never to be fulfilled. But how much more painful is it to behold that equally insidious and far more desolating progress with which guilty passion steals upon the heart, when there is still sufficient virtue to feel remorse and to sigh at the remembrance of purer years, but not sufficient to throw off the guilt which is felt to be oppressive, and to return to that purity in which it would again, in its bitter moments, gladly take shelter, if only it had energy to vanquish the almost irresistible habits that would tear it back.

“We must not conceive, however, that habit is powerful only in strengthening what is evil—though it is this sort of operation which, of course, forces itself more upon our observation and memory, like the noontide darkness of the tempest, that is remembered when the calm and the sunshine and the gentle shower are forgotten. There can be no question that the same principle which confirms and aggravates what is evil, strengthens and cherishes also what is good. The virtuous, indeed, do not require the influence of habitual benevolence or devotion to force them, as it were, to new acts of kindness to man, or to new sentiments of gratitude to God. But the temptations to which even virtue might sometimes be in danger of yielding, in the commencement of its delightful progress, become powerless and free from peril when that progress is more advanced. There are spirits which, even on earth, are elevated above that little scene of mortal ambition with which their benevolent wishes for the sufferers there are the single tie that connects them still. All with them is serenity; the darkness and the storm are beneath them. They have only to look down with generous sympathy on those who have not yet risen so high; and to look up with gratitude to that heaven which is above their head, and which is almost opening to receive them.” You must form habits of one kind or another; but you can choose what your habits are to be. We rejoice that at the present time there is much to cheer and encourage. Reformatories, the extension of education among the lower classes, Sunday schools, cheap and healthy literature, interesting lectures on instructive themes addressed to the million—all these are centres whence radiate powerful aids to the formation of great and noble character.

The incontestable, although inexplicable, deliverance of consciousness is, that there are two great movements which take place within the mind—the one spontaneous, and the other reflex; the one movement prompted only by the native activity of the mind itself, and the other the movement of the will. Now, those who push their phrenology into materialism, having discovered that the tendencies to peculiar modes of thought and peculiar modes of action are to some extent dependent upon bodily organization, are not slow to tell us that their characters are formed for them, not by them. But this reasoning completely overlooks the fact that they have got a rational will, armed with complete power to control and regulate these tendencies; therefore it is altogether illogical. Even were we to admit that the mental spontaneity is directly influenced by the bodily organization, the asserted consequence would by no means follow. For just as the farmer can plough and sow and harrow, and thus subordinate the spontaneity of nature, and direct that power into the useful channel of producing food, instead of the useless channel of producing briers and thorns, so you can modify, control, and regulate the spontaneity of the mind. Experience teaches you that you can break the threads of the web of thought, arrest the procession of the grand and beautiful, and throw discord into harmony: and where power exists, there exists responsibility.

We say, then, that in the concession we have made of a spontaneity directly influenced by material organization, there is no proof whatever that you are not accountable both for your belief and your actions; because consciousness teaches you that above and beyond every such influence there presides reason, and there exists a will. This important subject is most admirably discussed in a small pamphlet by Professor Martin, of Aberdeen, entitled, “Creed and Circumstance.” To adopt the well-chosen words of the professor: “May the day soon come when it shall be deemed of as great importance to the wellbeing of society that the laws of that chemistry, of which the human mind is the laboratory, shall be the subject of instruction, as the laws of that other chemistry whose laboratory is the world. Enough, however, is it for us at present, that in the domain, both of the material and the mental, there is ample scope for the highest energies and the most enlightened reason.”

It is peculiarly desirable that this subject be insisted upon. The work of individual self-formation is a duty not only to yourselves and your immediate relations, but to your fellow-creatures at large. On the use you make of your early energies; the conduct of your intellect, when it is capable of the most vigorous action; the discipline of your heart, when it is susceptible of the most lively impressions, will mainly depend what you shall henceforth be. This will involve much sacrifice, yea, lifelong struggle; yet we venture to press the demand. Should you never rise higher in society, you have already gained an honoured and holy position. You carry with you a blessed charm to lighten toil, to assuage affliction, to purify attachment, to conquer death. Yon have trained yourself in the way in which you should go, and when you are old you will not depart from it. Sisters, have you courage for the conflict? For in the Divine order, fighting precedes victory, and labour goes before reward.