  "An exclusively intellectual education leads, by a very obvious process, to hard-heartedness and the contempt of all moral influences. An exclusively moral education tends to fatuity by the over-excitement of the sensibilities. An exclusively religious education ends in insanity, if it do not take a directly opposite course and lead to atheism."—EDINBURGH REVIEW. 1854 THE REV. E.H. SEARS, MY FORMER PASTOR,UNDER WHOSE SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE AND INSTRUCTION, MY MIND LEARNED TO DWELL UPON RELIGIOUS THEMES WITH PLEASURE, WHILE MY HEART FOUND PEACE IN BELIEVING.THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, AS A TRIBUTE OF GRATEFUL AFFECTION, BY THE AUTHOR.CONTENTS.CHARACTER. THE HUMAN TRINITY. THOUGHT. IMAGINATION. AFFECTION. LIFE. CONVERSATION. MANNERS. COMPANIONSHIP. CHARACTER."We have been taught, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally, to seek rather what virtue gives than what virtue is; the reward rather than the service, the felicity rather than the life, the dowry, let me say, rather than the bride."—T.T. STONE. "His practice was of a more divine extraction, drawn from the word of God, and wrought up by the assistance of his Spirit; therefore, in the head of all his virtues I shall set that which was the head and spring of them all, his Christianity; for this alone is the true royal blood that runs through the whole body of virtue, and every pretender to that glorious family, who has no tincture of it, is an impostor. This is that same fountain which baptizeth all the gentle virtues that so immortalize the names of the old philosophers; herein they are regenerated, and take a new name and nature. Dug up in the wilderness of nature, and dipped in this living spring, they are planted and flourish in the paradise of God. By Christianity I intend that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of God, whereby the whole creature is resigned up into the divine will and love, and all its actions directed to the obedience and glory of its Maker."—MEMOIRS OF COL. HUTCHINSON, BY HIS WIDOW. * * * * * The weakness and helplessness of humanity, in relation to the fortunes of this life, have been a favorite theme with philosophers and teachers ever since the world began; and every term expressive of all that is uncertain, insubstantial, and unstable has been exhausted in describing the feebleness of man's power to retain in possession the good things of this life, or even life itself. However firmly the hand of man may seem to grasp power, reputation, or wealth; however numerous may be the band of children or friends that surrounds him, he has no certainty that he may not die friendless and a pauper. In fact, the most brilliant success in life seems sometimes to be permitted only that it may make the darkness of succeeding reverses the more profound. Weak and helpless as we may be in the affairs of this life, there is, however, one thing over which we have entire control. Riches may take to themselves wings, though honest industry exert its best efforts to acquire and retain them; power is taken away from hands that seek to use it only for the good of those they govern; reputation may become tarnished, though virtue be without spot; health may vanish, though its laws, so far as we understand them, be strictly obeyed; but there is one thing left which misfortune cannot touch, which God is ever seeking to aid us in building up, and over which he permits us to hold absolute control; and this is Character. For this, and for this alone, we are entirely responsible. We may fail in all else, let our endeavors be earnest and patient as they may; but all other failures touch us only in our external lives. If we have used our best endeavors to attain success in the pursuit of temporal objects, we are not responsible though we fail. But if we do not succeed in attaining true health and wealth and power of Character, the responsibility is all our own; and the consequences of our failure are not bounded by the shores of time, but stretch onward through the limitless regions of eternity. If we strive for this, success is certain, for the Lord works with us to will and to do. If we do not strive, it were better for us that we had never been born. Character is all we can take with us when we leave this world. Fortune, learning, reputation, power, must all be left behind us in the region of material things; but Character, the spiritual substance of our being, abides with us for ever. According as the possessions of this world have aided in building up Character,—forming it to the divine or to the infernal image,—they have been cursings or blessings to the soul. Before we can understand how Character is to be built up, we must come to a distinct faith in its reality; we must learn to feel that it is more real than anything else that we possess; for surely that which is eternal is more real than that which is merely temporal; it may, indeed, be doubted whether that which is merely temporal has any just claim to be called real. Many persons confound reputation with Character, and believe themselves to be striving for the reality of the one, when the fantasy of the other alone stimulates their desires. Reputation is the opinion entertained of us by our fellow- beings, while Character is that which we really are. When we labor to gain reputation, we are not even taking a first step toward the acquisition of Character, but only putting on coverings over that which is, and protecting it against improvement. As well may we strive to be virtuous by thinking of the reward of heaven, as to build up our Characters by thinking of the opinions of men. The cases are precisely parallel. In each we are thinking of the pay as something apart from the work, while, in fact, the only pay we can have inheres in the doing of the work. Virtue is its own reward, because its performance creates the kingdom of heaven within us, and we cannot attain to virtue until we strive after it for its own sake. A wisely trained Character never stops to ask, What will society think of me if I do this thing, or if I leave it undone? The questions by which it tests the quality of an action are, whether it is just, and wise, and fitting, when judged by the eternal laws of right; and in accordance with this judgment will its manifestations ever be made. If the mind acquires the habit of deliberately asking and answering these questions in regard to common affairs, it acquires, by degrees, distinct opinions in relation to life, forming a regular system, in accordance with which the Character is shaped and built up; and unless this be done, the Character cannot become consistent and harmonious. It is never too late to begin to do this; but the earlier in life it is done, the more readily the character can be conformed to the standard of right which is thus established. Every year added to life ere this is attempted, is an added impediment to its performance; and until it is accomplished, there is no safety for the Character, for each year is adding additional force to careless or evil habits of thought and affection, and consequently of external life. It is not going too far to say, that Character is the only permanent possession we can have. It is in fact our spiritual body. All other mental possessions are to the spiritual body only what clothing is to the natural body,—something put on and taken off as circumstances vary. Character changes from year to year as we cultivate or neglect it, and so does the natural body; but these changes of the body are something very different from the changes of our garments. There is a transient and a permanent side to all our mental attributes. Take, for instance, manners, which are the most external of them all. So far as we habituate ourselves to courtesy and good-breeding because we shall stand better with the world if we are polite than if we are rude, we are cultivating a merely external habit, which we shall be likely to throw off as often as we think it safe to go without it, as we should an uncomfortably fitting dress; and our manners do not belong to our Characters any more than our coats belong to our persons. This is the transient side of manners. If, on the contrary, we are polite from an inward conviction that politeness is one of the forms of love to the neighbor, and because we believe that in being polite we are performing a duty that our neighbor has a right to claim from us, and because politeness is a trait that we love for its own inherent beauty, our manners belong to the substance of our Character,—they are not its garment, but its skin; and this is the permanent side of manners. Such manners will be ours in death, and afterwards, no less than in life. In the same way, every personal accomplishment and every mental acquisition has its transient and its permanent side. So far as we cultivate them to enrich and to ennoble our natures, to enlarge and to elevate our understandings, to become wiser, better, and more useful to our fellow-beings, we are cultivating our Characters,—the spiritual essence of our being; but these very same acquisitions, when sought from motives wholly selfish and worldly, are not only as transient as the clothes we wear, but often as useless as the ornaments of a fashionable costume. The Character will be poor and famished and cold, however great the variety of such clothing or ornament we may put on. When the mind has learned to appreciate the difference between reputation and Character, between the Seeming and the being, it must next decide, if it would build up a worthy Character, what it desires this should be; for to build a Character requires a plan, no less than to build a house. A deep and broad foundation of sound opinions, believed in with the whole heart, can alone insure safety to the superstructure. Where such a foundation is not laid, the Character will possess no architectural unity,—will have no consistency. Its emotions will be swayed by the impulses of the moment, instead of being governed by principles of life. There is nothing reliable in such a Character, for it perpetually contradicts itself. Its powers, instead of acting together, like well-trained soldiers, will be ever jostling each other, like a disorderly mob. The zeal for special reforms in morality that so strongly characterizes the present age, whatever may be its utility or its necessity, may not be without an evil effect upon the training of Character as a whole. The intense effort after reform in certain particular directions causes many to forget or to overlook altogether the fact that one virtue is not enough to make a moral being. It cannot be doubted that the present surpasses all former ages in its eagerness to put down several of the most prominent vices to which man is subject; but it may be well to pause and calmly examine whether a larger promise is not sometimes uttered by the zeal so actively at work in society, than will probably be made good by its results. Nothing can be worthy the name of Reform that is not based on the Christian religion,—that does not acknowledge the laws of eternal truth and justice,—that does not find its life in Christian charity, and its light in Christian truth. The tendency of reform at the present day is too often to separate itself from religion; for religion cannot work fast enough to satisfy its haste; cannot, at the end of each year, count the steps it has advanced in arithmetical numbers. The reformer asks not always for general growth and advancement in Christian Character; but demands special evidences, startling results, tangible proofs. These things all have their value, and the persons who strive for them doubtless have their reward; but if the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness were first sought, the good things so fiercely advocated and labored after by special reformers would be added unto them, as naturally as flowers and fruits, and the wealth of harvest, are added to the light and warmth of the advancing year. Persons who devote themselves to one special branch of reform are apt to lose the power of appreciating any virtue save that one which they have selected as their own, and which they seem to love, not so much because it is a virtue as because it is their virtue. They soon lose all moral perspective, and resemble him who holds some one object so closely before his eyes that he can see nothing else, and cannot see that correctly, while he insists that nothing else exists worthy of being seen. There is ever an effort going on in the mind of man to find some substitute for that universal obedience to the laws of faith and charity which the Scriptures demand; and this temptation adapts itself specially to every different class of believers. Thus the Jew, if the higher requisitions of the Law oppress him, thinks to secure himself from its penalties by the exactness of his ritual observances. The unfaithful Romanist hopes to atone for a life of sin by devoting his property to the Church, or to charity, when he dies. The Lutheran and the Calvinist, when false to the call of duty, think to be forgiven their neglect of the laws of charity by reason of the liveliness of their faith. So the modern reformer sometimes seems to suppose himself at liberty to neglect the cure of any of the vices that he loves, because he fancies that he may take the kingdom of heaven by violence through his devotion to the destruction of some special vice which he abhors. Thus temperance is at times preached by men so intemperate in their zeal, that they are unwilling to make public addresses on the Sabbath, because on that day they are trammelled by the constraint of decency, which prevents them from entering freely into the gross and disgusting details in which they delight. We have the emancipation of negroes sometimes preached by men fast bound in fetters of malignity and spiritual pride. We have the destruction of the ruling influence of the clergy inculcated by men dogmatic as Spanish Inquisitors. We are taught that the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures is a mere figment, by those who are firmly convinced that their own inspiration is perfect and unfailing. The result of all this is the development of characters as deformed as are the bodies of victims to hydrocephalus or goitre; while, in painful contrast to such victims, these morally distorted patients bear about their deformities in the most conspicuous manner, as if they were rare beauties. So pagan nations, when they embody their ideas of superhuman attributes, often construct figures having several heads or hands, or enormously enlarge some particular member of the frame, fancying that they thus express ideas of wisdom or power more perfectly than they could by forming a figure whose parts should all present a symmetrical development. It is not that reformers over-estimate the evil of any of the vices against which they contend; for in the abstract that is impossible; but that they under-estimate the evil of all other vices in relation to that one against which they arm themselves. The tree of evil has many branches, and the trimming away one of them may only make the rest grow more vigorously. There can be no thorough progress in reform until the evil of the whole tree is perceived and acknowledged, and the whole strength is turned to digging it up by the roots. If a man devote himself actively to the reform of some special vice, while he at the same time shows himself indifferent to other vices in himself or in his neighbors, it is evident that his virtue is only one of seeming. We are told that he who is guilty of breaking one commandment is guilty of all; because if we disregard any one commandment of the Lord habitually, persisting in the preference of our own will to his, it is evident we have no true reverence for him, or that we act in conformity to his commandments in other points only because in them our will happens not to run counter to his; and this is no obedience at all. If we find men leaving no stone unturned in promoting the cause of temperance, who do not hesitate to cheat and slander their neighbors, temperance is no virtue in them; but is the result of love of wealth, or of property, or of reputation, or of the having no desire for strong drink; because if a man abstain from intemperance from love to God, he will abstain from cheating and slandering from love to the neighbor. "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" So, too, slavery is an enormous evil, and it is very easy for one who dwells in the free States to cover with opprobrium those who hold slaves; but if the abolitionist indulges in a violence of invective that compels one to fear that his heart is burning with hatred towards his Southern brothers, he stands quite as low in the moral scale as a cruel slaveholder, and possibly lower than a kind one. The intemperate, and often malignant, violence with which men preach, and lead on crusades, against special vices, proves them ignorant of, or indifferent to, the significance of virtue as a whole. It does not enter into their hearts to conceive of the beauty of that growth in grace which results in the complete stature of a man,—that is, of an angel. In their haste to produce great growth in some particular direction, they overlook the fact, that in precise proportion to such growth must be the dwarfing of the other members of the soul. Man was created in the image and likeness of God; and he becomes truly a man only so far as, through the grace of God, his whole being voluntarily assumes that resemblance to the All-perfect for which he was designed. So long as he makes no effort to become regenerate, after he has arrived at an age to be at liberty to choose between good and evil, he turns himself more and more away from God, and becomes less and less like him. While in this state, he may possess many seeming virtues, may enjoy an untarnished reputation, may win the love of many friends; but is none the less the hollow image of that which should be the substance of a man. He is following only the devices of his own heart,—seeking only the good things of this world; and there is no virtue in anything that he does, though he may seem to devote all that he has, or all that he is, to purposes of charity or reform. Man begins to be truly virtuous,—to be truly a man, only when, relying on the strength of the Lord to sustain his endeavors, he begins to avoid sin because it is abhorrent to God, and to fulfil the commandments because they are the words of God. Then only he begins to form himself into the symmetrical figure of a man; and to become perfect after the manner in which the Heavenly Father is perfect. The virtues all lock into each other. They cannot stand alone. Like the stones of an arch, no one of them can be wanting without making all the rest insecure. That Character alone is trustworthy in which each virtue takes its relative position, and all are held in place and confirmed by the key-stone of a living faith in the great central fact, that there is a God of infinite goodness and truth, whose commandments are the laws of life in this world and the world to come. We cannot religiously obey one commandment unless we desire to obey all, because in order to obey one religiously we must obey it from reverence to the divine authority whence it emanates; and when such reverence is aroused in the heart, it sends the currents of spiritual life to every member of the spiritual frame, permeating the whole being, and suffering no disease to remain upon the soul. He, therefore, who devotes himself to some one object of reform enters upon an undertaking involving one of the most subtle temptations by which man is ever assailed. Spiritual pride will lie in wait for him every moment, telling him how clean he is compared with those against whose vices he is contending; and unless he is very strong in Christian humility, he will soon learn this oft-repeated lesson, and will go about the world with the spirit of the Pharisee's prayer ever in his heart,—"God, I thank thee that I am not as other men, intemperate, a slaveholder, a contemner of the rights of the weak. I am not, like many men, contented with fulfilling the common, every-day duties of life. They are too small for me. I seek to do great things; and to show my devotion to thee by going armed with all the power the law allows, to put down vice by force, and drive it from the face of the earth." There is a class of men who assume to be, and are received by many as, philanthropists, who appear to delight in detecting and publishing to the world the vices of their fellow-beings. They seem to love to hate; and to find, in vilifying the reputations of those to whom they are opposed, a pleasure that can be compared to nothing human; but rather to the joy of a vulture as he gloats over, and rends in pieces, his carrion prey. While reading or listening to the raging denunciations of such persons, one is painfully reminded of the spirit that a few generations ago armed itself with the fagot and the axe in order to destroy those who held opinions in opposition to the dominant power. The axe and the fagot have disappeared; but, alas for human nature! the spirit that delighted in their use has hot wholly passed away; the flame and sword it uses now are those of malignity and hatred; it does not scorch or wound the body, but only burns and slays the reputations of those whom it assails. Forgetting that the Lord has declared, "judgment is mine," it hesitates but little to pass its condemnations upon those who differ from itself; and if Christian commandments are urged against it, it passes them by with a sneer, or openly sets them aside as too narrow and imperfect for the present age. While shrinking from the dangers that lie in wait for those who devote themselves to one idea in morality or reform, we should beware of falling into the opposite extreme of indifference on these same points; and should be sure to give them their full share of consideration. The ultra conservatism, that holds fast to existing customs and organizations merely because they are old, or from the love of conservation, is quite as fatuous as the radicalism that would destroy the old merely because it is old, or from the love of destruction. He whose conscience knows no higher sanction or restraint than the Statute Book, is not enough of a Christian to be a good citizen; while he who does not respect the Statute Book as the palladium of his country, is not a citizen worthy the name of Christian. While striving to remain unbiased by the clamor of party, or the violence of individuals, we should with equal care avoid the opposite error of looking with approval, or even with indifference, upon usages or institutions whose only claim to our forbearance lies in laws or popular opinions whose deformity should be discovered, and whose power should melt away beneath the light and warmth of a Christian sun. True religious life consists in doing the will of God every moment of our lives. His will must bear upon us everywhere and at all times. Where the mind is absorbed in some one object of reform, this constant devotion to duty is almost, if not quite, impossible. The mind becomes so warped in one direction that it loses the habit, and almost loses the power, of turning in any other. Hence we rarely hear the word duty from the lips of the reformer. He constantly descants upon rights or wrongs, while duties seem forgotten. Thus we hear perpetually of the rights or of the wrongs of man or of woman, of the citizen, or of the criminal, and of the slave; but the duties of these classes seem to have passed out of sight. Now it is only when all shall fulfil their several duties that the rights of all can be respected; and if peace on earth, and good-will towards men are ever to reign, it must be when piety and charity shall go hand in hand,—when the human race shall unite as one to fulfil its duties towards God and towards each other. Violence of every kind springs from a desire to do one's own will. Egotism is the sure accompaniment of wrath. The love of God never constrained any man to villify his brother. He who is bent on the performance of duty,—who desires simply to do the will of God, is firm as a rock, but never violent. He prays, with the poet,— "Let not this weak, unknowing hand, Possibly the ground may be taken that we should forgive our own personal enemies, but not the enemies of the Lord, against whom the reformer directs his wrath. But is the arm of the Lord shortened that he cannot avenge his own wrongs? and who among mortals is so pure or so strong that he may dare to say, the Lord has need of him for a champion? It is deemed just that a soldier should suffer severe punishment if he act without orders, taking upon himself the authority of a commanding officer. How much more is he worthy of condemnation who puts himself in place of God, and under pretence of doing him service, presumes to transgress his explicit commands. We are prone to fancy that when we are fond of talking about any object we are fond of the object itself; but this by no means follows of course. We may delight in talking about philanthropy while our hearts are burning with hatred, or about temperance while intoxicated with passion, or about abolitionism while we have no respect for the liberty of those around us, and no comprehension of that liberty wherewith Christ makes his children free; and all this because we are working from the blind impulses of an unregenerate spirit. When the spirit becomes regenerate,—taught of God,—it perceives the unity of virtue, and can never again regard it as a dismembered fragment. Then it knows, that to do wrong that good may come of it is striving to cast out Satan by Beelzebub,—an effort that must surely fail. Then it feels that evil is really overcome only by good. How different will be the reformatory zeal of this state of the spirit from that which preceded it. Formerly, no sooner was the subject of reform mentioned than the neck stiffened and the head tossed itself backward with the excitement of pride and combativeness, while the tongue poured forth whatever phrases anger might suggest. Now, how different is the attitude and expression, as with words of gentleness and love it strives to draw others to perceive the beauty of purity and justice. Formerly, the whole effort of the mind was to compel others to come into agreement with itself; now, it strives to win them into harmony with God. Once, it believed that indignation could be righteous; now, it knows that anger and heavenly mindedness dwell far apart; and, if they approach each other, one must perish. If we would train character into genuine goodness, we should observe whether evil in ourselves or others offends us because it is contrary to our own ideas, or because it is opposed to the will of God. If the former be the case, we shall find ourselves angry; if the latter, we shall be sorrowful. No one can be angry from love to God. Anger is in its very nature egotistic and selfish, and has in it nothing of holiness. Penitence for sin is ever meek and humble, and so is regret for the sins of others. The moment we find ourselves angry, either for our own sins or for the sins of others, we may be sure there is something wrong in our state, and we should stop at once to analyze our feelings, and find where the trouble lies. If we do this conscienciously, we shall be sure to find some selfish or worldly passion at the root of the matter. We shall find that something else than love to God excited our indignation. If we find ourselves indulging, habitually and with satisfaction in any one sin, we may be sure that we have not true hatred for any sin; for sin is hateful because it is contrary to the infinite wisdom and goodness of God. If we abhor it for this reason, we shall abhor all sin; and if we find ourselves hating some sins and loving others, we may be sure that we hate those which are repugnant to our own tastes, and love those which are in conformity with them. Thus our measure of sin is in ourselves, and not in God; and we are putting ourselves in place of God,—worshipping the idol self, instead of our Father in heaven. The Lord was very explicit in his teachings regarding the necessity of the denial of self; but this is the last thing in which we are willing to obey him. We profess to be willing and eager to do a great deal of good; but when conscience tells us that we must do the will of God every moment of our lives, we turn away with a sorrowful countenance; for there are many things in which we wish to follow our own wills without stopping to consult the will of God, and we wish to believe that we can do this and yet be quite virtuous enough to insure salvation. While the natural man is strong within us, we are ever striving to serve God and mammon; but when the spiritual man is born, we are willing to give up all else and follow the Lord. Then, we feel that we cannot be truly virtuous, because we are, in some points, very scrupulous, while in others we are very indifferent; for we perceive that goodness is the harmonious development of the whole Character into accordance with the will of God. So long as we labor for ourselves we shall be, at best, only special reformers, and cultivators of special virtues; but when we are ready to deny ourselves, and to do the will of God, all sin will become abhorrent to us, and we shall grow in grace daily until we become perfected in that symmetrical form of man, which is the image and likeness of God; and every faculty of the heart and of the head will then be baptized into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. h less suffering in most deaths by casualty than by prolonged disease; while in many such there is probably entire freedom from suffering. The mercy of God, no less than his power, is everywhere, and in all forms of death, no less than in life; and were our love for him as universal as his for us, we could no more fear while remembering that we are in his hands, than the infant fears while clasped to its mother's breast.The possession of this trust in God, because it makes one calm in all positions and under all emergencies, is the surest of all safeguards against danger. How often, in the shocking records of disaster by land and water, is the loss of life directly traceable to the want of that true courage that retains self-possession everywhere, and under all circumstances, giving the power to ward off threatening danger, even when it seems most imminent and irresistible. In pestilence, the terrified are the first to fall victims to the scourge, while none walk so securely as those who possess their souls in quietness. Intellectual courage,—the courage of thought—comes second in the ascending scale. As physical courage gives us the ability to use our faculties with the same freedom in the most imminent danger as we should with no alarming circumstance to excite us, making us as it were to rise above circumstance, so intellectual courage gives us the power to think with independence, just as we should if we did not know the opinion of another human being upon the subject which engages our thoughts. Persons having an humble estimate of their own abilities are apt to take their opinions, without reserve, from those whom they most respect, without making any effort on their own part to judge for themselves between truth and falsehood. If this were right, it would take all responsibility in relation to matters of thought from this class of persons; yet every human being must be responsible for the opinions he holds. We cannot excuse ourselves by saying we took our opinion from another, and it is his fault if it be false. Each one must be prepared to answer for his own opinions, just as he must be responsible for his own actions. Persons of a combative disposition take just the opposite course from this, and adopt opinions merely because they are opposed to some particular person or to some class of persons. Such persons fancy themselves very independent, and announce their opinions with a movement of the head, that seems to say, "You see I am afraid of nobody, and dare to think for myself." There is, however, quite as little independence in adopting an opinion because somebody else does not think so, as in accepting it because he does. Independence of thought is thinking without any undue regard to the opinion of any one else, one way or the other. A third class of persons, having large love of approbation, is very numerous. These are unwilling to express any opinion in conversation until they have ascertained the views of the person they address; cannot tell what they think of a book until they know what the critics say; and seem to have no idea of truth in itself, but look merely to please others by changing their opinions as often as they change their companions. There are many authors of this class who, in writing, strive only to please the vanity of the reader by presenting him with a reflection of his own ideas; and whose constant aim is to follow public opinion, instead of leading it. They do not care whether the ideas they promulgate are true or false, if they are but popular; and if they fail to please, are filled with chagrin, and sometimes have even died of despair. A fourth class of persons, possessed of strong self-esteem, arrive at independence of thought through pride of intellect, and this is even more dangerous than to depend upon others for our opinions; for of all idolatry, there is none so interior and hard to overcome as the worship of self. If we would arrive at truth of opinion, we must be independent of our own passions and prejudices no less than of our neighbor's. There is but one source of truth, and whoever believes that he finds it elsewhere is an idolater. The Lord has declared, "I am the way and the truth and the life"; and it is only through him as the way that we can find the truth, and we seek it through him when we love it because he is the truth, and so seek it for its own absolute beauty and excellence, desiring to bring it out into life. Look where we may along the pages of history and the records of science, it is the devout men who have been the successful promulgaters of new ideas and searchers after truth. The scoffer and the infidel make great boasts of their progress through their independence of Scripture; but in a little while a devout man follows in their footsteps and proves that their deductions are false, and that even their observations of facts were not to be trusted. Scoffers and infidels come, promising to set the world in order by subverting governments; but though they are quick to pull down, they have no power to build up; and it is only when the devout man comes, that the reign of anarchy and misrule ceases. Common, daily life is the epitome of history. The devout man is the only one whose opinions are trustworthy; and just so far as we become truly devout will the scales that hinder us from seeing the truth fall from our eyes. "If the eye be single," looking to the Lord alone, unbiassed in its gaze by the thousand-fold passions of earth, "the whole body shall be full of light." Moral courage, the third phase of this virtue, is that faculty of the soul by which we are enabled to act, in all the social relations of life, with perfect independence of the opinions of the world, and governed only by the laws of abstract propriety, uprightness, and charity. It gives us power to say and to do whatever we conscienciously believe to be right and true, without being influenced by the fear of man's frown or the hope of his favor. This is very difficult, because the customs and conventionalisms of society hedge us about so closely from our very infancy, that they constrain us when we are unconscious of it, and lead us to act and to refrain in a way which our better judgment would forbid, did we consult its indications without being influenced by the world. It was a saying of a wise man, that "he who fears God can fear nothing else"; and there is certainly no healthy way in which we can be delivered from that fear of the world which destroys moral courage, but the learning to fear, above all things, failing to fulfil our duty before God. If we would have moral courage, we must accustom ourselves to feel that we are accountable to God, and to him only, for what we do. There is a spurious moral as well as intellectual courage, the offspring of pride and arrogance, that pretends to independence in a spirit of defiance of the opinion of the world; but this will never give us the power to act wisely, for wisdom is ever the twin sister of charity that loves the neighbor even while differing from him in opinion. True courage of every kind is perfectly self-possessed, but never defiant. A spirit of defiance springs from envy or hate if it be honest, and from a consciousness of inferiority if assumed; and is sometimes only a disguise self-assumed by fear, when it seeks to be unconscious of itself. True moral courage results from the hope that we are acting in harmony with the laws of eternal wisdom. Fear of every kind is annihilated by a living hope that the Lord is on our side. If we would test the quality of our moral courage, we must ask ourselves, is it defiant? is it disdainful? is it envious? does it hate its neighbor? or are its emotions affected in any way by the opinion of the world? If we can answer all these questions in the negative, we must go a step farther, and ask if we have gained a state of independence of our own selfish passions, as well as of the world; for our most inveterate foes, and those before whom we cower most abjectly, are often those that dwell within the household of our own hearts. If the love of ease or of sensual indulgence rules there, we need to summon our moral courage to a stern strife, for there is no conquest more difficult than over the evil affections that are rooted in our sensual nature. Wise and good men have gone so far as to believe that this conquest is never entire in this world; that the allurements of indolence and the gnawing of sensual cravings are never quieted save when the body perishes. It is, however, difficult to believe that passions exist in the body apart from the soul, and if not, there can be no absolute impossibility of conquest, even in this world. If this may be attained, it must be through the building up of a true moral courage, that shall fight believing that the sword of the Lord is in the hand of him who strives, trusting in that eternal strength which is mighty even as we are weak. Religious courage develops naturally in proportion as the growth of moral courage becomes complete. Fear is nowhere so distressing as in our relations with our Creator. That which is by nature best becomes worst when it is perverted; and as the blessed hope to which, as children of God, we are all born heirs, is in its fulness an infinite source of joy and blessing to the soul, so when it is reversed and perverted into fear, it becomes the source of unspeakable misery, sometimes resulting in one of the most wretched forms of insanity. The morbid state of the mind which induces this distressing passion is the result of a peculiar form of egotism, which leads the thoughts to fasten upon one's own evils so entirely that the mind ceases to recognize, or even to remember, the long-suffering patience and mercy of the Heavenly Father. A more common, but less painful form of this fear is the result of vagueness in one's ideas of the Divine character and attributes. The clear and rational views which Swedenborg has given of the Divine Providence is undoubtedly the reason why religious melancholy is almost never found among the members of the New Church. The peace in believing, which is almost universal among this class of Christians, is a subject of remark among those who observe them, wherever they are found; and this arises, not merely from their not looking upon God as an enemy and avenger who demands a perfect fulfilment of the letter of the law, or infinite punishment for sin, either personally or by an atoning Saviour; but from the possession of a distinct idea, imaged in their minds, of the nature and the quality of the Divine Providence. Where there is a tendency to any kind of fear, nothing increases it more than the want of a distinct idea of the thing or person feared; because the Imagination, which is always quick with the timid, is almost sure to create something within the mind far more fearful than anything that really exists. The greatest boon mankind ever received through a brother man was the doctrine first promulgated by Swedenborg, that God has respect even to our good intentions; and that he casts out none who sincerely desire to be of his kingdom. If one distinctly believes this doctrine, there is no rational ground in the mind for fear; because the very fact of our desire for salvation—provided we understand salvation to be a state of the mind, and not a mere position in a certain place,—or something pertaining to our internal, and not to our external, nature—makes it impossible that we should fail of attaining it. If one is oppressed with religious fear, the way to escape from it is to use every endeavor to attain a clear and distinct idea of the Divine character, and to strive to bring one's self into harmony with it;—to think as little as possible about one's own sins, and to train the thoughts to dwell upon the Divine perfections, and cultivate an ardent desire to imitate them. It is necessary to think of one's self enough to refrain from the commission of external sins, and just so far and so fast as we put away sin, the Lord will implant the opposite virtue in its place, provided we put the sin away from love to him, and not from any selfish or worldly motive. This state of active cooperation with the Lord is something very different from that into which one falls who is the subject of religious fear, and cannot exist in company with it. The religious coward can only overcome his fear by remembering that God is not a tyrant who demands impossibilities of his slaves, but a Father of infinite love, who would make his children eternally happy; and who, in order that they may become so, gives them every means and every aid that they will receive. He must not suffer his heart to sink within him by thinking of his own weakness, but must elevate it by thinking of the infinite power of him who has called us to salvation. Above all things, he must not fall into reveries about himself, but seek to forget self in the active performance of duty. The performance of duty, the fulfiling of use, which, rightly understood, is the universal panacea against all the troubles and sorrows of this life, is too often a fearful bugbear in the eyes of those who understand it not. This subject, however, brings us to the third and last topic to be discussed under the head of Life. The love of duty, to be effectual or real, must be earnest; for earnestness is the certain result of living Affection. Through this, all our other powers and faculties ultimate themselves in external Life. Earnestness is the exact opposite of indolence. It is the external motive power, just as Affection is the internal motive power,—the body, of which Affection is the soul. Without earnestness, all our other powers come to naught, and we live in vain; with it, our other endowments become alive, and ready to impress themselves upon the external world. Indolence is a rust, corroding and dulling all our faculties; earnestness, a vitalizing force, quickening and brightening them. By earnestness, alone, can we climb upward in that progress which, begun in time, pauses not at the grave, but passing through the portal of death, goes eternally on in the same direction which we chose for ourselves here, ever approaching more nearly to the Divine perfection, whose life is the unresting activity of infinite love. By indolence, we sink ever lower and lower, and through a continuous process of deterioration, grow each day more unfit for the heavenly life, which all but the abandoned, and perhaps even they, fancy they desire, even when refusing to use any of the means whereby it may be gained. In the circle of man's evil propensities, no one, perhaps, is a more fruitful mother of wretchedness and crime than the propensity to indolence. It is a common saying, that the love of money is the root of all evil; but that root often runs deeper, and finds its life in indolence, which incites those under its dominion to seek money through unlawful means. The desire for money impels most men to constant effort, and there is no reason for attributing a stronger desire to him who steals or defrauds than to him who labors steadfastly, every day of his life, from early dawn to eve; yet we praise the latter, and condemn the former. It is not, then, the love of money that we condemn, but the desire to attain it by vicious means; and such desire results from a hatred for labor, which is the only legitimate means by which it may be gained. Money in itself is but dead matter, serving only as a minister to some end beyond; and the simple desire for it is neither good nor bad: the end for which it is desired elevates the desire itself to a virtue, or degrades it to a vice; and the means which we adopt for obtaining it, and the purposes to which we apply it, make it either a blessing or a curse. Every possession, whether moral, intellectual, or physical, is the legitimate reward of labor wisely and earnestly applied; and for these rewards the virtuous are content to labor without repining, and to them, not only the rewards, but the labor itself, is blessed. The vicious, on the contrary, desire the rewards, but hate the labor by which they should be gained. They, therefore, accordingly as they belong to different classes of society, simulate virtues which they do not possess, pretend to acquirements they have been too idle to gain, or strive after wealth by any means, rather than patient industry and honest effort. It is not the vicious alone who fail to perceive that labor is a blessing from which a wise man can never fly. The curse applied to Adam, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," has led many to suppose that originally the wants of the human race were supplied without any exertion of its own,—that in the garden of Eden there was enjoyment without effort, possession without labor. Even in the pulpit, labor is sometimes spoken of as a curse pertaining only to life in this world, from which we shall be delivered in the life to come. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Employment is the life of every soul, from the Most High down to the least of his children. They only who are spiritually dead, or sleeping, ask for idleness. It is man fallen who looks on labor as a curse, not man walking with God in the garden of Eden; and to man, when he has fallen, labor is indeed a curse, for his soul is so perverted that he knows not the true nature and qualities of a blessing. Man, resting in thought or feeling, is at best a useless abstraction; he becomes truly a man only when his thoughts and feelings come forth into life, and impress themselves on outward things. If he fail to do this, the rust of idleness eats into all his powers, till he becomes a useless cumberer of the ground; the world loses, and heaven gains nothing when this mortal puts on immortality. Such a being is dead while he lives—a moral paralytic. His capacities are as seed cast upon a rock where there is no earth. God works incessantly. His eye knows no closing, his hand no weariness. The universe was not only built by his power, but is sustained every moment by his inflowing life. If he were to turn from it for a single instant, all things would return to chaos. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, resembles him most nearly when the life influent from God which fills his soul, flows forth freely as it is given, quickening with its powers all that comes within the influence of his sphere. There is an old proverb that tells us, "Idleness is the devil's pillow"; and well may it be so esteemed, for no head ever rested long upon it, but the lips of the evil spirit were at its ear, breathing falsehood and temptation. The industrious man is seldom found guilty of a crime; for he has no time to listen to the enticings of the wicked one, and he is content with the enjoyments honest effort affords. It is the vicious idler, vexed to see the fortunes of his industrious neighbor growing while he is lounging and murmuring, who robs and murders that he may get unlawful gain. It is the merry, thoughtless idler who, to relieve the nothingness of his days, seeks the excitement of the wine-cup and the gaming-table. It is the sensual idler, whose licentious ear is open to the voice of the tempter as often as his track crosses the pathway of youth and innocence. Not only by reason of the external, palpable rewards which labor brings is it to be considered a blessing; but every hour of patient labor, whether with the hands, or in study, or thought, brings with it its own priceless reward, in its direct effects upon the Character. By it the faculties are developed, the powers strengthened, and the whole being brought into a state of order; provided we do all things for the glory of God. "But," exclaims the impatient heart, wearied with the cares of daily life, "how can all this labor for the preservation and comfort of the merely mortal body, this study of things which belong merely to the material world, subserve in any way the glory of God?" It is by these very toils, worthless and transitory as they may seem, that the Character is built up for eternity; and so to build up Character is the whole end for which the things of time were created. No matter how small the duty intrusted to our performance, by performing it to the best of our abilities we are fitting ourselves to be rulers over many things,—to hear the blessed proclamation, "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." We are prone, at times, to feel as though we were not placed in the right niche; and that, if we were differently situated, and occupied with employments more worthy our capacities, we should work with pleasure and assiduity; but our present duties are so much beneath us, it seems degrading to spend our time and thoughts upon them. Here is a radical error of judgment, for it is not a high or low duty that degrades or elevates man, but the performing any duty well or ill. It is as true as it is trite, that the honor or shame lies in the mode of performance, not in the quality of the duty. We all, perhaps, know and say, and yet need to be reminded, that a bad president stands lower in the scale of being than a good town officer; a wicked statesman, let him occupy what social position he may, fills a lower place than a conscientious slave who faithfully fulfils the duties of his station. The first Church, represented by Adam, fell because it ceased to look to the Lord as the source of all life and light, and looked only to itself for all things. It thus lost all conception of the legitimate aim of life. Seeking only the enjoyment of the present moment, labor seemed a dire calamity; for the eternal end of labor, that is, the development of the powers of the soul, so as best to fit it for the performance of heavenly uses, passed out of the knowledge of man, and he learned to look forward to heaven as a place of idle enjoyment; toiling sorrowfully through this world, in the sweat of his face, for bread that, when attained, gave him no true life. To eat bread in the sweat of the face signifies by correspondences, to receive and appropriate as good only that which self may call self-produced and self-owned; and to turn away with aversion from that which is heavenly. This is precisely what we all do when we shrink from, or despise, any labor which duty demands at our hands. The Lord places us in that position in life which is best adapted to overcome the evil dispositions of our nature, and to cultivate our souls for heaven. Perhaps we have capacities that would enable us to perform duties that would be considered by the world of a higher character; but perhaps, on the other hand, we have vices that the Lord is striving to overcome by placing us in this very position which so frets and disgusts us. If we will but remember that the mercy and love of the Lord strive to bless us by fitting us for heaven, and not by making us eminent in the eyes of men, we shall probably find it much easier to comprehend why we are placed as we are in this world. When we torment ourselves by thinking of the inappropriateness of our position in this world, we are always viewing our position with regard to this world only, and therefore all things are dark to us. When we look humbly to the Lord, and seek to find out the eternal ends of his providence in the circumstances of our lives, gradually the scales pass from our eyes, and at last we go in peace, seeing. Beside the education of our powers and faculties, employment is a blessing in helping us to bear the severest trials of this life. When bereavement or disappointment overwhelms the soul with anguish, so that this world seems only the dark habitation of despair; when we cannot see the bow of promise in the black cloud that darkens our horizon; when we feel that we are without God in the world,—and there are few if any human beings who have not found themselves at some time in such a state,—then, as we hope by the grace of God ever to escape from this despair, we should fly idleness as we would fly the dagger or the poisoned cup; and though grief be tugging at the heart-strings, though our eyes are blinded with tears, we should set ourselves diligently about doing something that may help to make others happy, and let no duty go unperformed; and it will not be long ere the dimmed eyes shall begin to see the glow of the sunshine above, and the earth radiant with beauty below; while, so far from being deserted of God, we shall feel that sorrow has brought us more distinctly than ever before into his presence. "The path of sorrow, and that path alone, What are the employments of heaven we cannot know with any particularity. Swedenborg tells us that the angels are constantly performing uses; but what these uses are we are not distinctly told. We know that they correspond in some way to the employments of earth; but really to understand them probably transcends our capacities while we remain in the flesh. The conscientious performance of the material and finite uses of this life is the only means by which we can prepare ourselves for the spiritual and eternal uses pertaining to the heavenly kingdom; uses which probably serve to comfort, nourish, and strengthen the soul in eternity, as on earth the corresponding uses serve the wants of the body. In the spiritual world the spiritual body is fed, clothed, and sheltered in much the same way, to appearance, as is the material body in the natural world; but all the surroundings of the spirit correspond to the state of each individual being, and are the direct gift of the Lord. All the arts and trades of this life do not exist in the other, but as these arts and trades, as well as everything else in this world, exist only through their correspondence with something in the other world, it follows that all the occupations of this life have not similar, but corresponding, occupations in the other. The end of life in this world is to fit the soul for entering upon the heavenly life, and the end of life in heaven is perpetual advancement in spiritual graces and perfections; for no angel, even in the highest heavens, has reached a degree of perfection so high that he can go no further. The end of heavenly life thus being infinite, the effort and employment of that life must be ceaseless. In speaking of ceaseless effort, it must not be understood that this resembles at all the wearying labor of a slave, or that there is anything oppressive or forced about its performance; for this could only be anticipated with dread. Heavenly employment must be full of life and joy, bearing us upward like the wings of a skylark, as he bathes in the sunlight of the upper ether, and carols forth his joy. There will undoubtedly be a variety, too, in heavenly employment, corresponding with our varying states, and making tedium impossible. This may be illustrated by imagining what would be a perfect mode of spending a day in this world. We wake in the morning refreshed by repose, and as we look forth at the sun our spirits rejoice in the beauty of the wakening day, and rise toward the heavenly throne in prayer and praise. We set about the performance of our daily duties, and Christian charity toward those for whose happiness or benefit, whether physical or intellectual, we exert our powers, makes us faithful in whatever we do, that it may be done to the best of our ability; and our effort is lightened by the consciousness of duty done from pure and upright motives. If we go forth for refreshment, communion with nature and the God of nature fills our souls with peace, while the fresh air gives new life to the frame. When the duties of the day are over, and the family circle collects around the evening lamp, reading or conversation awakes the powers of the heart and the intellect, and draws more closely the bonds of the domestic affections. We retire for the night, and ere composing ourselves to sleep, we collect our thoughts, reflect upon the events of the day, examining what we have done well or ill, and prepare by wise resolutions for future effort. We slumber, and the repose of all our powers renews our strength for the coming morrow. Through the whole of this twenty-four hours, employment has been constant. There has been labor of the hands, labor of the head, conversation, thought, prayer, sleep. Every part of the being has been called into exercise; there has been no weariness from labor, and no idleness; but every moment of this whole day has added its quota towards promoting the growth of the whole being; and this is a heavenly day. The more perfectly we can make the occupations of our days thus combine for the growth of our being, the better we are preparing ourselves for the days of heaven. As the progress of the heavenly life will be infinite, the wants of our spiritual natures must likewise be infinite. The heavenly life must be a life of charity,—a life in which every soul will strive to aid every other to the utmost; and the charities of heaven must strengthen and comfort the soul in a manner corresponding to the aid material charities effect in this world. Let it constantly be borne in mind, that charities are duties well performed, of whatever kind they may be,—as well the faithful fulfilment of an avocation as the aiding of a suffering fellow-being. Charity is but another name for duty; or rather duty becomes charity when we perform it from genuine love to the Lord and to the neighbor; and whoever leads a life of charity in this world is fitting himself to perform the higher charities that will be required of him in heaven. The true end and highest reward of labor is spiritual growth; and such growth brings with it the most exalted happiness we are capable of attaining. This happiness is the kingdom of heaven within us; and it is the certain and unfailing reward, or rather consequence, of a life of true charity. It is not difficult, by intellectual thought, to perceive the truth of this doctrine; but this is not enough. We must elevate our hearts into a wisdom that shall make us not only perceive, but feel and love this truth. Until we can do this, we do not truly believe, though we may think we do. If we fret and murmur; if we are impatient and unfaithful; if, when we plainly see that our duty lies in one path, we yet long to follow another; if we know that we cannot leave our present position without dereliction from right, and yet hate or despise the place in which we are; if we repine because God does not give us the earthly rewards we fancy we deserve, though we well know he promises only heavenly ones; if we do habitually any or all of these things, we may know that our faith is of the lip, and not of the heart,—that the life of charity is not yet begun within us. Such repinings, such cravings as these do not belong nor lead to the heavenly kingdom. He who thinks wisely can never live a life of idleness, and where there is excessive indolence of the body there is never healthy action of the mind. A life of use is a life of holiness; and a life of idleness is a life of sin. He who performs no social use, who makes no human being happier or better, is leading a life of utter selfishness; is walking in a way that ends in spiritual death. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the King condemns those on the left hand, not because they have done that which was wrong, but because they have omitted doing that which was right. No human being in possession of his mental faculties is so incompetent that he can do nothing for the benefit of those around him. One prostrate on a bed of sickness might seem, at first glance, incapable of performing any use; and yet, not unfrequently, what high and holy lessons of patient faith, of unwavering piety, are taught by such a being,—lessons that can never die out from the memory of those who minister at the couch of suffering. When the body lies powerless, and the hand has lost its cunning, when even the tongue is palsied in death, how often has the eye, still faithful to the heavenly Master, by a glance of holy peace performed the last act of charity to the bereaved ones whom it looks upon with the eye of flesh for the last time. So long as life remains to us our duties are unfinished: God yet desires our service on earth, and while he desires let us not doubt our capacity to serve. Even for one in the solitude of a prison-cell, when acts of charity become impossible, the duty of labor is not taken away. One may still work for the Father in Heaven, though sitting in darkness, and with manacled limbs. To possess the soul in patience, to be meek, forgiving, and pious, are duties amply sufficient to tax the powers of the strongest. There is no room for idleness even here. To work is not only a duty, but a necessity of our nature, and when we fancy ourselves idle, we are in fact working for one whose wages is death. The question is never, Shall we work? but, For whom shall we work? Whom shall we choose for our master? and our happiness here and hereafter must depend on the answer we give to this question. We may not deliberately put and deliberately reply to this question in stated words; but our whole lives answer it in one long-continued period. Those who labor steadfastly, with no end in view but the acquisition of worldly, perishable advantages, answer it fearfully; but theirs is not a more desperate reply than comes from the idler and the slothful. Wherever there is activity and force there is hope; for though now flowing in a wrong direction, the stream may yet be diverted into channels that shall lead to eternal life. Where there is no activity, where all the faculties of the soul are sunk in the lethargy of indifference, as well may one hope to find living fountains gushing forth into fertilizing streams amid the sands of the African desert. The man of science tells us that living springs exist beneath these sands, and that artesian wells might bring them to the surface; and so in the inmost nature of man, however degraded he may be, Swedenborg tells us there is a shrine that cannot be defiled, through which heavenly influences may come down into his life, and yet save him, if he will receive them ere he passes from this world; but when sloth has become habitual and confirmed, there is almost as little room for hope that this will ever take place as that artesian tubes will ever make the Saharan desert a region of fertility. The kingdom of evil is readily attained. We have but to follow the allurements of the passions, and we shall surely find it; we have but to fold our hands, and it will come to us. With the kingdom of eternal life it is not so. That is a prize not easily won. Faithful, untiring effort, looking ever toward eternal ends; a constant scrutiny of motives, that they may be pure and true; an earnest, heartfelt, determined devotion to the heavenly Master, to whose service we have bound ourselves by deliberate choice, can alone make sure for us what we seek. For a long time this may require labor almost painful, but if we persevere, our affections will gradually become at one with our faith, the heavenly life will become habitual, so as to be almost instinctive; and when the celestial kingdom is thus established within us, no place will be left for weariness, or doubt, or pain, or fear. CONVERSATION. "He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best requisites of man."—LAVATER. "The common fluency of speech, in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter and a scarcity of words; for whoever is master of a language, and has a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas, common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in; and these are always ready at the mouth; so people can come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door."—SWIFT. * * * * * Of all the physical powers possessed by man, there is none so noble as that of speech; none that distinguishes him so entirely from the brute; yet how few there are who seem in any adequate degree to comprehend its power and value, or who ever pause to reflect upon the sacrilegious abuse to which it is often degraded. Language is Thought and Affection in form, as works are Thought and Affection in life. By language we receive the word of Divine Revelation, and by language we approach the Divine Author of all things in prayer. By language we are made happy in social life, through interchange of thought and feeling with our fellow-beings. By language, man is made lord of the terrestrial world. By language, the wisdom of past ages becomes an inheritance for the whole earth, instead of perishing with each possessor; and thus man advances from age to age, through the experience of the past, instead of being obliged to work out all the wisdom he gains by his own individual effort. This is the bright and beautiful side of language; but on the other hand is a dark and hideous side, when language becomes the foul and poisonous medium through which the folly, the vice, and all the moral deformities of humanity, are spread abroad through the world, and handed down through the ages. The same medium that serves as a vehicle for heavenly truth is the tool of the scoffing infidel; it is formed into prayer by the saint, and into blasphemy by the sinner. Alternately, it serves the purest and holiest uses, or the vilest and most atrocious abuses; now formed to the sweet breathings of heavenly charity, and anon to the harsh utterances of malignant hate. These distinctions are wide and clear, and easily perceived by the most obtuse or indifferent observer; but these distinctly marked varieties pass into milder shades as they are exhibited in common Conversation, and then a nicer observation is needful to detect the varieties of hue that color language when used in the every-day forms of society. The habitual use we make of language is the result of our own characters, and it reacts upon them. It likewise acts upon those who are about us with an unceasing power, repelling or attracting all whom we approach. Every human being exerts a perpetual influence on every other human being, with an activity as universal as that of gravity in the material world; and language is one of the most efficient means of this influence. Viewed in the light of these truths, common Conversation becomes an object of serious consideration; and the mode of sustaining it worthy of the deepest thought and of the most careful watchfulness. Between the malignity of a fiend and the charity of an angel there is a long interval of inclined plane, and those who walk there may seem a company so mixed that they cannot be separated into two distinct bands; but every individual of the throng is looking toward one or the other extremity, and either ascending or descending in his course. Conversation is the outbirth of our thoughts and affections, and it shows their quality in the most direct manner possible. Actions are said to speak louder than words, and to the appreciation of our fellow-beings our lives are much truer and fuller expositions of our internal natures than our Conversation; but before God, always, and before our own consciences if we really look at ourselves, the insincere words that deceive our fellow-beings stand unmasked,—the deformed exponents of the falsehood of the soul. We can therefore understand the character of our neighbor better by his actions than by his words; but to understand our neighbor is of little importance compared with understanding ourselves; and is chiefly useful because a comparison of individuals aids us in comprehending our own natures. We can understand ourselves by our own words if we will take the trouble to consider them dispassionately, and analyze the thoughts and affections whence they spring. So little honesty is believed to exist in ordinary Conversation, that the saying of a witty courtier, that "language is the instrument whereby man conceals his thoughts," has almost passed into a proverb. The question, in which direction is the man walking who wraps duplicity about himself as his constant garment, needs no answer; for all must know that the Divine Being, whose form is truth, hateth a lie. The first element in Conversation should be sincerity. Not the blunt and harsh sincerity sometimes met with, which is made the cloak of self-esteem and bitterness; for that is an evil of the same nature as the malice and hatred that show themselves in active, outward injury towards the neighbor. When excited by pride or anger, the tongue needs a bridle no less than the hand; and when the heart can utter itself truly only in the forms of such passions, silence is its only safeguard. In speaking of the follies or vices of others, sincerity should be tempered by a Christian charity, which, while it does not gloss over vice, does not dwell upon it needlessly, nor take a malicious pleasure in spreading it abroad, nor indulge self-complacency by dilating upon it, to give the idea that one is superior to such things. If such motives are allowed to have sway, a person soon becomes confirmed in the habit of gossiping,—a habit that degrades alike the intellect and the heart. The soul of gossip is a contemptible vanity that imagines itself, or at least would have others imagine it, superior to all that it finds of evil and absurdity in the characters of those whom it passes in review. A very little observation will serve to show any one that everybody sees his neighbors' faults, while very few open their eyes upon their own; and that not unfrequently a person condemns with the utmost vehemence in others precisely the same follies and vices in which he himself habitually indulges. Those who study their own characters with most care, and who best understand themselves, are apt to say least of the characters of their neighbors; they find too much to do within themselves, in curing their own defects, to have time or inclination to sit in judgment upon the defects of others. |
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