The Elements of Character Part 1

The Elements of Character.

by Mary G. Chandler.

"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 G.o.d, and wrought up by the a.s.sistance 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 G.o.d. By Christianity I intend that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 sh.o.r.es 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 circ.u.mstances 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 enn.o.ble 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 surpa.s.ses 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 subst.i.tute for that universal obedience to the laws of faith and charity which the Scriptures demand; and this temptation adapts itself specially to every different cla.s.s 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d; and he becomes truly a man only so far as, through the grace of G.o.d, his whole being voluntarily a.s.sumes 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, and to fulfil the commandments because they are the words of G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sailed. 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,--"G.o.d, 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 cla.s.s of men who a.s.sume 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 f.a.got and the axe in order to destroy those who held opinions in opposition to the dominant power. The axe and the f.a.got have disappeared; but, alas for human nature! the spirit that delighted in their use has hot wholly pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sails. Forgetting that the Lord has declared, "judgment is mine,"

it hesitates but little to pa.s.s its condemnations upon those who differ from itself; and if Christian commandments are urged against it, it pa.s.ses 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 inst.i.tutions 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 G.o.d 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 cla.s.ses seem to have pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, is firm as a rock, but never violent. He prays, with the poet,--

"Let not this weak, unknowing hand, Presume thy bolts to throw; And deal d.a.m.nation round the land, On each I judge thy foe."

He remembers that judgment belongs to G.o.d; and that the Lord taught us to pray, "Forgive our trespa.s.ses as we forgive those who trespa.s.s against us"; and surely none can hurl denunciation upon a fellow-sinner if from his heart he offers that prayer.

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 G.o.d, and under pretence of doing him service, presumes to transgress his explicit commands.

We are p.r.o.ne 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 pa.s.sion, 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 G.o.d,--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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d. 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 a.n.a.lyze our feelings, and find where the trouble lies. If we do this conscienciously, we shall be sure to find some selfish or worldly pa.s.sion at the root of the matter. We shall find that something else than love to G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d; and we are putting ourselves in place of G.o.d,--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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d.

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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d; 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.

THE HUMAN TRINITY.

"It is this trinity of man,--for man is the image of his G.o.d, in whom is the essential Trinity,--under which his whole character must be studied."--KINMONT.

Man being created in the image and likeness of G.o.d, we must of necessity find in him a finite organization corresponding with the infinite organization of the Creator. In the Infinite Divine Trinity there are the Divine Goodness or Love, the Divine Truth or Wisdom, and the Divine Operation or the manifestation of the other two in and upon the universe: in other words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the human, finite trinity, we have, corresponding with these, Affection, Understanding, and Use, or external life. Divinity being the embodiment of infinite order, its parts act in a sequence of absolute perfection; that is, absolute love by means of absolute wisdom exhibits itself in absolute use. Speaking with exactness, the word sequence is out of place in this connection, because with the Divinity, love, wisdom, and operation are simultaneous; but he has separated them in his ultimate manifestations, and we are obliged to separate them in our a.n.a.lysis, in order that they may in any degree come within the compa.s.s of human comprehension.

Man, in his primeval innocence, was a genuine image and likeness of the All-perfect Divinity; perfect after the same manner, but on a lower plane. There was then no antagonism between the creature and the Creator; and the finite naturally and joyfully obeyed the infinite; for in obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father it found sustenance for the soul as manifestly as in meat and drink for the body. The progress of time saw the creature turn from the love of G.o.d to the love of self,--from seeking the truth of G.o.d to seeking out its own vain imaginations, and from performing the orderly uses of a life of charity to all the disorderly indulgencies of selfish pa.s.sion. Instead of worshipping the living G.o.d, man now invented idols representing his own evil pa.s.sions, and bowed before them in adoring admiration; for the attributes wherewith he clothed them were fitting forces to stimulate his progress along the pathway he had chosen, where life was made hideous by the lowering shadows of rapine and murder.

The first Church, represented by Adam and Eve, is the general type of every Church that has followed it, and of every unregenerate individual in those Churches. Instead of looking to G.o.d as the source of all wisdom, there is ever the desire to eat of, or make our own, the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that we may know of _ourselves_ good from evil; and that we may do of ourselves what seems to us right; and instead of penitence for sin and an endeavor after reformation, there is a striving to conceal our unfaithfulness. The covering a.s.sumed by those who, in Scripture, stand as the parents of mankind, is the perpetual type of the subterfuges we all invent to hide our disobedience from our G.o.d, from our neighbors, nay, even from ourselves. The primal image and likeness of G.o.d has become so defaced, distorted, and broken, that it is often hard to find a remnant still testifying to its Divine origin. Let us rise up from among these shattered fragments, and contemplate for a while the means of bringing the poor, fallen human nature into harmony with the divine;--let us develop, if we can, a system that may aid us in training our faculties, so that the Affections shall be pure, the Understanding wise, and Life the harmonious exponent of both.

In the attempt to restore our being to its original symmetry, the intellectual part of the nature must not be cultivated at the expense of the affectional, nor should the affectional be suffered to run riot with the intellectual. Love must be wise, and wisdom must be affectionate, or life will fail of its end. External morality has no reliable foundation unless it be built on morality of thought and affection. Apart from these, it is either the result of a happy organization that demands no disorderly indulgence, or it is the figleaf garment of deceit, put on by those who strive to seem rather than to be.

In the just training of Character, if we first learn to understand the capacities and relations of Affection, Thought, and Life, and look within our own natures until we learn to comprehend how everything pertaining to our being belongs to one of these departments, we shall better appreciate the difficulties to be overcome before we shall be willing to make everything that we do the honest outbirth of everything that we are. Pretence and hypocrisy, subterfuge and falsehood, will then disappear, and life will become the adequate expression of symmetrical Character.

The intellectual part of our being may be better understood if divided into two departments, viz., Thought and Imagination,--the subjective and the objective. Thought can be lifted up into the Affections, and made manifest in Life only through the medium of the Imagination. Thought is at first a pure abstraction, a subjective idea,--something entirely within the mind, and having no relation to conduct,--a seed sown, but not germinated; and while it remains thus it has no influence upon the Affections. If, however, it germinate, the next step in its existence is to become an objective idea; and now it has lost its abstract quality and become an image. In its first state it is neither agreeable nor disagreeable to the mind, but so soon as it takes a distinctive form it becomes either pleasing or displeasing, and is either cast away and forgotten, or retained arid expanded by the Affections, whose office it is to cause Thought to become a vital reality, ready to show itself in the external life so soon as a fitting occasion calls for its manifestation.