Temperance

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Temperance

Thereis beauty in temperance like that which is portrayed in virtue and in truth. It is a close ally of both, and, like them, has that all-pervading essence and quality which chastens the feelings, invigorates the mind, and displays the perfection of the soul in the very aspect. Like water from the rill, rain from the cloud, or light from the heavenly bodies, the thought issues pure from within, refreshing, unsullied, and radiant. There is no grossness, no dross, no corruption, for temperance, when effectually realized, is full of loveliness and joy, and virtue and purity are the lineaments in which it lives. Temperance is a virtue without pride, and fortune without envy; the best guardian of youth and support of old age; the preceptor of reason as well as of religion, and physician of the soul as well as the body; the tutelar goddess of health and universal medicine of life.

Temperance keeps the senses clear and unembarrassed, and makes them seize the object with more keenness and satisfaction. It appears with life in the face and decorum in the person. It givesyou the command of your head, secures you health, and preserves you in a condition for business. Temperance is a virtue which casts the truest luster upon the person it is lodged in, and has the most general influence upon all other particular virtues of any that the soul of man is capable of; indeed, so general is it that there is hardly any noble quality or endowment of the mind but must own temperance either for its parent or its nurse; it is the greatest strengthener and clearer of reason, and the best preparer of it for religion; it is the sister of prudence and the handmaid to devotion.

Pleasure has been aptly compared to a sea. Intemperance is a maelstrom situated in the very center of this great sea. Not one path alone leads to this gulf of woe; not one only current, as too many have supposed, hurries down this dark abyss, but all around, on every side, the waters tend downward. There are a thousand currents leading in. Some, it is true, are more rapid than others. Some rush in quickly and bear down all who ride upon their waters to quick and certain ruin. Others glide more slowly, but none the less surely, to the same end. The streams of intemperance are legions. The allurements that lead downward are equally numerous. Every appetite, lust, passion, and feeling holds out various allurements to intemperate indulgence. There is not a power of the mind, affection of the heart, nor desire of the body that may not dispose to some form of intemperance which may injure the physical being or paralyze the energies ofthe mind. All forms of intemperance are evil and destroy some function of mind or body—some member or faculty, the disease of which spreads inharmony through the whole. The dangers from this source are imminent and fearful, and spread on every hand.

Temperance conduces to health; indeed, it may be said that health can only be acquired or maintained by temperance. This is the law primary and essential which every youth should know, and know by heart. Bodily pains and aches tell of intemperance in some directions. Pain means penalty, and penalty means that its sufferer should reform. The most of our pains are occasioned by intemperance. This is the fruitful mother of nine-tenths of the diseases that flesh is heir to and the sins that the soul doth commit. We sin by excess of anger, lust, appetite, affection, love of gain, authority, or praise. Few, if any, are the sins that grow not out of intemperance in some form. Intemperance means excess. A thing is good as long as it is necessary. All beyond necessity, or what is necessary, is evil. Money is good; more than what is necessary to the ends of life is evil. Food is good; too much is evil. Light is good; too much will put out our eyes. Water is good; too much will destroy us. Heat is good; too much will burn us. The praise of men is good; too much will ruin us. The love of life is good; too much will make us miserable. Fear is good; too much hath torment. Prayer is good; too much cheats labor of its life and is evil.Sympathy is good; too much floods us with perpetual grief. Reason is good; too much pressed with labor it dethrones the mind and spreads ruin abroad. Any excess in the use or activity of a good thing is intemperance and, therefore, evil, and to be avoided.

Temperance as a virtue dwells in the heart. It consists in a rigid subjection of every inward feeling and power to the rule of right reason. He who would be thoroughly temperate must master himself. His passions must be his subjects obeying his will. From the heart he must be temperate. He must remember that the intemperance slope is an almost imperceptible one, and that he may be gliding down it when he dreams of naught but safety. He must remember, too, that the field of temperance is a broad one, covering the whole area of life. It is not simply against one form of appetite, one species of indulgence that he is to guard, but against all. There are other species of intemperate indulgence, of which we are all more or less guilty, than indulgence in drink. Indeed, the indulgence of appetite carries away more victims from the earth than does drunkenness, and spreads a wider devastation and a more general blight.

All species of intemperance grow of a want of self-control. To be a temperance man a man must master himself, must be a brave, noble conqueror of every enemy within his own bosom. It is no small matter. It is the masterpiece of human attainments. The laws of temperance can never be broken with impunity. The excess is committed to-day, but theeffect is experienced to-morrow. The law of nature, invariable in its operation, is, that penalty shall follow excess. The punishment is mild at first, but afterwards more and more severe, until, when nature's warning voice has been unheeded and her punishments disregarded, the final penalty is death. If an admonitory sign-board were hung out for the benefit of the young, there should be inscribed upon it in prominent characters "no excess." It is to be remembered that the best principles, if pushed too far, degenerate into fatal vices. Generosity is nearly allied to extravagance; charity itself may lead to ruin; the sternness of justice is but one step removed from the severity of oppression.

If one would make the most of life he must be temperate in all things. It is the application of reason to all the daily acts of life. It is the highest and best form of life that one can attain to. It leads not only to the greatest happiness, but also to honor and position. By abstaining from most things it is surprising how many things we enjoy. To establish thoroughly and widely the principles of temperance we must begin with the youth. They have a high aspiration to be good and true. They see a glory in the path of right. Freedom is a word of power in their ears. Virtue has many charms not only for their hearts, but for their imaginations. They have health, competency, and happiness. They are ambitious of every good. When the true principles of temperance are established in early life and made the controlling power through life, they insure health,freedom from pain, competency, respectability, honor, virtue, usefulness, and happiness—all for which true men have or hope in this life. Happy would it be if they were general and all youths would practice them. Then would religion assert her mild and gentle sway, peace plant her olive wreath in every nation, wisdom, divine and time-honored, shed every-where her glorious light. A race of men and women, full of rosy health, strong, active, symmetrical, beautiful as the artist's model: pure, virtuous, wise, affectionate, full of honor and lofty principles, would grow up into communities and nations, and make the earth bloom and rejoice in more than Eden gladness. A new heaven and a new earth would surround us with beauty and arch us over with glory, for the old would have passed away.

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Frugality

Frugalitymay be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty and Ease. It is synonymous with economy, and is a sound understanding brought into action. It is calculation realized; it is the doctrine of proportion educed to practice. It is foreseeing contingencies and providing against them. Its other and less reputable sisters are Avarice and Prodigality. She alone keeps the straight and safe path, while Avarice sneers at her as profuse, andProdigality scorns at her as penurious. To the poor she is indispensable; to those of moderate means she is found the representative of wisdom. Joined to industry and sobriety, she is a better outfit to business than a dowry. She conducts her votaries to competence and honor, while Profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debt.

Frugality shineth in her best light when joined to liberality. The first consists in leaving off superfluous expense; the last is bestowing them to the benefit of those that need. The first without the last begets covetousness; the last without the first begets prodigality. There is ever a golden mean between frugality and stinginess, or closeness. He that spareth in every thing is an inexcusable niggard; he that spareth in nothing is an inexcusable madman. The golden mean of frugality is to spare in what is least necessary, and to lay out more liberally in what is most required in our several circumstances. It is no man's duty to deny himself every amusement, every recreation, every comfort, that he may get rich. It is no man's duty to make an iceberg of himself, and to deny himself the enjoyment that results from his generous actions, merely that he may hoard wealth for his heirs to quarrel about. But there is an economy which is especially commendable in the man who struggles with poverty, and is every man's duty—an economy which is consistent with happiness, and which must be practiced if the poor man would secure independence.

When one is blessed with good sense and fair opportunities, this spirit of economy is one of the most beneficial of all secular gifts, and takes high rank among the minor virtues. It is by this mysterious power that the loaf is multiplied, that using does not waste, that little becomes much, that scattered fragments grow to unity, and that out of nothing, or next to nothing, comes the miracle of something. Frugality is not merely saving, still less parsimony. It is foresight and combination. It is insight and arrangement. It is a subtle philosophy of things, by which new uses, new compositions, are discovered. It causes inert things to labor, useless things to serve our necessities, perishing things to renew their vigor, and all things to exert themselves for human comfort.

As the acquisition of knowledge depends more upon what a manremembersthan upon the quantity of his reading, so the acquisition of property depends more upon what issavedthan upon what is earned. The largest reservoir, though fed by abundant and living springs, will fail to supply their owners with water if secret leaking-places are permitted to drain off their contents. In like manner, though by his skill and energy a man may convert his business into a flowing Pactolus, ever depositing its golden sands in his coffers, yet, through the numerous wants of unfrugal habits, he may live embarrassed and die poor. Economy is the guardian of property, the good genius whose presence guides the footsteps of every prosperous and successful man.

Either a man must be content with poverty all his life, or else be willing to deny himself some luxuries, and save to lay the base of independence in the future. But if a man defies the future, and spends all that he earns, whether it be much or little, let him look for lean and hungry want at some future time; for it will surely come, no matter what he thinks. To economize and be frugal is absolutely the only way to get a solid fortune; there is no other certain mode on earth. Those who shut their eyes and ears to these plain facts will be forever poor. Fortune does not give away her real and substantial goods. She sells them to the highest bidder, to the hardest, wisest worker for the boon. Men never make so fatal a mistake as when they think they are mere creatures of fate; it is the sheerest folly in the world. Every man may make or mar his life, whichever he may choose. Fortune is for those who, by diligence, honesty and frugality, place themselves in a position to grasp hold of fortune when it appears in view.

Simple industry and thrift will go far towards making any person of ordinary working faculties comparatively independent in his means. Almost any working-man may be so, provided he will carefully husband his resources and watch the little outlets of useless expenditures. A penny is a very small matter, yet the comfort of thousands of families depends upon the proper saving and spending of pennies. If a man allows the little pennies—the results of his hard work—to slip out of his fingershe will find that his life is little raised above one of mere animal drudgery.

One way in which true economy is shown consists in living within one's income. This is the grand element of success in acquiring property. To carry it out requires resolution, self-denial, self-reliance. But it must be done, or grinding poverty will accompany you through life. We urge upon all young men who are just starting in life to make it an invariable rule to lay aside a certain proportion of their income, whatever that income may be. Extravagant expenditures occasion a large part of the suffering of a great majority of people. And extravagance is wholly a relative term. What is not at all extravagant for one person may be very much so for another. Expenditures, no matter how small in themselves they may be, are always extravagant when they come fully up to the entire amount of a person's income.

On every hand we see people living on credit, putting off pay-day to the last, making, in the end, some desperate effort—generally by borrowing—to scrape the money together, and then struggling on again with the canker of care eating at their hearts; but their exertions are vain; they land at last in the inevitable goal of bankruptcy. If they would only be content to make the push in the beginning, instead of the end, they would save themselves all this misery. The great secret of being solvent and well-to-do and comfortable is to get ahead of your expenses. Eat and drink this month what you earned last month, not what you are going to earn nextmonth. It is unsafe to draw drafts on the future, for hope is deceitful, and your paper is liable to go to protest. When one is once weighed down with a load of debt he loses the sense of being free and independent. The man with his fine house, his glittering carriage, and his rich banquets, for which he is in debt, is a slave, a prisoner, dragging his chains behind him through all the grandeur of the false world through which he moves.

In urging a course of strict economy we admit that it is hard, embarrassing, perplexing, onerous, but it is by no means impracticable. A cool survey of one's expenditures, compared with his income; a wise balancing of ends to be gained; a firm and calm determination to break with custom wherever it is opposed to good sense, and a patience that does not chafe at small and gradual results, will do much towards establishing the principle of economy and securing its benefits. Economy has, however, deeper roots than even this—in the desires. It is there, after all, that we control our expenditures. As a general rule we may be sure that we shall spend our money for what we most earnestly crave. If it be luxury and display then it will melt into costly viands and soft clothing, handsome dwellings and rich furniture. If, on the other hand, our desires are for higher enjoyments, or for benevolent purposes, our money will flow into these channels. Every one, then, who cherishes in himself, or excites in others, a desire more pure and noble than existed before, who draws the heart from the craving of sense tothose of soul, from self to others, from what is low, sensual, and wrong to what is pure, elevating, and right, in so far establishes, on the firmest of all foundations, a wise economy.

A true economy appears to induce the exertion of almost every laudable emotion; a strict regard to honesty; a laudable spirit of independence; a judicious prudence in providing for the wants, and a steady benevolence in preparing for the claims of the future. Such an economy can but appeal to the good sense of all who candidly ponder over life and its realities. To spend all that you acquire as soon as you gain it is to lead a butterfly existence. Were you always to be young and free from sickness and care, and life were to pass as one perpetual Summer, it would do no harm to so live; but care will come, sickness may strike you at any time, and, if you escape these, yet you know life has its Autumnal and Winter seasons as well as its Summer. And, alas! for the veteran who finds himself obliged to learn in his latter years the lessons of strict economy for the first time, having lived in utter defiance of them in the season of youth and strength.

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Patience

Patienceis the ballast of the soul, that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms. All life is but one vast representation of the beauty and value of patience. Troubles and sorrows are in store for all. It is useless to try to escape them, and, indeed, it is well we can not, as they seem essential to the perfection and development of character into its highest and best form. But their disciplinary value arises from the great lesson of patience they are constantly inculcating.

Either patience must be a quality graciously inherent in the heart of man, or it must be acquired as the lesson of years' experience, if he would enjoy the greatest good of life. Without it prosperity will be continually disturbed, and adversity will be clouded with double darkness. The loud complaint, the querulous temper and fretful spirit disgrace every character. We weaken thereby the sympathy of others, and estrange them from offices of kindness and comfort. But to maintain a steady and unbroken mind amidst all the shocks of adversity forms the highest honor of man. Afflictions supported by patience and surmounted by fortitude give the last finishing stroke to the heroic and virtuous character. Patience produces unity in the Church, loyalty in the state, harmony in families and societies. She comforts the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humblein prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny, and above reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking the forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman and approves the man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age.

Patience has been defined as the "courage of virtue;" the principle which enables us to lessen the pains of mind or body; an emotion that does not so much add to the number of our joys as it tends to diminish the number of our sufferings. If life is made to abound with pains and troubles by the errors and the crimes of man, it is no small advantage to have a faculty that enables us to soften these pains and ameliorate these troubles. He that has patience can have what he will. There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste. There are no honors too distant for the man who prepares himself for them with patience. Nature herself abounds with examples of patience. Day follows the murkiest night, and when the time comes the latest fruits also ripen. Its most beneficent operations, and those which take place on a grand scale, are the results of patience. The great works of human power, achieved by the hand of genius, are but eloquent examples of what may be achieved by the exercise of this virtue. History and biography abound with examples of signal patience shown by great men under trying circumstances.

In the pursuit of worldly success patience or awillingness to bide one's time is no less necessary as a factor than perseverance. Says De Maistre, "To know how to wait is the great secret of success." And of all the lessons that humanity teaches in this school of the world, the hardest is to wait. Not to wait with folded hands that claim life's prizes without previous effort, but having toiled and struggled and crowded the slow years with trial to see then no results, or, perhaps, disastrous results, and yet to stand firm, to preserve one's poise, and relax no effort,—this, it has been truly said,isgreatness, whether achieved by man or woman. The world can not be circumnavigated by one wind. The grandest results can not be achieved in a day. The fruits that are best worth plucking usually ripen the most slowly, and, therefore, every one who would gain a solid success must learn "to labor and to wait." What a world of meaning in those few words! And how many are possessed of the moral courage to live in that state? It is the tendency of the times to be in a hurry when there is any object to be accomplished. In the pursuit of riches it is only the exceptional persons who are content with slow gains, willing to acquire wealth by adding penny to penny, dollar to dollar; the mass of business men are too apt to despise such a tedious and laborious means of ascent, and they rush headlong into schemes for the sudden acquisition of wealth. Or, in the field of professional life, we are too prone to forget there is no royal road to great acquirements, and feel an unwillingness to lay broad and deep, by years of patient study andlaborious research, the foundation whereon to build an enduring monument worthy of public credit and renown.

The history of all who are honored in the world of literature, arts, or science is the history of patient study for years, and its final triumph. Elihu Burritt says: "All that I have accomplished, or expect or hope to accomplish, has been, and will be, by that patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the ant-heap, particle by particle, thought by thought, fact by fact." Labor still is, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon every thing which is valuable. Hence, if we would acquire wisdom, we must diligently apply ourselves, and confront the same continuous application which our forefathers did. We must be satisfied to work energetically with a purpose, and wait the results with patience. All progress, of the best kind, is slow; but to him who works faithfully and in a right spirit, be sure that the reward will be vouchsafed in its own good time. Courage must have sunk in despair, and the world must have remained unimproved and unornamented if man had merely compared the effect of a single stroke of the chisel with the pyramid to be raised, or of a single impression of the spade with the mountain to be leveled. We must continuously apply ourselves to right pursuits, and we can not fail to advance steadily, though it may be unconsciously.

In all evils which admit a remedy impatience should be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints that, if properly applied,might remove the cause. In cases that admit of no remedy it is worse than useless to give way to impatience, both because of the utter uselessness of so doing as well as that the time thus spent could be better employed in the furtherance of useful designs. Since, then, these two classes of ills comprise all to which human nature is subject, why not make a determined struggle against impatience in every form? It accomplishes nothing that is of value, divides our efforts, frustrates our plans, and generally succeeds in making our lives miserable not only to ourselves, but to all around us.

How much of home happiness and comfort depends upon the exercise of patience! Not a day passes but calls for its exercise from those who sustain the nearest and dearest relations to each other. Let patience have her perfect work in the home circle. Let parents be patient with their children. They are weak, and you are strong. They stand at the eastern gate of life. Experience has not taught them to speak carefully and to go softly. What if their plays and amusements do grate upon your nerves. Bear with them patiently. Care and time will soon enough check their childish impulses. Be patient with your friends. They are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. They can not see your heart, and may misunderstand you. They do not know what is best for you, and may select what is worst. What if, also, they lack purity of purpose or tenacity of affection; do not you lack these graces? Patience is your refuge. Endure, and in enduring conquerthem; and if not them, then at least yourself. Be patient with pains and cares. These things are killed by enduring them, but made strong to bite and sting by feeding them with your frets and fears. There is no pain or cure that can last long. None of them shall enter the city of God. A little while, and you shall leave behind you all your troubles, and forget, in your first hour of rest, that such things were on earth. Above all, be patient with your beloved. Love is the best thing on earth; but it is to be handled tenderly, and impatience is the nurse that kills it. Try to smooth life's weary way each for the other, and in the exercise of the heaven-born virtue of patience will you find the sweetest pleasure of life.

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Self-Control

Self-controlis the highest form of courage. It is the base of all the virtues. It is one of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind to be its own master. If he reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, he is more than a king.

Too often self-control is made to mean only the control of angry passions, but that is simply one form of self-control; in another—a higher and more complete sense—it means the control over all the passions, appetites, and impulses. True wisdom ever seeks to restrain one from blindly following his ownimpulses and appetites, even those which are moral and intellectual, as well as those which are animal and sensual. In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of the ideal man. Not to be impulsive, not to be spurred hither and thither by each desire that in turn comes uppermost, but to be self-restrained, self-balanced, governed by the joined decision of the feelings in council assembled, before whom every action shall have been fully debated and calmly determined,—this is true strength and wisdom.

Mankind are endowed by the Creator with qualities which raise them infinitely higher in the scale of importance than any other members of the animal world. They are given reason as a guide to follow rather than instinct. But if men give the reins to their impulses and passions, from that moment they surrender this high prerogative. They are carried along the current of their life and become the slaves of their strongest desires for the time being. To be morally free—to be more than an animal—man must be able to resist instinctive impulses. This can only be done by the exercise of self-control. Thus it is this power that constitutes the real distinction between a physical and a moral life, and that forms the primary basis of individual character. Nine-tenths of the vicious desires that degrade society, and the crimes that disgrace it, would shrink into insignificance before the advance of valiant self-discipline, self-respect, and self-control.

It is necessary to one's personal happiness toexercise control over his words as well as his acts, for there are words that strike even harder than blows, and men may "speak daggers," even though they use none. Character exhibits itself in control of speech as much as in any thing else. The wise and forbearant man will restrain his desire to say a smart or severe thing at the expense of another's feelings, while the fool speaks out what he thinks, and will sacrifice his friend rather than his joke. There are men who are headlong in their language as in their actions because of the want of forbearance and self-restraining patience.

Government is at the bottom of all progress. The state or nation that has the best government progresses most; so the individual who governs best himself makes the most rapid progress. The native energies of the human soul press it to activity; controlled they bear it forward in right paths; uncontrolled they urge it on to probable destruction. No man is free who has not the command over himself, but allows his appetites or his temper to control him; and to triumph over these is of all conquests the most glorious. He who is enslaved to his passions is worse governed than Athens was by her thirty tyrants. He who indulges his sense in any excesses renders himself obnoxious to his own reason, and to gratify the brute in him displeases the man and sets his two natures at variance. We ought not to sacrifice the sentiments of the soul to gratify the appetites of the body. Passions are excellent servants, and when properly trained and disciplined are capableof being applied to noble purposes; but when allowed to become masters they are dangerous in the extreme.

To resist strong impulses, to subdue powerful passions, to silence the voice of vehement desire, is a strong and noble virtue. And the virtue rises in height, beauty, and grandeur in proportion to the strength of the impulses subdued. True virtue is not always visible to the gaze of the world. It is often still and calm. Composure is often the highest result of power, and there are seasons when to be still demands immeasurably higher strength than to act. Think you it demands no power to calm the stormy elements of passions, to throw off the load of dejection, to repress every repining thought when the dearest hopes are withered, and to turn the wounded spirit from dangerous reveries and wasting grief to the quiet discharge of ordinary duties? Is there no power put forth when a man, stripped of his property—of the fruits of a life's labor—quells discontent and gloomy forebodings, and serenely and patiently returns to the task which providence assigns? We doubt not that the all-seeing eye of God sometimes discerns the sublimest human energy under a form and countenance which, by their composure and tranquillity, indicate to the human spectator only passive virtues. Individuals who have attained such power are among the great ones of earth.

Strength of character consists in two things,—power of will and power of self-restraint. It requirestwo things, therefore, for its existence,—strong feelings and strong command over them. Ofttimes we mistake strong feelings for strong character. He is not a strong man who bears all before him, at whose frown domestics tremble and the children of the household quake; on the contrary, he is a weak man. It is his passions that are strong; he, mastered by them, is weak. You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he subdues, not by the power of those that subdue him. Did we ever see a man receive a flagrant injury, and then reply calmly? That is a man spiritually strong. Or did we ever see a man in anguish stand as if carved out of solid rock mastering himself, or one bearing a hopeless daily trial remain silent and never tell the world what cankered his peace? That is strength. He who with strong passions remains chaste, he who, keenly sensitive, with manly powers of indignation in him, can be provoked and yet restrain himself and forgive, these are strong men, the spiritual heroes.

A strong temper is not necessarily a bad temper. But the stronger the temper the greater is the need of self-discipline and self-control. Strong temper may only mean a strong and excitable will. Uncontrolled it displays itself in fitful outbreaks of passion; but controlled and held in subjection, like steam pent up within the mechanism of a steam engine, it becomes the source of energetic power and usefulness. Some of the greatest characters in history have been men of strong tempers, but with equal strength of determinationto hold their motive power under strict regulation and control. He is usually a moral weakling who has no strong desires or strong temper to overcome; but he who with these fails to subdue them is speedily ruined by them.

Man is born for dominion; but he must enter it by conquest, and continue to do battle for every inch of ground added to his sway. His infant exertions are put forth to establish the authority of his will over his physical powers. His after efforts are for the subjection of the will to the judgment. There are times which come to all of us when our will is not completely fashioned to our hands, and the restless passions of the mind hold us in sway—seasons when all of us do and say things which are unbecoming, unseemly, and which lower and debase us in the opinion of others and also of ourselves. Self-control, however, is a virtue which will become ours if we cultivate it properly, if we strive right manfully for its possession; fight a bitter warfare against irritability, nervousness, jealousy, and all unkindness of heart and soul. But it must be cultivated properly. One exercise of it will not win us the victory. We must, by constant repetition of efforts, obtain at last the victory which will bring us repose, which will enable us to say to the raging waves of passion, "Thus far canst thou come, and no farther." We must be faithful to ourselves, faithful in our watch and ward over tongue, eye, and hand. It is only by so doing that man comes to the full development of his powers. It is alike the duty and the birthright of man.Moderation in all things, and regulating the actions only by the judgment, are the most eminent parts of wisdom. "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city."

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Courage

"Prithee, peace!I dare do all that may become a man.Who dares do more is none."—Shakspeare.

"Prithee, peace!

I dare do all that may become a man.

Who dares do more is none."

—Shakspeare.

Courageconsists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely minded in a just cause. The brave man is not he who feels no fear—for that were stupid and irrational—but he whose noble soul subdues its fears, and bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from. True courage is cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a brutal, bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and free. Rage can make a coward forget himself and fight. But what is done in fury or anger can never be placed to the account of courage.

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion should be kept open. They will carry over to the enemy nothing but their fears. The poltroon, like the scabbard, is an incumbrancewhen once the sword is drawn. It is the same in the every-day battles of life: to believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. How many feasible projects have miscarried through despondency, and been strangled in the birth by a cowardly imagination! It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. A ship on a lee shore stands out to sea in a storm to escape shipwreck. Impossibilities, like vicious dogs, fly before him who is not afraid of them. Should misfortune overtake, retrench, work harder; but never fly the track. Confront difficulties with unflinching perseverance. Should you then fail, you will be honored; but shrink and you will be despised. When you put your hands to a work, let the fact of your doing so constitute the evidence that you mean to prosecute it to the end. They that fear an overthrow are half conquered.

No one can tell who the heroes are, and who the cowards, until some crisis comes to put us to the test. And no crisis puts us to the test that does not bring us up, alone and single-handed, to face danger. It is comparatively nothing to make a rush with the multitude, even into the jaws of destruction. Sheep will do that. Armies can be picked from the gutters, and marched up as food for powder. But when some crisis singles one out from the multitude, pointing at him the particular finger of fate, and telling him, "Stand or run," and he faces about with steady nerve, with nobody else to stand behind, we may be sure the hero stuff is in him. When such crises come, the true courage is just as likely to be foundin people of shrinking nerves, or in weak and timid women, as in great, burly people. It is a moral, not a physical trait. Its seat is not in the temperament, but the will.

Some people imagine that courage is confined to the field of battle. There could be no greater mistake. Even contentious men—unavoidably contentious—are not by any means limited to the battlefield. And there are other struggles with adverse circumstances—struggles, it may be, with habits or appetites or passions—all of which require as much courage and more perseverance than the brief encounter of battle. Enough to contend with, enough to overcome, lies in the pathway of every individual. It may be one kind of difficulties, or it may be another, but plenty of difficulties of some kind or other every one may be sure of finding through life. There is but one way of looking at fate, whatever that may be, whether blessings or afflictions,—to behave with dignity under both. We must not lose heart, or it will be the worse both for ourselves and for those whom we love. To struggle, and again and again to renew the conflict,—thisis life's inheritance. He who never falters, no matter how adverse may be the circumstances, always enjoys the consciousness of a perpetual spiritual triumph, of which nothing can deprive him.

Though the occasions of high heroic daring seldom occur but in the history of the great, the less obtrusive opportunities for the exercise of private energy are continually offering themselves. Withthese domestic scenes as much abound as does the tented field. Pain may be as firmly endured in the lonely chamber as amid the din of arms. Difficulties can be manfully combated, misfortune bravely sustained, poverty nobly supported, disappointments courageously encountered. Thus courage diffuses a wide and succoring influence, and bestows energy apportioned to the trial. It takes from calamity its dejecting quality, and enables the soul to possess itself under every vicissitude. It rescues the unhappy from degradation and the feeble from contempt.

The greater part of the courage that is needed in the world is not of an heroic kind. There needs the common courage to be honest, the courage to resist temptation, the courage to speak the truth, the courage to be what we really are, and not to pretend to be what we are not, the courage to live honestly within our own means, and not dishonestly upon the means of others. The courage that dares to display itself in silent effort and endeavor, that dares to endure all and suffer all for truth and duty, is more truly heroic than the achievements of physical valor, which are rewarded by honors and titles, or by laurels, sometimes steeped in blood. It is moral courage that characterizes the highest order of manhood and womanhood. Intellectual intrepidity is one of the vital conditions of independence and self-reliance of character. A man must have the courage to be himself, and not the shadow or the echo of another. He must exercise his own powers, think his own thoughts, and speak his own sentiments.He must elaborate his own opinions, and form his own convictions.

It has been said that he who dares not form an opinion must be a coward; he who will not must be an idler; he who can not must be a fool. Every enlargement of the domain of knowledge which has made us better acquainted with the heavens, with the earth, and with ourselves, has been established by the energy, the devotion, the self-sacrifice, and the courage of the great spirits of past times, who, however much they may have been oppressed or reviled by their contemporaries, now rank among those whom the enlightened of the human race most delight to honor.

The passive endurance of the man or woman who for conscience' sake is found ready to suffer and endure in solitude, without so much as the encouragement of even a single sympathizing voice, is an exhibition of courage of a far higher kind than that displayed in the roar of battle, where even the weakest feels encouraged and inspired by the enthusiasm of sympathy and the power of numbers. Time would fail to tell of the names of those who through faith in principles, and in the face of difficulties, dangers, and sufferings, have fought a good fight in the moral warfare of the world, and been content to lay down their lives rather than prove false to their conscientious convictions of the truth.

The patriot who fights an always losing battle, the martyr who goes to death amid the triumphant shouts of his enemies, the discoverer, like Columbus,whose heart remains undaunted through years of failure, are examples of the moral sublime which excites a profounder interest in the hearts of men than even the most complete and conspicuous success. By the side of such instances as these, how small by comparison seem the greatest deeds of valor, inciting men to rush upon death and die amid the frenzied excitement of physical warfare.

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Charity

"The primal duties shine aloft like stars,The charities that soothe and heal and blessLie scattered at the feet of man like flowers."—Wordsworth.

"The primal duties shine aloft like stars,

The charities that soothe and heal and bless

Lie scattered at the feet of man like flowers."

—Wordsworth.

Charity,like the dew from heaven, falls gently on the drooping flowers in the stillness of night. Its refreshing and revivifying effects are felt, seen, and admired. It flows from a good heart and looks beyond the skies for approval and reward. It never opens, but seeks to heal, the wounds inflicted by misfortune. It never harrows up, but strives to calm, the troubled mind.

Charity is another name for disinterested love—the humane, sympathetic feeling—that which seeks the good of others; that which would pour out from the treasures of its munificence gifts of good things upon all. It is that feeling that gave the world a Howard, a Fenelon, a Fry. It is that feeling that leads on the reformer, which inspires the philanthropists,which blesses, and curses not. It is the good Samaritan of the heart. It is that which thinketh no evil, and is kind, which hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things. It is the angel of mercy, which forgives seventy and seven times, and still is rich in the treasures of pardon. It visits the sick, soothes the pillow of the dying, drops a tear with the mourner, buries the dead, cares for the orphan. It delights to do offices of good to those cast down, to relieve the suffering of the oppressed and distressed, to proclaim the Gospel to the poor. Its words are more precious than rubies; its voice is sweeter than honey; its hand is softer than down; its step as gentle as love.

Whoever would be respected and beloved; whoever would be useful and remembered with pleasure when life is over, must cherish this virtue. Whoever would be truly happy and feel the real charms of goodness must cultivate this affection. It becomes, if possible, more glorious when we consider the number and extent of its objects. It is as wide as the world of suffering, deep as the heart of sorrow, extensive as the wants of creation, and boundless as the kingdom of need. Its spirit is the messenger of peace, holding out to quarreling humanity the flag of truce. It is needed every-where, in all times and places, in all trades, professions, and callings of profit or honor which men can pursue. In the home life there is too often a lack of charity; it should be considered as a sacred duty to long and well cultivate it, to exercise it daily, and to guard well itsgrowth. The peace and happiness of the world depends greatly upon it. Nothing gives a sweeter charm to youth than an active charity, a disposition kind to all. Who can properly estimate the powers and sweetness of an active charity?

He who carries ever with him the spirit of boundless charity to man often does good when he knows not of it. An influence seems to go forth from him which soothes the distressed, encourages the drooping, stimulates afresh the love of virtue, and begets its own image and likeness in all beholders. Without the exercise of this grace it is impossible to make domestic and social life delightful. Deeds and words of conventional courtesy grown familiar are comparatively empty forms. The charitable soul carries with it a charmed atmosphere of peace and love, breathing which all who come within its benign influence unfold their noblest qualities, and develop their most amiable traits. Inharmonious influences are neutralized, the harsh discipline of life is changed to wholesome training, the crooked places are made straight, and the rough smooth.

The uncharitable and censorious are generally found among the narrow and bigoted, and those who have never read the full page of their own heart or been subject to various and crucial tests. How can a man whose temper is phlegmatic judge justly of him whose blood is fiery, whose nature is tropical, and whose passions mount in an instant, and as quickly subside? How can one in the seclusion of private life accurately measure the force ofthe influence those are subjected to who live and act in the center of vast and powerful civil and social circles? The more you mix with men the less you will be disposed to quarrel, and the more charitable and liberal will you become. The fact that you do not understand another is quite as likely to be your fault as his. There are many chances in favor of the conclusion that when you feel a lack of charitable feeling it is through your own ignorance and illiberality. This will disappear as your knowledge of men grows more and more complete. Hence keep your heart open for every body, and be sure that you shall have your reward. You will find a jewel under the most uncouth exterior, and associated with comeliest manners and the oddest ways and the ugliest faces you will find rare virtues, fragrant little humanities, and inspiring heroisms.

How glorious the thought of the universal triumph of charity! How grand and comprehensive the theme! The subject commands the profound attention of good men and of angels. Under the direful influence of its antagonistic principle man has trampled upon the rights of fellow-man, and waded through rivers of human blood, to satisfy his thirst for vengeance. Its footsteps have been marked with the blood of slaughtered millions. Its power has shivered kingdoms and destroyed empires. When men shall be brought into subjection to the law of charity the angel of peace will take up its abode with the children of men. Wars and rumors of wars will cease. Envy and revenge will hide theirdiminished heads. Falsehood and slander will be unknown. Sectarian walls will crumble to dust. Then this world will be transformed into a paradise, in which every thing that is beautiful and lovely shall grow and bloom. Disinterested and benevolent acts will abound. Sorrow and disappointments will flee away, and peace, sunshine, and joy will beautify and adorn life.

Death always makes a beautiful appeal to charity. When we look upon the dead form, so composed and still, the kindness and the love that are in us all come forth. The grave covers every error, buries every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look upon the grave even of an enemy and not feel a compunctious throb that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of dust that lies moldering before him?

Charity stowed away in the heart, like rose leaves in a drawer, sweetens all the daily acts of life. Little drops of rain brighten the meadow; acts of charity brighten the world. We can conceive of nothing more attractive than the heart when filled with the spirit of charity. Certainly nothing so embellishes human nature as the practice of this virtue; a sentiment so genial and so excellent ought to be emblazoned upon every thought and act of our life. This principle underlies the whole theory of Christianity, and in no other person do we find it more happily exemplified than in the life of our Savior who, while on earth, "went about doing good."

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