{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_22050/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_22050","id":"gutenberg_22050","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22050","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Conduct of life"],"text":"E-text prepared by Al Haines\n\n\n\nLIFE AND CONDUCT\n\nby\n\nJ. CAMERON LEES, D.D., LL.D.,\n\nEdinburgh.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nToronto:\nWilliam Briggs,\nWesley Buildings.\nMontreal: C. W. Coates.\nHalifax: S. F. Huestis.\n1896.\n\nEntered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one\nthousand eight hundred and ninety-six, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the\nDepartment of Agriculture.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nThis book has been selected from the \"Guild Series\" for young people,\npublished in Scotland, and reprinted in Canada by permission.\n\nThe wise counsels and practical suggestions with which this book\nabounds make it eminently suitable for the Epworth League Reading\nCourse.  We commend it to all young people who are desirous to form\ntheir character on the Christian model and to carry religious principle\ninto the practical affairs of common life.\n\nSome of the chapters will furnish material for interesting programmes\nin the Literary Department.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nThis hand-book has been written at the request of the Christian Life\nand Work Committee of the Church of Scotland as one of a series of\nvolumes which it is at present issuing for the use of Young Men's\nGuilds and Bible Classes.\n\nThe object of the writer has been to show how the principles of\nreligion may be applied to the conduct of young men, and in the\npractice of everyday life.  In doing this he has endeavored to keep\nsteadily in view the fact that the book is designed chiefly as a manual\nof instruction, and can only present the outlines of a somewhat wide\nsubject.  His language has been necessarily simple, and he has been\noften obliged to put his statements in an abbreviated form.\n\nMost of the contents of this book have been drawn from a long and\nsomewhat varied experience of life; but the author has also availed\nhimself of the writings of others who have written books for the\nspecial benefit of young men. He has appended a list of works which he\nhas consulted, and has endeavored to acknowledge his indebtedness for\nany help in the way of argument or illustration that they have afforded\nhim.\n\nIt will be a great gratification to him to learn that the book has been\nin any way useful to the young men, of whose position, duties, and\ntemptations he has thought much when writing it; and he sends it forth\nwith the earnest prayer that the Spirit of God may bless his endeavors\nto be of service to those whose interests he, in common with his\nbrethren in the ministry, regards as of paramount importance.\n\nEDINBURGH,\n  _28th June, 1892._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAP.\n\n    I. CHARACTER\n   II. SUCCESS IN LIFE\n  III. PERSONAL INFLUENCE\n   IV. FRIENDS\n    V. MONEY\n   VI. TIME\n  VII. COURAGE\n VIII. HEALTH\n   IX. EARNESTNESS\n    X. MANNERS\n   XI. TEMPER\n  XII. RECREATION\n XIII. BOOKS\n  XIV. FAMILY LIFE\n   XV. CHURCH\n  XVI. CITIZENSHIP\n\n       APPENDIX\n       LIST OF WORKS\n\n\n\n\nLIFE AND CONDUCT.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nCHARACTER.\n\nEverything in the practical conduct of life depends upon character.\n\nWhat is character?  What do we mean by it?  As when we say such a man\nis a bad character, or a good character, or when we use the words, \"I\ndon't like the character of that man.\"\n\nBy character we mean what a man really is, at the back of all his\nactions and his reputation and the opinion the world has of him, in the\nvery depth of his being, in the sight of God, \"to whom all hearts are\nopen, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.\"\n\nIt is said of Burns, the poet, that walking along the streets of\nEdinburgh with a fashionable acquaintance, he saw a poorly-dressed\npeasant, whom he rushed up to and greeted as a familiar friend.  His\ncompanion expressed his surprise that he could lower himself by\nspeaking to one in so rustic a garb.  \"Fool!\" said the poet, with\nflashing eye; \"it was not the dress, the peasant's bonnet and hodden\ngray, I spoke to, but the man within--the man who beneath that bonnet\nhas a head, and beneath that hodden gray a heart, better than a\nthousand such as yours.\"  What the poet termed the \"man within,\" what\nthe Scripture calls the \"hidden man of the heart,\" is character--the\nthing a man really is.  Now, there are five things to be remembered\nabout _character_.\n\nI.  Character is a growth.--As the man without grows, so the man within\ngrows also--grows day by day either in beauty or in deformity.  We are\nbecoming, as the days and years pass on, what we shall be in our future\nearthly life, what we shall be when that life is ended.  No one becomes\nwhat he is at once, whether what he is be good or bad.  You may have\nseen in the winter-time an icicle forming under the eaves of a house.\nIt grows, one drop at a time, until it is more than a foot long.  If\nthe water is clear, the icicle remains clear and sparkles in the sun;\nbut if the water is muddy, the icicle looks dirty and its beauty is\nspoiled.  So our characters are formed; one little thought or feeling\nat a time adds its influence.  If these thoughts and feelings are pure\nand right, the character will be lovely and will sparkle with light;\nbut if they are impure and evil, the character will be wretched and\ndeformed.\n\nFairy tales tell us of palaces built up in a night by unseen hands, but\nthose tales are not half so wonderful as what is going on in each of\nus.  Day and night, summer and winter, a building is going up within\nus, behind the outer screen of our lives.  The storeys of it are being\nsilently fashioned: virtue is being added to faith, and to virtue is\nbeing added knowledge, and to knowledge is being added brotherly\nkindness, and to brotherly kindness charity; or meanness is being added\nto selfishness, and greed to meanness, and impurity, malice and hatred\nbecome courses in the building.  A wretched hovel, a poor, mean,\nsqualid structure, is rising within us; and when the screen of our\noutward life is taken from us, this is what we shall be.\n\nII.  Character is independent of reputation and circumstances.--A man\nmay be held in very high esteem by the world, and yet may be a very\nmiserable creature so far as his character is concerned.  The rich man\nof the parable was well off and probably much thought of, but God\ncalled him a fool.  Here is a man who is greatly esteemed by the\npublic; he is regarded in every way as admirable.  Follow him home, and\nyou find him in his family a mean and sordid soul.  There you have the\nreal man.  We cannot always judge a man by what he has, or by what he\nappears to us; for what he is may be something very different.  \"These\nuniforms,\" said the Duke of Wellington, \"are great illusions.  Strip\nthem off, and many a pretty fellow would be a coward; when in them he\npasses muster with the rest.\"  We must not confound the uniform with\nthe man: we are often too ready to do so.  _To a certain extent_ we can\nform an idea what a man is from the outside.  The horny hand tells of\nthe life of labor; the deep-set brow tells of the thinker.  In other\nwords we have a right to judge a man by his habitation.  If the fences\nare broken down, the paths are unkept, the flower-beds full of weeds,\nwe may be pretty sure the inhabitants are idle, thriftless, perhaps\nintemperate.  So a clear eye, a firm step, an open countenance, tell of\na pure, good soul within.  For example, a man of cold exterior or of\nformal manner may often have a warm heart under it all; a man of rough\nmanners may have kindly feelings that he cannot express.  We are often\nlong in the company of men before we really know them, and then the\ndiscovery of what they are comes on us by surprise.\n\nIII.  Character cannot be always hidden.--There are those who seem to\nthink that they can have one set of principles for themselves and\nanother for the outward world; that they can be in their heart one\nthing and in society another; that they can have one character and\nanother reputation.  They may be proud, but they can so hide their\npride as to have the reputation of being humble; they can lie, but\nstill have the reputation of always speaking the truth; they can be\nimpure, and yet have the reputation of being virtuous.  But sooner or\nlater what they really are generally becomes manifest.  Reputation and\ncharacter come to be one.  That which they would keep secret cannot be\nconcealed.  The mask which men would wear slips aside and discloses the\nface beneath it.  (1) Time reveals character.  As the years pass along,\na man generally gets to be known for what he is.  For example, if a man\nis a coward and enlists in the army, he may swagger about and look like\na real soldier, but a time will come when the spirit of the man will\nshow itself, and he will be set down at his real value.  Or a young man\nin an office may act dishonestly and go on perhaps for long doing so,\nand thinking he is carefully concealing his frauds, but, when least\nexpected, discovery takes place, and ruin and disgrace follow.  (2)\nSorrow reveals character.  Nothing more truly shows what a man is than\nhis bearing under the sorrows of life.  When the flag is wrapped around\nthe flag-staff on a calm day, when no breath of wind is moving, we\ncannot read the device that is upon it, but when the storm unfurls the\nflag, we can read it plainly enough.  In the same way when the troubles\nof life beat upon men we can read clearly what they are.  Again, when\nwe go along the road on a summer day we often cannot see the houses\nthat are concealed by the foliage of the trees; but in winter-time,\nwhen the trees are bare and leafless, we know what kind of houses are\nthere, whether they are squalid cottages or grand mansions.  So in the\nwinter-time of life, when the leaves are blown away, men come out and\nwe know what kind of character they have been building up behind the\nscreen of their life.  (3) If time and sorrow do not reveal character,\neternity will.  We will appear then, not as we seem, but as we are.\nChrist is to be our judge.  Consider what a striking thing it is in the\nlife of Christ that His searching glance seemed to go right to the\nheart, to the hidden motive, to the man within.  \"He knew what was in\nman.\"  A poor woman passed by Him as He sat in the temple.  She was\npoverty-stricken in her garb, and she stole up to the contribution-box\nand dropped in her offering.  Christ's glance went right beyond her\noutward appearance, and beyond her small and almost imperceptible\noffering, to the motive and character.  \"She hath given more than they\nall.\"  All sorts of people were around Him: Pharisees, with their\nphylacteries; Scribes, with their sceptical notions; Samaritans, with\ntheir vaunted traditions: but He always went right beyond the outward\nshow.  The Samaritan was good and kind, though he got no credit for\npiety; the Pharisee was corrupt and self-seeking, though he got no\ncredit for piety; the Publican was a child of God, though no one would\nspeak to him.  Christ reversed the judgment of men on those people whom\nthey thought they knew so well, but did not know at all.  So it shall\nbe at the last; we shall be judged by what we are.\n\nIV.  Character alone endures.--What a man has he leaves behind him;\nwhat a man is he carries with him.  It is related that when Alexander\nthe Great was dying he commanded that his hands should be left outside\nhis shroud, that all men might see that, though conqueror of the world\nhe could take nothing away with him.  Before Saladin the Great uttered\nhis last sigh he called the herald who had carried his banner before\nhim in all his battles, and commanded him to fasten to the top of the\nspear a shroud in which he was to be buried, and to proclaim, \"This is\nall that remains to Saladin the Great of all his glory.\"  So men have\nfelt in all ages that death strips them, and that they take nothing\nwith them of what they have gained.  But what we are ourselves we take\nwith us.  All that time has made us, for good or evil, goes with us.\nWe can lay up treasures in ourselves that neither moth nor rust can\ncorrupt, and which thieves cannot steal away.  \"The splendid treasures\nof memory, the treasures of disciplined powers, of enlarged capacities,\nof a pure and loving heart, all are treasures which a man can carry in\nhim and with him into that other world.\"\n\n  We are but farmers of ourselves, yet may,\n  If we can stock ourselves and thrive, uplay\n  Much good treasure for the great rent-day.--DONNE.\n\n\n\"All the jewels and gold a man can collect he drops from his hand when\nhe dies, but every good action he has done is rooted into his soul and\ncan never leave him.\"--Buddhist saying.\n\nV.  The highest character a man can have is the Christian\nCharacter.--(1) Christ is the giver of a noble character.  It is\npossible to be united to Christ as the branch is united to the tree;\nand when we are so, His life passes into ours: a change in character\ncomes to us; we are renewed in the inward man, old things pass away,\nand all things become new.  In the life of St. Paul we have a striking\ninstance how coming to Christ effects a change in character.  He became\na different man from what he was; he received a new inward life; a\ntransfiguring change passed over the entire character; the life he\nlived in the flesh became a life of faith in the Son of God; and his\nexperience has been the experience of many.  The source of the highest\nand noblest character is Christ.  (2) Christ is also the _standard_ of\na noble character; the true ideal of manhood is found in Him: \"the\nstature of the fulness of Christ.\"  Take the following illustration:\n\"In Holland we travel with Dutch money, in France with French money, in\nGermany with German money.  The standard of the coinage varies with\nevery state we go into.  In Britain there is one standard of coinage;\nwe may get some corrupted money or some light coin, but the standard of\ncoinage is the same.  The standard for the Christian is the same\nthroughout the years and in all places: the one perpetual standard of\nthe life of Christ.\"  The best men are those who come the nearest to\nit.  Those who come nearest to it are those who will do best in the\npractical conduct of life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nSUCCESS IN LIFE.\n\nWe often hear the word success used.  The great wish that most have in\nbeginning life is that they may be successful.  One man constantly asks\nanother the question regarding a third, How has he succeeded?\n\nWhat is success in life?  It may perhaps be defined in this way: It is\nto obtain the greatest amount of happiness possible to us in this world.\n\nThere are two things to be borne in mind in estimating what success is:\n\nI.  Lives which according to some are successful must in the highest\nsense be pronounced failures.--The idea of many is that success\nconsists in the gaining of a livelihood, or competency, or wealth; but\na man may gain these things who yet cannot be said to have succeeded.\nIf he gets wealth at the expense of health, or if he gets it by means\nof trickery and dishonest practices, he can hardly be said to have\nsucceeded.  He does not get real happiness with it.  If a man gains the\nwhole world and loses his own soul, he cannot be said to have\nsucceeded.  True success in life is when a fair share of the world's\ngood does not cost either physical or intellectual or moral well-being.\n\nII.  Lives which according to some are failures must in the highest\nsense be pronounced successful.--The life of our blessed Lord, from one\npoint of view, was a failure.  It was passed in poverty, it closed in\ndarkness.  We see Him crowned with thorns, buffeted, spit upon; yet\nnever was Christ so successful as when He hung upon the cross.  He had\nfinished the work given Him to do.  He \"saw of the travail of His soul\nand was satisfied.\"\n\nMilton completed his _Paradise Lost_ and a bookseller only gave him\nfifteen pounds for it, yet he cannot be said to have failed.\n\n  Speak, History, who are life's victors? unroll thy long\n      annals and say,\n  Are they those whom the world calls victors, who won\n      the success of the day,\n  The martyrs or Nero?  The Spartans who fell at\n      Thermopylae's tryst\n  Or the Persians or Xerxes?  His judges or Socrates?\n      Pilate or Christ?\n\n\nWhat may seem defeat to some may be in the truest sense success.\n\n_There are certain things which directly tend to success in life:_\n\nThe first is Industry.--There can be no success without working hard\nfor it.  There is no getting on without labor.  We live in times of\ngreat competition, and if a man does not work, and work hard, he is\nsoon jostled aside and falls into the rear.  It is true now as in the\ndays of Solomon that \"the hand of the diligent maketh rich.\"\n\n(_a_) There are some who think they can dispense with hard work because\nthey possess great natural talents and ability--that cleverness or\ngenius can be a substitute for diligence.  Here the old fable of the\nhare and the tortoise applies.  They both started to run a race.  The\nhare, trusting to her natural gift of fleetness, turned aside and took\na sleep; the tortoise plodded on and won the prize.  Constant and\nwell-sustained labor carries one through, where cleverness apart from\nthis fails.  History tells us that the greatest genius is most diligent\nin the cultivation of its powers.  The cleverest men have been of great\nindustry and unflinching perseverance.  No truly eminent man was ever\nother than an industrious man.\n\n(_b_) There are some who think that success is in the main a matter of\nwhat they call \"luck,\" the product of circumstances over which they\nhave little or no control.  If circumstances are favorable they need\nnot work; if they are unfavorable they need not work.  So far from man\nbeing the creature of circumstances he should rather be termed the\narchitect of circumstances.  From the same materials one man builds\npalaces and another hovels.  Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks\ntill the architect makes something out of them.  In the same way, out\nof the same circumstances one man rears a stately edifice, while\nanother, idle and incompetent, lives for ever amid ruins.\nCircumstances rarely conquer a strong man; he conquers them.  He\n\n  Breaks his birth's invidious bar\n  And grasps the skirts of happy chance,\n  And breasts the blows of circumstance,\n  And grapples with his evil star.--TENNYSON.\n\n\nAgainst all sorts of opposing obstacles the great workers of the world\nfought their way to triumph.  Milton wrote _Paradise Lost_ in blindness\nand poverty.  Luther, before he could establish the Reformation, had to\nencounter the prestige of a thousand years, the united power of an\nimperious hierarchy and the ban of the German Empire.  Linnaeus,\nstudying botany, was so poor as to be obliged to mend his shoes with\nfolded paper and often to beg his meals of his friends.  Columbus, the\ndiscoverer of America, had to besiege and importune in turn the states\nof Genoa, Portugal, Venice, France, England, and Spain, before he could\nget the control of three small vessels and 120 men.  Hugh Miller, who\nbecame one of the first geological writers of his time, was apprenticed\nto a stonemason, and while working in the quarry, had already begun to\nstudy the stratum of red sandstone lying below one of red clay.  George\nStephenson, the inventor of the locomotive engine, was a common collier\nworking in the mines.  James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine,\nwas a poor sickly child not strong enough to go to school.  John\nCalvin, who gave a theology to the seventeenth and eighteenth\ncenturies, which has not yet been outgrown, was tortured with disease\nall his days.  When were circumstances favorable to any great or good\nattempt, except as they were compelled by determination and industry to\nbecome favorable?\n\n(_c_) Even if circumstances seem in every way favorable, industry is\nnecessary to success.  Though we be born, as the saying is, \"with a\nsilver spoon in our mouth,\" we cannot afford to dispense with work.\nUnless we are hard-working, life will become a weariness to us.  Work\nkeeps life full and happy; it drives all diseased fancies out of the\nmind; it gives balance and regularity to all movements of the soul.\n\nIf then we expect to succeed in life we must make up our mind to work\nhard.  We must not let it be our notion of a fine lady or gentleman to\ndo nothing.  The idle life is a miserable life; it is bound to be so.\nGod has promised many a blessing to industry; He has promised none to\nindolence.  God himself works, and He wants His children to work.\n\n_The second thing that tends directly to success in life is a distinct\nAim_.--A man may run very hard in a race, the perspiration may stream\nfrom his brow and every muscle be strained, but if he is not running in\na right direction, if he is running away from the goal, all his\nactivity will not help him.  So, industrious habits are not sufficient,\nunless we have a distinct idea of what we are aiming at.  The world is\nfull of purposeless people, and such people come to nothing.  Those who\nhave succeeded best have chosen their line and stuck to it.\n\n  One great aim, like a guiding-star above,\n  Which tasked strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift\n  Their manhood to the height that takes the prize.\n        BROWNING.\n\n\n(_a_) The choice of a trade or profession is of enormous importance in\nsettling our aim in life.  Men often fail from having adopted a calling\nfor which they are entirely unfitted.  The round man in the square hole\nis a pitiful spectacle.  It is difficult to lay down any special rule\nin regard to the choice of a profession or business.  Some are obliged\nto take whatever opportunity offers, and others have to begin work at\ntoo early an age to permit them to form a true idea of what they are\nbest fitted for, and are obliged to follow the wishes of others rather\nthan their own.  This only we can say, that so far as we have a choice\nwe should adopt the calling that is most congenial to us and suits our\ninclinations.  \"Grasp the handle of your being\" was the direction given\nby a wise counsellor to one who sought advice as to what calling he\nshould follow.  Everyone has certain aptitudes, and as far as he is\nable should keep them in view.  There is often a distinct indication at\na very early period of life for what we are best fitted.  \"The tastes\nof the boy foreshadow the occupations of the man.  Ferguson's clock\ncarved out of wood and supplied with rudest mechanism; Faraday's tiny\nelectric machine made from a common bottle; Claude Lorraine's pictures\nin flour and charcoal on the walls of the bakers' shops; Canova's\nmodelling of small images in clay; Chantrey's carving of his\nschool-master's head in a bit of pine wood,--were all indications clear\nand strong of the future man.\"\n\n(_b_) Whatever you resolve upon, keep to it.  \"One thing I do,\" is a\ngreat rule to follow.  It is much better to do one thing well than many\nthings indifferently.  It may be well to have \"many strings to our\nbow,\" but it is better to have a bow and string that will every time\nsend the arrow to the target.  A rolling stone gathers no moss.  He\nthat is everything by turns and nothing long comes to nothing in the\nend.\n\n  If thou canst plan a noble deed\n  And never flag till it succeed,\n  Though in the strife thy heart should bleed,\n  Whatever obstacles contend,\n  Thine hour will come, go on, thou soul!\n  Thou'lt win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal.\n        CHAS. MACKAY.\n\n\n(_c_) The higher our purpose is, the greater our attainment is likely\nto be.  The nobler our ideal, the nobler our success.  It seems\nparadoxical to say it, but it is true, that no one ever reached a goal\nwithout starting from it; no one ever won a victory without beginning\nthe battle with it; no one ever succeeded in any work without first\nfinishing it in his own mind.\n\n  Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high,\n    So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be.\n  Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky\n    Shoots higher much than he who means a tree.\n        G. HERBERT.\n\nWhen we go forward to life we should make up our mind what we intend to\nmake of life.  Make up your mind after prayer to God, and work for that.\n\n_The third essential to success in life is Moral Character_, in its\nvarious elements of honesty, truthfulness, steadiness, temperance.\n\"Honesty is the best policy\" is one of those worldly maxims that\nexpress the experience of mankind.  A small leak will sink a great\nship.  One bad string in a harp will turn its music into discord.  Any\nflaw in moral character will sooner or later bring disaster.  The most\nhopeless wrecks that toss on the broken waters of society are men who\nhave failed from want of moral character.  There are thousands of such\nfrom whom much was expected but from whom nothing came.  It is told of\na distinguished professor at Cambridge that he kept photographs of his\nstudents.  He divided them into two lots.  One he called his basket of\nadled eggs: they were the portraits of men who had failed, who had come\nto nothing though they promised much.  What brought most of them to\ngrief was want of character, of moral backbone.  Some of them--a good\nmany of them--went to drink, others to love of pleasure, others to the\nbad in other ways.  Good principle counts for more than can be\nexpressed; it is essential.  Many things may hinder a man from getting\non--slowness, idleness, want of ability, trifling, want of interest in\nhis vocation.  Many of these faults may be borne with long by others,\nand may be battled with earnestly by ourselves; but a flaw in character\nis deadly.  To be unsteady, dishonest, or untruthful is fatal.  Before\nGod and man an unfaithful servant is worthless.  We may have other\nqualifications that go to command success, such as those we have\nnoticed,--industry and a distinct aim,--but want of principle will\nrender them useless.  Slow and sure often go together.  The slow train\nis often the safest to travel by, but woe be to it and to us if we do\nnot keep upon the rails.\n\n_The last essential to success in life is Religious\nHopefulness_.--(_a_) Our industry, our purpose, our principles may be\nall they ought to be, yet the \"race is not always to the swift nor the\nbattle to the strong.\"  But when we find the race going from us and the\nbattle going against us, if we have trust in God and the hopefulness\nthat comes from religion, we will find heart to try again: we will not\nbe utterly cast down.  Christian faith keeps men in good heart amid\nmany discouragements.  (_b_) Even if a man or woman become rich or\nclever and have life pleasant around them, they cannot feel at the\nclose of life that they have succeeded if the future is dark before\nthem.  When Cardinal Wolsey, who had been the favorite of the king and\nhad long held the government of England in his hand, fell from power,\nhe said, \"If I had served my God as truly as I served my king He would\nnot have forsaken me in my gray hairs.\"  The world is a poor comforter\nat the last.  No man or woman has become successful until their\nessential happiness is placed beyond the reach of all outward\nfluctuation and change.  Faith in Christ, the faith that penetrates the\nfuture and brings down from heaven a bright and blessed hopefulness,\nwhich casts its illumination over the present scene and reveals the\ngrand object of existence, is essential to true success.\n\nWe cannot sum up the teachings of this chapter better than in the words\nof a poem of which we should try to catch the spirit: they express the\nvery philosophy of success in life:\n\n  Courage, brother! do not stumble,\n    Though thy path be dark as night;\n  There's a star to guide the humble;--\n    Trust in God, and do the right.\n\n  Let the road be rough and dreary,\n    And its end far out of sight,\n  Foot it bravely! strong or weary,\n    Trust in God, and do the right.\n\n  Perish policy and cunning,\n    Perish all that fears the light!\n  Whether losing, whether winning,\n   Trust in God, and do the right.\n\n  Trust no party, sect, or faction;\n    Trust no leaders in the fight;\n  But in every word and action\n    Trust in God, and do the right.\n\n  Trust no lovely forms of passion,--\n    Fiends may look like angels bright:\n  Trust no custom, school, or fashion--\n    Trust in God, and do the right.\n\n  Simple rule, and safest guiding,\n    Inward peace and inward might,\n  Star upon our path abiding,--\n    Trust in God, and do the right.\n\n  Some will hate thee, some will love thee,\n    Some will flatter, some will slight:\n  Cease from man, and look above thee,--\n    Trust in God, and do the right.\n        NORMAN M'LEOD.\n\n\nThat is the way to succeed in life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nPERSONAL INFLUENCE.\n\nWe are all of us in close relations to one another.  We are bound\ntogether in numberless ways.  As members of the same family, as members\nof the same community, as members of the same Church--we are bound so\nclosely together that what any one of us does is certain to tell upon\nothers.  It is out of this close connection with others that influence\ncomes.  Just as one man in a crowd sends by his movements a certain\nimpulse throughout the whole, just as the stone thrown into a pond\ncauses waves that move far away from where the stone fell and that\nreach in faint ripples to the distant shore, so our very existence\nexercises influence beyond our knowledge and beyond our calculation.\n\n_Influence is of two kinds, Direct and Indirect_--Conscious and\nUnconscious,--The first is influence we deliberately put forth, as when\nwe meet a man and argue with him, as when the orator addresses the\nmultitude, or the politician seeks to gain their suffrages.  The second\nis the influence which radiates from us, whether we will it or not, as\nfire burning warms a room, or icebergs floating down from the frozen\nnorth change the temperature where they come.  There is a passage in\nScripture where both kinds of influence are illustrated.  \"Iron\nsharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.  As\nin water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.\"  The\nfirst part of the proverb refers to direct influence: as \"iron\nsharpeneth iron,\" so one man applying to another his powers of\npersuasion, his motives in the shape of money or some other inducement,\nmoulds, fashions, sharpens him to his liking.  \"As in water face\nanswereth to face:\" this is the silent influence which we have on\nothers.  There is no conscious exercise of power, there is no\ndeliberate putting forth of strength, there is no noise as of iron\nagainst iron; but as our shadow is silently reflected in the still\nwater, so our life and character silently reflect themselves in others,\nand other hearts answer to the feelings that sway our own.\n\nI.  Direct or conscious influence.--In regard to this everyone must\nchoose his own line of action.  Everyone has his own special gift, and\neveryone has his own special opportunities.  There are, however,\ncertain lines of direct influence that may be indicated, and which lie\nopen to all.\n\n(_a_) Keeping others in the right path.  We constantly meet with people\nwho are evidently taking a wrong road; it is our duty to try and show\nthem the right one, and to persuade them to walk in it.  We see men\ntaking up with evil habits, evil companions, or evil opinions; we are\nbound to remonstrate with them and endeavor to warn them timeously.\nThis of course needs to be wisely done, and after prayer to God to\nguide us rightly; but we ought to do it.  \"A word spoken in due season\nhow good is it.\"  Such a word has often been blessed and made\neffectual, and we should not shrink from speaking it.  The right time\nfor speaking it should be chosen, but it should not be left by us\nunsaid.  When Paley the great moralist was a student at Cambridge he\nwasted his time in idleness and frivolity, and was the butt of his\nfellow-students.  One of them, however, took courage to remonstrate\nwith him, and did so with good effect.  One morning he came to his\nbedside and said to him earnestly, \"Paley, I have not been able to\nsleep for thinking about you.  I have been thinking what a fool you\nare!  I have the means of dissipation, and could afford to be idle; you\nare poor and cannot afford it.  I could do nothing probably even if I\nwere to try; you are capable of doing anything.  I have lain awake all\nnight thinking about your folly, and I have now come solemnly to warn\nyou.  Indeed, if you persist in your indolence and go on in this way, I\nmust renounce your society altogether.\"  The words took effect.  Paley\nbecame a changed man, and his after success sprang from his friend's\nwarning.  This incident illustrates what may be the influence in this\nform of one man upon another.\n\n(_b_) Bearing testimony against evil.  This is another line of direct\ninfluence open to all.  It is a precept of the book of Leviticus, \"If a\nsoul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he\nhath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his\niniquity.\"  If he does not give evidence against evil, even to his own\nhurt he sins.  We are bound to protest against wrongdoing in any form;\nand our protest, if distinct and well directed, always tends to good.\nTo be silent in certain circumstances makes us the accomplice of sin;\nto speak out frees us from responsibility.  To be the dumb auditor of a\nshameful story, or to listen silently to the relation of a deed of\nwickedness, and not be honest and resolute in expressing our disgust\nand disapproval is to condone what no good man should condone.  The\noutspoken testimony against evil is incumbent on all Christian men.\n\n(_c_) Taking part in Christian and benevolent work.  There are many\nways, it is evident, in which we may do so _individually_.  \"The\ngreatest works that have been done have been done by the ones.\"  No\nlearned society discovered America, but one man, Columbus.  No\nparliament saved English liberties, but one man, Pym.  No confederate\nnations rescued Scotland from her political and ecclesiastical enemies,\nbut one man, Knox.  By one man, Howard, our prisons were purified.  By\none woman, Miss Nightingale, our disgraceful nursing system was\nreformed.  By one Clarkson the reproach of slavery was taken away.  God\nin all ages has blessed individual effort, and if we are strong enough\nto take up any special line of benevolent and Christian work that seems\nopen to us we should not shrink from it.  We should be on the lookout\nfor it.  But many from their circumstances are not able to do so, and\nsuch can find their best opportunity by _combining their own effort\nwith the efforts of others_.  There are many agencies at work in every\ncommunity for the helping of man, and they afford to all the\nopportunity of wisely using their power of influence.  This is true\nespecially of the Christian Church.  It has been defined as \"a society\nfor doing good in the world.\"  In many ways it carries on work for the\nbenefit of others.  In every Christian congregation there ought to be\nsome work in which each of its members, however few his talents may be,\ncan engage; and in lending a helping hand each of them may do something\ndirectly towards making society sweeter and better.\n\nII.  Indirect or unconscious influence.--There is an imperceptible\npersonal atmosphere which surrounds every man, \"an invisible belt of\nmagnetism\" which he bears with him wherever he goes.  It invests him,\nand others quickly detect its presence.  Take some of its simplest\nphases.\n\n(_a_) Think of the influence of a _look_.  When Christ stood in the\ncourtyard of the palace of the High Priest over against His weak and\nerring disciple, whom He heard denying Him with oaths, it is said, \"The\nLord looked upon Peter.\"  No more than that, and it reached right down\ninto his heart.  It touched him as nothing else could have touched him.\n\"He went out and wept bitterly.\"  It was said of Keble the poet that\n\"his face was like that of an illuminated clock, beaming with the\nradiance of his poetry and wisdom\"; and it is written of one of the\nmost spiritually-minded of Scotchmen, Erskine of Linlathen, that \"his\nlooks were better than a thousand homilies.\"  There was something in\nthe very expression of his countenance that spoke to men of an inner\nlife and of a spiritual dwelling in God.\n\n(_b_) Think of the influence of a _smile_: the smile of welcome when we\ncall at a friend's house; the smile of recognition when we meet him in\nthe street; the smile of pleasure which the speaker sees in his\naudience; the smile of satisfaction in one to whom we have done an act\nof kindness.  By the very expression of the countenance we can\ninfluence others, make their life more pleasant or more painful.  There\nare those who by the sweetness of their demeanor are in a household\nlike fragrant flowers.  They are like the sweet ointment of spikenard\nwhich the woman poured upon Christ--the sweet perfume of it \"filled the\nwhole house.\"\n\n(_c_) Think of the influence of _sympathy_.  There are some natures\nthat are gifted with a blessed power to bring consolation to men.  It\nis not that they are glib of tongue or facile of speech, but somehow\nthe very pressure of their hand is grateful to the saddened heart.  The\nsimple and kindly action, of which we think nothing, may tell\npowerfully on others, and unclose fountains of feeling deep down in the\nheart.\n\n(_d_) Think of the influence of _example_: the simple doing of what is\nright, though we say nothing about it; the upright life of a father or\nmother in a household; the steady conduct of a soldier in his company;\nthe stainless character of a workman among his comrades, or a boy in\nhis school.  It is bound to tell.  \"Example,\" says Dr. Smiles, \"is one\nof the most potent instructors, though it teaches without a tongue.  It\nis the practical school of mankind working by action, which is always\nmore forcible than words.  Precept may point to us the way, but it is a\nsilent continuous example conveyed to us by habits, and living with us\nin fact, that carries us along.  Good advice has its weight, but\nwithout the accompaniment of a good example it is of comparatively\nsmall influence, and it will be found that the common saying of 'Do as\nI say, not as I do' is usually reversed in the actual experience of\nlife.\"  Goodness makes good.  As a man who trims his garden in a\nstraight row and makes it beautiful will induce in time all his\nneighbors to follow him, or at least to be ashamed of their ragged and\nill-kept plots in contrast with his own, so is it that the upright,\ngood life of a sincere Christian man will silently tell upon others.\n\nThese are some illustrations of the power of influence unconsciously\nexercised, and the whole subject teaches us (1) Our responsibility.  If\nwe are ready to ask, \"Am I my brother's keeper?\" the answer is, you\ncannot help being so.  It is as easy to evade the law of gravitation as\nthe law of responsibility.  A man was lately prosecuted for having\nwaited on his customers in clothes he had worn when attending his\nchildren during an infectious complaint.  It was proved that he had\nsown broadcast germs of the disease.  It would have been no\njustification for him to say, What has anyone to do with the clothes I\nwear?  It is my own business.  He was a member of the community.  His\naction was silently but surely dealing out death to others.  He was\npunished, and justly punished.  We cannot live without influencing\nothers.  We say perhaps that \"we mean well,\" or at least we mean to do\nno one any harm, but is our influence harmless?  It is going from us in\nforms as subtle as the germs of an infectious disease.\n\n  Say not, \"It matters not to me,\n  My brother's weal is _his_ behoof,\"\n  For in this wondrous human web,\n  If your life's warp, his life is woof.\n\n  Woven together are the threads,\n  And you and he are in one loom,\n  For good or ill, for glad or sad,\n  Your lives must share one common doom.\n\n  Then let the daily shuttle glide,\n  Wound full of threads of kindly care,\n  That life's increasing length may be\n  Not only strongly wrought, but fair.\n\n  So from the stuff of each new day\n  The loving hand of Time shall make\n  Garments of joy and peace for all,\n  And human hearts shall cease to ache.\n        M. J. SAVAGE.\n\n(2) The power all have to do good.  There are some who think they can\nonly serve God and man in a direct and premeditated way, by taking up\nsome branch of Christian work and devoting themselves to it; and if\nthey have no gift in any special direction, they think they are outside\nof the vineyard altogether.  But it is not so.  The sphere of quiet and\nunassuming Christian life is open to all.  It is impossible to measure\nthe extent of our influence.  Its\n\n  Echoes roll from soul to soul,\n  And grow for ever and for ever.\n\nLike those of the Alpine horn in the solitudes of the mountains, long\nafter the voice that caused them has ceased, they reverberate far and\nwide.  No man lives to himself.  He could not do so if he would.  (3)\nThe secret of good influence is to be influenced for good ourselves.\nOur lamp must be first lit if it is to shine, and we must ourselves be\npersonally influenced by coming to the great source of spiritual power.\nIf Christ is in a man, then, wherever he may be, there will radiate\nfrom him influences that can only be for good.  Out of the life that is\nin him \"will flow rivers of living water.\"\n\n  Thou must be true thyself\n    If thou the truth wouldst teach.\n  Thy soul must overflow if thou\n    Another soul wouldst reach.\n  It needs the overflowing heart\n    To give the lips full speech.\n  Think truly, and thy thought\n    Shall the world's famine feed.\n  Speak truly, and thy word\n    Shall be a fruitful seed.\n  Live truly, and thy life shall be\n    A great and noble creed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nFRIENDS.\n\nBy friends we mean those whom we admit to the inner circle of our\nacquaintance.--All of us know many people.  We are bound to do so; to\nmeet with men of all classes, sects, beliefs, opinions.  But with most\nof us there are a few persons who stand to us in a different relation\nfrom the rest.  We are intimate with them.  We take pleasure in their\ncompany; we tell them our thoughts: we speak to them of things we would\nnot speak of to others; we confide in them, and in joy and in sorrow it\nis to them we go.  It is of this inner circle, and of those we ought to\nadmit to it, that we have now to speak.\n\nFriendship has been regarded in all ages as one of the most important\nrelationships of life.--Cicero, who dedicates an essay to it says that\n\"it is the only thing on the importance of which mankind are agreed.\"\nIt has been defined by Addison, the great English writer, as \"a strong\nhabitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness\nof each other.\"  It has been termed by another \"the golden thread that\nties the hearts of the world.\"  \"A faithful friend\" has been called\n\"the medicine of life.\"  Ambrose, one of the Christian Fathers, says,\n\"It is the solace of this life to have one to whom you can open your\nheart, and tell your secrets; to win to yourself a faithful man, who\nwill rejoice with you in sunshine, and weep in showers.  It is easy and\ncommon to say, 'I am wholly thine,' but to find it true is as rare.\"\nAnd Jeremy Taylor, the great preacher, calls friendship \"the ease of\nour passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our\ncalamities, the counsellor of our doubts, the charity of our minds, the\nemission of our thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we\nmeditate.\"  The great preachers, philosophers and poets of all time\nhave dwelt on the importance and sweetness of friendship.  The _In\nMemoriam_ of Tennyson is a glorification of this relationship.\n\nThe highest of all examples of friendship is to be found in\nChrist.--\"His behaviour in this beautiful relationship is the very\nmirror in which all true friendship must see and mirror itself.\" [1]\nIn His life we see the blessings of companionship in good.  \"He loved\nMartha, and her sister, and Lazarus.\"  He had intimate friends in His\ngroup of disciples.  Peter and James and John stood to Him in this\nrelation.  They were taken by Him into scenes which the rest of the\ndisciples did not behold.  They knew a friendship with Him unenjoyed by\nthe others.  And of that inner circle there was one to whom the soul of\nJesus clung with peculiar tenderness--the beloved disciple.  Human\nfriendship has been consecrated for us all by this example of Christ.\nHe offers himself to every one of us as a _friend_: \"Ye are my friends\nif ye do whatsoever I command you.\"\n\nThere are two things which specially show the importance of friendship:\n\n(_a_) It is regarded by others _as a test of our character_.  The worth\nof a man will always be rated by his companions.  The proverbs of all\nnations show this.  \"A man is known by the company he keeps.\"  \"Like\ndraws to like.\"  \"Birds of a feather flock together.\"  If our\ncompanions are worthless, the verdict of society regarding us will be\nthat we are worthless ourselves.  This verdict may not in all cases be\ntrue, but the probability is that it will be true.  If we are admitted\nto the friendship of men of honor, integrity and principle, people will\ncome to believe in us.  We would not, they will feel, be admitted into\nthat society unless we were in sympathy with those who compose it.  If\nwe wish, therefore, that a good opinion should be formed regarding us\nby others, we need to be especially careful as to those with whom we\nassociate closely and whom we admit to intimate friendship.\n\n(_b_) Friends have a special power in _moulding our character_.  George\nHerbert's saying is true, \"Keep good company, and you shall be of their\nnumber.\"  It is difficult, on the other hand, to be much with the silly\nand foolish without being silly and foolish also.  It is the common\nexplanation of a young man's ruin that he got among bad companions.  We\nmay go into a certain society confident that we will hold our own, and\nthat we can come out of it as we go in; but, as a general rule, we will\nfind ourselves mistaken.  The man of the strongest individuality comes\nsooner or later to be affected by those with whom he is intimate.\nThere is a subtle influence from them telling upon him that he cannot\nresist.  He will inevitably be moulded by it.  Here also the proverbs\nof the world point the lesson.  \"He who goes with the lame,\" says the\nLatin proverb, \"will begin to limp.\"  \"He who herds with the wolves,\"\nsays the Spanish, \"will learn to howl.\"  \"Iron sharpeneth iron,\" says\nthe scriptural proverb, \"so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his\nfriend.\"  The rapidity of moral deterioration in an evil companionship\nis its most startling feature.  It is appalling to see how soon an evil\ncompanionship will transform a young man, morally pure, of clean and\nwholesome life, into an unclean, befouled, trifling good-for-nothing.\nLightning scarcely does its work of destruction quicker, or with more\nfell purpose.\n\nIt is difficult to give precise rules in regard to the formation of\nfriendship.  \"A man that hath friends,\" says Solomon, \"must show\nhimself friendly.\"  The man of a generous and sympathetic nature will\nhave many friends, and will attract to himself companions of his own\ncharacter.  A few suggestions, however, founded on practical\nexperience, may be offered for our guidance.\n\nI.  We should be (_a_) slow to make friendships, and (_b_) slow to\nbreak them when made.--(_a_) It is in the nature of some to take up\nwith people very readily.  Some young men are like fish that rise\nreadily to a gaudy and many-colored fly.  If they see anything that\nattracts them in another they admit him at once to their confidence.\nIt should not be so.  Among the reported and traditional sayings of\nChrist, there is one that is full of wisdom: \"Be good money changers.\"\nAs a money changer rings the coin on his counter to test it, so we\nshould test men well before we make them our friends.  There should be\na narrow wicket leading into the inner circle of our social life at\nwhich we should make them stand for examination before they are\nadmitted.  An old proverb says, \"Before you make a friend, eat a peck\nof salt with him.\"  We should try before we trust; and as we should be\ncareful whom we receive, we should be equally careful whom we part\nwith.  \"Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not.\"  With\nsome, very little severs the bond of friendship.  They are always\nchanging their companions.  They are \"Hail fellow, well met,\" with one\nto-day, and cold and distant to-morrow.  Inconstancy in friendship is a\nbad sign.  It generally arises from readiness to admit to intimacy\nwithout sufficient examination.  The friendship that is quickly\ncemented is easily dissolved.  Fidelity is the very essence of true\nfriendship; and, once broken, it cannot be easily renewed.  Quarrels\nbetween friends are the bitterest and the most lasting.  Broken\nfriendship may be soldered, but never made sound.\n\n  Alas! they had been friends in youth,\n  But whispering tongues can poison truth.\n      *      *      *      *\n  They parted, ne'er to meet again,\n  But never either found another\n  To free the hollow heart from paining.\n  They stood aloof, the scars remaining,\n  Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;\n  A dreary sea now flows between.\n        COLERIDGE.\n\n\nShakespeare gives this rule for friendship in his own wonderful way.\nIt could not be better stated--\n\n  The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,\n  Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;\n  But do not dull thy palm with entertainment\n  Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.\n\n\nII.  We should refuse friendship with those whose standard of right is\nbelow our own.--Anything in a man or woman that indicates low moral\ntone, or want of principle, should debar them at once from our\nfriendship.  It is not easy to say in so many words what want of\nprinciple is, but we all know what is meant by it.  It corresponds to a\nconstitutional defect in the physical system.  A person may have\nailments, but that is different from a weak and broken constitution.\nSo a person may have faults and failings, but a want of principle is\nmore serious.  It is a radical defect which should prevent friendship.\nA small thing often shows us whether a person wants principle.  The\nsingle claw of a bird of prey tells us its nature.  According to the\nfamiliar saying, \"We don't need to eat a leg of mutton to know whether\nit is tainted; a mouthful is sufficient.\"  So a single expression may\ntell us whether there is a want of moral principle.  A word showing us\nthat a person thinks lightly of honesty, of purity in man, of virtue in\nwoman, should be sufficient to make us keep him at a distance.  We may\nbe civil to him, try to do him good, and lead him to better things, but\nhe is not one to make our friend.  Cowper the poet says:\n\n  I would not enter on my list of friends,\n  Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,\n  Yet wanting sensibility, the man\n  Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.\n\nWe may think it a small thing to set the foot upon a worm, but to do so\nneedlessly and wantonly indicates a hard and cruel nature, and a man\nwith such a nature is not a safe friend.\n\nIII.  There should be equality in friendship.--Equality of station, of\ncircumstances, of position.  It does not do to lay down a hard and fast\nline as to this.  For instance, in a \"young men's guild\" men of all\nstations and social conditions meet on an equality.  They are a\nbrotherhood bound together by ties of a very close description.  To\nthem this rule does not apply.  Among members of such an association, a\nyoung man may always fitly find a friend.  It is friendships formed\noutside such a circle, and in general society, that we have in view;\nand, in regard to such society, we are probably not far wrong in saying\nthat we do well to choose our intimate friends from those who are\nneither much above us nor beneath us.  If a man is poor, and chooses as\na friend one who is rich, the chances are either that he becomes a\ntoady and a mere \"hanger-on,\" or that he is made to feel his\ninferiority.  Young men in this way have been led into expenses which\nthey could not afford, and into society that did them harm, and into\ndebts sometimes that they could not pay.  Making friends of those\nbeneath us is often equally a mistake.  We come to look upon them with\npatronizing affability.  \"It is well enough to talk of our humble\nfriends, but they are too often like poor relations.  We accept their\nservices, and think that a mere 'thank you,' a nod, a beck, or a smile\nis sufficient recompense.\" [2]  Either to become a toady or a patron is\ndestructive of true friendship.  We should be able to meet on the same\nplatform, and join hands as brothers, having the same feelings, the\nsame wants, the same aspirations.  We should be courteous to the man\nabove us, and civil to the man beneath us; but if we value our\nindependence and manhood we will not try to make a friend of either.\n\nIV.  We should not make a friend of one who is without reverence for\nwhat we deem sacred and have been taught to deem sacred.--The want of\n\"reverence for that which is above us\" is one of the most serious\ndefects in man or woman.  We should be as slow to admit one to our\nfriendship who has this defect as we would be if we knew he had entered\ninto a church and stolen the vessels of the sanctuary.  We should\nconsort only with those who honor the sacred name we bear, and treat it\nwith reverence.  We should especially beware of admitting to intimacy\nthe sceptic and infidel.  There are those who have drifted away from\nthe faith of Christ, and to whom God and eternity are mere names.  Such\nare deserving of our most profound pity and sorrow, and we should do\nall in our power to lead them back to the Father's house from which\nthey have wandered.  But we should never make them our friends.  We\ncannot dwell in an ill-ventilated and ill-drained house without running\nthe risk of having our own constitution lowered.  We cannot associate\nin close companionship with the infidel and the sceptic without\nendangering our own spiritual life.  Doubt is as catching as disease.\n\"Take my word for it,\" said the great Sir Robert Peel, who was a close\nobserver of men, \"it is not prudent, as a rule, to trust yourself to\nany man who tells you he does not believe in God, and in a future life\nafter death.\"  We should choose our friends from those who have chosen\nthe better part, and day by day we shall feel the benefit of their\ncompanionship in making us stronger and better.\n\nThese are some plain rules drawn from long experience of life which may\nbe helpful to some.  We may conclude by quoting the noble lines of\nTennyson in which he draws the picture of his friend, Arthur Hallam,\nand the inspiration he drew from him:\n\n  Thy converse drew us with delight,\n    The men of rathe and riper years:\n    The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,\n  Forgot his weakness in thy sight.\n\n  On thee the loyal-hearted hung,\n    The proud was half disarm'd of pride,\n    Nor cared the serpent at thy side\n  To flicker with his double tongue.\n\n  The stern were mild when thou wert by,\n    The flippant put himself to school\n    And heard thee, and the brazen fool\n  Was soften'd, and he knew not why;\n\n  While I, thy nearest, sat apart,\n    And felt thy triumph was as mine;\n    And loved them more, that they were thine,\n  The graceful tact, the Christian art;\n\n  Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,\n    But mine the love that will not tire,\n    And, born of love, the vague desire\n  That spurs an imitative will.\n        TENNYSON.\n\n\nHappy are those whose friends in some degree approach the character\nhere delineated.\n\n\n\n[1] Stalker's _Imago Christi_.\n\n[2] Hain Friswell, _The Gentle Life_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nMONEY.\n\nMoney has been defined as _the measure and standard of value, and the\nmedium of exchange_.  It represents everything that may be purchased.\nHe who possesses money has potentially in his possession everything\nthat can be bought with money.  Money is thus power.  It seems to have\nin itself all earthly possibilities.\n\nThere are three things which should be borne in mind in regard to money:\n\nI.  Money itself is neither good nor bad.--It is simply force.  It is\nlike the lightning or the sunlight: it withers or nourishes; it smites\nor does other bidding; it devastates or fertilizes, according as it is\nused by us.  Whether money is good or bad depends on whether it is\nsought for in right or wrong ways, used wisely or unwisely, squandered\nwhere it does harm, or bestowed where it does good.  (_a_) That it may\nbe a power for good is evident to all.  It enables men to benefit their\nfellow-creatures; it gives a man independence; it procures him comforts\nhe could not otherwise have obtained.  It is, as it has well been\ntermed, \"the lever by which the race has been lifted from barbarism to\ncivilization.  So long as the race could do nothing but barely live,\nman was little more than an animal who hunted and fought for his prey.\nWhen the race began to think and plan and save for tomorrow, it\nspecially began to be human.  There is not a single feature of our\ncivilization to-day that has not sprung out of money, and that does not\ndepend on money for its continuance.\"  (_b_) That money may be a power\nfor evil is equally evident.  Much of the crime and sin and sorrow of\nthe world spring from its misuse.  \"The love of money,\" as Scripture\nsays, \"is a root of all evil.\"  In the haste to be rich men too often\nlose their very manhood.  Money, it is often said, does wonders, but\n\"the most wonderful thing that it does is to metalize the human soul.\"\n\nII.  Money and our relation to it is a test of character--The making\nand the using of it is an education.  If we know how one gets and\nspends money, we know what a man is.  \"So many are the bearings of\nmoney upon the lives and characters of mankind, that an insight which\nwould search out the life of a man in his pecuniary relations would\npenetrate into almost every cranny of his nature.  He who, like St.\nPaul, has learnt how to want and how to abound, has a great knowledge;\nfor if we take account of all the virtues with which money is mixed\nup--honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought,\nself-sacrifice, and their correlative vices--it is a knowledge which\ngoes to cover the length and breadth of humanity, and a right measure\nand manner in getting, saving, spending, taking, lending, borrowing and\nbequeathing would almost argue a perfect man.\" [1]  Nearly all the\nvirtues and all the vices are connected with money.  Its acquisition\nand its distribution are almost certain indications of what we are\nmorally.\n\nIII.  There are some things that are better than money, and that cannot\nbe purchased with it--These are indeed the best things.  All that can\nbe bought money possesses actually or potentially, but there are some\nthings that cannot be bought.  Love, friendship, nobleness of soul,\ngenius, cannot be purchased.  We must estimate rightly the power of\nmoney.  It is great, but it may be exaggerated, (_a_) _Honesty_ is\nbetter than money.  If a man gains money at the expense of honesty and\nintegrity, he pays too great a price.  He is like a savage who barters\njewels for a string of beads.  (_b_) _Home_ is better than money.  If a\nman, struggling and striving to be rich, has no time for the joys of\nfamily and the rich blessings that circle round the fireside, if he\nknows nothing of the charm of love and the pleasures that spring from\nthe affections, he pays too great a price--\"a costly house and\nluxurious furnishings are no substitute for love in the home.\"  (_c_)\n_Culture_ is better than money.  If a man grows up in ignorance and\nvulgarity, shut out from the world of art, literature and science, and\nall that refines and elevates the mind--a rude, uncultured boor--he\npays too great a price for any money he may scrape together.  (_d_)\n_Humanity_ is better than money.  The rich man who leaves Lazarus\nuntended at his gates, who builds about him walls so thick that no cry\nfrom the suffering world ever penetrates them, who becomes mean and\nstingy, close-fisted and selfish, pays too great a price.  Of such a\nman it is said in Scripture that \"in hell he lifted up his eyes.\"\nSurely he made a bad bargain, (_e_) _Spirituality_ is better than\nmoney.  He who has made an idol of his wealth, who in gaining it has\nlost his soul, who has allowed money to come between him and God, has\npaid too great a price for it.  He has well been depicted by John\nBunyan as the man with the muck-rake gathering straws, whilst he does\nnot see the golden crown that is held above him.  Christ tells us God\nregards such a man as a fool.\n\nThere are certain rules of conduct which may be laid down, drawn both\nfrom Scripture and experience, in regard to money.\n\n1.  _We are especially to remember our stewardship_.--Money is a trust\ncommitted to us, for which we are to give account unto God.  We are\nanswerable to Him for the use we make of it.  If we have amassed\nwealth, from God has come the power that enabled us to do so.  All we\nhave is His--not our own.  To each of us shall be addressed the words,\n\"Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer\nsteward.\"  If we remember this great truth we shall be rightly guided,\nboth in regard to the accumulation and the distribution of money.  We\nshall not inordinately desire it, for we shall feel that with its\nincrease comes new responsibility; and we shall be careful how we spend\nit, for the question will ever be present to our minds, What would the\ngreat Master, to whom we have to give account, wish us to do with it?\nThose who have most wisely used their money are the men who have\nrealized most intensely the thought of their stewardship.  In the \"Life\nof Mr. Moore,\" the successful merchant, by Smiles, this is most\nadmirably shown.  He amassed, by industry and by enterprise, great\nwealth; he lived a noble and benevolent life; he was honored by all men\nfor his character and his generosity.  But at the root and foundation\nof his life was the thought that all he had was a trust committed to\nhim by God.\n\n2.  _We should do good as we go_.--There are those who allow that they\nshould do good with their money, but they defer carrying out their\nintention till they have accumulated something that they think\nconsiderable.  If they ever become rich, then they will do great\nthings.  The folly of this is apparent, (_a_) They lose the happiness\nwhich the humblest may daily reap from small deeds of kindness; and\n(_b_) they lose the power which will enable them to do anything if the\ngreat opportunity they desire comes.  \"Doing good,\" it has been well\nsaid, \"is a faculty, like any other, that becomes weak and atrophied,\npalsied for lack of use.  You might as well stop practising on the\npiano, under the impression that in a year or two you will find time to\ngive a month to it.  In the meantime, you will get out of practice and\nlose the power.  Keep your hand and your pocket open, or they will grow\ntogether, so that nothing short of death's finger can unloose them.\"\n[2]  However little money we may have, we should use a portion of it in\ndoing good.  The two mites of the widow were in the eye of Christ a\nbeautiful offering.  Giving should always go with getting.  Mere\ngetting injures us, but giving brings to us a blessing.  \"Gold,\" says\nholy George Herbert, \"thou mayest safely touch; but if it stick it\nwounds thee to the quick.\"  George Moore, to whom we have referred,\nwrote yearly in his diary the words of wisdom--\n\n  What I saved I lost,\n  What I spent I had,\n  What I gave I have.\n\nWhat proportion of our money we should give every one must determine\nfor himself, but we are not safe spiritually unless we cultivate the\nhabit of generosity.  \"The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.\"  \"There are\nmany,\" it has been satirically said, \"who would be Good Samaritans\nwithout the oil and the two pence.\"  All of us, however humble our\nstation, are bound to give \"as God hath prospered us\" for the help of\nman and the cause of Christ; and the discharge of the obligation will\nbecome to us one of the greatest pleasures in life.\n\n3.  _We should cultivate thrift_.--Thrift is just forethought.  It is\nreasonable prudence in regard to money.  It provides for \"the rainy\nday.\"  If poverty be our lot, we must bear it bravely; but there is no\nspecial blessing in poverty.  It is often misery unspeakable.  It is\noften brought upon us by our self-indulgence, extravagance and\nrecklessness.  We are to use every means in our power to guard against\nit.  The words of the poet Burns are full of common-sense:\n\n  To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile,\n    Assiduous wait upon her,\n  And gather gear by every wile\n    That's justified by honor;\n  Not for to hide it in a hedge,\n    Nor for a train attendant,\n  But for the glorious privilege\n    Of being independent.\n\nThe squalor and wretchedness which often fall upon people come from\ntheir not having exercised a little thought in the use of their money.\nA little self-denial would have saved them, and those depending on\nthem, from many sorrows.  A saving habit is good.  \"It is coarse\nthinking to confound spending with generosity, or saving with\nmeanness.\"  The man who puts by a little week by week or year by year,\nagainst possible contingencies is wise.  However small may be our\nsalary and limited our income, we should try and save part of it.\nEvery young man should be a member of a savings bank, or a benefit\nclub, by means of which he can make provision for the future.  The\nhonest endeavor to make such provision is in itself an education.\n\n4.  _We should earnestly endeavor to avoid debt_.--Debt means slavery.\nIt is loss of independence.  It is misery.  \"He\" (says a Spanish\nproverb) \"that complains of sound sleep, let him borrow the debtor's\npillow.\"  Every shilling that we spend beyond our income means an\naddition to a burden that may crush us to the ground.  \"Pay as you go,\"\nis a good rule.  \"Keep a regular account of what you spend,\" is\nanother.  \"Before you buy anything, think whether you can afford it,\"\nis a third.  But whatever rule we follow in regard to our expenditure,\nlet us see that it does not exceed our income.  The words of Horace\nGreeley, a great American writer and politician who had a large\nexperience of life, are not too strong: \"Hunger, cold, rags, hard work,\ncontempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable, but debt is\ninfinitely worse than them all.  Never run into debt!  Avoid pecuniary\nobligation as you would pestilence or famine.  If you have but fifty\ncents and can get no more a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and\nlive on it, rather than owe any man a dollar.\"\n\n5.  _We should resolutely set our face against gambling_.--Gambling is\none of the curses of our time.  It is the endeavor to get money by\ndispensing with labor, to make it without honestly working for it.  It\nentails widespread ruin and degradation.  Its consequences are often of\nthe most appalling character.  When the gambling spirit is once\naroused, like drunkenness, it becomes an overpowering appetite, which\nthe victim becomes almost powerless to resist.  Gambling is in itself\nevil, apart from its deadly effects.  (_a_) It proposes to confer gain\nwithout merit, and to reward those who do not deserve a reward, (_b_)\nIt proposes to benefit us while injuring our neighbor.  \"Benefit\nreceived,\" says Herbert Spencer in his _Sociology_, referring to\ngambling, \"does not imply effort put forth; but the happiness of the\nwinner involves the misery of the loser.  This kind of action is\ntherefore essentially anti-social, sears the sympathies, cultivates a\nhard egoism, and produces general deterioration of character and\nconduct.\"  The young should specially guard against this vice, which\nhas been a rock upon which many a promising life has made disastrous\nshipwreck.\n\n\n\n[1] Sir Henry Taylor, _Notes from Life_.\n\n[2] _Life Questions_, by M. J. Savage.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTIME.\n\n\"Time,\" it is said, \"is money.\"  So it is, without doubt.  But to the\nyoung man or young woman who is striving to make the most of himself or\nherself time is more than money, it is character and usefulness.  They\nbecome great and good just as they learn how to make the best use of\ntheir time.  On the right employment of it depends what we are to be\nnow, and what we are to be hereafter, \"We all complain,\" says the great\nRoman philosopher Seneca, \"of the shortness of time, and yet we have\nmore than we know what to do with.  Our lives are spent either in doing\nnothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing\nthat we ought to do.  We are always complaining that our days are few,\nand acting as though there would be no end of them.\"\n\nIn regard to the right use of time--how to make the most of it and to\nget the most out of it--there are certain things that we should bear in\nmind and keep in constant remembrance.  We may arrange them for\nconvenience under four heads: _Economy, System, Punctuality and\nPromptitude_.\n\nI.  Economy.--We all know what economy is.  In regard to money, in\nconnection with which the word is chiefly used, it is keeping strict\nwatch over our expenditure, and not spending a penny without good\nreason.  According to the oft-quoted proverb, \"Take care of the pence\nand the pounds will take care of themselves.\"  Economy, in regard to\ntime, is to watch over the minutes, hours and days, and the years will\ntake care of themselves.  It is, to let every moment of time be well\nemployed; to let every hour of the day as it passes be turned to use;\nto let none be spent in idleness or folly.  It is a good advice that of\nthe poet--\n\n  Think nought a trifle though it small appears,\n  Sands make the mountain, moments make the years,\n  And trifles life.\n\nIn the mint, where money is coined, when the visitor reaches the room\nwhere the gold coins are cast, it is said that the floor is a network\nof wooden bars to catch all the particles of the falling metal.  When\nthe day's work is done, the floor is removed and the golden dust is\nswept up to be melted again.  In the same way we should economize time:\ngather up its golden dust, let none of its moments be lost.  Be careful\nof its spare minutes, and a wealth of culture will be the result.  It\nis said of a European cathedral that when the architect came to insert\nthe stained-glass windows he was one window short.  An apprentice in\nthe factory where the windows were made came forward and said that he\nthought he could make a window from the bits of glass cast aside.  He\nwent to work, collected the fragments, put them together, and produced\na window said to be the finest of all.  In the same way men have made\nmuch out of the bits of time that have been, so to speak, broken from\nthe edges of a busy life.\n\nMany illustrations might be given from history of what men have been\nable to do by a wise economy of time.  Sir Humphry Davy established a\nlaboratory in the attic of his house, and when his ordinary day's work\nwas done began a course of scientific studies that continued throughout\nhis memorable life.  Cobbett learned grammar when a soldier, sitting on\nthe edge of his bed.  Lincoln, the famous president of America,\nacquired arithmetic during the winter evenings, mastered grammar by\ncatching up his book at odd moments when he was keeping a shop, and\nstudied law when following the business of a surveyor.  Douglas\nJerrold, during his apprenticeship, arose with the dawn of day to study\nhis Latin grammar, and read Shakespeare and other works before his\ndaily labor began at the printing office.  At night, when his day's\nwork was done, he added over two hours more to his studies.  At\nseventeen years of age he had so mastered Shakespeare that when anyone\nquoted a line from the poet he could give from memory that which came\nnext.  While walking to and from his office Henry Kirke White acquired\na knowledge of Greek.  A German physician, while visiting his patients,\ncontrived to commit to memory the _Iliad_ of Homer.  Hugh Miller, while\nworking as a stonemason, studied geology in his off hours.  Elihu\nBurritt, \"the learned blacksmith,\" gained a mastery of eighteen\nlanguages and twenty-two dialects by using the odds and ends of time at\nhis disposal.  Franklin's hours of study were stolen from the time his\ncompanions devoted to their meals and to sleep.[1]  Many similar\ninstances might be added to show what may be done by economising time\nand strictly looking after those spare minutes which many throw away.\nThe great rule is, never to be unemployed, and to find relief in\nturning from one occupation to another, due allowance of course being\nmade for recreation and for rest.  The wise man economises time as he\neconomises money.\n\nII.  System.--It is wonderful how much work can be got through in a day\nif we go by rule--if we map out our time, divide it off and take up one\nthing regularly after another.  To drift through our work, or to rush\nthrough it in _helter skelter_ fashion, ends in comparatively little\nbeing done.  \"One thing at a time\" will always perform a better day's\nwork than doing two or three things at a time.  By following this rule\none person will do more in a day than another does in a week.  \"Marshal\nthy notions,\" said old Thomas Fuller, \"into a handsome method.  One\nwill carry twice as much weight trussed and packed as when it lies\nuntoward, flapping and hanging about his shoulders.\"  Fixed rules are\nthe greatest possible help to the worker.  They give steadiness to his\nlabor, and they enable him to go through it with comparative ease.\nMany a man would have been saved from ruin if he had appreciated the\nvalue of method in his affairs.  In the peasant's cottage or the\nartisan's workshop, in the chemist's laboratory or the shipbuilder's\nyard, the two primary rules must be, \"For every one his duty,\" and,\n\"For everything its place.\"\n\nIt is a wise thing to begin the day by taking a survey in thought of\nthe work we have to get through, and thus to divide it, giving to each\nhour its own share.  The shortest way to do many things is to do one\nthing at a time.  Albert Barnes was a distinguished American theologian\nwho wrote a valuable commentary on the Bible amid the work of a large\nparish.  He accomplished this by systematic arrangement of his time.\nHe divided his day into parts.  He devoted each part to some duty.  He\nrigidly adhered to this arrangement, and in this way was able to\novertake an amount of work that was truly wonderful.  In the life of\nAnthony Trollope, the great novelist, we are told that he kept\nresolutely close to a rule he laid down for himself.  He wrote so many\npages a day of so many lines each.  He overtook an immense amount of\nwork in the year.  He published many books, and he made a great deal of\nmoney.  The great English lawyer Sir Edward Coke divided his time\naccording to the well-known couplet--\n\n  Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,\n  Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.\n\nSir William Jones, the famous Oriental scholar, altered this rule to\nsuit himself.\n\n  Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,\n  Ten to the world allot, and all to Heaven.\n\nBenjamin Franklin's system of working is given in his \"Life.\"  Each day\nwas carefully portioned off.  His daily programme was the following:\n\n\n       Morning.             ) Rise, wash, and address the\n                          5 )   Almighty Father; contrive\n  [Question, What good    6 )   the day's business and take\n  shall I do this day?]   7 )   the resolution of the day;\n                            )   prosecute the present study,\n                            )   breakfast.\n\n                          8 )\n                         to ) Work\n                         11 )\n\n                         12 ) Read or look over accounts and\n       Noon.             to )   dine.\n                          1 )\n\n                          2 )\n       Afternoon,        to ) Work\n                          5 )\n\n                          6 ) Put things in their place;\n       Evening           to )   supper; music or diversion or\n  [Question, What good    9 )   conversation; examination of\n   have I done to-day?]     )   the day.\n\n                         10 )\n       Night             to ) Sleep.\n                          4 )\n\n\nIt is evident that a scheme of life like this could not suit everyone.\nIt is given as an illustration of the value of adhering to method in\nour work.  \"Order,\" the poet Pope says, \"is Heaven's first law,\" and\ntime well ordered means generally work well and thoroughly done.\n\nIII.  Punctuality.--This means keeping strictly as to time by any\nengagement we make either with ourselves or with others.  If we resolve\nto do anything at a certain time, we should do it neither before nor\nafter that time.  It is better to be before than after.  But it is best\nto be at the very minute.  If we enter into an engagement with others\nfor a certain time, we should be precise in keeping it.  In a letter\nfrom a celebrated merchant, Buxton, to his son, he says, \"Be punctual;\nI do not mean merely being in time for lectures, but mean that spirit\nout of which punctuality grows, that love of accuracy and precision\nwhich mark the efficient man.  The habit of being punctual extends to\neverything--meeting friends, paying debts, going to church, reaching\nand leaving place of business, keeping promises, retiring at night and\nrising in the morning.\"  We may lay down a system or method of work for\nourselves, but it will be of little service unless we keep carefully to\nit, beginning and leaving off at the appointed moment.  If the work of\none hour is postponed to another, it will encroach on the time allotted\nto some other duty, if it do not remain altogether undone, and thus the\nwhole business of the day is thrown into disorder.  If a man loses half\nan hour by rising late in the morning, he is apt to spend the rest of\nthe day seeking after it.  Sir Walter Scott was not only methodical in\nhis work, he was exceedingly punctual, always beginning his allotted\ntask at the appointed moment.  \"When a regiment,\" he wrote, \"is under\nmarch, the rear is often thrown into confusion because the front does\nnot move steadily and without interruption.  It is the same thing in\nbusiness.  If that which is first in hand be not instantly despatched,\nother things accumulate betimes, till affairs begin to press all at\nonce, and no brain can stand the confusion.\"  We should steadily\ncultivate the habit of punctuality.  We can cultivate it until it\nbecomes with us a second nature, and we do everything, as the saying\nis, \"by clockwork.\"  In rising in the morning and going to bed, in\ntaking up different kinds of work, in keeping appointments with others,\nwe should strive to be \"to the minute.\"  The unpunctual man is a\nnuisance to society.  He wastes his own time, and he wastes the time of\nothers; as Principal Tulloch well says, \"Men who have real work of\ntheir own would rather do anything than do business with him.\" [2]\n\nIV.  Promptitude.--By this we mean acting at the present moment--all\nthat is opposed to procrastination, putting off to another time, to a\n\"convenient season\" which probably never comes--all that is opposed\nalso to what is called \"loitering\" or \"dawdling.\"  There is an old\nLatin proverb, \"_Bis dat qui cito dat,_\"--he gives twice who gives\nquickly.  The same thing may be said of work, \"He works twice who works\nquickly.\"  In work, of course, the first requirement is that it should\nbe well done; but this does not hinder quickness and despatch.  There\nare those who, when they have anything to do, seem to go round it and\nround it, instead of attacking it at once and getting it out of the\nway; and when they do begin it they do so in a listless and\nhalf-hearted fashion.  There are those who look at their work,\naccording to the simile of Sidney Smith, like men who stand shivering\non the bank instead of at once taking the plunge.  \"In order,\" he says,\n\"to do anything that is worth doing in this world, we must not stand\nshivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in\nand scramble through as well as we can.  It will not do to be\nperpetually calculating and adjusting nice chances; it did all very\nwell before the Flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an\nintended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to\nsee its success for six or seven centuries afterwards, but at present a\nman doubts, and waits, and hesitates, and consults his brother, and his\nuncle, and his first cousin, and his particular friends, till one day\nhe finds that he is sixty-five years of age, that he has lost so much\ntime in consulting first cousins and particular friends that he has no\ntime to follow their advice.\"  This is good sense, though humorously\nput.  Promptitude is a quality that should be assiduously cultivated.\nLike punctuality, it becomes a most valuable habit.  \"Procrastination,\"\nit is said, \"is the thief of time,\" and \"hell is paved with good\nintentions.\"  These proverbs are full of wisdom.  When we hear people\nsaying, \"They are going to be this thing or that thing; they _intend_\nto look to this or to that; they will by and by do this or that,\" we\nmay be sure there is a weakness in their character.  Such people never\ncome to much.  The best way is not to _speak_ about doing a thing, but\n_to do it_, and to do it _at once_.\n\nTo these thoughts on the use of time we may fitly add the great words\nof Scripture, \"So teach us to number our days that we may apply our\nhearts unto wisdom,\" Ps. xc. 12.  \"Redeeming the time, because the days\nare evil,\" Ephes. v. 16.  We transform time into eternity by using it\naright.\n\n\n\n[1] These illustrations are given by Mr. Davenport Adams.\n\n[2] _Beginning Life_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nCOURAGE.\n\nWe all know what is meant by courage, though it is not easy to define\nit.  It is the determination to hold our own, to face danger without\nflinching, to go straight on our way against opposing forces, neither\nturning to the right hand nor the left.\n\nIt is a quality admirable in the eyes of all men, savage and civilized,\nChristian and non-Christian--as admirable as cowardice, the opposite\nquality, is detestable.  The brave man is the hero of the savage.\nBravery, or, as the Scriptures term it, _virtue_, is a great requisite\nin a Christian.  If it is not the first, it is the second\ncharacteristic of a Christian life.  \"Add,\" says St. Paul, \"to your\nfaith virtue,\" that is to say, courage.\n\nIt is the very glory of youth to be courageous.--The \"sneak\" and the\n\"coward\" are the abhorrence of youth.  It is youth which climbs \"the\nimminent deadly breach\" and faces the deadly hail of battle, which\ndefies the tyranny of custom and the hatred of the world.  One may have\ncompassion for age, which is naturally timid and sees fears in the way,\nbut youth which is cowardly is contemptible.\n\nThere are two kinds of courage--the one of a lower, the other of a\nhigher type.  (_a_) The first, the lower kind of courage, is that which\nhas its root and foundation in our physical nature.  It is\nconstitutional; there is little or no merit in it.  Some men are born\nto know no fear--men of strong nerve, of iron constitution, and\npowerful physique.  Such men laugh at danger and scorn opposition.\nTheirs is the courage of the lion or the bull-dog, and there is no\nvirtue about it.  They cannot help being what they are.  (_b_) But\nthere is another kind of courage which is not so much physical as\n_moral_.  It has its foundation not in man's bodily constitution so\nmuch as in his higher nature.  It draws its power from the invisible.\n\"Are you not afraid,\" was a question put by a young and boastful\nofficer to his companion whose face was blanched and pale, as they\nstood together amid the thickly falling shot of a battle-field.  \"I\n_am_ afraid,\" he replied, \"and if you were half as afraid as I am, you\nwould run.\"  In his case there was little physical courage, but there\nwas the higher courage drawn from a sense of duty which made him stand\nfirm as a rock.  When our Lord knelt in His mysterious anguish in\nGethsemane, His whole physical nature seemed broken down, \"His sweat\nwas as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.\"\n\"Suffer,\" He said, \"this cup to pass from me\"; and His strength came\nfrom the invisible.  \"Not my will,\" He cried, \"but thine be done.\"\nWith that sublime trust in God strengthening Him, He shrank not back\nfor a moment; He took the cup and drained it to the dregs.  This is the\nhighest form of courage that there is.  The weakest women have\ndisplayed it in face of appalling dangers.  It is the courage of the\nmartyr, the patriot, the reformer.  There is a glory and beauty in it\nbefore which all men bow.\n\nThere are three chief forms which this moral courage takes in ordinary\nlife.\n\n_First, there is the courage of our opinions_.--Many people, perhaps\nthe majority, do not have opinions.  They have simply notions,\nimpressions, sentiments, prejudices, which they have imbibed from\nothers.  They may be said to be like looking-glasses, which have a\nshadow of whatever stands before them.  So long as they are in company\nwith a positive person who believes something, they have an opinion.\nWhen he goes the shadow on the looking-glass goes also.  They are like\nthe sand on the seashore--the last person who comes the way makes a\ntrack and the next wave washes it away and leaves the sand ready for\nanother impression.  How many are there who, when any important\nquestion comes up, have no opinion about it, until they read their\npaper or hear what other people are saying.  There is no sort of\ncourage more needed than the courage to form an opinion and keep by it\nwhen we have formed it.  There is no more contemptible form of\ncowardice than to do a thing merely because others do it.  The grand\nwords of President Garfield of the United States are worthy of\nremembrance: \"I do not think what others may say or think about me, but\nthere is one man's opinion about me which I very much value, that is\nthe opinion of James Garfield; others I need not think about.  I can\nget away from them, but I have to be with him all the time.  He is with\nme when I rise up and when I lie down, when I go out and when I come\nin.  It makes a great difference whether he thinks well of me or not.\"\nTo this noble utterance we may add the words of the poet Russell Lowell:\n\n  They are slaves who will not choose\n  Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,\n  Rather than in silence shrink\n  From the truth they needs must think.\n  They are slaves who dare not be\n  In the right with two or three.\n\n\n_Second, there is the courage of resistance_.--This is the chief form\ncourage should take in the young.  They are surrounded on every side by\nstrong temptations--temptations addressed to their lower nature, to\nvanity, to indolence, to scepticism, to impurity, to drunkenness.\nThere is many a young man beset by temptation who has in reality to\nfight far harder if he will maintain his integrity than any soldier\nbelonging to an army making its way through an enemy's country.  He\ndoes not know when an ambush may be sprung upon him, or from what side\nthe attack may come.  In an old tower on the Continent they show you,\ngraven again and again on the stones of one of the dungeons, the word\n_Resist_.  It is said that a Protestant woman was kept in that hideous\nplace for forty years, and during all that time her employment was in\ngraving with a piece of iron, for anyone who might come after her, that\nword.  It is a word that needs to be engraven on every young man's and\nyoung woman's heart.  It represents the highest form of courage which\nto them is possible--the power to say \"No\" to every form of temptation.\n\n_Third, there is the courage of endurance_.--This is really the noblest\nform of courage.  There is no excitement in it; nothing to be won by\nit.  It is simply to bear without flinching.  In the buried city of\nHerculaneum, near Vesuvius, now uncovered, after the guide has shown\nthe visitor the wonders of the place he takes him to the gate and\npoints out the stone box where were found, buried in ashes, the rusted\nremains of the helmet and cuirass of the Roman sentinel.  When the\nblack cloud rose from the mountain, and the hot ashes fell around him,\nand the people rushed out at the gate, he stood there immovable,\nbecause it was his duty, and died in his place, suffocated by the\nsulphury air.  It was a grand instance of courage, but it is seen again\nand again equalled in common life.  In men and women stricken down by\nfell disease; in those on whom adverse circumstances close like the\nwalls of an iron chamber; in people for whom there was no possible\nescape, who could only bear, but who stood up firm and erect in their\nweakness, whose cross, instead of crushing them to the earth, seemed\nonly to lift them up.  We are told that Robert Hall, the great\npreacher, suffered much from disease.  He was forced often to throw\nhimself down and writhe on the ground in paroxysms of pain.  From these\nhe would rise with a smile, saying, \"I suffered much, but I did not cry\nout, did I? did I cry out?\"\n\nThese are the chief forms of moral courage in ordinary life.  We have\nnow to point out what are the sources of such courage.\n\nThe first source of courage is conviction--the feeling that we are in\nthe right, the \"testimony of a good conscience.\"  Nothing can make a\nman brave without that.  \"Thrice is he armed,\" we are told, \"who hath\nhis quarrel just,\" and he is more than trebly armed who knows in his\nheart that it is just.  If we go over the roll of the strongest and\nbravest men the world has seen we will find that at the root of their\ncourage there lay this fact of conviction.  They _believed_, therefore\nthey spake, therefore they fought, therefore they bled and died.  The\nman of strong conviction is the strong man all the world over.  If a\nman wants that, he will be but a feeble character, a poor weakling to\nthe end of the chapter.  Shakespeare says that \"conscience makes\ncowards of us all\"; but it does something else when it makes us fear\nevil--it lifts us above all other fear.  So it raised Peter, who had\nshortly before denied his Master, to such courage that he could say\nbefore his judges, \"Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken\nunto you more than unto God, judge ye.  For we cannot but speak the\nthings which we have seen and heard.\"  It has enabled men and women to\nendure a martyr's death when one word, which they would not speak,\nmight have saved them.\n\nThe second source of courage is faith.--We use the word in the\nChristian sense of trust in God.  When a man feels that God is with him\nhe can stand up against all the powers of earth and hell.  \"If God be\nfor us, who can be against us?\"  The heroes of the past, who subdued\nkingdoms and wrought righteousness, have all been men of faith.  Recall\nHebrews xi., the Covenanters, the Ironsides of Cromwell, the Huguenots,\nLuther, Knox.  Their faith may not have been so enlightened as it might\nhave been had their knowledge been wider.  Their religious creeds may\nhave contained propositions that are no longer accepted, but they were\nstrong because of their undoubted faith in God.  When His presence is\nan abiding presence with us and in us, our\n\n  Strength is as the strength of ten,\n  Because our hearts are pure.\n\nHe who fears God will know no other fear.\n\nThe third source of courage is sympathy.--A man who has God with him\nwill be brave if he stand alone, but he will be greatly helped if he is\nin company with others like himself and knows that he has the sympathy\nof good men.  You remember St. Paul on his journey to Rome reaching a\nlittle village about thirty miles from the great city.  The look-out\nfor him was very depressing.  He had appealed to Caesar, but what\nlikelihood was there of his obtaining justice in Caesar's capital.  He\nmight be thrown to the lions, or made to fight for his life in the\nColiseum, a spectacle to the Roman multitude.  Then it was that a few\nRoman Christians who had heard of his approach came out to meet him,\nand, it is said, \"he thanked God and took courage.\"  Such was the power\nof sympathy.  If we would be encouraged we will seek it.  If we would\nencourage others we will give it.\n\nWe will only say in closing this chapter that its subject is most truly\nillustrated by the life of our Lord himself.  The mediaeval conception\nof Christ was that He exhibited only the passive virtues of meekness,\npatience, and submission to wrong.  From the gospels we form a\ndifferent idea.  He vanquished the devil in the wilderness; He faced\nhuman opposition boldly and without fear; He denounced the hypocrisy of\nthe Pharisees, and encountered their rage and violence.  He went calmly\nalong His appointed path, neither turning to the right hand nor to the\nleft.  Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, could not deter Him from doing\nHis Father's work.  Amid a tumultuous tempest of ill-will He moved\nstraight forward, foreseeing His death, \"setting His face toward\nJerusalem,\" knowing all that awaited Him there.  He went through\nGethsemane to Calvary with the step of a conqueror.  Never was He more\ntruly a king than on the cross, and the grandest crown ever worn was\n\"the crown of thorns.\"  In Him we have the highest example of courage,\nas of all other virtues.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nHEALTH.\n\nHealth means soundness of body and of mind; the keeping of our physical\nsystem in such a condition that it is able to do its work easily,\nwithout disturbance, and without pain; the exercise of the mind so as\nnot to harm the body.  There are certain preliminary considerations\nthat we should bear in mind in connection with this subject.\n\nI.  The close connection between body and mind.--They are both related\nto each other in some mysterious way.  So close is the connection that\nthe one cannot be affected without the other.  The well-being of the\none depends on the well-being of the other.  The power which the mind\nhas over the body and the body over the mind has been well and tersely\ndescribed by a writer of our time.  \"Man,\" he says, \"is one, however\ncompound.  Fire his conscience, and he blushes; check his circulation,\nand he thinks tardily or not at all; impair his secretions, and the\nmoral sense is dulled, discolored, or depraved, his aspirations flag,\nhis hope and love both reel; impair them still more, and he becomes a\nbrute.  A cup of wine degrades his moral nature below that of the\nswine.  Again, a violent emotion of pity or horror makes him vomit; a\nlancet will restore him from delirium to clear thought; excessive\nthought will waste his energy; excess of muscular exercise will deaden\nthought; an emotion will double the strength of his muscles; and at\nlast, a prick of a needle or a grain of mineral will in an instant lay\nto rest forever his body and its unity.\" [1]  When we consider the\nclose connection between mind and body, and how the state of the one\naffects the other, we see how important it is that both should work\ntogether in that harmonious action which is health, and how carefully\nwe should guard against anything by which that harmonious action may be\ninterrupted.\n\nII.  Bodily health is almost essential to success in life.--It is not\n_absolutely_ essential, but it is _almost_ essential.  (_a_) Physical\nhealth is not everything.  \"Give a man,\" it has been said, \"a good deep\nchest and a stomach of which he never knew the existence, and he must\nsucceed in any practical career.\"  This has been said by a great\nauthority, Professor Huxley, but it is only partially true, for many\nworthless people fulfil these conditions.  They are, as Carlyle calls\nthem, only \"animated patent digesters.\"  (_b_) Great things also have\nbeen done in the world by men whose health has been feeble.  Calvin was\na man of sickly body; Pascal was an invalid at eighteen; Pope was weak\nand deformed; William of Orange, a martyr to asthma; Hall, the famous\npreacher, suffered great paroxysms of pain; Milton was blind; Nelson,\nlittle and lame; St. Paul in bodily presence was weak.  On the other\nhand, some of these men might have done more if their health had been\nbetter.  Health is a splendid possession in the battle of life.  The\nmen of great physical vitality, as a rule, achieve most; other things\nbeing equal, their success in life is sure.  Everything shows that the\ngreatness of great men is almost as much a bodily affair as a mental\none.  It has been computed that the average length of life of the most\neminent philosophers, naturalists, artists, jurists, physicians,\nmusical composers, scholars and authors, including poets, is sixty-five\nyears.  This shows that the most successful men on the whole have had\ngood bodies and been blessed with great vitality.\n\nIII.  The care of the body is a religious duty.--(_a_) It is so because\nour spiritual feelings are largely dependent upon the state of our\nhealth.  \"Certain conditions of body undeniably occasion, irritate and\ninflame those appetites and inclinations which it is one great end of\nChristianity to repress and regulate.\"  The spirit has sometimes to\nmaintain a terrible struggle against the flesh.  Intemperance is\nlargely the result of bad feeding.  \"It is easier for a camel to pass\nthrough the eye of a needle,\" than for a dyspeptic person to be gentle,\nmeek, long-suffering.  Dark views of God often come from the state of\nthe body.  It would largely lift up the moral and spiritual condition\nof men if their surroundings were such as tended to keep them in\nhealth.  To improve men's dwellings, to give them healthy homes, pure\nair to breathe, and pure water to drink, would tend to help them\nmorally and spiritually, (_b_) God requires of us a certain amount of\nservice by and through our bodies.  We cannot perform the work if we\ndestroy the machines by which the work is to be done.  (_c_) Scripture\nespecially calls us to make the body the object of our reverent care.\n\"Your bodies are members of Christ.\"  The body \"is for the Lord, and\nthe Lord for the body.\"  \"Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,\nwhich is in you, which ye have of God.\"  \"If any man defile the temple\nof God, him will God destroy.\"  Yield \"your members as instruments of\nrighteousness unto God.\"  Sin is not to \"reign in your mortal body.\"\n\"Glorify God in your body.\"  We are to \"present our bodies a living\nsacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service.\"\n(_d_) The body is a part of that humanity which Christ by His\n_incarnation_ took, redeemed, sanctified and glorified.  (_e_) Our\nLord's miracles were nearly all performed on the human body, for its\nrelief, cure, and restoration to life.\n\nIV.  To a certain extent our health is in our own hands.--Not\naltogether, for some are constitutionally defective, and subject to\ninfirmities with which they are born, and which they have perhaps\ninherited.  But a vast amount of disease is preventable, and comes from\ncauses over which we have direct control.  \"It is reckoned that a\nhundred thousand persons die annually in England of preventable\ndiseases\"--from disobedience to the laws of health, which are God's\nlaws, and the transgression of which, wilfully, is sin.  Beyond all\ndoubt a vast amount of sickness comes from bad living, from\nintemperance in eating and drinking, from breathing bad air, from\ninhabiting ill-constructed houses.  It is possible to live in\naccordance with the laws of health so that life may be comparatively\nfree from disease and from pain.  If Providence denies health, the want\nof it must be patiently endured.  If we have inherited weakness, we\nmust make the most of the strength we have.  But if we lack health\nthrough our own fault we are guilty of shameful sin.\n\nTo discuss fully the subject and laws of health would require a whole\ntreatise, and would be beyond the scope of this text-book.  There are,\nhowever, some outstanding conditions for the preservation of health\nwhich are plain to everyone, and which may be summed up in the three\nwords Temperance, Exercise, and Rest.  These have been well termed the\nthree great physicians, whose prescriptions are painless and cost\nnothing.\n\n1.  _Temperance_.--Man needs a certain amount of food to sustain him,\nbut if that amount be increased beyond the proper quantity it is\ndangerous to health.  It overtasks the power of digestion and is\ninjurious.  We need therefore to be constantly on our guard as to what\nwe eat and drink lest we run into excess.  Every one must study his own\nconstitution, find out its need, and suit the supply of food to its\nwants.  According to the old proverb, \"We should eat to live, not live\nto eat.\"  It is a great matter for health when we are able to strike\nthe proper medium and neither eat nor drink too much nor too little.\nTo lay down rules on this subject for the individual is impossible.\n\"One man's food is another man's poison.\"  A man must determine from\nhis own experience what he ought to take, and how much, as well as what\nhe ought to avoid.  The word intemperance is generally employed as\napplying to the abuse of strong drinks.  On this subject much has been\nwritten, some advocating total abstinence and others judicious and\nmoderate use.  Into this region of controversy we cannot enter.  The\nevils of drinking habits, as they are called, are plain to all.  They\nare a terrible curse to society, and a terrible danger to the\nindividual.  They have ruined many a promising career.  For many,\nperhaps we may say for most, entire abstinence is their only safety.\nHe who finds that he can do his work well by drinking only water will\nbe wise if he drinks nothing else.  That will never harm him, though\nother liquids may.  We must judge for ourselves, but \"Temperance in all\nthings\" is a rule binding on every Christian man.  We cannot have\nhealth unless we strictly and constantly practise temperance.\n\n2.  _Exercise_.--This is as necessary to health as food.  \"Only by\nexercise--physical exercise--can we maintain our muscles, organs and\nnervous system in proper vigor; only by exercise can we equalise the\ncirculation and distribute the blood evenly over every part of the\nbody; only by exercise can we take a cheerful and wholesome view of\nlife, for exercise assists the digestion, and a good digestion is a\nsovereign antidote to low spirits; only by exercise can the brain be\nstrengthened to perform the labor demanded of it.\" [2]  No sensible man\nwill try to do without it.  If any man does so he will pay the penalty.\nAs to the amount of exercise and the kind of exercise every man must\njudge for himself.  Some, from their occupation, need less than others;\nthe outdoor laborer, for instance, than the clerk who is most of the\nday at the desk.  One man may take exercise best by walking, another by\nriding, another by following outdoor sports.  Athletics, such as\nfootball, and cricket, are a favorite form of exercise with the young,\nand if not followed to excess are most advantageous.  The walk in the\nopen air is life to many.  But boy or man can never be what they ought\nto be unless they take exercise regularly and judiciously, take it not\nto exhaust but to refresh and stimulate.  It strengthens the nerve and\nclears the brain and fits for work.\n\n3.  _Rest_.--Man needs a certain amount of repose to sustain his frame\nin full vigor.  Some need more, some need less.  We must find out for\nourselves what we need and take it.  Lack of sleep is especially a\ngreat waste of vitality.  Here also we must exercise our judgment as to\nthe amount of sleep we require.  One needs a great deal; another can do\nwith very little.  Early rising, which has been much recommended, is\nonly good for those who go early to bed.  If one is compelled to sit up\nlate he should sleep late in the morning.  It is no virtue on the part\nof anyone to get up early unless he has slept enough.  _That_ he must\ndo if he is to have health.  A man who would be a good worker must see\nto it that he is a good sleeper; and whoever, from any cause, is\nregularly diminishing his sleep is destroying his life.  Shakespeare\nhas well described the blessing of sleep when he says:\n\n  Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,\n  The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,\n  Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,\n  Chief nourisher in life's feast.\n\n\nThese are but _hints_ in connection with a great subject.  A few brief\nrules may be given of a general character:\n\n1.  Take exercise every day in the open air if possible, and make it a\nrecreation and not merely a duty.\n\n2.  Eat wholesome food, drink pure water.\n\n3.  Let your house and room be well ventilated.\n\n4.  Take time enough for sleep.  Do not worry.\n\n5.  Watch yourself, but not too closely, to find out what exercise,\nair, diet, etc., agrees with you.  No man can be a rule for another.\n\n6.  If you consult a physician, it is better to do it before you are\nunwell than later.[3]\n\nWe close this chapter with the powerful words of Thomas Carlyle,\naddressed to the students of the University of Edinburgh: \"Finally, I\nhave one advice to give you which is practically of very great\nimportance.  You are to consider throughout much more than is done at\npresent, and what would have been a very great thing for me if I had\nbeen able to consider, that health is a thing to be attended to\ncontinually; that you are to regard it as the very highest of all\ntemporal things.  There is no kind of achievement you could make in the\nworld that is equal to perfect health.  What to it are nuggets or\nmillions?\"\n\n\n\n[1] Frederic Harrison, _Popular Science Monthly Supplement_.\n\n[2] _Plain Living and High Thinking_.\n\n[3] These rules are given by J. Freeman Clarke in his work on\nSelf-Culture.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nEARNESTNESS.\n\nAnother word for earnestness is enthusiasm.  The Scriptural equivalent\nis zeal.  It means putting our whole heart into whatever we are doing.\nIt is a sweeping, resistless energy, which carries everything before\nit, like a river in full flood.  Its nature is well expressed in the\nsaying of the old huntsman, \"Throw over your heart, and your horse will\nsoon follow.\"\n\nEarnestness is not to be confounded with noise, vehemence, or outward\ndemonstration.--It is often exceedingly quiet and undemonstrative.\nNotice when the machinery of an engine is standing still, how the steam\nmakes a great noise as it issues from the safety-valve, but when the\nvapor is turned into the cylinder and is used in driving the engine all\nthat thundering sound disappears.  It does not follow that there is no\nsteam.  It is going in another direction, and doing its appropriate\nwork.  It is a great mistake to imagine that enthusiasm and what is\ncalled _fuss_ are identical.  The most enthusiastic men are often the\nquietest.  No one can doubt the enthusiasm of a man like Livingstone.\nHe had enthusiasm for science, for philanthropy and for religion.  It\nwas unflagging; yet not a boast, not a murmur escaped his lips.  He did\nthe thing he meant to do, and made no noise in doing it.\n\nEarnestness is often regarded with suspicion and condemned.--It is the\nfashion with many to sneer at it.  It is often alone, and then it is\nnot respectable.  It is often in excess, and is therefore ineffective.\nIt is often disturbing to the sleepiness of others, and is therefore\nhated by them.  Our Lord was an enthusiast in the eyes of the\nPharisees.  St. Paul was an enthusiast to Festus.  The early Christians\nwere enthusiasts to the pagan world because they turned it upside down.\nThe martyrs and confessors of all times have been regarded as\nenthusiasts by those of their own time who were not in sympathy with\nthem.  An enthusiast is called by many a fanatic, and a fanatic in the\neyes of some is a most dangerous member of society.\n\nAll the great leaders of the world have been men in earnest.--Emerson\nsays truly that \"every great and commanding movement in the annals of\nthe world is the triumph of enthusiasm.\"  Our civil and religious\nliberties we owe to enthusiasts for freedom.  The enthusiasm of\nColumbus gave us America; the enthusiasm of Knox reformed Scotland; the\nenthusiasm of Wesley regenerated English religious life; the enthusiasm\nof men like Garibaldi and Cavour and Mazzini has made in our own time a\nnew Italy.  These men were all denounced in their day, cold water was\nthrown on all their projects, but their burning earnestness carried\nthem on to triumph.  The scorned enthusiast of one generation is the\nhero of the next.\n\nEarnestness is a great element in securing success in life.--A\nwell-known writer and preacher, Dr. Arnot, tells that he once heard the\nfollowing conversation at a railway station between a farmer and the\nengineer of a train: \"What are you waiting for so long?  Have you no\nwater?\"  \"Oh, yes, we have plenty of water, but it is not boiling.\"  So\nthere may be abundance of intelligence and splendid machinery, and all\nthe appliances that help to success, but what is wanted is intense\nboiling earnestness.  We have a good illustration of the power of\nearnestness in speaking.  One man may say the right thing, and say it\nin a pleasing and cultured manner; every phrase may be well placed,\nevery sentence polished, every argument in its proper place.  Another\nman may have no elegance of diction, his words may be unpolished, his\nsentences even ungrammatical, and yet he may move a great multitude, as\nthe leaves of the trees are moved by the wind, through the intense\nearnestness and enthusiasm by which he is possessed.  We see the same\nthing in Christian effort.  The organization of a church may be\nperfect, its resources may be large, and it may have in its service an\narmy of able and well-disciplined men; but without enthusiasm and\nburning zeal its efforts are powerless and come to nothing.  When, as\nat Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends upon a church in tongues of\nfire, then there is quickening, and souls are gathered in.  No man has\never had a supreme influence over others without more or less\nenthusiasm in his nature.\n\nThere are three directions we may give in regard to earnestness or\nenthusiasm.\n\n1.  _Respect it in others_.--Do not join with those who regard it as\nsomething that is not respectable.  It is always preferable to what is\ncold and formal.  Life is better than death, and when there is life\nthere is energy and earnestness.  Even when enthusiasm takes forms that\nwe cannot altogether approve of, it is worthy of respect.  \"Next to\nbeing Servetus who was burnt,\" said one, \"I would have been Calvin who\nburnt him.\"  That was a strong way of saying that zeal is a beautiful\nthing in itself, though \"zeal that is not according to knowledge\" is\nnot good.  We may not approve of many of the opinions and methods of\nFrancis Xavier, the great missionary and saint of the Roman Church, but\nwe cannot fail to admire his burning zeal in the cause of Christ, and\nlook with something like awe on his high-souled devotion to the work of\nan evangelist.  He was swept on by an enthusiasm that never failed, and\nwhich carried him over obstacles that would have daunted any ordinary\nman.  The Puritans were denounced by many good people of their time,\nand the great preacher, Dr. South, delivered a sermon against them,\nentitled \"Enthusiasts not led by the Spirit of God.\"  But we all know\nhow great the men were, and how great a work they did through the very\nenthusiasm that he condemned.  \"It is better,\" according to the\nproverb, \"that the pot should boil over than not boil at all.\"  The\nword enthusiasm literally means filled, or inspired, by God, and the\nmeaning of the word may teach us how noble a thing enthusiasm is in\nitself, and how worthy it is of admiration and respect.\n\n2.  _We should cultivate it in ourselves_.--It is a virtue, like all\nothers, that can be cultivated.  (_a_) By resolutely setting our face\nagainst doing anything in a languid and half-hearted way.  If a thing\nis worth doing, it should be done \"with all our might.\"  (_b_) By\nstudying the lives of great men.  When we do so we catch something of\nthe earnestness that inspired them.  This is perhaps the best result of\nreading biography.  We feel how noble was the enthusiasm of the heroes\nof the past, and how, by means of it, they were able to do great\nthings, and to march on to victory.  (_c_) By associating with those\nwho are in earnest.  There is nothing so contagious as enthusiasm, and\nwhen we come in contact with those who live under the impulse of grand\nideas, something of their force and power is conveyed to ourselves.\nThe great soul strengthens the weak soul.  While the solitary coal on\nthe hearth will go black out, when it is heaped up with others it\nsprings into a blaze.\n\n  O ever earnest sun!\n    Unwearied in thy work,\n    Unhalting in thy course,\n    Unlingering in thy path,\n    Teach me thy earnest ways,\n  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.\n\n  O ever earnest stars!\n    Unchanging in your light,\n    Unfaltering in your race,\n    Unswerving in your round,\n    Teach me your earnest ways,\n  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.\n\n  O ever earnest flowers!\n    That with untiring growth\n    Shoot up and spread abroad\n    Your fragrance and your joy,\n    Teach me your earnest ways,\n  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.\n\n  O ever earnest sea!\n    Constant in flow and ebb,\n    Heaving to moon and sun,\n    Unchanging in thy change,\n    Teach me thy earnest ways,\n  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.\n        HORATIUS BONAR.\n\n3.  _We should carry earnestness into our religious life_.--This above\nall.  There are many who tolerate earnestness in other things, but who\nlook upon it as dangerous in connection with religion.  It is regarded\nas of very questionable value, and spoken of with doubt and suspicion.\nLet a man become earnest in prayer, earnest in work, or rise in any way\nabove the dead level in which so many are content to rest, and he will\nbe often spoken of in tones of pity, sneered at as a fanatic, or\ndenounced as an impostor.  This suspicion with which earnestness in the\nChurch of Christ is often regarded may be accounted for.  (_a_) There\nhas been a vast deal of zeal in the Church about religion which has not\nbeen zeal for religion: about matters of ritual, Church government, and\nthe like.  (_b_) Zeal has been often expended in contentions about\nsmall points of doctrine; often about those very points which are\nshrouded in mystery.  (_c_) Zeal has been often manifested in the\ninterest of sect and party rather than of Christ.  (_d_) Zeal has often\ntaken persecution for her ally, and wielded among men the weapons of\nearthly warfare.  For these reasons its appearance in the Church is\noften regarded as we might regard the erection in a town of a gunpowder\nmagazine which, at any moment, might produce disorder, ruin, and death.\n\n_Yet Scripture regards earnestness in religion as\nessential_.--Indifference and lukewarmness it regards as hateful (Rev.\niii. 15, 16).  It calls us to a solemn choice and to a lifelong\nservice.  Its heroes are those who lived in the spirit of Brainerd's\nprayer, \"Oh, that I were a flaming fire in the service of my God.\"\nThere is an allegory of Luther which may be quoted here.  \"The devil,\"\nhe says, \"held a great anniversary, at which his emissaries were\nconvened to report the results of their several missions.  'I let loose\nthe wild beasts of the desert,' said one, 'on a caravan of Christians,\nand their bones are now bleaching on the sands.'  'What of that?' said\nthe devil; 'their souls were all saved.'  'I drove the east wind,' said\nanother, 'against a ship freighted with Christians, and they were all\ndrowned.'  'What of that?' said the devil; 'their souls were all\nsaved.'  'For ten years I tried to get a single Christian asleep,' said\na third, 'and I succeeded, and left him so.' Then the devil shouted,\nand the night stars of hell sang for joy.\"\n\nThere are three spheres of religious life in which earnestness should\nbe specially shown.\n\n1.  _In prayer_.--This is specially inculcated in the two parables of\nour Lord, the \"unjust judge\" and \"the friend at midnight,\" and in His\nown words, \"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;\nknock, and it shall be opened unto you.\"  One, it is said, came to\nDemosthenes, the great orator, and asked him to plead his cause.  He\nheard him without attention while he told his story without\nearnestness.  The man saw this, and cried out anxiously that it was all\ntrue.  \"Ah!\" said Demosthenes, \"I believe you _now_.\"  The earnest\nprayer is the prevailing prayer.\n\n2.  _In sacrifice_.--This is in all life the test of earnestness.  The\nstudent giving up time for the acquisition of knowledge; the merchant\ngiving up his hours to the pursuit of business; the explorer braving\nthe heat of the tropics and the cold of the arctic regions in his zeal\nfor discovery.  It is the same in religion.  We must count all things,\nwith St. Paul, \"as loss, that we may win Christ, and be found in Him.\"\n\n3.  _In impressing others_.--It is \"out of the heart that the mouth\nspeaketh,\" and power to impress others is given only to those who do so\nwith a full heart, and who are consumed with a burning zeal for the\nsalvation of souls.  These are they whom God has, in all ages, blessed\nin the conversion of men.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nMANNERS.\n\nThe word manners comes from the Latin _manus_, the hand, and literally\nmeans the mode in which a thing is handled--behavior, deportment.\nManners may be defined as the pleasing or unpleasing expression of our\nthoughts and intentions, whether in word or action.  We may say or do a\nthing in an agreeable or a disagreeable way.  According as we choose\nthe one or the other, our manners may be said to be good or bad.\n\nGood manners are the result of two things.--(_a_) Self-respect and\n(_b_) consideration for the feelings of others.  The man who respects\nhimself will be careful to say or do nothing that may seem to others\ndegrading or unworthy.  The man who has consideration for the feelings\nof others will be equally careful to do or say nothing that may give\nthem pain, or be offensive to them.\n\nGood manners beautify character.--It was a celebrated saying of an old\nbishop, William of Wykeham, \"Manners maketh man.\"  This is, however,\nonly partially true.  Manners do not make a man any more than good\nclothes make a man, but if he _is made_ they greatly improve him.  Some\nhave been truly excellent who have had an uncouth and unpolished\naddress, but that was rather to their disadvantage than otherwise.\n\"Rough diamonds\" are always precious, but a diamond that is cut and\npolished, while it retains its value, is much more beautiful.  Civility\nof speech, politeness of address, courtesy in our dealings with others,\nare qualities that adorn a man, whilst rudeness, incivility, roughness\nin behavior, detract greatly from his value, and injure his usefulness.\nTennyson's words are true:\n\n  Manners are not idle, but the fruit\n  Of noble nature and of loyal mind.\n\n\nGood manners tend greatly to success in life.--Coarseness and gruffness\nlock doors, gentleness and refinement open them, while the rude,\nboorish man is shunned by all.  Take the case of a speaker addressing a\npublic meeting.  What he says is weighty and important.  His arguments\nare powerful and well marshalled, but his speech is uncouth and\ndisagreeable.  He says things that are coarse and vulgar.  His bad\nmanner vastly takes away from the impression which he desires to make,\nand which, if his manner had been different, he would have made.\nAgain, two young men serve in a place of business.  The one is gentle\nin his demeanor, meets his customers with a pleasant smile, is always\npolite.  The other is rough in his deportment, apparently does not care\nwhether those he deals with are pleased or not.  The one is a favorite\nwith everybody; the other, who may be equally worthy as far as\ncharacter is concerned, is disliked.\n\nGood manners often disarm opposition.--People may have a prejudice\nagainst ourselves personally, or against the cause we represent.  It is\nwonderful, however, how much may be done to soften them by habitual\ncourtesy towards them, and by studiously avoiding anything calculated\nto offend them or rouse their anger.  A wise man will always endeavor\nto be specially civil towards any one who differs from him.  It is\nrelated that in the early days of the Abolition movement in the United\nStates, two men went out preaching: one, a sage old Quaker, brave and\ncalm; the other, a fervid young man.  When the Quaker lectured, the\naudience were all attention, and his arguments met with very general\nconcurrence.  But when it came to the young man's turn, a tumult\ninvariably ensued, and he was pelted off the platform.  Surprised by\ntheir different receptions, the young man asked the Quaker the reason.\n\"Friend,\" he said, \"you and I are on the same mission; we preach the\nsame things; how is it that while _you_ are received so cordially, I\nget nothing but abuse?\"  \"I will tell thee,\" replied the Quaker; \"thee\nsays, 'If you do so and so, you shall be punished,' and I say, 'My\nfriends, if you will _but_ do so and so, you shall not be punished.'\nIt is not what we say, but how we say it.\" [1]  In _The Memorials of a\nQuiet Life_ it is said of Augustus Hare that, on a road along which he\nfrequently passed, there was a workman employed in its repair who met\nhis gentle questions and observations with gruff answers and sour\nlooks.  But as day after day the persevering mildness of his words and\nmanner still continued, the rugged features of the man gave way, and\nhis tone assumed a softer character.  Politeness is the oiled key that\nwill open many a rusty lock.\n\nGood manners may be summed up in the one word, Gentleman.--That term\nimplies all that good-manners ought to be.  The original derivation of\nthe word is from the Latin _gentilis_, belonging to a tribe or _gens_;\nand in its first signification it applies to those of noble descent or\nfamily; but it has come to mean something far wider, and something\nwhich every man, however humble, may be--a man of high courtesy and\nrefinement, to whom dishonor is hateful.  \"What is it,\" says Thackeray,\n\"to be a gentleman?  It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous,\nto be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to\nexercise them in the most graceful outward manner.\"  It was said of our\nLord by one of the early English poets, that he was\n\n  The first true gentleman that ever breathed.\n\nTo be a gentleman in all circumstances is the highest idea we can form\nof good manners.  It is what, in our intercourse with others, we should\nstrive to be--to have \"high thoughts,\" as Sir Philip Sidney expresses\nit, \"seated in a heart of courtesy.\"  In Bishop Patteson's life is\ngiven the estimate of him, as a true gentleman, by a New Zealand\nnative: \"Gentleman-gentleman thought nothing that ought to be done too\nmean for him.  Pig-gentleman never worked.\"  The savage knew by\ninstinct that the good Bishop who came to live among them that he might\nteach them to be better, who treated them with invariable courtesy and\nconsideration, was a true gentleman, though he had to clean his own\nhut, to cook his own food, and to mend his own kettles.  And he knew\nalso that the man who made others work for him without doing them any\ngood in return, who swore at them and abused them, was only a\npig-gentleman, however rich or high in station he might be.\n\nA few advices on the subject of this chapter may be given.\n\n1.  _Cultivate a pleasing manner_.--Any one can be civil and polite if\nhe sets himself to be so.  Some suppose that it is unworthy of a robust\ncharacter to be gentle in demeanor, that it indicates a certain amount\nof effeminacy, and that strength and gruffness go together.  We hear\nmen spoken of sometimes approvingly as \"rough diamonds.\"  But history\ntells us that the noblest and strongest have been the most tender and\ncourteous.  King Robert the Bruce was \"brave as a lion, tender-hearted\nas a woman.\"  \"Sir Walter Raleigh was every inch a man, a brave\nsoldier, a brilliant courtier, and yet a mirror of courtesy.  Nobody\nwould accuse Sir Philip Sidney of having been deficient in manliness,\nyet his fine manners were proverbial.  It is the courtesy of Bayard,\nthe knight, _sans peur et sans reproche_, which has immortalized him\nquite as much as his valor.\" [2]  It is not beneath us to study good\nmanners.  To a great extent they come naturally from refinement of\ndisposition and inborn delicacy of feeling.  But they may also, to a\ngreat extent, be learned and acquired.  \"Watch,\" it has wisely been\nsaid, \"those of excellent reputation in manners.  Catch the temper of\nthe great masters of literature--the nobility of Scott, the sincerity\nof Thackeray, the heartiness of Dickens, the tenderness of Macdonald,\nthe delicacy of Tennyson, the grace of Longfellow, the repose of\nShakespeare.\"  It is well worth while for every young man beginning\nlife to form a true idea of what good manners are, and to make it his\nconstant effort to acquire them.\n\n2.  _Avoid eccentricity_.--Eccentricity is the deliberate endeavor to\nmake ourselves different from those around us.  (_a_) Some show it in\ntheir dress by wearing garments often of outrageous shape and hue.\n(_b_) Some show it in their speech by striving to say things that they\nthink especially smart.  (_c_) Some show it in their actions by\nstriking forced attitudes, and putting themselves in grotesque\npositions.  It all springs from love of notoriety and desire to be\nthought different from their neighbors.  It is the mark, as a rule, of\nfops and fools, and an indication of weakness of character.  It is\nfundamentally inconsistent with good manners.  Johnson was called _ursa\nmajor_, or big bear, from the gruffness of his manner.  This was\nprobably natural to him, but many affect a similar manner from a desire\nto be eccentric.  The \"big bears\" of society are odious.  Johnson's own\nwords are applicable to such: \"A man has no more right to say an\nuncivil thing than to act one--no more right to say a rude thing to\nanother than to knock him down.\"  Those also who are ever trying to say\nthings which they think smart, but which are often impudent, and meant\nto give annoyance, ought to receive no countenance.  \"Sir,\" said one\nsuch person in his Irish brogue to Dean Swift, \"I _sit_ (set) up for\nbeing a wit.\"  \"Then, sir,\" said the Dean, \"I advise you to sit down.\"\nSimilar people should be treated in the same way.\n\n3.  _Try to conquer shyness_.--This is constitutional with some, but\neven when this is the case it can be overcome by taking pains.  The shy\nman is often awkward in manner; and, what is worse, he often gives the\nimpression to others of being rude, when he has no intention to be so.\nThere are those who, in their own family and among their own friends,\nare known to be warm-hearted, kind and gentle, but who, from this\ndefect of which we speak, have a reputation far from enviable.  Any\nyoung man who is afflicted with it should set himself resolutely to get\nthe better of it.\n\n4.  _We should be especially courteous to those below us in\nstation_.--To servants in our house, to those in our employ, to the\npoor, we should be marked in our civility.  \"It is the very essence of\ngentlemanhood that one is polite to the weak, the poor, the friendless,\nthe humble, the miserable, the degraded.\"  The conduct of our Lord to\nsuch is ever worthy of our imitation.  Indeed, as it has been well\nremarked, the character of men and women is perhaps better known \"by\nthe treatment of those below them than by anything else; for to them\nthey rarely play the hypocrite.\"  The man who is a bully and abusive to\nthose weaker or less fortunate than himself, is at heart a poor\ncreature; though, in company of his equals, he may be affable and\npolished enough.  For example, Kingsley mentions regarding Sir Sydney\nSmith that \"the love he won was because, without any conscious\nintention, he treated rich and poor, his own servants, and the\nnoblemen, his guests, alike courteously, cheerfully, considerately,\naffectionately, bearing a blessing and reaping a blessing wherever he\nwas.\"  When a celebrated man returned the salute of a negro, he was\nreminded that he had done what was very unfashionable.  \"Perhaps so,\"\nhe replied, \"but I would not be outdone in good manners by a negro.\"\n\n\"Good words,\" says holy George Herbert, \"are worth much, and cost\nlittle.\"  The same may be said of good manners.\n\n\n\n[1] _The Secret of Success_.\n\n[2] _Plain Living and High Thinking_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTEMPER.[1]\n\nTemper is the harmonious and well-balanced working of the different\npowers of the mind.  Good temper is when harmony is maintained; bad\ntemper when it is violated.  \"Temper,\" it was said by an English\nbishop, \"is nine-tenths of Christianity.\"  We may think this an\nexaggerated statement, but there is much to commend it.  The fruit of\nthe Spirit of God is peace, and peace is the condition of a heart which\nis at rest--in harmony with God and man.  Peace may be taken as the\nScriptural word for temper.\n\nGood temper is a sign that the different powers of the soul are working\nin harmony.--For instance, the atmosphere is well tempered when it is\nneither too hot nor too cold, neither too dry nor too moist, having\nneither too much electricity nor too little.  Then the weather is\ncalled fine.  It is a pleasure to live.  When the weather is bad, the\nbalance of the elements is broken, and life is disagreeable and\nunpleasant.  The body is well tempered when the nervous system and the\nblood and the nutritive system all work in due harmony.  When these\nthree great constituents of the body are well balanced against each\nother, the result is health.  The body is not well tempered in a\nstudent who takes no exercise, and where everything goes to feed the\nbrain; nor in a pugilist in training, where everything goes to feed the\nmuscles.  The result is disease.  We all know the musical instrument\ncalled the harp.  All the strings are tuned into perfect harmony.  If\nthere is a false note struck, that is a sign to the musician that there\nis something wrong, and that the instrument needs to be tuned.  The\ndiscord is a symptom, that some cords are out of order.  So, bad temper\nis a sign that some string in our moral constitution is out of harmony\nand needs to be tuned.\n\nGood temper can be acquired.--It is the result of culture.  There are\ntwo things often confounded with it--(_a_) good nature and (_b_) good\nhumor.  Good nature is something born with us--an easy, contented\ndisposition, and a tendency to take things quietly and pleasantly.  We\ninherit it.  There is little merit in possessing it.  Good humor is the\nresult of pleasant surroundings and agreeable circumstances.  A\ngood-humored man is so when everything goes right; when things go\nwrong, his good humor departs and bad humor takes its place.  But good\ntemper results from training and self-control--keeping constant watch\nover our passions and feelings, and above all being in constant harmony\nwith God; for he who is at peace with God is at peace with man, and\nwill keep the \"even tenor of his way.\"\n\nThere are various signs or forms of ill-temper that may be adverted to.\n\nOne form of ill-temper is irritability.--We perhaps know what it is to\nhave a tooth where the nerve is exposed.  Everything that touches it\nsends a thrill of pain through us.  Some people get into a moral state\ncorresponding to that.  The least thing puts them out, vexes them,\nthrows them into a disagreeable frame of mind.  When one gets into that\nstate, he should feel that there is something wrong with him--something\nis off the balance, some nerve is exposed.  He had better look to it\nand go off to the dentist.\n\nAnother form of ill-temper is readiness to find fault.--This is a sure\nsign of a screw being loose somewhere.  An ill-tempered person is\nalways making grievances, imagining himself ill-used, discontented with\nhis position, dissatisfied with his circumstances.  He never blames\nhimself for anything wrong; it is always someone else.  He is like a\nworkman who is always excusing himself by throwing the blame on his\ntools; like a bad driver who is always finding fault with his horses.\n\n  Some fretful tempers wince at every touch,\n  You always do too little or too much;\n  He shakes with cold; you stir the fire and strive\n  To make a blaze; that's roasting him alive.\n  Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish;\n  With sole; that's just the sort he would not wish.\n  Alas! his efforts double his distress,\n  He likes yours little, and his own still less.\n  Thus, always teasing others, always teased,\n  His only pleasure is--to be displeased.\n\nIf we find ourselves getting into this state of mind, it is high time\nto inquire what is wrong with us.\n\nAnother form of ill-temper is passion.--Some people are very subject to\nthis development.  They are \"gunpowdery,\" and when a small spark\ntouches them they fly out, and there is a blaze.  It is a very unlovely\nfeature of a man's character, and if people in a passion could only see\nthemselves in a glass, their eyes flashing, their brow contracted and\ntheir features distorted, they would feel that they have cause to be\nashamed of themselves.  After having been in what is called \"a towering\nrage,\" there often comes to a man the feeling expressed in the words,\n\"I have made a great ass of myself.\"  If we have done so, we should\nresolve never to make ourselves ridiculous again.\n\nPerhaps the worst form of ill-temper is sulkiness.--This is passion not\ndying out, but continuing to smoulder like the embers of a fire where\nthere is no flame.  A sullen disposition is as bad a sign of something\nbeing wrong as there could well be.  It is like what the doctors call\n\"suppressed gout.\"  The disease has got driven into the system, and has\ntaken so firm a hold that it cannot easily be dislodged.  Better a man\nwhose temper bubbles over and is gone, than the man who cherishes it in\nhis bosom and allows, not the sun of one day, but of many days, to go\ndown on his wrath.\n\nA word or two is perhaps necessary, in addition to what has been said,\nas to the means by which good temper is to be preserved and bad temper\navoided.\n\nI.  _We should cherish a deep and strong detestation of the evil\neffects of bad temper in all its forms_.--(_a_) It has a bad effect\nphysically.  It produces consequences injurious to health.  The man who\nindulges in it habitually cannot do so with impunity.  Doctors\nconstantly warn their patients to refrain from irritating disputes, and\nto avoid men and things likely to provoke their anger.  (_b_) It has a\nbad effect socially.  The bad-tempered man is seldom a favorite with\nsociety.  Men eventually dislike him and shun him as a nuisance.  His\nfamily, if he has one, come to regard him with dread rather than love.\n(_c_) It has a bad effect as regards success in life.  \"Everything,\"\nthe proverb says, \"comes to him who waits.\"  The patient and forbearing\nman attains his object much sooner than the man of passion and abuse.\nSuch a person is continually thwarted in his plans.  People refuse to\nbe bullied into acquiescence; and threats, which have well been called\n\"the arguments of a coward,\" raise rather than disarm opposition.\n(_d_) It has a bad effect spiritually.  (1) The man of evil temper\nwants the calm disposition of soul necessary to communion with God.\nThe glass through which he looks into the spiritual world is clouded\nand gives a distorted vision.  He whose soul is filled with anger and\nclouded by passion cannot pray.  Before he lays his gift upon the\naltar, he must be reconciled to his brother.  (2) Scripture is full of\nwarnings against evil temper: \"He that is soon angry dealeth\nfoolishly.\"  \"Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious\nman thou shalt not go, lest thou learn his ways and get a snare to thy\nsoul.\"  \"An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth\nin transgression.\"  \"Be ye angry and sin not; let not the sun go down\nupon your wrath.\"  \"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and\nclamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be\nye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as\nGod for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.\"  The example of our blessed\nLord specially teaches the same lessen.  Calmly and peacefully He\npursued His divine work.  \"When reviled he reviled not again, but\ncommitted himself to him that judgeth righteously.\"  Before the High\nPriest, Pilate and Herod, His indignant silence was more eloquent than\nscorching words.\n\nII.  _We should deliberately cultivate self-control_.--If a railway\ntrain is going swiftly along, and the driver sees something on the\ntrack, he applies the brake, and thus avoids collision.  In regard to\ntemper, self-control is like the brake, and we should be ever ready to\nput it on.  A person can come, in time, to get a wonderful control over\nhis temper if he watches against it.  The writer knew a young man who\nwas at one time of an ungovernable temper; he used to be at times like\n\"one possessed.\"  But by watching and resolutely putting on the brake\nhe grew up one of the sweetest-tempered and most lovable of men.  He\nfought the wild beast within him, lashed it and kept it down.  A\nmerchant had passionately abused a Quaker, who received his outburst of\nill-temper in silence.  Being afterwards ashamed of himself, he asked\nthe other how he was able to show such patience.  \"Friend,\" replied the\nQuaker, \"I will tell thee.  I was naturally as hot and violent as thou\nart.  I knew that to indulge temper was sinful, and I found it was\nimprudent.  I observed that men in a passion always spoke loud, and I\nthought if I could control my voice I should repress my passion.  I\nhave therefore made it a rule never to allow my voice to be above a\ncertain key, and by a careful observance of this rule I have, by the\nblessing of God, mastered my natural temper.\"  Strong resolution can do\nmuch.  \"If the pot boils,\" says the proverb, \"take it off the fire.\"  A\nlittle care, a word swallowed, a rising sentence struck down in us by a\nsimple rule, may save us humiliation.  \"By reflection, by restraint and\ncontrol a wise man can make himself an island which no floods can\noverwhelm.  He who is tolerant with the intolerant, mild with the\nfault-finders, and free from passion with the passionate, him I indeed\ncall a wise man.\"--Buddhist saying.\n\nIII.  But while an act of self-control can restore the proper temper\nand balance to the mind when it is in danger, _the best way is to keep\nit so that it will not go off the balance_.  You know that if a clock\nstops, we may perhaps make it go again by a shake; if it does not keep\ntime, we can often put the hands right; but the best way is to keep the\nmachinery always so well balanced and adjusted that it will not stop or\ngo wrong.  We may watch and control the temper when it breaks out; but\nthe better way is to keep it so well balanced that it will not break\nout.  The soul that is in harmony with God, that is full of the spirit\nof Christ, will ever be peaceful and serene.  If ill-temper is our\nbesetting sin, God's grace, if we ask it, will give us power to conquer\nit  While we watch against it, we should pray against it also.  The\nbeautiful words of Thomas a Kempis point out to us the secret of the\nwell-tempered and well-balanced mind: \"First keep thyself in peace, and\nthen thou wilt be able to bring others to peace.\"  If \"the peace of God\nwhich passeth all understanding\" keep our hearts and minds, through\nChrist Jesus, our life will never have its serenity disturbed by\nill-temper.\n\n\n\n[1] I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness for some hints in this\nchapter to an interesting work on \"Self-Culture,\" by James Freeman\nClarke.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nRECREATION.\n\nRecreation is another name for amusement.  Both words express the same\nidea.  Recreation means to create over again, the building up of the\nsystem when it is exhausted.  Amusement primarily is said to be derived\nfrom the halt which a dog makes in hunting, when he pauses to sniff the\nair in order to see in which way the scent lies.  Having done this, he\nstarts off again with redoubled speed.  Both these words in themselves\nsuggest the place that the things which they signify should occupy in\nlife.  They are for the refreshing of our strength, in order to renewed\neffort.\n\nRecreation is a necessary part of life.--There are two great laws under\nwhich we live: the law of work and the law of recreation.  Man has to\nwork, and to work hard, in order to live.  Work also is necessary to\nhappiness.  \"He that labors,\" says the Italian proverb, \"is tempted by\none devil; he that is idle, by a thousand.\"  The industrious life, it\nis perfectly plain (as we have shown in a previous chapter), is that\nwhich we should all follow.  But recreation is as needful in its place\nas work.  (_a_) This is the teaching of nature.  God has made us\ncapable of enjoying ourselves, just as He has made us able to think, or\ntalk, or work with our hands.  The first sign of intelligence in the\ninfant is a smile.  The child's nature unfolds itself in play, and as\nman grows up, it develops itself in many forms.  The universe also is\nfull of joy and gladness.  The sky is blue, the sea glistens, the\nflowers are strewn over the earth.  We speak of the waves playing on\nthe shore, of the shadows playing on the mountain side.  All this\nindicates that there is \"a certain play element\" that rejoices in the\nworld around us.  (_b_) This is the teaching of experience.  Unvaried\nand unbroken toil becomes a sore burden; it breaks the spirit, weakens\nenergy, and saddens the heart.  \"All work and no play,\" according to\nthe proverb, \"makes Jack a dull boy.\"  There are men around us working\nso hard that they have no family life, no social life, no time for\nthought or for culture.  They are simply cogs in a great wheel that is\nceaselessly turning round and round--wearing themselves out before\ntheir time by excess of labor.  This cannot be right.  There is an\ninteresting tradition of St. John, the disciple of our Lord, that while\namusing himself with a tame partridge he was asked by a huntsman how he\ncould spend his time in so unprofitable a manner.  St. John replied,\n\"Why dost thou not carry thy bow always bent?\"  \"Because,\" answered the\nhuntsman, \"if it were always bent, I fear it would lose its spring and\nbecome useless.\"  \"Be not surprised then,\" replied the apostle, \"that I\nshould sometimes remit a little of my close attention of spirit to\nenjoy a little recreation, that I may afterwards employ myself more\nfervently in divine contemplation.\"  It is said also of a most saintly\nman, Carlo Borromeo, that while engaged with some friends in a game of\nchess, the question was started, what they would do if they knew they\nwere to die within the hour.  \"I would,\" said Borromeo, \"go on with my\ngame.\"  He had begun it for God's glory, and in order to fit himself\nfor God's work, and he would finish it.  These anecdotes illustrate the\ntruth that recreation is a necessary part of life, and may be engaged\nin with the highest object.\n\nRecreation, therefore, is not to be regarded as an evil in itself--Men\nat different times have so regarded it.  (_a_) Those who have been\ntermed ascetics in the Church of Rome looked upon every form of\namusement as sinful.  Even to smile or laugh was a fault needing severe\npenance.  They were \"cruel to themselves,\" denied themselves all\nearthly joy, and placed vice and pleasure in the same category.  (_b_)\nThe Puritans also, in the time of the Stuarts, set their faces strongly\nagainst games and recreation of every kind.  They denounced all public\namusements, as Macaulay tells us, \"from masques, which were exhibited\nat the mansions of the great, down to the wrestling matches and\nquoiting matches on the village green.\"  (_c_) In all ages there have\nbeen good men animated by the same feeling.  Life has seemed to them so\nserious as to have no place in it for mirth.  Even one so saintly as\nArchbishop Leighton said that \"pleasures are like mushrooms--it is so\ndifficult to distinguish those that are wholesome from those that are\npoisonous, that it is better to abstain from them altogether.\"  Those\nviews have something noble in them.  They spring from hatred of sin and\nfrom realizing intensely that\n\nRecreation is liable to abuse.--It often leads to evil.  It was the\nunbridled gaiety of the age, with its selfishness and sensuality, that\nmade the Puritans denounce amusement, though the austerity they\nenforced led to dreadful consequences.  Repression passed into excess.\n\"It was as if the pent-up sewerage of a mud volcano had been suddenly\nlet loose.  The unclean spirit forcibly driven out by the Puritans\nreturned with seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and the\nlast state of Stuart England was worst than the first.\"  The history of\nthat period shows us the mistake religion makes by frowning down all\namusements as sinful.  But that some may be so is equally clear.  They\nare so (_a_) when they are contrary to the express commands of the Word\nof God.  There are pleasures which are in themselves unlawful, and\nwhich are condemned by the divine law.  These, God's children will\nshun.  They are forms of wickedness which they will ever hold in\nabhorrence.  \"The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride\nof life,\" with all that the words mean, though the world may regard\nthem as pleasures, and engage in them as amusements, are evil before\nGod.  But not to dwell on this, which is evident, amusements are evil\n(_b_) when they unfit for work.  \"The end of labor,\" said the Greek\nphilosopher Aristotle, \"is to rest.\"  It is equally true that \"the end\nof rest is to labor.\"  Pleasures that tempt us from daily duty, that\nleave us listless and weary, are pernicious.  Outdoor games, for\ninstance, ought to strengthen the physical frame, they ought to make us\nhealthy and strong and ready for work.  But when carried to excess they\noften produce the opposite result, and become positively hurtful.  If\nthe Saturday's play unfit for the worship and rest of the Lord's day;\nif an employer, as has been stated, has been obliged to dismiss his\nclerks more than once because of their incapacity for work owing to\nfootball matches, cricket matches, and sports generally, it is clear\nthat these have not been for their good; and the same may be said of\nthe effect of other forms of amusement, especially when carried to\nexcess.  The amusements that send us back to toil with a lightened\nheart and a vigorous mind are those only that we should engage in; all\nothers are detrimental, and should be shunned.  (_c_) It is necessary\nto say also that amusement in any form followed as the end of life\nbecomes specially sinful.  Even the heathen moralist, Cicero, could say\n\"that he is not worthy to be called a man who is willing to spend a\nsingle day wholly in pleasure.\"  How much more truly may a Christian\nfeel that he \"who liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth.\"  A life\nthat is simply play, that is simply amusement, is no life at all.  It\nis only a contemptible form of existence.  \"A soul sodden with\npleasure\" is a lost soul.  To be a mere pleasure-seeker is not the\nchief end of man.  Nothing grows more wearying than continuous\namusement, and no one needs amusement so much as he who is always at\nit.  He loses the power of real enjoyment.  He has, like Esau, bartered\nhis birthright for a mess of pottage.  He is useless to man and guilty\nbefore God.\n\nIt is not easy to lay down distinct and definite rules in regard to\nrecreation--to set down and catalogue those amusements which it is safe\nfor us to follow, and those from which we should refrain.  This has\nbeen attempted, but not successfully! and the reason is evident.  What\nmay be safe for one person may not be safe for another.  If we are told\nthat an amusement has been held to be wrong, we are ready to reply that\nthe mere opinion of others is not binding upon us; and perhaps in our\ncontempt for views which appear to us bigoted and straitlaced, we rush\ninto the opposite extreme.  The true guide in recreation is a Christian\nspirit.  He who possesses it will need no list of what are lawful and\nunlawful made out for him.  He will be better guided than by any\ncarefully compiled code of duty set before him.  All, therefore, that\nshall be attempted in this direction is to give a few general counsels\nwhich may be serviceable.\n\n1.  We should exercise our own judgment as to what amusements are\nhelpful or the reverse.  It has been said, \"When you are in Rome, do as\nthe Romans do.\"  We would rather put the adage thus, \"When you are in\nRome, do _not_ as the Romans do.\"  There are questions which majorities\nmay decide for us, and there are questions which every soul must decide\nfor itself.  That everybody goes to bull-fights in Spain does not make\nbull-fighting right; neither is an amusement right because it is\npopular.  In this, as in other matters, we must dare sometimes to be\nsingular.  Follow not a multitude to do evil.\n\n2.  What is one man's meat is another man's poison.  We are not a law\nto our neighbor, neither is our neighbor a law to us.  The amusement\nthat we find injures us, lowers our moral and spiritual tone, and\nunfits us for the serious business of life, is the thing for us to\navoid, as we avoid food which some men can take with impunity, but\nwhich does harm to us.\n\n3.  Keep on the safe ground of certainty.  Whatever is doubtful is\ndangerous, and had best be left alone.  If we go skating, and have a\nsuspicion that the ice in a certain spot is weak, that is sufficient to\nmake us avoid it.  Possibly we might pass over it without danger, but\nthe thought that it may be dangerous leads us to give it a wide berth.\n\"If you do not wish to hear the bell ring,\" says the proverb, \"keep\naway from the bell rope.\"  There is a sufficiency of amusements which\nare beyond doubt safe and satisfying, without our trying those that may\nbe dangerous.  The best recreation often comes from change of\noccupation, and there is none better than the companionship of books,\nthe sweet solace of music, the softening influence of art, or the\ncontemplation of the beauties of nature, \"the melody of woods and winds\nand waters.\"  There are fountains of joy open on every side of us, from\nwhich we may quaff many an invigorating draught, without drinking from\nthose which are often poisoned and polluted.\n\n4.  The pleasure that is more congenial than our work is to be taken\nwith caution.  So long as a man enjoys his work more than his\namusement, the latter is for him comparatively safe.  It is a\nrelaxation and refreshment, and he goes from it all the better for it;\nbut if a man likes his pleasure better than the duties to which God has\ncalled him in the world, it is a sign that he has not realized, as he\nought to realize, the object for which life was given him.\n\n5.  For the question, What is the harm? substitute, What is the good?\nThe former is that which many ask in regard to amusements, and the very\nasking of the question shows that they feel doubtful about them and\nshould avoid them.  But when we ask, What is the good? it is a sign\nthat we are anxious to know what benefit we may derive from them, and\nhow far they may help us.  That is the true spirit in which we should\napproach our amusements, seeking out those that recruit and refresh us\nmentally, morally, and physically.\n\nThose are hints[1] which may be found useful.  \"Religion never was\ndesigned,\" it is said, \"to make our pleasures less.\"  Religion also, if\nwe know what it means, will ever lead us to what are true, innocent,\nand elevating pleasures, and keep us from those that are false, bad in\ntheir influence, and which \"leave a sting behind them.\"  \"Rejoice, O\nyoung man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of\nthy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of\nthine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring\nthee into judgment.\"  Let those who practise the first part of that\ntext not forget the second.\n\n\n\n[1] I am indebted for some of them to an article in _The Christian\nUnion_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nBOOKS.\n\nBooks have an influence on life and conduct the extent of which it is\nimpossible to estimate.  \"The precepts they inculcate, the lessons they\nexhibit, the ideals of life and character which they portray, root\nthemselves in the thoughts and imaginations of young men.  They seize\nthem with a force which, in after years, appears scarcely possible.\"\nThese words of Principal Tulloch will not appear too strong to any one\nwho can look back over a long period of life.  Such must ever feel that\nbooks have had a powerful effect in making them all that they are.\nThere are many considerations that go to show the importance of books.\n\nBooks are the accumulated treasures of generations.--They are to man\nwhat memory is to the individual.  If all the libraries in the world\nwere burned and all the books in the world destroyed, the past would be\nlittle more than a blank.  It would be a calamity corresponding to that\nof a man losing by a stroke the memory of past years.  The literature\nof the world is the world's memory, the world's experience, the world's\nfailures.  It teaches us where we came from.  It tells us of the paths\nwe have travelled.  Almost all we know of the history of this world in\nwhich God has placed us we know from books.  \"In books,\" as Carlyle\nsays, \"lie the creative Phoenix ashes of the whole past--all that men\nhave desired, discovered, done, felt, or imagined, lie recorded in\nbooks, wherein whoso has learned the mystery of spelling printed\nletters may find it and appropriate it.\"\n\nBooks open to us a society from which otherwise we would be\nexcluded.--They introduce us into a great human company.  They enable\nus, however humble we may be, to hold converse with the great and good\nof past ages and of the present time--the great philosophers,\nphilanthropists, poets, divines, travellers.  We know their thoughts,\nwe hear their words, we clasp their hands.  The chamber of the solitary\nstudent is peopled with immortal guests.  He has friends who are always\nsteadfast, who are never false, who are silent when he is weary, who go\nforth with him to his work, who await his return.  In the literature of\nthe world a grand society is open to all who choose to enter it.\n\nBooks are the chief food of our intellectual life.--There are men that\nhave, indeed, done great things who have read but little.  These have\nhad their want of mental training compensated by their powers of\nobservation and experience of life.  But they have been for the most\npart exceptional men, and it is possible they might have done better if\nthey had studied more.  To the great majority of men books are the\ngreat teachers, the chief ministers to self-culture.  Books in a\nspecial manner represent intellect to those who can appreciate them.\nWe cannot estimate in this aspect their importance.  They are in regard\nto self-culture what Montaigne calls \"the best viaticum for the journey\nof life.\"  When we think of what we owe to them, we may enter into the\nfeelings of Charles Lamb, who \"wished to ask a grace before reading\nmore than a grace before meat.\"\n\nIn regard to books, the practical questions that present themselves\nare, what we should read, and how we should read.  The first question\ncannot be answered in any definite manner.  (_a_) The enormous number\nof books in the world forbids this.  Let any one enter a library of\neven moderate size, and he will feel how almost hopeless it would be,\neven if it were profitable, to draw out a practicable list of what may\nbe advantageously chosen for reading and what may well be cast aside.\n(_b_) Still more does the infinite variety of tastes, circumstances:\nand talents, forbid the laying down of definite rules.  Reading that\nmight be profitable for one might not be so for another.  Reading that\nwould be pleasant to one would be to another weariness.  Every class of\nmind seeks naturally its own proper food, and the choice of books must\nultimately depend upon a man's own bias--on his natural bent and the\nnecessities of his life.  There are, however, one or two directions\nthat may be given, and which may be profitable to young men.\n\n_First_, We should read, as far as possible, _the great books of the\nworld_.  In the kingdom of literature there are certain works that\nstand by themselves and tower in their grandeur above all others.  They\nare referred to by Bacon, in his weighty way, when he says: \"Some books\nare to be tasted, others to be swallowed, some few to be chewed and\ndigested.\"  This last class of books may be still spoken of as few.\nVarious lists have lately been published of the best hundred books,\naccording to the opinion of some of the greatest men of our time.\nThere is considerable agreement among the writers as to what they\nconsider the best books, and there is considerable difference also.  It\nis easy to see how those who compiled these lists have been largely\ninfluenced in making their selection by their own peculiar tastes and\nfancies.  Probably there is not one of their lists which any young man\nwould care to follow out in its entirety.  We give elsewhere the one\nwhich seems most likely to be useful to those into whose hands this\ntext-book may probably come,[1] though it is evident that many young\nmen might profitably leave out some of the books mentioned and\nsubstitute others.  Still one thing is clear, that it is possible to\nmake a selection of outstanding works in literature.  After\nconsultation with others better informed than himself, a young man can\nmake a list suitable to his capacities and tastes, of books that really\nare _great_ books, and in this way he may acquire knowledge that is\nworth having, and which will furnish a good and solid foundation for\nhis intellectual culture.  It is with books of this kind that he should\nbegin, and a few such books thoroughly mastered will probably do him\nmore good than all others that he may afterwards read.\n\nIt is hardly necessary to say that there is _one_ book that may be\ntermed specially great, and which all young men should make the special\nsubject of their study.  (_a_) The Bible, even as a means of\nintellectual culture, stands alone and above all others.  \"In the\npoorest cottages,\" says Carlyle, \"is one book wherein for several\nthousands of years the spirit of man has found light and nourishment,\nand an interpreting response to whatever is deepest in him.\"  No man\ncan be regarded as an educated man unless he is familiar with this\nbook.  To understand its history and position in the world is in itself\na liberal education.  Those who have been indifferent to its spiritual\npower and divine claims have acknowledged its great importance in\nregard to self-culture.  \"Take the Bible,\" says Professor Huxley, \"as a\nwhole, make the severest deductions which fair criticism can dictate\nfor shortcomings and for positive errors, and there still remains in\nthis old literature a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur; and\nthen consider the great historical fact that for three centuries this\nbook has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in\nEnglish history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and\nis familiar to noble and simple from John o' Groat's house to Land's\nEnd; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds\nin exquisite beauties of a mere literary form; and finally, that it\nforbids the merest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of\nthe existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a\ngreat past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest\nnations of the world.  By the study of what other book could children\nbe so much humanized?\"  In these words we have a noble tribute to the\nintellectual greatness of the Bible.  (_b_) But it has other claims\nupon us than its power to stimulate mental culture.  It is inspired by\nGod.  \"It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for\ninstruction in righteousness.\"  It is man's guide through the\nperplexities of life to the glory of heaven, \"Wherewithal shall a young\nman cleanse his way?  By taking heed thereto according to thy word.\"\n\nRead then the great books of the world, and this book, the greatest of\nall.\n\n_Second_, Another suggestion that we may make in regard to the use of\nbooks is that _we should read from some centre or standpoint_.  A\nperson takes a house in the country.  This he makes the centre of many\nexcursions.  One day he climbs the mountain, another day he walks by\nwinding stream, on another he sails along the shore.  In this way he\nexplores the surrounding country by degrees, coming back each night to\nthe place he started from.  We may do much the same thing with profit\nin our excursions among books.  For instance, we may take the\nstarting-point of our _profession_, and read all we can in regard to\nit.  A farmer should read about farming, a lawyer about law, a divine\nabout theology.  Or we may take the starting-point of our _physical\nframe_, and read steadily all we can as to our bodily organisation and\nits laws; or we may take as our starting point the _land_ we dwell in,\nor even the locality where we live, and seek to learn all we can\nregarding its history.  In this way distinct lines of study are opened\nup to us, and we are saved the evil of desultory reading, which too\noften fills the mind only with a jumble of facts undigested and\nunarranged, and therefore of but little value.  The writer knew a young\nminister in a Scottish manse who had among the few books in his library\nthe _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.  In this work he took up distinct\ncourses of reading--a course of biography, a course of history, a\ncourse of geography--and in this way he acquired knowledge well\nsystematized, which was of great value to him in his after life.  We\nshould endeavor, according to some such method as we have indicated, to\ncarry on our reading.  \"Every man and every woman who can read at all\nshould adopt some definite purpose in their reading, should take\nsomething for the main stem and trunk of their culture, whence branches\nmight grow out in all directions, seeking air and light for the parent\ntree, which it is hoped might end in becoming something useful and\nornamental, and which at any rate all along will have had life and\ngrowth in it.\"  These words of Sir Arthur Helps put very tersely the\npoint on which we have been insisting.\n\n_Third_, We should read books _on the same principle as we associate\nwith men_.  We only admit to our society those whom we deem worthy of\nour acquaintance, and from whose intercourse we are likely to derive\nbenefit.  We should do the same in regards to books.  There are people\nwho read books which, if they took to themselves bodily form and became\npersonified, would be kicked out of their houses.  Readers often\nassociate in literature with what is vile and contemptible, who would\nnever think of associating with people possessing a similar character.\nYet the society of a weak or bad book is just as harmful to us in its\nway, and should be as little tolerated by us as the society of a weak\nor bad man.  Indeed, between an author and a careful reader there is an\nintimacy established even closer than is possible in the intercourse of\nlife, and evil books poison the springs of thought and feeling much\nmore thoroughly than an evil acquaintanceship could do.  We cannot be\ntoo strict, therefore, in applying to books the rules we follow in\nregard to society, and refusing our acquaintance to those books\nunworthy of it.  (_a_) Such books may be known by reputation.  We would\nnot associate with a man of bad reputation, neither should we read a\nbook of which the reputation is evil.  (_b_) They may be judged of also\nby very slight experience.  Very little tells us whether a man is\nworthy to be admitted to companionship, and very slight acquaintance\nwith a book is sufficient to tell us whether it is worth reading.\n(_c_) But especially by beginning with those great authors that are\nbeyond doubt high toned, \"the master-spirits of all time,\" we shall\nacquire a power of discrimination.  We shall no more care to read foul,\nimpure, and unwholesome literature than a man brought up in the society\nof honorable men would choose to cast in his lot with thieves and\nblacklegs and the offscourings of society.\n\nWe have anticipated much that might be said in answer to the question\n_how_ to read, and only a few words need be written in regard to it.\n(1) Read with interest.  Unless a book interests us we do not attend to\nit, we get no benefit whatever from it, and may as well throw it aside.\n(2) Read actively, not passively, putting the book under\ncross-examination as we go along--asking questions regarding it,\nweighing arguments.  Mere passive reading may do no more good than the\nstream does to the iron pipe through which it flows.  Novel-readers are\noften mere passive recipients of the stories, and thus get no real\nbenefit from them.  (3) Read according to some system or method.  (4)\nRead not always for relaxation, recreation, and amusement, but chiefly\nto enable you to perform the duties to which God has called you in\ndaily life.\n\n\n\n[1] See Appendix.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nFAMILY LIFE.\n\nThe words Family--Home--Household--all express one idea.  They imply a\nrelationship existing between certain individuals, a circle or sphere\nseparate from the mass of human beings, within which there are special\nduties to be performed and a special life has to be lived.  It is not\nnecessary to define particularly what is meant by the word Family, for\nit is well understood by all of us.\n\nFamily life is peculiar to man.--The lower animals have nothing in all\nrespects resembling it.  In some particulars their mode of life\noccasionally approaches it, but not in all.  The birds of the air, for\ninstance, care tenderly for their offspring, but when these come to\nmaturity the relation between them and their parents comes to an end.\nThe family relation on the other hand lasts through life, and is only\nbroken by the hand of death, if even then.  The family has been\ninstituted by God for the welfare of man.  The condition in which we\ncome into the world requires it--our training for the work of life\ndemands it--it is specially adapted to promote the great ends of human\nexistence.\n\nFamily life is that which most truly leaves its mark upon us.--In the\nfamily habits are formed which make us what we are for the rest of our\nlife.  Home influences accompany us to the very end of our journey.\nLet any one ask himself what are the chief sources of his virtues, and\nhe will feel that a large proportion of them are derived directly or\nindirectly from association with his fellow-creatures in the family.\nThe training of parents, the affection and influence of mothers and\nsisters, powerfully and lastingly affect our intellectual and moral\nnature.  From a wise father we learn more than from all our teachers.\nWhen a celebrated artist, Benjamin West, was asked \"What made him a\npainter?\" his reply was, \"It was my mother's kiss.\"  \"I should have\nbeen an atheist,\" said a great American statesman, \"if it had not been\nfor one recollection, and that was the memory of the time when my\ndeparted mother used to take my little hand in hers, and caused me on\nmy knees to say, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'\"  On the other hand,\nthose who have been so unfortunate as to have had an unhappy home\nrarely emancipate themselves from the evil effects of their upbringing.\nIf they do, it is after the severest struggle.  \"The child,\" it has\nbeen said, \"is the father of the man,\" and it is in the family the\nchild receives his first impressions for good or for evil.  The world\nhe first lives in is his home.\n\nFamily life supplies a great test of character.--When Whitefield was\nasked whether a certain person was a Christian, he replied, \"I do not\nknow.  I have never seen him at home.\"  People are often one thing in\nthe world and another in their own family.  In the close intercourse of\nthe home circle they exhibit themselves in their true colors.  A man\nwho is a good son or a good brother is generally found to be a good\nman.  If he is a source of evil in his own home, in his intercourse\nwith the world he will, sooner or later, be found wanting.\n\nIt is beyond the scope of this book to dwell at length upon the duties\nincumbent on the various members of a family.  It may be sufficient to\nindicate generally the feelings which should animate the young persons\nwho belong to it.  Probably most of those into whose hands this manual\nwill come are members of a family.  What should therefore be their\nconduct at home is a question that well deserves their consideration.\n\n1.  _Obedience_ is the fundamental principle of family life.  Every\nfamily has a head, and that head must rule.  \"Order is heaven's first\nlaw.\"  Where there is no obedience there can be no order in a family.\nThe first form of authority which is placed before the child is that of\nthe parent, and to the parent he has to be subject.  \"Children,\" says\nthe apostle, \"obey your parents in all things, for this is well\npleasing unto the Lord.\"  Even for those members of a family who have\ngrown out of the state of childhood obedience must be the rule, though\nin their case it is not to be, as in the case of the child,\nunquestioning obedience, but is to be founded on reason, affection and\ngratitude.  With them obedience takes the form of reverence, or, to use\na more familiar word, respect.  The child is bound to obey his parent\nwithout hesitation or reply; the young man who has entered into greater\nliberty than the child will still respect his parents' wishes and\ncherish reverence for their authority.  This feeling on his part is\ntermed in the Scriptures _Honor_.  \"Honor thy father and thy mother\" is\none of the Ten Commandments, and can never cease to be included among\nmoral and religious obligations.  It is opposed to everything like\nunseemly familiarity, discourtesy of treatment, insolence in reply, or\ndeliberate defiance.  It implies respect for age and experience, and a\nsense of the great sacrifices a parent has made for his children's\nwelfare.  It is said that in our time the bonds of parental authority\nare being loosened, and that young men do not regard their parents with\nthe deference that once was invariably shown towards them; that they do\nlittle to smooth the path of life for them when they grow old and weak,\nand are more ready to cast them on the public charity than to\ncontribute to their support.  Such a state of things would be shameful,\nif true.  It would indicate a corruption of social life at the\nfountain-head that must lead to serious consequences.  The family is\nthe nursery both of the State and of the Church, and where the purity\nand well-being of family life is impaired, both State and Church are\nsure to suffer.  There should be therefore an earnest and prayerful\nendeavor upon the part of the young to cherish towards their parents\nthat loving sense of their superiority which is implied in the word\nHonor.  \"Let them learn first,\" says St. Paul (1 Tim. v. 4), \"to show\npiety at home, and to requite their parents; for that is good and\nacceptable before God.\"  There can be no more pleasing memory for a\nyoung man to have than this, that he has been a dutiful son; none more\nbitter than this, that he has set at defiance, or neglected, those to\nwhom he owes so much.\n\n2.  _Affection_ is the atmosphere that should pervade the household.\n\"Without hearts,\" it has been truly said, \"there is no home.\"  A\ncollection of roots, and trunk, and branches, and leaves, do not make a\ntree; neither do a number of people dwelling together make a home.  \"A\ncertain number of animal lives that are of prescribed ages, that eat\nand drink together, by no means makes a family.  Almost as well might\nwe say that it is the bricks of a house that make a home.  There may be\na home in the forest or in the wilderness, and there may be a family\nwith all its blessings, though half its members be in other lands or in\nanother world.  It is the gentle memories, the mutual thought, the\ndesire to bless, the sympathies that meet when duties are apart, the\nfervor of the parents' prayers, the persuasion of filial love, the\nsister's pride and the brother's benediction, that constitute the true\nelements of domestic life and sanctify the dwelling.\" [1]  These\nbeautiful words are true.  It is love that makes home.  The dweller, in\na distant land sends again and again his thoughts across the sea, and\nreverts with fond affection to the place of his birth.  It may be a\nhumble cottage, but to him it is ever dear because of the love which\ndwelt there and united those who dwelt there by ties that distance\ncannot sever.  Even the prodigal in the matchless parable of our Lord,\nherding with the swine and eating of their husks, was led to a higher\nand a better life by the remembrance of his father's house.  A home\nwithout love is no home, any more than a body without a soul is a man.\nIt is only a corpse.\n\n3.  _Consideration_ for those with whom we live in the family is the\nchief form which affection takes.  Each member has to remember, not his\nown comfort and wants, but the comfort and wants of those with whom he\ndwells.  His welfare as an individual he must subordinate to the\nwelfare of the household.  There are various forms which want of\nconsideration takes, and all of them are detestable.  (_a_) Tyranny,\nwhere the strong member of a family insists on the service of those\nweaker than himself.  (_b_) Greed, where one demands a larger share of\ncomfort, food, or attention than that which falls to the others.  (_c_)\nIndolence, where one refuses to take his proper part in the maintenance\nof the family, spending his wages, perhaps, on his own pleasures, and\nyet expecting to be provided for by the labor of the rest.  (_d_)\nDiscourtesy, where, by his language and manners, he makes the others\nunhappy, and, perhaps, by his outbursts of temper fills the whole house\nwith sadness.  (_e_) Obstinacy, which will have its own way, whether\nthe way be good or not.  All these forms of selfishness are violations\nof the true law of family life, and render that life impossible.  In\nthe family, more than in any other sphere, everyone should bear the\nburdens of others.  Everyone should seek, not his own, but another's\nwelfare, and the weak and feeble should receive the attention of all.\n\n4.  _Pleasantness_ should be the disposition which we should specially\ncultivate at home.  If we have to encounter things that annoy and\nperhaps irritate us in the outer world, we should seek to leave the\nirritation and annoyance behind when we cross the threshold of our\ndwelling.  Into it the roughness and bluster of the world should never\nbe permitted to come.  It should be the place of \"sweetness and light,\"\nand every member may do something to make it so.  It is a bad sign when\na young man never cares to spend his evenings at home--when he prefers\nthe company of others to the society of his family, and seeks his\namusement wholly beyond its circle.  There is something wrong when this\nis the case.  \"I beseech you,\" said one addressing youth, \"not to turn\nhome into a restaurant and a sleeping bunk, spending all your leisure\nsomewhere else, and going home only when all other places are shut up.\"\nA young man, it is admitted, may find his home uninviting through\ncauses for which he has not himself to blame.  Still, even then he may\ndo much to change its character, and by his pleasant and cheerful\nbearing may bring into it sunshine brighter than the sunshine outside.\n\n5.  The highest family life is that consecrated by _Religion_.  The\nhousehold where God is acknowledged, from which the members go\nregularly together to the house of God, within whose walls is heard the\nvoice of prayer and praise, is the ideal Christian family.  In such a\nfamily the father is the priest, daily offering up prayers for those\nwhom God has given him, at the family altar.  He makes it his duty, and\nregards it as his privilege to bring up his children in \"the nurture\nand admonition of the Lord,\" and by personal example and teaching to\ntrain them up as members of the household of faith.  Unlike those who\nleave the religious instruction of their children entirely to others,\nhe loves to teach them himself.  A household thus pervaded by a\nChristian atmosphere is a scene of sweet and tender beauty.  Such a\nhousehold is well depicted by our Scottish poet, Robert Burns, in his\n\"Cotter's Saturday Night.\"  There we see how beautiful family life may\nbe in the humblest dwelling.\n\n  From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,\n  That makes her lov'd abroad, rever'd at home.\n\n\n\n[1] Dr. James Martineau.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nCHURCH.[1]\n\nThe word church is derived from the Greek word _Kuriakon_, the Lord's\n(from _Kurios_, the Lord), and it has various significations.  (_a_)\nSometimes it means the whole body of believers on earth--\"the company\nof the faithful throughout the world\"--\"the number of the elect that\nhave been, are, and shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head\nthereof; and is the spouse, the body and the fulness of Him that\nfilleth all in all.\" [2]  (_b_) Sometimes it is applied to a body of\nChristians differing from the rest in their constitution, doctrines,\nand usages; as, for example, the Church of Rome, the Greek Church, the\nReformed Church.  (_c_) Sometimes it refers to the Christian community\nof a country or its established religion, as when we speak of the\nGallican Church, the Swiss Church, the Church of England, the Church of\nScotland.  (_d_) It is used in a still more limited sense to represent\na particular congregation of Christians who associate together and\nparticipate in the ordinances of Christianity, with their proper\npastors or ministers.  (_e_) It is applied also to the building in\nwhich the public ministrations of religion are conducted, as when we\nspeak of the church in such a street, St. James' church, St. Peter's\nchurch, etc.\n\nIn this chapter we use the word church in the fourth sense, as\nrepresenting a particular congregation of Christians.  To such a\ncommunity every young man should belong, and in connection with it he\nis called to discharge certain special duties.  There are four aspects\nin which the life of the Church, in this sense, may be regarded.\n\nI.  It represents Christian worship.--(_a_) Public worship seems\nessential to the very existence of religion.  At least, every religion\nthe world has seen has had its meetings for public rites and\nceremonies.  Faith unsupported by sympathy, as a rule, languishes and\ndies out in a community.  Were our churches to be shut Sunday after\nSunday, and men never to meet together as religious beings, it would be\nas though the reservoir that supplies a great city with water suddenly\nran dry.  Here and there a few might draw water from their own wells,\nbut the general result would be appalling.  (_b_) Public worship also\nstrengthens and deepens religious feeling.  A man can pray alone and\npraise God alone; but he is, beyond all doubt, helped when he does so\nin the company of others.  He is helped by the conditions of time and\nplace; and the presence and sympathy of his fellow-worshippers have\nupon him a mighty uplifting influence.  (_c_) Above all, public worship\nis the channel through which we receive special blessings from God.\nThere is communion in the sanctuary between us and Him.  \"The true\nworshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the\nFather _seeketh_ such to worship him.\"  God desires our worship, and\nblesses it to us.  That He does so has been the experience of\nChristians in all ages.  They have found in the house and worship of\nGod a strength and power that supported and blessed their life.  They\nhave realized that the promise of Christ is still fulfilled, \"Where two\nor three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of\nthem.\" (Matt. xviii. 20.)\n\nII.  The Church represents Christian teaching.--In the congregation the\nWord of God is read and preached.  (_a_) Preaching has always formed\npart of the service of the Christian Church from the very earliest\ntimes.  In the second century Justin Martyr says: \"On the day called\nSunday, all who live in the cities or in the country gather into one\nplace, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets\nare read as time permits; then when the reader has ceased, the\npresident verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good\nthings.\"  This description of an early Christian service is applicable\nstill.  Wherever the Church meets there is religious teaching.  (_b_)\nAnd it is the only such teaching that multitudes receive.  Without it\nthey would be left to grope their way alone.  (_c_) Whenever,\ntherefore, there has been a revival of life in the Church, great stress\nhas been laid upon the preaching of the Word of God, and God has\nspecially blessed it to the conversion of sinners and the edification\nof His people.\n\nIII.  The Church represents Christian fellowship.--(_a_) It keeps up\nthe idea of brotherhood in the world.  It brings people of different\nranks and classes together, and that under most favorable\ncircumstances.  Whatever a man is in the world, in the Church he is\nmade to feel that in the eye of God he is a member of one family,\nhaving the same weaknesses, the same sorrows, the same needs, the same\ndestiny before him as those around him.  In the Church \"the rich and\npoor meet together\" in equality before the same God, who is the Maker\nof them all.  (_b_) But especially in its worship is the Church a\ncommon bond between _believers_.  On one day of the week men of all\nnations, kindreds, peoples and tongues, a multitude whom no man can\nnumber, unite in spirit together.  Their prayers and praises ascend in\nunison to the Throne of Grace.  They enter into the \"communion of\nsaints.\"  They belong to one holy fellowship.  (_c_) At the table of\nthe Lord they take their places as partakers of one life--as one in\nChrist.  \"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion\nof the blood of Christ?  The bread which we break, is it not the\ncommunion of the body of Christ?  For we being many are all partakers\nof that one bread.\" (1 Cor. x. 16, 17.)\n\nIV.  The Church represents Christian Work.--It is not merely a society\nfor instruction or for the cultivation of devout feelings.  It is an\naggressive society.  Every congregation of believers is a branch of the\ngreat army which is warring against the kingdom of darkness.  Every\nindividual is called upon to be a \"fellow-laborer with Christ,\" and not\nmerely to work out his own salvation, but to work for the salvation of\nothers.  The motto of every true Christian Church should be, \"Work for\neverybody, and everybody at work.\"  Those who may be able to do little\nas isolated individuals may do much by combining their efforts with\nthose of others.  The Church gives them the power and the opportunity.\n\nWe may now glance at some of the special duties incumbent upon those\nwho are connected with the Church, and particularly upon young men.\n\n1.  We should be regular in availing ourselves of the means of grace\nwhich the Church affords.  If it be the home of worship, of teaching,\nof fellowship, and of work, it is a home from which we should not make\nourselves strangers.  There is a blessing to be found there, and we are\nremiss if we do not seek it.  Every young man should be a regular\nattendant on the ministrations of religion.  He should be so (_a_) for\nhis own sake, and (_b_) for the sake of others.  He may perhaps have at\ntimes the feeling, I can get my worship in the fields and my teaching\nfrom my books; I can get along without the Church.  But surely he\nundervalues the promised blessing to those who \"forsake not the\nassembling of (themselves) together.\"  Surely he undervalues the power,\nand strength, and comfort, that come from association with believers.\nBut even if he could get on without the Church, is he not bound to\nconsider others?  Has any man in a world like ours, where all are bound\ntogether and are dependent on one another, any right to consider as to\nwhether he can get on alone?  Is he not bound to consider those around\nhim?  We must all feel that it would be a great calamity to a nation\nwere public worship given up, churches closed, and Sunday made a day of\nrecreation.  But those who absent themselves from public worship are\nundoubtedly using their influence in that direction.  If it be right\nfor them to absent themselves, it must be right also for others to\nimitate them, and it is easy to see how disastrous generally such\nimitation would be.\n\nEspecially should every young man become _a communicant_ at the table\nof the Lord.  Besides the many spiritual benefits of which the\nsacrament is the channel to every devout believer, it is an ordinance\nwhich is particularly helpful to the young.  It leads them to make a\ndecision, and decision gives strength.  From the moment they\ndeliberately and solemnly make their choice, there is a power imparted\nto their life that it had not before.  In the life of the well-known\nScotsman, Adam Black, it is said that shortly after he went up to\nLondon he became a communicant in the Church to which he belonged.  \"I\nfound,\" he says, \"this step gave a stability to my character, and\nproved a defence from follies and vices, especially as a young man in\nLondon, entirely my own master, with no one to guide or check me.\"\n\n2.  We should take each of us our full share in the work of our Church.\nIt is a poor sign of a church when all the work done is by the\nminister, or by the office-bearers alone, and it is a still poorer sign\nof those who belong to it.  It is a sign that they have not felt the\npower of that grace which ever leads the soul to put the question,\n\"What wilt thou have me to do?\"  There are none who cannot do\nsomething.  The writer read lately of a church in England, the grounds\nof which were regularly tended and made beautiful by the young men\nbelonging to it.  That may seem a small service, but it was something.\nIt showed a good spirit.  If we are to get the most out of the Church,\nwe must help it to do its work--charitable, missionary, Sunday School,\nYoung Men's Guild.  If the best heart and talent of young men were put\ninto these and other agencies, the power of the Church for good would\nbe increased immeasurably, and not the least of the advantage would\ncome to the workers themselves.  Let each do his own part.  There is\none way, we need scarcely say, in which we can all help the Church's\nwork: by giving to it \"as the Lord hath prospered us.\"  Under the Old\nTestament dispensation every one was under strict obligation to give a\nfixed proportion of his substance for religious purposes.  Surely we\nshould not be less liberal when the proportion is left to our own sense\nof duty.  Freely we have received.  Let us also freely give.\n\n3.  While loyal to our own Church, we should cherish towards all\nChristians feelings of charity and good-will.  Many of us, probably\nmost of us, belong to the Church to which our parents belonged; and so\nlong as we feel it ministers to our spiritual benefit we should keep by\nit and work with it.  There is little good obtained by running from\nchurch to church, and those who sever themselves from their early\nreligious associations are often anything but gainers.  But while we\nare loyal to our own regiment in the Christian army, and proud, so far\nas a Christian may be so, of its traditions and achievements, let us\never feel that the army itself is greater than our own regiment, and\nnot only cherish good-will and brotherly love towards those who fight\nin that army, but be ready at all times to co-operate with them, and to\nfight with them against the common enemy.  It is well to be a good\nchurchman, it is infinitely better to be a good Christian.  It is best\nwhen one is both; for indeed he is the best Christian who is the best\nchurchman, and he is the best churchman who is the best Christian.\n\n\n\n[1] The subject of \"The Church, Ministry and Sacraments\" is to be fully\ndealt with in a Guild text-book by the Rev. Norman Macleod, D. D.  We\nonly refer in this chapter to those phases of Church life that are more\nimmediately connected with Life and Conduct.\n\n[2] _Confession of Faith_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nCITIZENSHIP.\n\nCitizenship is derived from the Latin word _civitas_, the state, and\ncomprehends the duties that are binding upon us as members of the\nstate.  The first question then that arises in considering these is,\nWhat do we mean by the state?\n\nThe state may be defined as the larger family.--The family is the\norigin of the state.  (_a_) In early times government was of the simple\nkind that prevails in a family.  The father was the head of the\nhousehold and ruled over his children.  As these grew up and had\nfamilies of their own, they naturally looked to the aged head of the\nfamily, listened to his counsels, and were guided by his wisdom.  Hence\nthe first form of the state was the tribe or clan, and the first form\nof government was _patriarchal_.  The head of the family governed the\ntribe.  (_b_) On the death of the patriarch it was necessary that a\nsuccessor should be appointed.  Sometimes he was the son of the\npatriarch or his nearest descendant.  Sometimes he was chosen by the\ntribe as the strongest and bravest man and most competent to lead them\nagainst their enemies.  Often tribes combined for mutual protection.\nThus nations were formed, and the government passed from the\npatriarchal to the _monarchical_ form.  The head was called the _king_,\nwhich literally means the \"father of a people.\"  We trace this growth\nin government in the history of the Israelites.  First, we have the\nfamily of Israel in immediate relation with the patriarchs.  As the\nIsraelites grew and multiplied, they came under the leadership of\nMoses, who governed the tribes.  Finally, when they settled in the land\nof Canaan, they became a nation, and were governed by a king.  The\nkingdom was the expansion of the family.  (_c_) In modern times there\nhas been a further development.  Government by a king or monarch was in\nthe first instance _despotic_.  It is so in some cases--as in Russia at\nthe present day.  The will of the sovereign is the law by which the\npeople are ruled.  But just as a wise father relaxes his control over\nhis full-grown sons, and admits them to a share in the government of\nthe household with himself, so the people have in modern times been\npermitted to exercise power in the state.  The head of the state\nremains, but the main power of government lies with the people.  This\nform of government is called _constitutional_.  In Great Britain we\nhave a _limited monarchy_; the power of the sovereign is controlled by\nthe will of the people, who have a large share in making the laws.  In\nthe United States of America, in France, and in other countries, we\nhave _republics_, where the voice of the people is supreme, though at\nthe head of the state is a president, elected by the people, and bound\nto carry out their wishes.\n\nAs the state is the larger family, the duties of those who compose it\ncorrespond with those belonging to the members of a household.\n\n1.  There is the duty of loyalty or patriotism.  The first duty of the\nmember of a family is love of home and of those who belong to it.\nHowever poor or humble it may be, he feels bound to it by no ordinary\nties.  He defends its interests.  Above all other households, he loves\nhis own the best.  The first duty of the citizen is of the same kind.\nHe loves his land; his own country is dearer to him than any other on\nearth.  He is ready to defend it even with his life.  The words of Sir\nWalter Scott, as of many another poet, express this patriotic feeling:\n\n  Breathes there the man with soul so dead,\n  Who never to himself hath said,\n  This is my own, my native land,\n  Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,\n  As home his footsteps he hath turned,\n  From wandering on a foreign strand.\n\nMany have died for their country's sake, and in all ages this has been\nthought a specially noble death.  History records with affection the\nnames of such men as Wallace, Bruce, William Tell, and Garibaldi, who\nsacrificed very much for the land they loved.  And as \"peace has its\nvictories no less renowned than those of war,\" it has been the pride of\nothers to serve their country by guarding its liberties, increasing its\nhappiness, diminishing its evils, reforming its laws.  The _flag_ of a\ncountry is the symbol, to those who belong to it, of their common\ninheritance.  Brave men will follow it through the shot and shell of\nbattle.  Men have wrapt it round their breasts, and have dyed its folds\nwith their heart's blood to save it from the hands of the enemy; and\nwherever it waves it calls forth feelings of loyalty and allegiance.\n\n2.  Another primary duty of citizenship is obedience to the law.  Here\nagain we have the rule of the family extended to the state.  The child\nis bound to obey his parents unless they bid him do what his conscience\nclearly tells him is wrong; so, a good citizen will obey the laws of\nhis country, unless these laws are so evidently unjust that the good of\nall demands that they should be resisted.  Whatever the law is, he will\nendeavor to respect and obey it.  If he believes it to be an unjust or\nunrighteous law, he will do his best to get it amended or abolished.\nIt is only in an extreme case, though this opens a subject on which we\ncannot enter, that he can be justified in refusing obedience.  \"Let\nevery soul,\" says Scripture, \"be subject unto the higher powers.  For\nthere is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.\nWhosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of\nGod; and they that resist shall receive to themselves condemnation.\nFor rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. . . .\nWherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for\nconscience sake.\"\n\n3.  It is a duty of citizenship to see that the laws are reasonable and\njust.  In a family, the grown-up members will use their legitimate\ninfluence to promote the wise regulation of the household, that there\nmay be peace and harmony.  The same desire will animate the members of\nthe state.  (_a_) This is specially incumbent upon those who, like\nourselves, live under constitutional government.  With us, government\nis not the prerogative of the Crown, or of a few families; or of men of\nrank or wealth.  It is not _despotic_, or _aristocratic_, or\n_plutocratic_, but _democratic_--that is to say, it is in the hands of\nthe people, or of those of the people to whom it has been entrusted,\nand who form a large proportion of the male inhabitants of the country;\non them devolves the making of the laws by which the country is\ngoverned.  They are bound to do their best to see that these laws are\nwhat they should be--equitable and righteous, and for the interest of\nthe whole community.  (_b_) This they can only do through their\nrepresentatives.  We could conceive of a state so small that each of\nits members could take a direct part in its government.  That is not\nthe case with us, and the people can only exercise their control\nthrough those they authorise to represent them.  These they elect, and\nin electing them are bound to see that they are men who are worthy of\nthe trust committed to them, who will make laws good for every class.\nThis applies not only to the election of members of Parliament, but\nwherever the representative principle is carried out, as in the case of\ncouncils, school boards, and other forms of local government.  Wherever\na man exercises the privilege of choosing a representative, he is bound\nto do so conscientiously, and with an earnest desire to perform what is\nright.  It is a maxim in law that what we do by another we do\nourselves.  We are responsible for those whom we choose to make our\nlaws, and if we help to choose unworthy men we cannot be held blameless\nof the consequences that may follow.  (_c_) As it is our duty to\nexercise this privilege of citizenship rightly, we are also bound not\nto refrain from exercising it.  We hear people say sometimes that they\nhave nothing to do with politics.  But by keeping altogether aloof they\ncannot rid themselves of their responsibility.  By abstaining they may\ndo almost as much to further the views they disapprove of as by taking\nan active part in promoting them.  If there are evils in connection\nwith government, the best way to get rid of them is for good men to\ntake a part in public life, and try to bring about a better state of\nthings.  In a free country no man can shake off his obligations by\nrefraining from taking part in public affairs.  The talent that is\nentrusted to us we are bound to use for the glory of God and the good\nof man.  Our political power, however small, is such a talent, and we\nare responsible for its proper employment.\n\n4.  It is a duty of citizenship to take direct part in all that we\nbelieve is for the good of the state.  We say a direct part, as\ndistinguished from the indirect part we take in government through\nrepresentatives.  A man's duty as citizen does not end with the\nballot-box, or with the election of members either to the national or\nlocal council.  A great part of the business of the nation is carried\non by the voluntary efforts of its members.  There are men and women\nthat have no part in representative government, who yet can discharge\nnobly the duties of citizenship.  (_a_) All can take a part in forming\na healthy public opinion.  This is done in all free countries in\nvarious ways: through the press, through public meetings, and by means\nof the speech and communications of everyday life.  If our views are\nthose of a minority, we may help, by our influence, our example, the\nfearless expression of our convictions, to turn the minority into a\nmajority; and in a democratic country the views of the majority will\nultimately prevail.  (_b_) We can also take direct part in promoting\nobjects that tend to the well-being of society.  Much is left by the\nstate to voluntary effort by its members.  The state undertakes the\ndefence of the country by the army and navy, the relief of the poor,\nand the elementary education of the people; but beyond these and other\ninstances of direct state action there is much left to be done by the\npeople themselves, and for themselves.  The Volunteer movement, in\nwhich men take part of their own free will, and which has been of so\nmuch benefit to the country; the erection and support of hospitals,\nlibraries, art galleries, colleges and universities; the furnishing of\nthe people with amusement and recreation--are illustrations of what may\nbe done by members of the community directly.  All such efforts tend to\nthe welfare of the state.  All its members reap benefit from them.  He\nwho does not help and encourage them is as mean as the man who would go\nto an hotel and take its entertainment, and then sneak away without\npaying the reckoning.  Whatever we can do to benefit society benefits\nourselves, and in throwing ourselves heart and soul into any of those\nenterprises that benefit society we are discharging in a very special\nway the duties of good citizenship.\n\nIt only remains to say in a word that our citizenship should be the\noutcome of our religion.  Without that, citizenship loses its high\nposition.  He who fears God will honor the king, and he who \"renders to\nGod the things that are God's\" will \"render to Caesar the things that\nare Caesar's.\"  He will give \"to all their dues: tribute to whom\ntribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom\nhonor.\"  Religion thus becomes the strength of the state, and\n\"righteousness exalteth a nation.\"\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nThe following is the list of the best hundred books referred to in\nChapter XIII.  It is by Professor Blackie, Edinburgh, author of\nSelf-Culture, and is given with his kind consent.\n\n\nI.\n\nHISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.\n\n  The Bible.\n  Homer.\n  Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians.\n  Max Von Dunche's History of the Ancient World.\n  Plutarch's Lives.\n  Herodotus.\n  History of Greece--_Grote_ or _Curtius_.\n  History of Rome--_Arnold_ or _Mommsen_.\n  Menzel's History of the Germans.\n  Green's History of the English People.\n  Life of Charlemagne.\n  Life of Pope Hildebrand.\n  The Crusades.\n  Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics.\n  Prescott's America.\n  Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella.\n  Italy, by _Professor Spalding_.\n  Chronicles, by _Froissart_.\n  The Normans--_Freeman_ and _Thierry_.\n  Motley's Dutch Republic.\n  Life of Gustavus Adolphus.\n  The French Revolution--_Thiers, Carlyle, Alison_.\n  Bourrienne's Life of Napoleon.\n  Wellington's Peninsular Campaign.\n  Southey's Life of Nelson.\n  America--_Bancroft_.\n  The Stuart Rising of 1745, by _Robert Chambers_.\n  Carlyle's Life of Cromwell.\n  Foster's Statesmen of the Commonwealth.\n  Life of Arnold--_Stanley_.\n  Life of Dr. Norman Macleod.\n  Life of Baron Bunsen.\n  Neander's Church History.\n  Life of Luther.\n  History of Scottish Covenanters--_Dodds_.\n  Dean Stanley's Jewish Church.\n  Milman's Latin Christianity.\n\n\nII.\n\nRELIGION AND MORALS.\n\n  The Bible.\n  Socrates or Plato and Xenophon.\n  Marcus Aurelius Antoninus' Meditations.\n  Epictetus Seneca.\n  The Hitopadion and Dialogues of Krishna.\n  St. Augustine's Confessions.\n  Jeremy Taylor.\n  Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.\n  Martineau.\n  Aesop's Fables.\n\n\nIII.\n\nPOETRY AND FICTION.\n\n  Homer.\n  Virgil.\n  Dante.\n  The Niebelungen Lay.\n  The Morte D'Arthur.\n  Chaucer.\n  Shakespeare.\n  Spenser.\n  Goethe--Faust, Meister, and Eckermann's Conversations.\n  Milton.\n  Pope.\n  Cowper.\n  Campbell.\n  Wordsworth.\n  Walter Scott.\n  Burns.\n  Charles Lamb.\n  Dean Swift, \"Tale of a Tub\" and \"Gulliver's Travels.\"\n  Tennyson.\n  Browning.\n  Don Quixote.\n  Goldsmith, \"Vicar of Wakefield.\"\n  George Eliot.\n  Dickens.\n  Robinson Crusoe.\n  Andersen's Fairy Tales, \"Mother Bunch.\"\n  Grimm's Popular Songs and Ballads, especially\n    Scotch, English, Irish and German.\n\n\nIV.\n\nFINE ARTS.\n\n  Ferguson's History of Architecture.\n  Ruskin.\n  Tyrwhitt.\n\n\nV.\n\nPOLITICS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.\n\n  De Tocqueville.\n  John Stuart Mill.\n  Fawcett.\n  Laveleye.\n  Adam Smith.\n  Cornewall Lewis.\n  Lord Brougham.\n  Sir J. Lubbock.\n\n\nVI.\n\nSCIENCE AND PHILOLOGY.\n\n  J. G. Wood's Books on Natural History.\n  White's Natural History of Selbourne.\n  Geology--_Hugh Miller, Ramsey, Geikie, Ansted_.\n  Botany--General Elements of British.\n  Science of Language--_Trench_ and _Farrar, Max Mueller_.\n  Taylor's Words and Places.\n\n\nVII.\n\nVOYAGES AND TRAVEL.\n\nIn every variety; especially the old collections.\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF WORKS.\n\nThe following is a list of works upon topics treated in this text-book,\nwhich have been consulted in its preparation, and which may be useful\nto students:\n\n_Self-Culture_, by John Stuart Blackie.  Edinburgh: David Douglas.\nTwentieth edition.  1892.\n\n_Plain Living and High Thinking, or Practical Self-Culture--Moral,\nMental and Physical_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  London: John Hogg,\nPaternoster Row.  1880.\n\n_The Secret of Success_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  London: John Hogg,\nPaternoster Row.  1880.\n\n_The Threshold of Life_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  T. Nelson & Sons,\nPaternoster Row.  1876.\n\n_On the Threshold_, by Theodore T. Munger.  London: Ward, Lock & Co.\n1888.\n\n_Beginning Life_, by John Tulloch, D.D.  London: Chas. Burnet & Co.\n1883.\n\n_Life: a Book for Young Men_, by J. Cunninghame Geikie.  London:\nStrahan & Co.  1870.\n\n_The Gentle Life_, by J. Hain Friswell.  London: Sampson Low & Marston.\n1870.\n\n_Self-Culture_, by James Freeman Clarke.  Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.\n1881.\n\n_Life Questions_, by M. J. Savage.  Boston: Lockwood, Brooks & Co.\n1879.\n\n_Elements of Morality, for Home and School Teaching_, by Mrs. Chas.\nBray.  London: Longmans, Green & Co.  1863.\n\n_The Family and its Duties_, by Robert Lee, D.D.  London: Longmans,\nGreen & Co.  1863.\n\n_Christianity in its Relation to Social Life_, by Rev. Stephen J.\nDavis.  London: Religious Tract Society.\n\n_Home Life_, by Marianne Farningham.  London: James Clarke & Co.\n\n_The Domestic Circle_, by the Rev. John Thomson.  London: Swan\nSonnenschein & Co.  1886.","title":"Life and Conduct","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":36114}