Formation of Female Character.
“The foundation of all great character must be laid in a change wrought
upon the heart by Divine influence. We say a change of the heart,
because the qualities which we bring with us into the world can never
be so improved and polished as to lead us to act in the manner which
the Divine law requires. Some of the evil propensities of our nature
may be checked, the force of some passions may be weakened, and that of
others guided into a new direction; but in the change of which we
speak, and which we affirm to be the foundation of all true character,
these passions are extirpated altogether, and the virtues of patience,
self-denial, and fortitude, are implanted in their room.”
JAMES A. WYLIE, LL.D.
_VALUE AND INFLUENCE OF CHARACTER._
It would not be easy to name a question of more vital interest than the
importance of character to the individual and the world. The subject is
peculiarly interesting at present, when, as we apprehend, a new era is
opening on society, in which character shall be more than ever
necessary. By character we mean qualities of soul; as these are noble
or ignoble, so is your character, and so shall be the influence of your
life. When we see a young woman entering upon a career of sin, it is
not the amount of wrong that alarms us most; it is the fact that she is
forming a character which will pursue her through life, and urge her
forward in her evil ways, till rushing headlong down the paths of vice,
she falls at last into hopeless dishonour here and misery hereafter.
When, on the other hand, we see a young woman giving herself to the
cultivation of right dispositions and good principles,—when we see her
consistently subjecting the inferior principles of her nature to
reason, and her lusts and passions to her conscience, and all her
powers to the control of religion and the fear of God,—it is not this
or that particular good thing that pleases us most; it is the fact that
she is forming a character which will become to her like a guardian
angel, bearing her up in the rough places of life, and at last enabling
her to dwell in the purer and happier atmosphere of heaven itself. To
all, as individuals, as parents, as members of a family, and as members
of society in general, there is something of solemn importance in the
fact that none can stand neutral: all must take one of two courses of
life,—the right or the wrong,—the good or the bad,—the true or the
false.
The end of Providence, as a system of moral discipline, is the
formation of character. The ultimate design of all the trials and
disappointments and sorrows, the afflictions bodily and mental,
personal and relative, to which all are subject, and from which none
are exempt, is the restoration of that character which sin has
destroyed. Heaven, as to its substance, consists in the perfection of
character. Mental philosophy renders it a matter of certainty that the
soul possesses an inherent capacity of receiving happiness or enduring
misery to an extent at present wholly inconceivable. Generally
speaking, the powers of your inner nature are asleep during life; but
no sooner shall death have loosed the fetters that now confine them,
than they will awake, never more to slumber or sleep: they will start
up like the fiery whirlwind, and begin their sweep along their mighty
orbit, rendering the path of the spirit one of eternal blackness and
desolation; or they will then move on without let or hindrance in their
path of light and joy, like the white-robed planet of the heavens
around the great source of gravitation.
All those great revolutions by which the world has been extensively and
permanently benefited have been brought about mainly by the influence
of character. Genius has discovered the sciences and perfected the
arts, and these have given us almost unlimited dominion over the world
on which we dwell. So many and so substantial have been the benefits
genius has conferred, that it may seem at first sight as if she had
been the great benefactress of the world. But it is not difficult to
show that the progress of art or science, unless their application be
regulated by sound moral principle, is even dangerous to the world:
they must be either a blessing or a curse, according as they are used
or abused. From a variety of causes, the planting of Christianity in
the world was the hardest task ever assigned to any of the human race.
Alas! mere genius could have done little in that great work. Her
vocation is to shine, and the promulgation of Christianity required
suffering. The first Christians were not distinguished for their
learning or eloquence, but they were endowed with power from on high to
proclaim faithfully and courageously the great facts of which they had
been the eye-witnesses. How manifest it is that we owe the spread of
Christianity, not to _talent_, but to _character_. In the contest which
resulted in the glorious Reformation, mere genius would soon have been
foiled; heroic hardihood of soul, unbounded homage for truth, and
unmeasured contempt for error, were necessary to burst the fetters of
superstition. Talent could detect the errors of the Romish system, lash
the vices of the clergy, and consign the Pope to ever-burning fires;
but character was needed to accomplish the more difficult task of
emancipating Europe. That character is superior to talent is evident
from the maxim, now become trite, that example is better than precept.
It is also more valuable than rank. You may be proud of your pedigree,
and point with imperial gusto to the family crest; but remember that
rank is an accident over which you have no control, and titles will be
felt to be empty things when you lie pining on a bed of sickness. In
the present state of the world, reputation may rank higher than
character, but it should be borne in mind that the former is merely the
symbol of the latter. Maintain your character, be not over-anxious
about your reputation. Character is the woman—reputation is only what
the woman is said to be.
_ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION._
It has been thought by some that all human minds are originally
constituted alike: that as you can move eastward or westward, according
as you choose to set your face in the one direction or the other; so it
depends entirely on the determination of the will in what department of
effort you shall excel. But we need scarcely remark that all children
are not alike precocious, and all adults are not alike capable of
learning and teaching. Original constitution, out of which women as
well as men are made, is infinitely varied. As from a few elements the
endless forms of matter are built up, so out of different proportions
of mental and moral qualities the endless diversities of human
character are formed. In the world of matter, an almost infinitesimally
small portion of foreign substance may quite alter the chemical
character of a compound; and in the world of mind, the smallest excess
or defect in any given faculty or feeling may make all the difference
between the best and the worst, the dullest and the brightest, of
mankind. Some seem to have all the most characteristic elements of
greatness heaped upon their heads, or intensified in their
constitutions; and so they become wonders to the world. Others have
minds so obtuse that none but the plainest elements of knowledge are
attainable by them, and souls so torpid that they are never able to
originate a poetic thought.
If we turn to external nature, we behold endless diversity. How various
the forms of animal life, whether considered in existing species, or
traced back through endless ages to the first dawn of time! In the
mineral kingdom, what forms and hues may we trace, from the diamonds of
royal crowns down to the rocks of the everlasting hills! So in the
vegetable domain. The weed flourishes in the bed of the sea—the moss
on the summits of our highland hills—the lichen amidst the ice and
snow of Nova Zembla—the palm in India—the cedar in Lebanon—and the
pine in Norway. Shall not God’s resources find their amplest
illustration in His last and noblest work—humanity? It is contrary to
all analogy to expect uniformity of faculty or temperament among the
human species. Be it observed, also, that as in the animal kingdom,
structure necessitates function and habit; that as in the mineral
kingdom there are fixed laws which we cannot alter; and that as in the
vegetable kingdom nature determines her own growths: so in the world of
mind, in the formation of character, while God permits moral agency, he
asserts His own sovereignty. We do not believe that you are children of
circumstances, as socialists and fatalists affirm, so that your
character is formed for you, and not by you; still it would be the
utmost folly to deny that circumstances exercise a mighty influence. As
the storms affect the flight of the eagle and the speed of the
steam-ship, but do not determine their course: so your original
constitution influences you, but does not necessarily determine your
character.
_FAMILY CIRCLE._
The discussions which have of late occupied the public mind regarding
the polemics of education, have, we fear, had an injurious influence on
the real progress of education amongst us. Some tell us that it is the
bounden duty of the State to educate the democracy; and others inform
us that the Church of the country is the proper instructress of the
people. Without attempting to expose by facts, or assail in
abstractions, the reasoning of these different classes, we would
remark, that in the world children have to toil, to struggle, to
resist, to endure—to labour long, and to wait patiently for a distant
and even, to a certain extent, precarious result; and the school for
the kind of lore which fits for that is around the domestic hearth.
A powerful influence is exerted by the family circle, in the formation
of character. While all real formation must be self-formation, we
cannot deny the moulding agencies of home life. Indeed the plastic
power of home is so great as to be almost appalling. Home society works
on the very foundations of character, and at no stage of life is social
influence so strong as in youth; and no influence is so powerful as
that of a mother over a daughter. Whence issues that moral influence
which, to the tender mind, is paramount over all formal teaching?
Primarily and supremely from the mother. The histories of all who have
risen above the level of their compeers, shows that the largest and
most potent share of influence lies with the mother. God’s plan of
reforming communities is to train families. When an architect was asked
how he built one of the lofty chimneys which stud some parts of
Lancashire, he replied, “I built it up from within.” Nations are built
up in the same manner. The future mothers of a people are the best
protectresses of a state from moral deteriorations. When every cottage
in our land shall be blest with a well educated female, bearing the
noble distinctions of wife, mother, and Christian! we may hope that the
vilest wanderer will be reclaimed to the sweet bonds of household
allegiance.
“How pleasing,” says Dr. Winter Hamilton, “are the touches of domestic
tenderness and order, which some incidental passage, in a classical
author unfolds, as marking the Roman common life. We are accustomed to
think of it only in its severer forms. We call up before our minds
unrelenting sternness and stoicism. But the parental character was not
despoiled of its nature. It was beheld in the most ardent desire to
train offspring for all social duties. While it assiduously prepared
them for the state, it resigned not that business to it. Thus in the
Adelphi of Terence, the wit of Syrus does not hide from us the paternal
influence in education. ‘_Ut quisque suum vult esse, ita est._’ Nor
does the weakness of Demea conceal the indefatigable earnestness of
that influence:—
‘Nil prætermitto: consuefacio: denique,
Inspicere, tanquam in speculum, in vitas omnium
Jubeo, atque exallis sumere exemplum sibi.’
An education not provided in this manner, an apparatus set up
independently of a popular choice and control, can never be valued as
it must be to be availing.”
We gladly turn from the institutes of man to the ordinances of God. In
the laws of that religion by which Jehovah reigned before His ancient
people gloriously, there is no enactment which dissolves parental
responsibility in the education of children; and none which transfers
it. He spake of the great ancestor of that people the encomium which
contained the germ of their government: “For I know him, that he will
command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep
the way of the law, to do justice and judgment.” This was to be the
rule of transmission. “Teach them thy sons and thy sons’ sons.” “Thou
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thy house.” “He established a testimony in Jacob,
and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that
they should make them known to their children: that the generation to
come might know them, even the children which should be born, who
should arise and declare them to their children.” Not less tender,
distinct, and authoritative is the Christian law: “Ye fathers, provoke
not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord.” “Children, obey your parents in all things:
for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” No one can doubt that the
Bible enjoins on parents the duty of carefully training up their
children, and of making it the grand purpose of this life to prepare
them for heaven.
By a beautiful provision for keeping up the healthy interaction of the
social forces, when the period of adolescence is reached, the
sympathies burst the boundary of the domestic circle, and, through
delicate and often inscrutable affinities, seek objects of attachment
in the outer world. The upper, the middle, and the lower classes, for
various reasons must go out into society. That principles of character
can be imparted is one of the plainest doctrines of the Bible, as well
as one of the commonest facts of human experience. For this express
purpose, all the educative agencies of home, the school, the platform,
the press, and the pulpit, have been instituted, are kept in operation.
The Christian Church was formed by its Divine Head that all those to
whom His words are spirit and life, should impart them to others.
Christianity is a propagandist system, and is designed to revolutionize
not the opinions so much as the ideas and motives of humanity. When we
look at hundreds of girls, in pairs and triads, engaged in incessant
and animated conversation; when we think of the influences under which
their characters are forming, and remember that these characters, in
all probability, will last through life,—we almost shrink back from
the reflection, that here are the mothers of the next generation! If
there is contamination here, the consequences are more disastrous than
we are able to compute. Mutual influence is a law that embraces all
worlds, pervades all the kingdoms of nature, and reaches its climax in
humanity. All the elements and laws of the lower kingdom are summed up
here; and magnetism, affinity, and gravitation find their spiritual
archetypes in the influence of mind on mind. The character is like a
piece of potter’s clay, which when fresh and new, is easily fashioned
according to the will of those into whose hands it falls; but its form
once given, and hardened, either by the slow drying of time, or by its
passage through the ardent furnace of the world, any one may break it
to atoms, but never bend it again to another mould.
To borrow the language of a writer in the _Quarterly Review_: “However
difficult it may be to account philosophically for what is called
_national character_—to explain precisely in what it consists, or how
exactly it is formed—no one will venture to deny that there is such a
thing; some secret influence of climate and soil, combining with the
still more inexplicable peculiarities of the races of men, and which
seems to a considerable degree independent even of education or
individual qualities. The _steady English_, the _wary Scotch_, the
_testy Welsh_, the _volatile French_, the _phlegmatic Dutch_, the
_artistic Italian_, the _solemn Spaniard_,—all these are crowded into
so small a space of the earth’s surface as some twenty degrees of
latitude and longitude; and having most of the essential circumstances
of social influence common to all, yet are each marked with a national
stamp, indelible in natives, and still frequently distinguishable for
two or three generations in families that have migrated into other
countries.” But although in each of the great national circles of
society, we find characteristics which mark it out socially and morally
from others, we must not judge individuals nationally. All the English
are not freighted to the water with stability; nor are all the Scotch
remarkably cautious; nor are the tempers of all the Welsh like
touchwood or tinder; nor are all the French frivolous; nor are all the
Dutch lazy; nor are all the Italians painters; nor are all the
Spaniards distinguished for gravity. Still nations, _as such_, have
their idiosyncrasies, as attested by well authenticated history and by
present facts.
If we narrow the social circle, we find that where association is
closer, characteristics are more distinct. Every religious denomination
has its own features clearly marked and firmly set. In every province,
city, and town, we see the influence of association in the formation of
character. It is illustrated in every circle, from the kitchen of the
maid-servant to the throne of the British queen.
_IMPARTATIVE AND RECEPTIVE ELEMENTS._
All are conscious of a desire to imbue others with their sentiments.
This ambition is always strong in a mind of high intensity. It is the
natural yearning of active powers for appropriate activity—the mind’s
impulse to develope its energies and extend its dominion. Minds that
burn with the fire of genius, or the nobler fires of zeal and love,
cannot repress their energies; but seek to distinguish themselves, and
to influence those with whom they come in contact. There are magnetic
souls that penetrate with their looks, and inspire with their ideas. In
all ages and countries the gentler sex afford illustrations of a desire
to impart themselves and mould others.
What then are those elements,—those sources of power and strength
which are the vital mainsprings in the formation of your character?
Imitation plays an important part in this great work. The same passion
that impels you to seek society, impels you to take part with your
companions in their interests and inclinations. Insensibly you fall
into their customs and manners, adopt their sentiments, their passions,
and even their foibles. This principle is especially active in
children; hence they love to mimic whatever strikes the organ of sense;
and soon as the young idea begins to shoot, and the embryo of the
character to appear, they form themselves unconsciously after the
similitude of those with whom they converse. But for this their
progress would be very slow, and their conformity to persons and things
around them very slight. With this faculty spontaneously active, how
soon they learn to talk, to adopt the peculiarities of others, and copy
the mechanical and other inventions! Now, women are but children of
larger growth, and are mightily influenced by imitation. Follow,
therefore, the example of good women. As the moral virtues constitute
the highest order of human excellence and endowment, copy them wherever
you find them. Theatricals are the legitimate product of imitation.
Shall they be patronized? Undoubtedly they might be so conducted as to
become a great public blessing; but as they are at present managed,
they are undoubtedly a great curse. Still, those who deplore the
influence of the theatre should labour to correct it, rather than seek
to demolish it altogether; for it is founded on a natural element of
the human mind, and must live as long as humanity exists. Destroyed it
can never be, any more than hunger or any other natural or legitimate
product of any other faculty. All that remains is to sanctify and
rightly wield its mighty power for good. Nevertheless, we must express
our unequivocal disapproval of the theatre as now conducted, and warn
you especially against it.
There is in human nature a strong tendency to sympathise with others in
their modes of thought and feeling. All know something about the
readiness with which the act of yawning is induced in a company if a
single person begins to yawn; the facility with which hysterical
convulsions are induced in a female hospital ward by a single case; the
fascination of its prey by the serpent, apparently by the power of the
eyes; the similar power exerted by so-called electro-biologists and
mesmerists, and by which some can control even the fiercest carnivora.
Sympathy is a mighty power, and may aid you mightily in the formation
of your character. In no country is it more deeply felt than our own,
where a free press, free speech, and free association, are in full
operation. Just as matter has a tendency to conform to the temperature
of surrounding matter, so mind has a tendency to cool or kindle with
surrounding minds. An effort to benefit others operates beneficially
upon those who put it forth; thus proving that people cannot be made a
blessing to others without enjoying an enlarged blessing themselves.
The great events of life, which stir the deepest feelings of the human
heart—birth, marriage, death—occur in every household, lighting up
with a common joy, or involving in the shadow of a common gloom, the
palace and the cottage alike. “One touch of nature makes the whole
world kin.” How near does our beloved queen seem to be to the poorest
widow in the land, now that, amid all the pomp of her royalty and the
splendour of her unrivalled station, she is suffering from the painful
sense of her great bereavement. Moreover, the heart of the country at
once thrills with sympathy when tidings are heard of some great
disaster, that has brought death to many, and desolation and misery to
more; though they may be the poorest of the poor, and dwellers in some
far-off land. It is not more true, however, that we weep with those who
weep, than that we rejoice with those who rejoice. There is a charm in
general gladness that steals upon us without our perceiving it; and if
we have no cause of sorrow, it is sufficient for our momentary
happiness that we be in the company of the happy.
We would now direct your attention to habit—one of the most obvious
and important elements in the formation of character. Its influence is
felt in every sphere of your activity, its power extends to every
faculty of your nature, and affects your personal, social, civil, and
religious thought, feeling, and conduct. The nature of habit may be
considered in two lights: first, an ease and excellence in doing a
thing from having done it frequently; and secondly, a disposition to
perform certain actions in the same way as you have done them before.
Habit is thus the specific law of repetition. Dr. Reid explains the law
of association by that of habit, and thus ascribes the effect of habit
to a peculiar ultimate principle of the mind. He says, “That the trains
of thinking, which, by frequent repetition, have become familiar,
should spontaneously offer themselves to our fancy, seems to require no
other original quality but the power of habit.” To this error, which
others have fallen into, Sir W. Hamilton’s reply is unanswerable: “We
can as well explain habit by association, as association by habit.” The
first form of the influence of habit, then, which we have to consider,
is that by which it occasions greater facility and skill in the
performance of particular actions. In the lower animals, habits arise
from the force of mere instinct, and, properly speaking, are not
acquired by repetition. The bee builds its first cell, and gathers
honey from the first flower, as easily and as well as at any future
period. The bird selects the same material for its first nest that it
selects for its last, and constructs it in the same sort of place, and
of the same shape; and all as perfectly and easily the first time as
ever afterwards. The beaver fells his first tree, and makes his first
dam, with as little difficulty and as much skill as in any after period
of his life. You have much more of reason than of instinct, and
consequently acquire habits by repetition. Having chosen a certain
course of action, you find that as you proceed you get on better, and
that what was at first difficult, in course of time becomes easy. The
pianist, sweeping the keys of her instrument, and emitting melodious
notes and melting harmony; the rope-dancer, performing her wondrous
feats, and keeping the exact point of equilibrium and graceful
attitude, are illustrations—not so much of native talent, as of the
degree to which habit may be developed. The second kind of influence
which habit exercises, is a tendency to repeat the same actions under
the same circumstances. Dr. Brown thus illustrates the power of
indulged habit: “In the corruption of a great city, it is scarcely
possible to look around, without perceiving some warning example of
that blasting and deadening influence, before which, everything that
was generous and benevolent in the heart has withered, while everything
which was noxious has flourished with more rapid maturity; like those
plants which can extend their roots, indeed, even in pure soil, and
fling out a few leaves amid balmy airs and odours, but which burst out
in all their luxuriance only from a soil that is fed with constant
putrescency, and in an atmosphere which it is poison to inhale. It is
not vice—not cold and insensible and contented vice, that has never
known any better feelings—which we view with melancholy regret. It is
virtue—at least what was once virtue—that has yielded progressively
and silently to an influence, scarcely perceived, till it has become
the very thing it abhorred. Nothing can be more just than the picture
of this sad progress described in the well-known lines of Pope:
‘Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.’
“In the slow progress of some insidious disease, which is scarcely
regarded by its cheerful and unconscious victim, it is mournful to mark
the smile of gaiety as it plays over that very bloom, which is not the
freshness of health, but the flushing of approaching mortality; amid
studies, perhaps, just opening into intellectual excellence, and hopes
and plans of generous ambition that are never to be fulfilled. But how
much more painful is it to behold that equally insidious and far more
desolating progress with which guilty passion steals upon the heart,
when there is still sufficient virtue to feel remorse and to sigh at
the remembrance of purer years, but not sufficient to throw off the
guilt which is felt to be oppressive, and to return to that purity in
which it would again, in its bitter moments, gladly take shelter, if
only it had energy to vanquish the almost irresistible habits that
would tear it back.
‘Crimes lead to greater crimes, and link so straight,
What first was _accident_, at last is _fate_:
The unhappy servant sinks into a slave,
And virtue’s last sad strugglings cannot save.’
“We must not conceive, however, that habit is powerful only in
strengthening what is _evil_—though it is this sort of operation
which, of course, forces itself more upon our observation and memory,
like the noontide darkness of the tempest, that is remembered when the
calm and the sunshine and the gentle shower are forgotten. There can be
no question that the same principle which confirms and aggravates what
is evil, strengthens and cherishes also what is good. The virtuous,
indeed, do not require the influence of habitual benevolence or
devotion to force them, as it were, to new acts of kindness to man, or
to new sentiments of gratitude to God. But the temptations to which
even virtue might sometimes be in danger of yielding, in the
commencement of its delightful progress, become powerless and free from
peril when that progress is more advanced. There are spirits which,
even on earth, are elevated above that little scene of mortal ambition
with which their benevolent wishes for the sufferers there are the
single tie that connects them still. All with them is serenity; the
darkness and the storm are beneath them. They have only to look down
with generous sympathy on those who have not yet risen so high; and to
look up with gratitude to that heaven which is above their head, and
which is almost opening to receive them.” You must form habits of one
kind or another; but you can choose what your habits are to be. We
rejoice that at the present time there is much to cheer and encourage.
Reformatories, the extension of education among the lower classes,
Sunday schools, cheap and healthy literature, interesting lectures on
instructive themes addressed to the million—all these are centres
whence radiate powerful aids to the formation of great and noble
character.
_TWOFOLD OPERATION OF MIND._
The incontestable, although inexplicable, deliverance of consciousness
is, that there are two great movements which take place within the
mind—the one spontaneous, and the other reflex; the one movement
prompted only by the native activity of the mind itself, and the other
the movement of the will. Now, those who push their phrenology into
materialism, having discovered that the tendencies to peculiar modes of
thought and peculiar modes of action are to some extent dependent upon
bodily organization, are not slow to tell us that their characters are
formed for them, not by them. But this reasoning completely overlooks
the fact that they have got a rational will, armed with complete power
to control and regulate these tendencies; therefore it is altogether
illogical. Even were we to admit that the mental spontaneity is
directly influenced by the bodily organization, the asserted
consequence would by no means follow. For just as the farmer can plough
and sow and harrow, and thus subordinate the spontaneity of nature, and
direct that power into the useful channel of producing food, instead of
the useless channel of producing briers and thorns, so you can modify,
control, and regulate the spontaneity of the mind. Experience teaches
you that you can break the threads of the web of thought, arrest the
procession of the grand and beautiful, and throw discord into harmony:
and where power exists, there exists responsibility.
We say, then, that in the concession we have made of a spontaneity
directly influenced by material organization, there is no proof
whatever that you are not accountable both for your belief and your
actions; because consciousness teaches you that above and beyond every
such influence there presides reason, and there exists a will. This
important subject is most admirably discussed in a small pamphlet by
Professor Martin, of Aberdeen, entitled, “Creed and Circumstance.” To
adopt the well-chosen words of the professor: “May the day soon come
when it shall be deemed of as great importance to the wellbeing of
society that the laws of that chemistry, of which the human mind is the
laboratory, shall be the subject of instruction, as the laws of that
other chemistry whose laboratory is the world. Enough, however, is it
for us at present, that in the domain, both of the material and the
mental, there is ample scope for the highest energies and the most
enlightened reason.”
It is peculiarly desirable that this subject be insisted upon. The work
of individual self-formation is a duty not only to yourselves and your
immediate relations, but to your fellow-creatures at large. On the use
you make of your early energies; the conduct of your intellect, when it
is capable of the most vigorous action; the discipline of your heart,
when it is susceptible of the most lively impressions, will mainly
depend what you shall henceforth be. This will involve much sacrifice,
yea, lifelong struggle; yet we venture to press the demand. Should you
never rise higher in society, you have already gained an honoured and
holy position. You carry with you a blessed charm to lighten toil, to
assuage affliction, to purify attachment, to conquer death. Yon have
trained yourself in the way in which you should go, and when you are
old you will not depart from it. Sisters, have you courage for the
conflict? For in the Divine order, fighting precedes victory, and
labour goes before reward.
“’Tis first the true, and then the beautiful;
Not first the beautiful, and then the true;
First the wild moor, with rock and reed and pool;
Then the gay garden, rich in scent and hue.
’Tis first the good, and then the beautiful;
Not first the beautiful, and then the good;
First the rough seed, sown in the rougher soil,
Then the flower-blossom, and the branching wood.
Not first the glad, and then the sorrowful;
But first the sorrowful, and then the glad;
Tears for a day—for earth of tears is full—
Then we forget that we were ever sad.
’Tis first the fight, and then the victory;
Not first the victory, and then the fight;
The long dark night, and then the dawning day,
Which ushers in the everlasting light.”