E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, David Newman, Cori Samuel, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team from page images
generously made available by the Internet Archive Children's Library and
the University of California Library (Davis)
Note: Images of the original pages are available through the Internet
Archive Children's Library. See
http://www.archive.org/details/UF00002046
Images of pages 244-284 were kindly provided by Special Collections
at the University of California Library (Davis)
THE YOUNG LADY'S MENTOR
A Guide to the Formation of Character.
In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends
by
A LADY.
Philadelphia:
H.C. Peck & Theo. Bliss.
1852
PREFACE
The work which forms the basis of the present volume is one of the most
original and striking which has fallen under the notice of the editor.
The advice which it gives shows a remarkable knowledge of human
character, and insists on a very high standard of female excellence.
Instead of addressing herself indiscriminately to all young ladies, the
writer addresses herself to those whom she calls her "Unknown Friends,"
that is to say, a class who, by natural disposition and education, are
prepared to be benefited by the advice which she offers. "Unless a
peculiarity of intellectual nature and habits constituted them friends,"
she says in her preface, "though unknown ones, of the writer, most of
the observations contained in the following pages would be
uninteresting, many of them altogether unintelligible."
She continues: "That advice is useless which is not founded upon a
knowledge of the character of those to whom it is addressed: even were
the attempt made to follow such advice, it could not be successful."
"The writer has therefore neither hope nor wish of exercising any
influence over the minds of those who are not her 'Unknown Friends.'
There may, indeed, be a variety in the character of these friends; for
almost all the following Letters are addressed to different persons; but
the general intellectual features are always supposed to be the same,
however the moral ones may differ."
"One word more must be added. All of the rules and systems recommended
in these Letters have borne the test of long-tried and extensive
experience. There is nothing new about them but their publication."
The plan of the writer of the Letters enables her to give specific and
practical advice, applicable to particular cases, and entering into
lively details; whereas, a more general work would have compelled her to
confine herself to vague generalities, as inoperative as they are
commonplace.
The intelligent reader will readily appreciate and cordially approve of
the writer's plan, as well as the happy style in which it is executed.
To the "Letters to Unknown Friends" which are inserted entire, the
editor has added, as a suitable pendant, copious extracts from that
excellent work, "Woman's Mission," and some able papers by Lord Jeffrey,
the late accomplished editor of the Edinburgh Review.
Thus composed, the editor submits the work to the fair readers of
America, trusting that it will be found a useful and unexceptionable
"Young Lady's Mentor."
Contents
Contentment 7
Temper 31
Falsehood and Truthfulness 52
Envy 61
Selfishness and Unselfishness 74
Self-Control 93
Economy 117
The Cultivation of the Mind 137, 164
Amusements 193
The Influence of Women on Society 218
The Sphere of Woman's Influence 227
Education of Women 233
Love--Marriage 244
Literary Capabilities of Women 256
Ennui, and the Desire to be Fashionable 267
The Influence of Personal Character 270
On the Means of Securing Personal Influence 276
LETTER I.
CONTENTMENT.
It is, perhaps, only the young who can be very hopefully addressed on
the present subject. A few years hence, and your habits of mind will be
unalterably formed; a few years hence, and your struggle against a
discontented spirit, even should you be given grace to attempt it, would
be a perpetually wearisome and discouraging one. The penalty of past sin
will pursue you until the end, not only in the pain caused by a
discontented habit of mind, but also in the consciousness of its
exceeding sinfulness.
Every thought that rebels against the law of God involves its own
punishment in itself, by contributing to the establishment of habits
that increase tenfold the difficulties to which a sinful nature exposes
us.
Discontent is in this, perhaps, more dangerous than many other sins,
being far less tangible: unless we are in the constant habit of
exercising strict watchfulness over our thoughts, it is almost
insensibly that they acquire an habitual tendency to murmuring and
repining.
This is particularly to be feared in a person of your disposition. Many
of your volatile, thoughtless, worldly-minded companions, destitute of
all your holier feelings, living without object or purpose in life, and
never referring to the law of God as a guide for thought or action, may
nevertheless manifest a much more contented disposition than your own,
and be apparently more submissive to the decision of your Creator as to
the station of life in which you have each been placed.
To account for their apparent superiority over you on this point, it
must be remembered that it is one of the dangerous responsibilities
attendant on the best gifts of God,--that if not employed according to
his will, they turn to the disadvantage of the possessor.
Your powers of reflection, your memory, your imagination, all calculated
to provide you with rich sources of gratification if exercised in proper
directions, will turn into curses instead of blessings if you do not
watchfully restrain that exercise within the sphere of duty. The natural
tendency of these faculties is, to employ themselves on forbidden
ground, for "every imagination of man's heart is evil continually." It
is thus that your powers of reflection may only serve to give you a
deeper and keener insight into the disadvantages of your position in
life; and trivial circumstances, unpleasant probabilities, never dwelt
on for a moment by the gay and thoughtless, will with you acquire a
serious and fatal importance, if you direct towards them those powers of
reasoning and concentrated thought which were given to you for far
different purposes.
And while, on the one hand, your memory, if you allow it to acquire the
bad habits against which I am now warning you, will be perpetually
refreshing in your mind vivid pictures of past sorrows, wrongs, and
annoyances: your imagination, at the same time, will continually present
to you, under the most exaggerated forms, and in the most striking
colours, every possible unpleasantness that is likely to occur in the
future. You may thus create for yourself a life apart, quite distinct
from the real one, depriving yourself by wilful self-injury of the power
of enjoying whatever advantages, successes, and pleasures, your heavenly
Father may think it safe for you to possess.
Happiness, as far as it can be obtained in the path of duty, is a duty
in itself, and an important one: without that degree of happiness which
most people may secure for themselves, independent of external
circumstances, neither health, nor energy, nor cheerfulness can be
forthcoming to help us through the task of our daily duties.
It is indeed true, that, under the most favourable circumstances, the
thoughtful will never enjoy so much as others of that which is now
generally understood by the word happiness. Anxieties must intrude upon
them which others know nothing of: the necessary business of life, to be
as well executed as they ought to execute it, must at times force down
their thoughts to much that is painful for the present and anxious for
the future. They cannot forget the past, as the light-hearted do, or
life would bring them no improvement; but the same difficulties and
dangers would be rushed into heedlessly to-morrow, that were experienced
yesterday, and forgotten to-day; and not only past difficulties and
dangers are remembered, but sorrows too: these they cannot, for they
would not, forget.
In the contemplation of the future also, they must exercise their
imagination as well as their reason, for the discovery of those evils
and dangers which such foresight may enable them to guard against: all
this kind of thoughtfulness is their wisdom as well as their instinct;
which makes it more difficult for them than it is for others to fulfil
the reverse side of the duty, and to "be careful for nothing."[1]
To your strong mind, however, a difficulty will be a thing to be
overcome, and you may, if you only will it, be prudent and sagacious,
far-sighted and provident, without dwelling for a moment longer than
such duties require on the unpleasantnesses, past, present, and future,
of your lot in life.
Having thus seen in what respects your superiority of mind is likely to
detract from your happiness, in the point of the colouring given by your
thoughts to your life, let us, on the other hand, consider how this same
superiority may be so directed as to make your thoughts contribute to
your happiness, instead of detracting from it.
I spoke first of your reasoning powers. Let them not be exercised only
in discovering the dangers and disadvantages likely to attend your
peculiar position in life; let them rather be directed to discover the
advantages of those very features of your lot which are most opposed to
your natural inclinations. Consider, in the first place, what there may
be to reconcile you to the secluded life you so unwillingly lead.
Withdrawn, indeed, you are from society,--from the delightful
intercourse of refined and intellectual minds: you hear of such
enjoyments at a distance; you hear of their being freely granted to
those who cannot appreciate them as you could, (safely granted to them
for perhaps this very reason.) You have no opportunity of forming those
friendships, so earnestly desired by a young and enthusiastic mind; of
admiring, even at a reverential distance, "emperors of thought and
hand." But then, as a compensation, you ought to consider that you are,
at the same time, freed from those intrusions which wear away the time,
and the spirits, and the very powers of enjoyment, of those who are
placed in a more public position than your own. When you do, at rare
intervals, enjoy any intercourse with congenial minds, it has for you a
pleasurable excitement, a freshness of delight, which those who mix much
and habitually in literary and intellectual society have long ceased to
enjoy: while the powers of your own mind are preserving all that
originality and energy for which no intellectual experience can
compensate, you are saved the otherwise perhaps inevitable danger of
adopting, parrot-like, the tastes and opinions of others who may indeed
be your superiors, but who, in a copy, become wretchedly inferior to
your real self. Time you have, too, to cultivate your mind in such a
manner, and to such a degree, as may fit you to grace any society of
the kind I have described; while those who are early and constantly
engaged in this society are often obliged, from mere want of this
precious possession, to copy others, and resign all identity and
individuality. To you, nobly free as you are from the vice of envy, I
may venture to suggest another consideration, viz. the far greater
influence you possess in your present small sphere of intellectual
intercourse, than if you were mixed up with a crowd of others, most of
them your equals, many your superiors.
If you have few opportunities of forming friendships, those few are
tenfold more valuable than many acquaintance, among a crowd of whom,
whatever merits you or they might possess, little time could be spared
to discover, or experimentally appreciate them. The one or two friends
whom you now love, and know yourself beloved by, might, in more exciting
and busy scenes, have gone on meeting you for years without discovering
the many bonds of sympathy which now unite you. In the seclusion you so
much deplore, they and you have been given time to "deliberate, choose,
and fix:" the conclusion of the poet will probably be equally
applicable,--you will "then abide till death."[2] Such friends are
possessions rare and valuable enough to make amends to you for any
sacrifices by which they have been acquired.
Another of your grievances, one which presses the more heavily on those
of graceful tastes, refined habits, and generous impulses, is the very
small proportion of this world's goods which has fallen to your lot.
You are perpetually obliged to deny yourself in matters of taste, of
self-improvement, of charity. You cannot procure the books, the
paintings, you wish for--the instruction which you so earnestly desire,
and would so probably profit by. Above all, your eyes are pained by the
sight of distress you cannot relieve; and you are thus constantly
compelled to control and subdue the kindest and warmest impulses of your
generous nature. The moral benefits of this peculiar species of trial
belong to another part of my subject: the present object is to find out
the most favourable point of view in which to contemplate the
unpleasantness of your lot, merely with relation to your temporal
happiness. Look, then, around you; and, even in your own limited sphere
of observation, it cannot but strike you, that those who derive most
enjoyment from objects of taste, from books, paintings, &c., are exactly
those who are situated as you are, who cannot procure them at will. It
is certain that there is something in the difficulty of attainment which
adds much to the preciousness of the objects we desire; much, too, in
the rareness of their bestowal. When, after long waiting, and by means
of prudent management, it is at last within your power to make some
long-desired object your own, does it not bestow much greater pleasure
than it does on those who have only to wish and to have?
In matters of charity this is still more strikingly true--the pleasure
of bestowing ease and comfort on the poor and distressed is enhanced
tenfold by the consciousness of having made some personal sacrifice for
its attainment. The rich, those who give of their superfluities, can
never fully appreciate what the pleasures of almsgiving really are.
Experience teaches that the necessity of scrupulous economy is the very
best school in which those who are afterwards to be rich can be
educated. Riches always bring their own peculiar claims along with them;
and unless a correct estimate is early formed of the value of money and
the manner in which it can be laid out to the best advantage, you will
never enjoy the comforts and tranquillity which well-managed riches can
bestow. It is much to be doubted whether any one can skilfully manage
large possessions, unless, at some period or other of life, they have
forced themselves, or been forced, to exercise self-denial, and
resolutely given up all those expenses the indulgence of which would
have been imprudent. Those who indiscriminately gratify every taste for
expense the moment it is excited, can never experience the comforts of
competency, though they may have the name of wealth and the reality of
its accompanying cares.
Still further, let your memory and imagination be here exercised to
assist in reconciling you to your present lot. Can you not remember a
time when you wanted money still more than you do now?--when you had a
still greater difficulty in obtaining the things you reasonably desire?
To those who have acquired the art of contentment, the present will
always seem to have some compensating advantage over the past, however
brighter that past may appear to others. This valuable art will bring
every hidden object gradually into light, as the dawning day seems to
waken into existence those objects which had before been unnoticed in
the darkness.
Lastly, your imagination, well employed, will make use of your partial
knowledge of other people's affairs to picture to you how much worse off
many of those are,--how much worse off you might yourself be. You, for
instance, can still accomplish much by the aid of self-denial; while
many, with hearts as warm in charities, as overflowing as your own, have
not more to give than the "cup of cold water," that word of mercy and
consolation.
You may still further, perhaps, complain that you have no object of
exciting interest to engage your attention, and develop your powers of
labour, and endurance, and cleverness. Never has this trial been more
vividly described than in the well-remembered lines of a modern poet:--
"She was active, stirring, all fire--
Could not rest, could not tire--
To a stone she had given life!
--For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife,
Never in all the world such a one!
And here was plenty to be done,
And she that could do it, great or small,
She was to do nothing at all."[3]
This wish for occupation, for influence, for power even, is not only
right in itself, but the unvarying accompaniment of the consciousness of
high capabilities. It may, however, be intended that these cravings
should be satisfied in a different way, and at a different time, from
that which your earthly thoughts are now desiring. It may be that the
very excellence of the office for which you are finally destined
requires a greater length of preparation than that needful for ordinary
duties and ordinary trials. At present, you are resting in peace,
without any anxious cares or difficult responsibilities, but you know
not how soon the time may come that will call forth and strain to the
utmost your energies of both mind and body. You should anxiously make
use of the present interval of repose for preparation, by maturing your
prudence, strengthening your decision, acquiring control over your own
temper and your own feelings, and thus fitting yourself to control
others.
Or are you, on the contrary, wasting the precious present time in vain
repinings, in murmurings that weaken both mind and body, so that when
the hour of trial comes you will be entirely unfitted to realize the
beautiful ideal of the poet?--
"A perfect woman, nobly plann'd
To warn, to counsel, to command:
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill."[4]
Then, again, I would ask you to make use of your powers of reflection
and memory. Reflect what trials and difficulties are, in the common
course of events, likely to assail you; remember former difficulties,
former days or weeks of trial, when all your now dormant energies were
developed and strained to the utmost. You felt then the need of much
greater powers of mind and body than those which you now complain are
lying dormant and useless. Further imagine the future cases that may
occur in which every natural and acquired faculty may be employed for
the great advantage of those who are dear to you, and when you will
experience that this long interval of repose and preparation was
altogether needful.
Such reflections, memories, and imaginations must, however, be carefully
guarded, lest, instead of reconciling you to the apparent uselessness of
your present life, they should contribute to increase your discontent.
This they might easily do, even though such reflections and memories
related only to trials and difficulties, instead of contemplating the
pleasures and the importance of responsibilities. To an ardent nature
like yours, trials themselves, even severe ones, which would exercise
the powers of your mind and the energies of your character, would be
more welcome than the tame, uniform life you at present lead.
The considerations above recommended can, therefore, be only safely
indulged in connection with, and secondary to, a most vigilant and
conscientious examination into the truth of one of your principal
complaints, viz. that you have to do, like the Duke's wife, "nothing at
all."[5] You may be "seeking great things" to do, and consequently
neglecting those small charities which "soothe, and heal, and bless."
Listen to the words of a great teacher of our own day: "The situation
that has not duty, its _ideal_, was never yet occupied by man. Yes,
here, in this poor, miserable, pampered, despised actual, wherein thou
even now standest, here, or nowhere, is thy _ideal_; work it out,
therefore, and, working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the ideal is in
thyself; the impediment, too, is in thyself: thy condition is but the
stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of--what matters whether the
stuff be of this sort or of that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be
poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the actual, and criest
bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this
of a truth,--the thing thou seekest is already with thee, 'here, or
nowhere,' couldst thou only see."
When you examine the above assertions by the light of Scripture, can you
contradict their truth?
Let us, however, ascend to a still higher point of view. Have we not
all, under every imaginable circumstance, a work mighty and difficult
enough to develope our strongest energies, to engage our deepest
interests? Have we not all to "work out our own salvation with fear and
trembling?"[6] Professing to believe, as we do, that the discipline of
every day is ordered by Infinite Love and Infinite Wisdom, so as best to
assist us in this awfully important task, can we justly complain of any
mental void, of any inadequacy of occupation, in any of the situations
of life?
The only work that can fully satisfy an immortal spirit's cravings for
excitement is the work appointed for each of us. It is one, too, that
has no intervals of repose, far less of languor or _ennui_; the labour
it demands ought never to cease, the intense and engrossing interest it
excites can never vary or lessen in importance. The alternative is a
more awful one than human mind can yet conceive: those who have not
fulfilled their appointed work, those who have not, through the merits
of Christ, obtained the "holiness without which no man shall see the
Lord,"[7] "must depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and
his angels."[8]
With a hell to avoid, and a heaven to obtain, do you murmur for want of
interest, of occupation!
In the words of the old story, "Look below on the earth, and then above
in heaven:" remember that your only business here is to get there; then,
instead of repining, you will be thankful that no great temporal work is
given you to do which might, as too often happens, distract your
attention and your labours from the attainment of life eternal. Having
been once convinced of the awful and engrossing importance of this "one
thing" we have to "do,"[9] you will see more easily how many minor
duties may be appointed you to fulfil, on a path that before seemed a
useless as well as an uninteresting one. For you would have now learned
to estimate the small details of daily life, not according to their
insignificance, not as they may influence your worldly fate, but as they
may have a tendency to mould your spirit into closer conformity to the
image of the Son.[10] You will now no longer inquire whether you have
any work to do which you might yourself consider suitable to your
capabilities and energies; but whether there is within your reach any,
the smallest, humblest work of love, contemned or unobserved before,
when you were more proud and less vigilant.
Look, then, with prayer and watchfulness into all the details of your
daily life, and you will assuredly find much formerly-unnoticed "stuff,"
out of which "your ideal" may be wrought.
You may, for instance, have no opportunity of teaching on an enlarged
scale, or even of taking a class at a Sunday-school, or of instructing
any of your poor neighbours in reading or in the word of God. Such
labours of love may, it is possible, though not probable, be shut out of
your reach: if, however, you are on the watch for opportunities, (and we
are best made quick-sighted to their occurrence in the course of the
day, by the morning's earnest prayer for their being granted to us,) you
may be able to help your fellow-pilgrims Zion-ward in a variety of small
ways. "A word in season, how good is it!" the mere expression of
religious sympathy has often cheered and refreshed the weary traveller
on his perhaps difficult and lonely way. A verse of Scripture, a hymn
taught to a child, only the visitor of a day, has often been blessed by
God to the great spiritual profit of the child so taught. Are not even
such small works of love within your reach?
Again, with respect to family duties, I know that in some cases, when
there are many to fulfil such duties, it is a more necessary and often a
more difficult task to refrain altogether from interfering in them. They
ought to be allowed to serve as a safety-valve for the energies of those
members of the family who have no other occupations: of these there will
always be some in a large domestic circle. Without, however,
interfering actively and habitually, which it may not be your duty to
do, are you always ready to help when you are asked, and to take trouble
willingly upon yourself, when the excitement and the credit of the
arrangement will belong exclusively to others? This is a good sign of
the humility and lovingness of your spirit: how is the test borne?
Further, you may complain that your conversation is not valued, and that
therefore you have no excitement to exertion for the amusement of
others; that your cheerfulness and good temper under sorrows and
annoyances are of no consequence, as you are not considered of
sufficient importance for any display of feeling to attract attention.
When I hear such complaints, and they are not unfrequent from the
younger members of large families, I have little doubt that the sting in
all these murmurs is infixed by their pride. They assure me, at the same
time, that if there was any one to care much about it, to watch
anxiously whether they were vexed or pleased, they would be able to
exercise the strictest control over their feelings and temper,--and I
believe it, for here their pride and their affection would both come to
the assistance of duty. What God requires of us, however, is its
fulfilment when all these things are against us. The effort to control
grief, to conceal depression, to conquer ill-temper, will be a far more
acceptable offering in his eyes, when they alone are expected to witness
it. That which now his eyes alone see will one day be proclaimed upon
the housetop.[11]
I must, besides, remind you that your proud spirit may deceive you when
it suggests, that because your sadness or your ill-humour attracts no
expressed notice or excites no efforts to remove it, it does not
therefore affect those around you. This is not the case; even the gloom
and ill-humour of a servant, who only remains a few minutes in
attendance, will be depressing and annoying to the most unobservant
master and mistress, though they might make no efforts to remove it. How
much more, then, may your want of cheerfulness and sweet temper affect,
though it may be insensibly, the peace of your family circle. Here you
are again seeking great things for yourself, and neglecting your
appointed work, because it does not to you appear sufficiently worthy of
your high capabilities. Your proud spirit needs being humbled, and
therefore, probably, it is that you will not be allowed to do great
things. No, you must first learn the less agreeable task of doing small
things, of doing what would perhaps be called easy things by those who
have never tried them. To wear a contented look when you know that,
perhaps, the effort will not be observed, certainly not appreciated,--to
take submissively the humblest part in the conversation, and still bear
cheerfully that part,--to bear with patience every hasty word that may
be spoken, and so to forget it that your future conduct may be
uninfluenced by it,--to remove every difficulty, the removal of which is
within your reach, without expecting that the part you have taken will
be acknowledged or even observed,--to be always ready with your
sympathy, encouragement, and counsel, however scornfully they may have
before been rejected; these are all acts of self-renunciation which are
peculiarly fitted to a woman's sphere of duty, and have a direct
tendency to cherish the difficult and excellent grace of humility; they
may, however, help to foster rather than to subdue a spirit of
discontent, if they are performed from a motive of obtaining any, even
the most exalted, human approbation. They must be done to God alone, and
then the promise is sure, "thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward
thee openly."[12] Thus, too, the art of contentment may be much more
easily learnt. Disappointment will surely sour your temper if you look
forward to human appreciation of a self-denying habit of life; but when
the approbation of God is the object sought for, no neglect from others
can excite discontent or much regret. For here there can be no
disappointment: that which comes to us through the day has all been
decreed by him, and as it must therefore give us opportunities of
fulfilling his will, and gaining his approbation, we must necessarily
"be content."
It must, indeed, be always owing to some deficiency in religious
principle, that one discontented thought is suffered to dwell in the
mind. If our heart and our treasure were in heaven,[13] should we be
easily excited to regret and irritation about the inconveniences of our
position on earth? If we sought "first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness,"[14] should we have so much energy remaining to waste on
petty worldly annoyances? If we obeyed the injunction, "have faith in
God," should we daily and hourly, by our sinful murmuring, imply such
doubts of the divine attributes of wisdom, love, and power? This is a
want of faith you do not manifest towards men. You would trust yourself
fearlessly to the care of some earthly physician; you would believe that
he understood how to adapt his strengthening or lowering remedies to
each varying feature of your case; you would even provide yourself with
remedies, which, on the faith of his skill, you would trustingly use to
meet every symptom that might arise on future occasions. But when the
Great Physician manifests a still greater watchfulness to adapt his
daily discipline to your varying temper and the different stages of your
Christian growth, you murmur--you believe not in his wisdom as you do in
that of the sons of earth.
Do not, then, take his wisdom on faith alone; you must indeed believe,
you must believe or perish; but it may be as yet too difficult a lesson
for you to believe against sense, against feeling. What I would urge
upon you is, to strengthen your weak faith by the lessons of experience,
to seek anxiously, and to pray to be enabled to see distinctly, the
peculiar manner in which each trial of your daily lot is adapted to your
own individual case.
I do not speak now of great trials, of such afflictions as crush the
sufferer in the dust. When the hand of God is so plainly seen, it is
comparatively easy to submit, and his Holy Spirit, ever fulfilling the
promise "as thy day is, so shall thy strength be,"[15] sometimes makes
the riven heart strong to bear that which, in prospective, it dares not
even contemplate. You, however, have had no trial of this nature; yours
are the petty irritations, the small vexations which "smart more because
they hold in Holy Writ no place."[16] Even at more peaceful times, when
you can contemplate with resignation the general features of your lot in
life, you cannot subdue your spirit to patience under the hourly varying
annoyances and temptations with which you are beset. The peculiar
sensitiveness of your disposition, your affectionate, generous nature,
your refinement of mind, and quick tact, all expose you to suffer more
severely than others from the selfishness, the coarse-mindedness, the
bluntness of perception of those around you. You often say, in the
bitterness of your heart, Any other trial but this I could have borne;
every other chastisement would have been light in comparison. But why
have you so little faith? Why do you not see that it is because all
these petty trials are so severe to you, therefore are they sent? All
these amiable qualities that I have enumerated, and the love which they
win for you, would make you admire and value yourself too much, unless
your system were reduced, so to speak, by a series of petty but
continued annoyances. As I said before, you must seek to strengthen your
faith by tracing the close connection between these annoyances and the
"needs be" for them. It is probably exactly at the time when you are too
much elated by praise and admiration that you are sent some
counterbalancing annoyance, or perhaps suffered to fall into some fault
of temper which will lessen you in your own eyes, as well as in those of
others. You are often troubled by some annoyance, too, when you have
blamed others for being too easily overcome by an annoyance of the very
same kind. "Stand upon" an anxious "watch," and you will see how
constantly severe judgments of others are punished by falling ourselves
into temptations similar to those which we had treated as light ones
when sitting in judgment upon others. If you would acquire the habit of
exercising faith with respect to the smallest details of your every-day
life, by such faith the light itself might be won, and your eyes be
opened to see how wondrously all things, even those which appear the
most needlessly worrying, are made to work together for your good.[17]
These are, however, but the first lessons in the school of faith, the
first steps on the road which leads to "rest in God."
Severer trials are hastening onward, for which your present petty trials
are serving as a preparatory discipline. According to the manner in
which these are met and supported, will be your patience in the hour of
deep darkness and bitter desolation. Waste not one of your present petty
sorrows: let them all, by the help of prayer, and watchfulness, and
self-control, work their appointed work in your soul. Let them lead you
each day more and more trustingly to "cast all your care upon Him who
careth for you."[18] In the present hours of tranquillity and calm, let
the light and infrequent storms, the passing clouds that disturb your
peace, serve as warnings to you to find a sure refuge before the clouds
of affliction become so heavy, and its storms so violent, that there
will be no power of seeking a haven of security. That must be sought and
found in seasons of comparative peace. Though the agonized soul may
finally, through the waves of sorrow, make its way into the ark, its
long previous struggles, and its after harrowing doubts and fears, will
shatter it nearly to pieces before it finds a final refuge. It may,
indeed, by the free grace of God, be saved at the last, but during the
remainder of its earthly pilgrimage there is no hope for it of joy and
peace in believing.
But when the hour of earthly desolation comes to those who have long
acknowledged the special providence of God in "all the dreary
intercourse of daily life," "they knew in whom they have believed,"[19]
and no storms can shake that faith. They know from experience that all
things work together for good to them that love God. In the loving,
child-like confidence of long-tried and now perfecting faith, they are
enabled to say from the depths of their heart, "It is the Lord, let him
do what seemeth him good."[20] They seek not now to ascertain the "needs
be" for this particular trial. It might harrow up their human heart too
much to trace the details of sorrows such as these, in the manner in
which they formerly examined into the details of those of daily life.
"It is the Lord;" these words alone not only still all complaining, but
fill the soul with a depth of peace never experienced by the believer
until all happiness is withdrawn but that which comes direct from God.
"It is the Lord," who died that we might live, and can we murmur even
if we dared? No; the love of Christ constrains us to cast ourselves at
his feet, not only in submission, but in grateful adoration. It is
through his redeeming love that "our light affliction, which is but for
a moment, will work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory."
Even the very depth of mystery which may attend the sorrowful
dispensation, will only draw forth a stronger manifestation of the
Christian's faith and love. She will be enabled to rejoice that God does
not allow her to see even one reason for the stroke that lays low all
her earthly happiness; as thus only, perhaps, can she experience all the
fulness of peace that accompanies an unquestioning trust in the wisdom
and love of his decrees. For such unquestioning trust, however, there
must be a long and diligent preparation: it is not the growth of days or
weeks; yet, unless it is begun even this very day, it may never be begun
at all. The practice of daily contentment is the only means of finally
attaining to Christian resignation.
I do not appeal to you for the necessity of immediate action, because
this day may be your last. I do not exhort you "to live as if this day
were the whole of life, and not a part or section of it,"[21] because it
may, in fact, be the whole of life to you. It may be so, but it is not
probable, and when you have certainties to guide you, they are better
excitements to immediate action than the most solemn possibilities.
The certainty to which I now appeal is, that every duty I have been
urging upon you will be much easier to you to-day than it would be, even
so soon as to-morrow. One hour's longer indulgence of a discontented
spirit, of rebellious and murmuring thoughts, will stamp on your mind an
impression, which, however slight it may be, will entail upon you a
lifelong struggle against it. Every indulged thought becomes a part of
ourselves: you have the awful freedom of will to make yourself what you
will to be. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,"[22] "Quench"
the Spirit[23] and the holy flame will never be rekindled. Kneel, then,
before God, even now, to pray that you may be enabled to will aright.
Before you opened these pages, some of your daily irritations were
probably preying on your mind. You have often, perhaps, recurred to the
annoyance, whatever it may be, while you read on and on. Make this
annoyance your first opportunity of victory, the first step in the path
of contentment. Pray to an ever-present God, that he may open your eyes
to see how large may have been the portion of blame to yourself in the
annoyance you complain of,--in how far it may be the due and inevitable
chastisement of some former sin; how, finally, it may turn to your
present profit, by giving you a keener insight into the evils of your
own heart, and a more indulgent view of the often imaginary wrongs of
others towards you.
Let not this trial be lost to you; by faith and prayer, this cloud may
rain down blessings upon you. The annoyance from which you are suffering
may be a small one, casting but a temporary shadow, even like the
"Cloud passing over the moon;
'Tis passing, and 'twill pass full soon."[24]
But ere that shadow has passed away, your fate may be as decided as that
of the renegade in poetic fiction. During the time this cloud has rested
upon you, the first link of an interminable chain of habits, for good or
for ill, may have been fastened around you. Who can tell what "Now" it
is that "is the accepted time?" We know from Scripture that there is
this awful period, and your present temptation to murmuring and
rebellion against the will of God (for it is still his will, though it
may be manifested through a created instrument) may be to you that
"Now." Pray earnestly before you decide what use you will make of it.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Phil. iv. 6.
[2] Young's Night Thoughts.
[3] "The Flight of the Duchess." Browning.
[4] Wordsworth.
[5] See page 15.
[6] Phil. ii. 12.
[7] Heb. xii. 14.
[8] Matt. xxv. 41.
[9] Phil. iii. 13.
[10] Rom. viii. 29.
[11] Luke xii. 3.
[12] Matt. vi. 18.
[13] Matt. vi. 20, 21.
[14] Matt. vi. 33.
[15] Deut. xxxiii. 25.
[16] Lyra Apostolica.
[17] Rom. viii. 28.
[18] 1 Pet. v. 7.
[19] 2 Tim. i. 12.
[20] 1 Sam. iii. 18.
[21] Jean Paul Richter.
[22] 1 Pet. v. 8, 9.
[23] Thess. v. 19.
[24] The Siege of Corinth.
LETTER II.
TEMPER.
The subject proposed for consideration in the following letter has been
already treated of in perhaps all the different modes of which it
appears susceptible. Every religious and moral motive has been urged
upon the victim of ill-temper, and it is scarcely necessary to add that
each has, in its turn, been urged in vain. This failing of the character
comes gradually to be considered as one over which the rational will has
no control; it is even supposed possible that a Christian may grow in
grace and in the knowledge of the Saviour while the vice of ill-temper
is still flourishing triumphantly.
It is, indeed, a certain fact that, unless the temper itself is
specially controlled, and specially watched over, it may deteriorate
even when the character in other respects improves; for the habit of
defeat weakens the exercise of the will in this particular direction,
and gradually diminishes the hope or the effort of acquiring a victory
over the indulged failing. It is a melancholy consideration, if it be,
as I believe, really the case, that a Christian may increase in love to
God and man, while at the same time perpetually inflicting severe wounds
on the peace and happiness of those who are nearest and dearest to her.
Worse than all, she is, by such conduct, wounding the Saviour "in the
house of his friends,"[25] bringing disgrace and ridicule upon the Holy
Name by which she is called.
In the compatibility which is often tacitly inferred between a bad
temper and a religious course of life, there seems to be an instinctive
recognition of this peculiar vice being so much the necessary result of
physical organization, that the motives proving effectual against other
sins are ineffectual for the extirpation of this. Perhaps, if this
recognition were distinct, and the details of it better understood, a
new and more successful means might be made use of to effect the cure of
ill-temper.
As an encouragement to this undertaking, there can be no doubt, from
some striking instances within your own knowledge, that there are
certain means by which, if they could only be discovered, the vice in
question may be completely subdued. Even among heathen nations, we know
that the art of self-control was so well understood, and so successfully
practised, that Plato, Socrates, and other philosophers were able to
bring their naturally fiery and violent tempers into complete subjection
to their will. Can it be that this secret has been lost along with the
other mysteries of those distant times, that the mode of controlling the
temper is now as undiscoverable as the manner of preparing the Tyrian
dye and other forgotten arts? It is surely a disgrace to those cowardly
Christians who, having in addition to all the natural powers of the
heathen moralist the freely-offered grace of God to work with them and
in them, should still walk so unworthy of the high vocation wherewith
they are called, as to shrink hopelessly from a moral competition with
the ignorant worshippers of old.
My sister, these things ought not so to be; you feel they ought not, yet
day after day you break through the resolutions formed in your calmer
moments, and repeat, probably increase, your manifestations of
uncontrolled ill-temper. This is not yet, however, in your case, a
wilful sin; you still mourn bitterly over the shame to yourself and the
annoyance to others caused by the indulgence of your ill-temper. You are
also painfully alive to the doubts which your conduct excites in the
mind of your more worldly associates as to the reality of a vital and
transforming efficacy in religion. You feel that you are not only
disobeying God yourself, but that you are providing others with excuses
for disobeying him, and with examples of disobedience. You mourn over
these considerations in bitterness of heart; you even pray for strength
to resist this, your besetting sin, and then--you leave your room, and
fall into the same sin on the very first opportunity.
If, however, prayer itself does not prove an effectual safeguard from
persistence in sin, you will ask what other means can be hopefully
employed. None--none whatever; that from which real prayer cannot
preserve us is an inevitable misfortune. But think you that any kind of
sin can be among those misfortunes that cannot be avoided? No, my
friend: "He is able to succour them that are tempted;"[26] and we are
also assured that He is willing. Cease, then, from accusing the
All-merciful, even by implication, of being the cause of your continuing
in sin, and examine carefully into the nature of those prayers which you
complain have never been answered. The Scripture reason for such
disappointments is clearly and distinctly given: "Ye ask and receive
not, because ye ask amiss."[27] Examine, then, in the first place,
whether you yourself are asking "amiss?" What is your primary motive for
desiring the removal of this besetting sin? Is it the consideration of
its being so hateful in the sight of God, of its being injurious to the
cause of religion? or is it not rather because you feel that it makes
you unloveable to those around you, and inflicts pain on those who are
very dear to you, at the same time lessening your own dignity and
wounding your self-respect? These are all proper and allowable motives
of action while kept in their subordinate place; but if they become the
primary actuating principle, instead of a conscientious hatred of sin
because it is the abominable thing that God hates,[28] if pleasing man
be your chief object, you have no reason to complain that your prayers
are unanswered. The word of God has told you that it must be so. You
have asked "amiss." There is also a secondary sense in which we may "ask
amiss:" when we pray without corresponding effort. Some worthy people
think that prayer alone is to obtain for them all the benefits they can
desire, and that the influences of the Holy Spirit will, unassisted by
human effort, produce a transforming change in the temper and the
conduct. This they call magnifying the grace of God, as if it could be
supposed that his gracious help would ever be granted for the purpose of
slackening, instead of encouraging and exciting, our own exertions. Do
not the Scriptures abound in exhortations, warnings, and threatenings on
the subject of individual watchfulness, diligence, and unceasing
conflicts? "To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according
to this word, it is because there is no light in them."[29] Perhaps you
have prayed under the mental delusion I have above described; you have
expected the work should be done _for_ you, instead of _with_ you; that
the constraining love of Christ would constrain you necessarily to
abandon your sinful habits, while, in fact, its efficacy consists in
constraining you to carry on a perpetual struggle against them.
Look through the day that is past, or watch yourself through that which
is to come, and observe whether any violent conflict takes place in your
mind whenever you are tempted to sin. I fear, on the contrary, that you
expect the efficacy of your prayers to be displayed in preserving you
from any painful conflict whatever. It is strange, most strange, how
generally this perversion of mind appears practically to exist.
Notwithstanding all the opposing assertions of the Bible, people imagine
that the Christian's life, after conversion, is to be one of freedom
from temptation and from all internal struggles. The contrary fact is,
that they only really begin when we ourselves begin the Christian course
with earnestness and sincerity.