rarely occur,--the dangerous results of thus, as it were, taking events
out of the hand of God cannot be always visible to our sight at present:
we should, however, contemplate what they might possibly be. Let us,
then, consider the injury that may result to the self-sacrificer,
throughout the countless ages of eternity, from the loss of that
working-time of hours, days, and years, wilfully flung from him for the
uncertain benefit of another. Yes, uncertain, for the person may at that
time have been in a state of greater meetness for heaven than he will
ever again enjoy: there may be future fearful temptations, and
consequent falling into sin, from which he would have been preserved if
his death had taken place when the providence of God seemed to will it.
Of course, none of us can, by the most wilful disobedience, dispose
events in any way but exactly that which his hand and his counsel have
determined before the foundation of the world;[43] but when we go out of
the narrow path of duty, we attempt, as far as in us lies, to reverse
his unchangeable decrees, and we "have our reward;" we mar our own
welfare, and that of others, when we make any effort to take the
providing for it out of the hands of the Omnipotent.
It is, however, only for the establishment of a principle that it could
be necessary to discuss the duties involved in such rare emergencies. I
shall therefore proceed without further delay to the more common
sacrifices of which I have spoken, and explain to you what I mean by
such sacrifices.
I have alluded to those of health and happiness. We have all known the
first wilfully thrown away by needless attendance on such sick friends
as would have been equally well taken care of had servants or hired
nurses shared in the otherwise overpowering labour. Often is this labour
found to incapacitate the nurse-tending friend for fulfilling towards
the convalescent those offices in which no menial could supply her place
--such as the cheering of the drooping spirit, the selection and patient
perusal of amusing books, an animated, amusing companionship in their
walks and drives, the humouring of their sick fancy--a sickness that
often increases as that of the body decreases. For all these trying
duties, during the often long and always painfully tedious period of
convalescence, the nightly watcher of the sick-bed has, it is most
likely, unfitted herself. The affection and devotion which were useless
and unheeded during days and nights of stupor and delirium have probably
by this time worn out the weak body which they have been exciting to
efforts beyond its strength, so that it is now incapable of more useful
demonstrations of attachment. Far be it from me to depreciate that fond,
devoted watching of love, which is sometimes even a compensation to the
invalid for the sufferings of sickness, at periods, too, when hired
attendance could not be tolerated. Here woman's love and devotion are
often brightly shown. The natural impulses of her heart lead her to
trample under foot all consideration of personal danger, fatigue, or
weakness, when the need of her loved ones demands her exertions.
This, however, is comparatively easy; it is only following the instincts
of her loving nature never to leave the sick room, where all her
anxiety, all her hopes and fears are centred,--never to breathe the
fresh air of heaven,--never to mingle in the social circle,--never to
rest the weary limbs, or close the languid eye. The excitement of love
and anxiety makes all this easy as long as the anxiety itself lasts: but
when danger is removed, and the more trying duties of tending the
convalescent begin, the genuine devotion of self-denial and
unselfishness is put to the test.
Nothing is more difficult than to bear with patience the apparently
unreasonable depression and ever-varying whims of the peevish
convalescent, whose powers of self-control have been prostrated by long
bodily exhaustion. Nothing is more trying than to find anxious exertions
for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless,
or met with petulant contradiction and ungrateful irritation. Those who
have themselves experienced the helplessness caused by disease well know
how bitterly the trial is shared by the invalid herself. How deeply she
often mourns over the unreasonableness and irritation she is without
power to control, and what tears of anguish she sheds in secret over
those acts of neglect and words of unkindness her own ill-humour and
apparent ingratitude have unintentionally provoked.
Those who feel the sympathy of experience will surely wish, under all
such circumstances, to exercise untiring patience and unremitting
attention; but, however strong this wish may be, they cannot execute
their purpose if their own health has been injured by previous
unnecessary watchings, by exclusion from fresh air and exercise. Those
whose nervous system has been thus unstrung will never be equal to the
painful exertion which the recovering invalid now requires. How much
better it would have been for her if walks and sleep had been taken at
times when an attentive nurse would have done just as well to sit at the
bedside, when absence would have been unnoticed, or only temporarily
regretted! This prudent, and, we must remember, generally self-denying
care of one's self, would have averted the future bodily illness or
nervous depression of the nurse of the convalescent, at a time too when
the latter has become painfully alive to every look and word, as well as
act, of diminished attention and watchfulness; you will surely feel
deep self-reproach if, from any cause, you are unable to control your
own temper, and to bear with cheerful patience the petulance of hers.
I have dwelt so long on this part of my subject, because I think it very
probable that, with your warm affections, and before your selfishness
has been hardened by habits of self-indulgence, you might some time or
other fall into the error I have been describing. In the ardour of your
anxiety for some beloved relative, you may be induced to persevere in
such close attendance on the sick-bed as may seriously injure your own
health, and unfit you for more useful, and certainly more self-denying
exertion afterwards. How much easier is it to spend days and nights by
the sick-bed of one from whom we are in hourly dread of a final
separation, whose helpless and suffering state excites the strongest
feelings of compassion and anxiety, than to sit by the sofa, or walk by
the side, of the same invalid when she has regained just sufficient
strength to experience discomfort in every thing;--when she never finds
her sofa arranged or placed to her satisfaction; is never pleased with
the carriage, or the drive, or the walk you have chosen; is never
interested in the book or the conversation with which you anxiously and
laboriously try to amuse her. Here it is that woman's power of
endurance, that the real strength and nobleness of her character is put
to the most difficult test. Well, too, has this test been borne: right
womanly has been the conduct of many a loving wife, mother, and sister,
under the trying circumstances above described. Woman alone, perhaps,
can steadily maintain the clear vision of what the beloved one really
is, and can patiently view the wearisome ebullitions of ill-temper and
discontent as symptoms equally physical with a cough or a hectic flush.
This noble picture of self-control can be realized only by those who
keep even the best instincts of a woman's nature under the government of
strict principle, remembering that the most beautiful of these instincts
may not be followed without guidance or restraint. Those who yield to
such instincts without reflection and self-denial will exhaust their
energies before the time comes for the fulfilment of duties.
The third branch of my subject is the most difficult. It may, indeed,
appear strange that we should not have the right to sacrifice our own
happiness: that surely belongs to us to dispose of, if nothing else
does. Besides, happiness is evidently not the state of being intended
for us here below; and that much higher state of mind from which all
"_hap_"[44] is excluded--viz. blessedness--is seldom granted unless the
other is altogether withdrawn.
You must, however, observe that this blessedness is only granted when
the lower state--that of happiness--could not be preserved except by a
positive breach of duty, or when it is withheld or destroyed by the
immediate interposition of God Himself, as in the case of death,
separation, incurable disease, &c. Under any of the above circumstances,
we have the sure promise of God, "As thy days are, so shall thy strength
be." The lost and mourned happiness will not be allowed to deprive us of
the powers of rejoicing in hope, and serving God in peace; also of
diffusing around us the cheerfulness and contentment which is one of the
most important of our Christian duties. These privileges, however, we
must not expect to enjoy, if, by a mistaken unselfishness, (often deeply
stained with pride,) we sacrifice to another the happiness that lay in
our own path, and which may, in reality, be prejudicial to them, as it
was not intended for them by Providence: while, on the contrary, it may
have been by the same Providence intended for us as the necessary drop
of sweetness in the otherwise overpowering bitterness of our earthly
cup.
We take, as it were, the disposal of our fate out of the hands of God as
much when we refuse the happiness He sends us as when we turn aside from
the path of duty on account of some rough passage we see there before
us. Good and evil both come from the hands of the Lord. We should be
watchful to receive every thing exactly in the way He sees it fit for
us.
Experience, as well as theory, confirms the truth of the above
assertions. Consider even your own case with relation to any sacrifice
of your own real happiness to the supposed happiness of another. I can
imagine this possible even in a selfish disposition, not yet hardened.
Your good-nature, warm feelings, and pride (in you a powerfully
actuating principle) may have at times induced you to make, in moments
of excitement, sacrifices of which you have not fully "counted the
cost." Let us, then, examine this point in relation to yourself, and to
the petty sacrifices of daily life. If you have allowed others to
encroach too much on your time, if you have given up to them your
innocent pleasures, your improving pursuits, and favourite companions,
has this indulgence of their selfishness really added to their
happiness? Has it not rather been unobserved, except so far to increase
the unreasonableness of their expectations from you, to make them angry
when it at last becomes necessary to resist their advanced
encroachments? On your own side, too, has it not rather tended to
irritate you against people whom you formerly liked, because you are
suffering from the daily and hourly pressure of the sacrifices you have
imprudently made for them? Believe me, there can be no peace or
happiness in domestic life without a _bien entendu_ self-love, which
will be found by intelligent experience to be a preservative from
selfishness, instead of a manifestation of it.
From all that I have already said, you will, I hope, infer that I am not
likely to recommend any extravagant social sacrifices, or to bring you
in guilty of selfishness for actions not really deserving of the name.
Indeed, I have said so much on the other side, that I may now have some
difficulty in proving that, while defending self-love, I have not been
defending you. We must therefore go back to my former definition of
selfishness--namely, a seeking for ourselves that which is not our real
good, to the neglect of all consideration for that which is the real
good of others. This is viewing the subject _an grand_,--a very general
definition, indeed, but not a vague one, for all the following
illustrations from the minor details of life may clearly be referred
under this head.
These are the sort of illustrations I always prefer--they come home so
much more readily to the heart and mind. Will not some of the following
come home to you? The indulgence of your indolence by sending a tired
person on a message when you are very well able to go yourself--sending
a servant away from her work which she has to finish within a certain
time--keeping your maid standing to bestow much more than needful
decoration on your dress, hair, &c., at a time when she is weak or
tired--driving one way for your own mere amusement, when it is a real
inconvenience to your companion not to go another--expressing or acting
on a disinclination to accompany your friend or sister when she cannot
go alone--refusing to give up a book that is always within your reach to
another who may have only this opportunity of reading it--walking too
far or too fast, to the serious annoyance of a tired or delicate
companion--refusing, or only consenting with ill-humour, to write a
letter, or to do a piece of work, or to entertain a visitor, or to pay a
visit, when the person whose more immediate business it is, has, from
want of time, and not from idleness or laziness, no power to do what she
requests of you--dwelling on all the details of a painful subject, for
the mere purpose of giving vent to and thus relieving your own feelings,
though it may be by the harrowing up of those of others who are less
able to bear it. All these are indeed trifles--but
Trifles make the sum of human things,[45]
and are sure to occur every day, and to form the character into such
habits as will fit or unfit it for great proofs of unselfishness, should
such be ever called for. Besides, it is on trifles such as these that
the smoothness of "the current of domestic joy" depends. It is a
smoothness that is easily disturbed: do not let your hand be the one to
do it.
In all the trifling instances of selfishness above enumerated, I have
generally supposed that a request has been made to you, and that you
have not the trouble of finding out the exact manner in which you can
conquer selfishness for the advantage of your neighbour. I must now,
however, remind you that one of the penalties incurred by past
indulgence in selfishness is this, that those who love you will not
continue to make those requests which you have been in the habit of
refusing, or, if you ever complied with them, of reminding the obliged
person, from time to time, how much serious inconvenience your
compliance has subjected you to. This, I fear, may have been your habit;
for selfish people exaggerate so much every "little" (by "the good man")
"nameless, unremembered act," that they never consider them gratefully
enough impressed on the heart of the receiver without frequent reminders
from themselves. If such has been the case, you must not expect the
frank, confiding request, the entire trust in your willingness to make
any not unreasonable sacrifice, with which the unselfish are gratified
and rewarded, and for which perhaps you often envy them, though you
would not take the trouble to deserve the same confidence yourself. Even
should you now begin the attempt, and begin it in all earnestness, it
will take some time to establish your new character. _En attendant_, you
must be on the watch for opportunities of obliging others, for they will
not be freely offered to you; you must now exercise your own
observation to find out what they would once have frankly told
you,--whether you are tiring people physically or distressing them
morally, or putting them to practical inconvenience. I do not make the
extravagant supposition that all those with whom you associate have
attained to Christian perfection; the proud and the resentful, as well
as the delicate-minded, will suffer much rather than repeat appeals to
your unselfishness which have often before been disregarded. They may
exercise the Christian duty of forgiveness in other ways, but this is
the most difficult of all. Few can attain to it, and you must not hope
it.
Finally; I wish to warn you against believing those who tell you that
such minute analysis of motives, such scrutiny into the smallest details
of daily conduct, has a tendency to produce an unhealthy
self-consciousness. This might, indeed, be true, if the original state
of your nature, before the examination began, were a healthy one. "If
Adam had always remained in Paradise, there would have been no anatomy
and no metaphysics:" as it is not so, we require both. Sin has entered
the world, and death by sin; and therefore it is that both soul and body
require a care and a minute watchfulness that cannot, in the present
state of things, originate either disease or sin. They have both existed
before.
No one ever became or can become selfish by a prayerful examination into
the fact of being so or not. In matters of mere feeling, it is indeed
dangerous to scrutinize too narrowly the degree and the nature of our
emotions. We have no standard by which to try them. If a medical man
cannot be trusted to ascertain correctly the state of his own pulse,
how much more difficult is it for the amateur to sit in judgment on the
strength and number of the pulsations of his own heart and mind.
The case is quite different when feelings manifest themselves in overt
acts: then they become of a nature requiring and susceptible of minute
analyzation. This is the self-scrutiny I recommend to you.
May you be led to seek earnestly for help from above to overcome the
hydra of selfishness, and may you be encouraged, by that freely offered
help, to exert your own energies to the utmost!
Let me urge on your especial attention the following verses from the
Bible on the subjects which we have been considering. If you selected
each one of these for a week's _practice_, making it at once a question,
a warning, and a direction, it would be a tangible, so to speak, use of
the Holy Scriptures, that has been found profitable to many:--
"We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and
not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for
his good to edification. Even Christ pleased not himself."[46]
"The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."[47]
"He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."[48]
"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others."[49]
"Let all your things be done with charity."[50]
"By love serve one another."[51]
"But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you, for
ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another."[52]
"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in
deed and in truth."[53]
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his
neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."[54]
"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so
to them."[55]
FOOTNOTES:
[40] Archdeacon Manning.
[41] See Bishop Butler's Sermons.
[42] 1 Cor. vi. 20.
[43] Acts iv. 28.
[44] Coleridge's Aids to Reflection.
[45] Hannah More.
[46] Rom. xv. 1, 2, 3.
[47] Matt. xx. 28.
[48] 2 Cor. v. 15.
[49] Phil. ii. 4.
[50] 1 Cor. xvi. 14.
[51] Gal. v. 13.
[52] Thess. iv. 9.
[53] 1 John iii. 18.
[54] Rom. xiii. 9, 10.
[55] Matt. vii. 12.
LETTER VI.
SELF-CONTROL.
You will probably think it strange that I should consider it necessary
to address you, of all others, upon the subject of self-control,--you
who are by nature so placid and gentle, so dignified and refined, that
you have never been known to display any of the outbreaks of temper
which sometimes disgrace the conduct of your companions.
You compare yourself with others, and probably cannot help admiring your
superiority. You have, besides, so often listened to the assurances of
your friends that your temper is one that cannot be disturbed, that you
may think self-control the very last point to which your attention
needed to be directed. Self-control, however, has relation to many
things besides mere temper. In your case I readily believe that to be of
singular sweetness, though even in your case the temper itself may still
require self-control. You will esteem it perhaps a paradox when I tell
you that the very causes which preserve your temper in an external state
of equability, your refinement of mind, your self-respect, your delicate
reserve, your abhorrence of every thing unfeminine and ungraceful, may
produce exactly the contrary effect on your feelings, and provoke
internally a great deal of contempt and dislike for those whose conduct
transgresses from your exalted ideas of excellence.
On your own account you would not allow any unkind word to express such
feelings as I have described, but you cannot or do not conceal them in
the expression of your features, in the very tones of your voice. You
further allow them free indulgence in the depths of your heart; in its
secret recesses you make no allowances for the inferiority of people so
differently constituted, educated, and disciplined from
yourself,--people whom, instead of despising and avoiding, you ought
certainly to pity, and, if possible, to sympathize with.
In this respect, therefore, the control which I recommend to you has
reference even to your much vaunted temper, for though any outward
display of ill-breeding and petulance might be much more opposed to your
respect for yourself, any inward indulgence of the same feelings must be
equally displeasing in the sight of God, and nearly as prejudicial to
the passing on of your spirit towards being "perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect."[56]
Besides, though there may be no outbreak of ill-temper at the time your
annoyance is excited, nor any external manifestation of contempt even in
your expressive countenance, you will certainly be unable to preserve
kindness and respect of manner towards those whose errors and failings
are not met by internal self-control. You will be contemptuously
heedless of the assertions of those whose prevarication you have even
once experienced; those who have once taunted you with obligation will
never be again allowed to confer a favour upon you; you will avoid all
future intercourse with those whose unkind and taunting words have
wounded your refinement and self-respect. All this would contribute to
the formation of a fine character in a romance, for every thing that I
have spoken of implies your own truth and honesty, your generous nature,
your delicate and sensitive habits of mind, your dread of inflicting
pain. For all these admirable qualities I give you full credit, and, as
I said before, they would make an heroic character in a romance. In real
life, however, they, every one of them, require strict self-control to
form either a Christian character, or one that will confer peace and
happiness. You may be all that I have described, and I believe you to be
so, while, at the same time your severe judgments and unreasonable
expectations may be productive of unceasing discomfort to yourself and
all around you. Your friends plainly see that you expect too much from
them, that you are annoyed when their duller perceptions can discover no
grounds for your annoyance, that you decline their offers of service
when they are not made in exactly the refined manner your imagination
requires. Your annoyance may seldom or never express itself in words,
but it is nevertheless perceptible in the restraint of your manner, in
your carelessness of sympathy on any point with those who generally
differ from you, in the very tone of your voice, in the whole character
of your conversation. Gradually the gulf becomes wider and wider that
separates you from those among whom it has pleased God that your lot
should be cast.
You cannot yet be at all sensible of the dangers I am now pointing out
to you. You cannot yet understand the consequences of your present want
of self-control in this particular point. The light of the future alone
can waken them out of present darkness into distinct and fatal
prominence.
Habit has not yet formed into an isolating chain that refinement of mind
and loftiness of character which your want of self-control may convert
into misfortunes instead of blessings. Whenever, even now, a sense of
total want of sympathy forces itself upon you, you console yourself with
such thoughts as these: "Sheep herd together, eagles fly alone,"[57]&c.