one's time is no less necessary as a factor than perseverance. Says De
Maistre, "To know how to wait is the great secret of success." And of
all the lessons that humanity teaches in this school of the world, the
hardest is to wait. Not to wait with folded hands that claim life's
prizes without previous effort, but having toiled and struggled and
crowded the slow years with trial to see then no results, or, perhaps,
disastrous results, and yet to stand firm, to preserve one's poise, and
relax no effort,—this, it has been truly said, _is_ greatness, whether
achieved by man or woman. The world can not be circumnavigated by one
wind. The grandest results can not be achieved in a day. The fruits that
are best worth plucking usually ripen the most slowly, and, therefore,
every one who would gain a solid success must learn "to labor and to
wait." What a world of meaning in those few words! And how many are
possessed of the moral courage to live in that state? It is the tendency
of the times to be in a hurry when there is any object to be
accomplished. In the pursuit of riches it is only the exceptional
persons who are content with slow gains, willing to acquire wealth by
adding penny to penny, dollar to dollar; the mass of business men are
too apt to despise such a tedious and laborious means of ascent, and
they rush headlong into schemes for the sudden acquisition of wealth.
Or, in the field of professional life, we are too prone to forget there
is no royal road to great acquirements, and feel an unwillingness to lay
broad and deep, by years of patient study and laborious research, the
foundation whereon to build an enduring monument worthy of public credit
and renown.
The history of all who are honored in the world of literature, arts, or
science is the history of patient study for years, and its final
triumph. Elihu Burritt says: "All that I have accomplished, or expect or
hope to accomplish, has been, and will be, by that patient, persevering
process of accretion which builds the ant-heap, particle by particle,
thought by thought, fact by fact." Labor still is, and ever will be, the
inevitable price set upon every thing which is valuable. Hence, if we
would acquire wisdom, we must diligently apply ourselves, and confront
the same continuous application which our forefathers did. We must be
satisfied to work energetically with a purpose, and wait the results
with patience. All progress, of the best kind, is slow; but to him who
works faithfully and in a right spirit, be sure that the reward will be
vouchsafed in its own good time. Courage must have sunk in despair, and
the world must have remained unimproved and unornamented if man had
merely compared the effect of a single stroke of the chisel with the
pyramid to be raised, or of a single impression of the spade with the
mountain to be leveled. We must continuously apply ourselves to right
pursuits, and we can not fail to advance steadily, though it may be
unconsciously.
In all evils which admit a remedy impatience should be avoided, because
it wastes that time and attention in complaints that, if properly
applied, might remove the cause. In cases that admit of no remedy it is
worse than useless to give way to impatience, both because of the utter
uselessness of so doing as well as that the time thus spent could be
better employed in the furtherance of useful designs. Since, then, these
two classes of ills comprise all to which human nature is subject, why
not make a determined struggle against impatience in every form? It
accomplishes nothing that is of value, divides our efforts, frustrates
our plans, and generally succeeds in making our lives miserable not only
to ourselves, but to all around us.
How much of home happiness and comfort depends upon the exercise of
patience! Not a day passes but calls for its exercise from those who
sustain the nearest and dearest relations to each other. Let patience
have her perfect work in the home circle. Let parents be patient with
their children. They are weak, and you are strong. They stand at the
eastern gate of life. Experience has not taught them to speak carefully
and to go softly. What if their plays and amusements do grate upon your
nerves. Bear with them patiently. Care and time will soon enough check
their childish impulses. Be patient with your friends. They are neither
omniscient nor omnipotent. They can not see your heart, and may
misunderstand you. They do not know what is best for you, and may select
what is worst. What if, also, they lack purity of purpose or tenacity of
affection; do not you lack these graces? Patience is your refuge.
Endure, and in enduring conquer them; and if not them, then at least
yourself. Be patient with pains and cares. These things are killed by
enduring them, but made strong to bite and sting by feeding them with
your frets and fears. There is no pain or cure that can last long. None
of them shall enter the city of God. A little while, and you shall leave
behind you all your troubles, and forget, in your first hour of rest,
that such things were on earth. Above all, be patient with your beloved.
Love is the best thing on earth; but it is to be handled tenderly, and
impatience is the nurse that kills it. Try to smooth life's weary way
each for the other, and in the exercise of the heaven-born virtue of
patience will you find the sweetest pleasure of life.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: SELF-CONTROL.]
[Illustration]
Self-control is the highest form of courage. It is the base of all the
virtues. It is one of the most important but one of the most difficult
things for a powerful mind to be its own master. If he reigns within
himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, he is more than a king.
Too often self-control is made to mean only the control of angry
passions, but that is simply one form of self-control; in another—a
higher and more complete sense—it means the control over all the
passions, appetites, and impulses. True wisdom ever seeks to restrain
one from blindly following his own impulses and appetites, even those
which are moral and intellectual, as well as those which are animal and
sensual. In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the
perfections of the ideal man. Not to be impulsive, not to be spurred
hither and thither by each desire that in turn comes uppermost, but to
be self-restrained, self-balanced, governed by the joined decision of
the feelings in council assembled, before whom every action shall have
been fully debated and calmly determined,—this is true strength and
wisdom.
Mankind are endowed by the Creator with qualities which raise them
infinitely higher in the scale of importance than any other members of
the animal world. They are given reason as a guide to follow rather than
instinct. But if men give the reins to their impulses and passions, from
that moment they surrender this high prerogative. They are carried along
the current of their life and become the slaves of their strongest
desires for the time being. To be morally free—to be more than an
animal—man must be able to resist instinctive impulses. This can only
be done by the exercise of self-control. Thus it is this power that
constitutes the real distinction between a physical and a moral life,
and that forms the primary basis of individual character. Nine-tenths of
the vicious desires that degrade society, and the crimes that disgrace
it, would shrink into insignificance before the advance of valiant
self-discipline, self-respect, and self-control.
It is necessary to one's personal happiness to exercise control over his
words as well as his acts, for there are words that strike even harder
than blows, and men may "speak daggers," even though they use none.
Character exhibits itself in control of speech as much as in any thing
else. The wise and forbearant man will restrain his desire to say a
smart or severe thing at the expense of another's feelings, while the
fool speaks out what he thinks, and will sacrifice his friend rather
than his joke. There are men who are headlong in their language as in
their actions because of the want of forbearance and self-restraining
patience.
Government is at the bottom of all progress. The state or nation that
has the best government progresses most; so the individual who governs
best himself makes the most rapid progress. The native energies of the
human soul press it to activity; controlled they bear it forward in
right paths; uncontrolled they urge it on to probable destruction. No
man is free who has not the command over himself, but allows his
appetites or his temper to control him; and to triumph over these is of
all conquests the most glorious. He who is enslaved to his passions is
worse governed than Athens was by her thirty tyrants. He who indulges
his sense in any excesses renders himself obnoxious to his own reason,
and to gratify the brute in him displeases the man and sets his two
natures at variance. We ought not to sacrifice the sentiments of the
soul to gratify the appetites of the body. Passions are excellent
servants, and when properly trained and disciplined are capable of being
applied to noble purposes; but when allowed to become masters they are
dangerous in the extreme.
To resist strong impulses, to subdue powerful passions, to silence the
voice of vehement desire, is a strong and noble virtue. And the virtue
rises in height, beauty, and grandeur in proportion to the strength of
the impulses subdued. True virtue is not always visible to the gaze of
the world. It is often still and calm. Composure is often the highest
result of power, and there are seasons when to be still demands
immeasurably higher strength than to act. Think you it demands no power
to calm the stormy elements of passions, to throw off the load of
dejection, to repress every repining thought when the dearest hopes are
withered, and to turn the wounded spirit from dangerous reveries and
wasting grief to the quiet discharge of ordinary duties? Is there no
power put forth when a man, stripped of his property—of the fruits of a
life's labor—quells discontent and gloomy forebodings, and serenely and
patiently returns to the task which providence assigns? We doubt not
that the all-seeing eye of God sometimes discerns the sublimest human
energy under a form and countenance which, by their composure and
tranquillity, indicate to the human spectator only passive virtues.
Individuals who have attained such power are among the great ones of
earth.
Strength of character consists in two things,—power of will and power
of self-restraint. It requires two things, therefore, for its
existence,—strong feelings and strong command over them. Ofttimes we
mistake strong feelings for strong character. He is not a strong man who
bears all before him, at whose frown domestics tremble and the children
of the household quake; on the contrary, he is a weak man. It is his
passions that are strong; he, mastered by them, is weak. You must
measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he subdues,
not by the power of those that subdue him. Did we ever see a man receive
a flagrant injury, and then reply calmly? That is a man spiritually
strong. Or did we ever see a man in anguish stand as if carved out of
solid rock mastering himself, or one bearing a hopeless daily trial
remain silent and never tell the world what cankered his peace? That is
strength. He who with strong passions remains chaste, he who, keenly
sensitive, with manly powers of indignation in him, can be provoked and
yet restrain himself and forgive, these are strong men, the spiritual
heroes.
A strong temper is not necessarily a bad temper. But the stronger the
temper the greater is the need of self-discipline and self-control.
Strong temper may only mean a strong and excitable will. Uncontrolled it
displays itself in fitful outbreaks of passion; but controlled and held
in subjection, like steam pent up within the mechanism of a steam
engine, it becomes the source of energetic power and usefulness. Some of
the greatest characters in history have been men of strong tempers, but
with equal strength of determination to hold their motive power under
strict regulation and control. He is usually a moral weakling who has no
strong desires or strong temper to overcome; but he who with these fails
to subdue them is speedily ruined by them.
Man is born for dominion; but he must enter it by conquest, and continue
to do battle for every inch of ground added to his sway. His infant
exertions are put forth to establish the authority of his will over his
physical powers. His after efforts are for the subjection of the will to
the judgment. There are times which come to all of us when our will is
not completely fashioned to our hands, and the restless passions of the
mind hold us in sway—seasons when all of us do and say things which are
unbecoming, unseemly, and which lower and debase us in the opinion of
others and also of ourselves. Self-control, however, is a virtue which
will become ours if we cultivate it properly, if we strive right
manfully for its possession; fight a bitter warfare against
irritability, nervousness, jealousy, and all unkindness of heart and
soul. But it must be cultivated properly. One exercise of it will not
win us the victory. We must, by constant repetition of efforts, obtain
at last the victory which will bring us repose, which will enable us to
say to the raging waves of passion, "Thus far canst thou come, and no
farther." We must be faithful to ourselves, faithful in our watch and
ward over tongue, eye, and hand. It is only by so doing that man comes
to the full development of his powers. It is alike the duty and the
birthright of man. Moderation in all things, and regulating the actions
only by the judgment, are the most eminent parts of wisdom. "He that
ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city."
[Illustration]
[Illustration: COURAGE.]
"Prithee, peace!
I dare do all that may become a man.
Who dares do more is none."
—SHAKSPEARE.
[Illustration]
Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely
minded in a just cause. The brave man is not he who feels no fear—for
that were stupid and irrational—but he whose noble soul subdues its
fears, and bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from. True courage is
cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a brutal, bullying
insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and
free. Rage can make a coward forget himself and fight. But what is done
in fury or anger can never be placed to the account of courage.
Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits
the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave. For
cowards the road of desertion should be kept open. They will carry over
to the enemy nothing but their fears. The poltroon, like the scabbard,
is an incumbrance when once the sword is drawn. It is the same in the
every-day battles of life: to believe a business impossible is the way
to make it so. How many feasible projects have miscarried through
despondency, and been strangled in the birth by a cowardly imagination!
It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. A ship on a lee shore
stands out to sea in a storm to escape shipwreck. Impossibilities, like
vicious dogs, fly before him who is not afraid of them. Should
misfortune overtake, retrench, work harder; but never fly the track.
Confront difficulties with unflinching perseverance. Should you then
fail, you will be honored; but shrink and you will be despised. When you
put your hands to a work, let the fact of your doing so constitute the
evidence that you mean to prosecute it to the end. They that fear an
overthrow are half conquered.
No one can tell who the heroes are, and who the cowards, until some
crisis comes to put us to the test. And no crisis puts us to the test
that does not bring us up, alone and single-handed, to face danger. It
is comparatively nothing to make a rush with the multitude, even into
the jaws of destruction. Sheep will do that. Armies can be picked from
the gutters, and marched up as food for powder. But when some crisis
singles one out from the multitude, pointing at him the particular
finger of fate, and telling him, "Stand or run," and he faces about with
steady nerve, with nobody else to stand behind, we may be sure the hero
stuff is in him. When such crises come, the true courage is just as
likely to be found in people of shrinking nerves, or in weak and timid
women, as in great, burly people. It is a moral, not a physical trait.
Its seat is not in the temperament, but the will.
Some people imagine that courage is confined to the field of battle.
There could be no greater mistake. Even contentious men—unavoidably
contentious—are not by any means limited to the battlefield. And there
are other struggles with adverse circumstances—struggles, it may be,
with habits or appetites or passions—all of which require as much
courage and more perseverance than the brief encounter of battle. Enough
to contend with, enough to overcome, lies in the pathway of every
individual. It may be one kind of difficulties, or it may be another,
but plenty of difficulties of some kind or other every one may be sure
of finding through life. There is but one way of looking at fate,
whatever that may be, whether blessings or afflictions,—to behave with
dignity under both. We must not lose heart, or it will be the worse both
for ourselves and for those whom we love. To struggle, and again and
again to renew the conflict,—_this_ is life's inheritance. He who never
falters, no matter how adverse may be the circumstances, always enjoys
the consciousness of a perpetual spiritual triumph, of which nothing can
deprive him.
Though the occasions of high heroic daring seldom occur but in the
history of the great, the less obtrusive opportunities for the exercise
of private energy are continually offering themselves. With these
domestic scenes as much abound as does the tented field. Pain may be as
firmly endured in the lonely chamber as amid the din of arms.
Difficulties can be manfully combated, misfortune bravely sustained,
poverty nobly supported, disappointments courageously encountered. Thus
courage diffuses a wide and succoring influence, and bestows energy
apportioned to the trial. It takes from calamity its dejecting quality,
and enables the soul to possess itself under every vicissitude. It
rescues the unhappy from degradation and the feeble from contempt.
The greater part of the courage that is needed in the world is not of an
heroic kind. There needs the common courage to be honest, the courage to
resist temptation, the courage to speak the truth, the courage to be
what we really are, and not to pretend to be what we are not, the
courage to live honestly within our own means, and not dishonestly upon
the means of others. The courage that dares to display itself in silent
effort and endeavor, that dares to endure all and suffer all for truth
and duty, is more truly heroic than the achievements of physical valor,
which are rewarded by honors and titles, or by laurels, sometimes
steeped in blood. It is moral courage that characterizes the highest
order of manhood and womanhood. Intellectual intrepidity is one of the
vital conditions of independence and self-reliance of character. A man
must have the courage to be himself, and not the shadow or the echo of
another. He must exercise his own powers, think his own thoughts, and
speak his own sentiments. He must elaborate his own opinions, and form
his own convictions.
It has been said that he who dares not form an opinion must be a coward;
he who will not must be an idler; he who can not must be a fool. Every
enlargement of the domain of knowledge which has made us better
acquainted with the heavens, with the earth, and with ourselves, has
been established by the energy, the devotion, the self-sacrifice, and
the courage of the great spirits of past times, who, however much they
may have been oppressed or reviled by their contemporaries, now rank
among those whom the enlightened of the human race most delight to
honor.
The passive endurance of the man or woman who for conscience' sake is
found ready to suffer and endure in solitude, without so much as the
encouragement of even a single sympathizing voice, is an exhibition of
courage of a far higher kind than that displayed in the roar of battle,
where even the weakest feels encouraged and inspired by the enthusiasm
of sympathy and the power of numbers. Time would fail to tell of the
names of those who through faith in principles, and in the face of
difficulties, dangers, and sufferings, have fought a good fight in the
moral warfare of the world, and been content to lay down their lives
rather than prove false to their conscientious convictions of the truth.
The patriot who fights an always losing battle, the martyr who goes to
death amid the triumphant shouts of his enemies, the discoverer, like
Columbus, whose heart remains undaunted through years of failure, are
examples of the moral sublime which excites a profounder interest in the
hearts of men than even the most complete and conspicuous success. By
the side of such instances as these, how small by comparison seem the
greatest deeds of valor, inciting men to rush upon death and die amid
the frenzied excitement of physical warfare.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHARITY.]
"The primal duties shine aloft like stars,
The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Lie scattered at the feet of man like flowers."
—WORDSWORTH.
[Illustration]
Charity, like the dew from heaven, falls gently on the drooping flowers
in the stillness of night. Its refreshing and revivifying effects are
felt, seen, and admired. It flows from a good heart and looks beyond the
skies for approval and reward. It never opens, but seeks to heal, the
wounds inflicted by misfortune. It never harrows up, but strives to
calm, the troubled mind.
Charity is another name for disinterested love—the humane, sympathetic
feeling—that which seeks the good of others; that which would pour out
from the treasures of its munificence gifts of good things upon all. It
is that feeling that gave the world a Howard, a Fenelon, a Fry. It is
that feeling that leads on the reformer, which inspires the
philanthropists, which blesses, and curses not. It is the good Samaritan
of the heart. It is that which thinketh no evil, and is kind, which
hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things. It is the
angel of mercy, which forgives seventy and seven times, and still is
rich in the treasures of pardon. It visits the sick, soothes the pillow
of the dying, drops a tear with the mourner, buries the dead, cares for
the orphan. It delights to do offices of good to those cast down, to
relieve the suffering of the oppressed and distressed, to proclaim the
Gospel to the poor. Its words are more precious than rubies; its voice
is sweeter than honey; its hand is softer than down; its step as gentle
as love.
Whoever would be respected and beloved; whoever would be useful and
remembered with pleasure when life is over, must cherish this virtue.
Whoever would be truly happy and feel the real charms of goodness must
cultivate this affection. It becomes, if possible, more glorious when we
consider the number and extent of its objects. It is as wide as the
world of suffering, deep as the heart of sorrow, extensive as the wants
of creation, and boundless as the kingdom of need. Its spirit is the
messenger of peace, holding out to quarreling humanity the flag of
truce. It is needed every-where, in all times and places, in all trades,
professions, and callings of profit or honor which men can pursue. In
the home life there is too often a lack of charity; it should be
considered as a sacred duty to long and well cultivate it, to exercise
it daily, and to guard well its growth. The peace and happiness of the
world depends greatly upon it. Nothing gives a sweeter charm to youth
than an active charity, a disposition kind to all. Who can properly
estimate the powers and sweetness of an active charity?
He who carries ever with him the spirit of boundless charity to man
often does good when he knows not of it. An influence seems to go forth
from him which soothes the distressed, encourages the drooping,
stimulates afresh the love of virtue, and begets its own image and
likeness in all beholders. Without the exercise of this grace it is
impossible to make domestic and social life delightful. Deeds and words
of conventional courtesy grown familiar are comparatively empty forms.
The charitable soul carries with it a charmed atmosphere of peace and
love, breathing which all who come within its benign influence unfold
their noblest qualities, and develop their most amiable traits.
Inharmonious influences are neutralized, the harsh discipline of life is
changed to wholesome training, the crooked places are made straight, and
the rough smooth.