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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Life and Conduct, by J. Cameron Lees
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Life and Conduct
+
+
+Author: J. Cameron Lees
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2007  [eBook #22050]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND CONDUCT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+LIFE AND CONDUCT
+
+by
+
+J. CAMERON LEES, D.D., LL.D.,
+
+Edinburgh.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Toronto:
+William Briggs,
+Wesley Buildings.
+Montreal: C. W. Coates.
+Halifax: S. F. Huestis.
+1896.
+
+Entered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
+thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the
+Department of Agriculture.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+This book has been selected from the "Guild Series" for young people,
+published in Scotland, and reprinted in Canada by permission.
+
+The wise counsels and practical suggestions with which this book
+abounds make it eminently suitable for the Epworth League Reading
+Course.  We commend it to all young people who are desirous to form
+their character on the Christian model and to carry religious principle
+into the practical affairs of common life.
+
+Some of the chapters will furnish material for interesting programmes
+in the Literary Department.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+This hand-book has been written at the request of the Christian Life
+and Work Committee of the Church of Scotland as one of a series of
+volumes which it is at present issuing for the use of Young Men's
+Guilds and Bible Classes.
+
+The object of the writer has been to show how the principles of
+religion may be applied to the conduct of young men, and in the
+practice of everyday life.  In doing this he has endeavored to keep
+steadily in view the fact that the book is designed chiefly as a manual
+of instruction, and can only present the outlines of a somewhat wide
+subject.  His language has been necessarily simple, and he has been
+often obliged to put his statements in an abbreviated form.
+
+Most of the contents of this book have been drawn from a long and
+somewhat varied experience of life; but the author has also availed
+himself of the writings of others who have written books for the
+special benefit of young men. He has appended a list of works which he
+has consulted, and has endeavored to acknowledge his indebtedness for
+any help in the way of argument or illustration that they have afforded
+him.
+
+It will be a great gratification to him to learn that the book has been
+in any way useful to the young men, of whose position, duties, and
+temptations he has thought much when writing it; and he sends it forth
+with the earnest prayer that the Spirit of God may bless his endeavors
+to be of service to those whose interests he, in common with his
+brethren in the ministry, regards as of paramount importance.
+
+EDINBURGH,
+  _28th June, 1892._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+    I. CHARACTER
+   II. SUCCESS IN LIFE
+  III. PERSONAL INFLUENCE
+   IV. FRIENDS
+    V. MONEY
+   VI. TIME
+  VII. COURAGE
+ VIII. HEALTH
+   IX. EARNESTNESS
+    X. MANNERS
+   XI. TEMPER
+  XII. RECREATION
+ XIII. BOOKS
+  XIV. FAMILY LIFE
+   XV. CHURCH
+  XVI. CITIZENSHIP
+
+       APPENDIX
+       LIST OF WORKS
+
+
+
+
+LIFE AND CONDUCT.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHARACTER.
+
+Everything in the practical conduct of life depends upon character.
+
+What is character?  What do we mean by it?  As when we say such a man
+is a bad character, or a good character, or when we use the words, "I
+don't like the character of that man."
+
+By character we mean what a man really is, at the back of all his
+actions and his reputation and the opinion the world has of him, in the
+very depth of his being, in the sight of God, "to whom all hearts are
+open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid."
+
+It is said of Burns, the poet, that walking along the streets of
+Edinburgh with a fashionable acquaintance, he saw a poorly-dressed
+peasant, whom he rushed up to and greeted as a familiar friend.  His
+companion expressed his surprise that he could lower himself by
+speaking to one in so rustic a garb.  "Fool!" said the poet, with
+flashing eye; "it was not the dress, the peasant's bonnet and hodden
+gray, I spoke to, but the man within--the man who beneath that bonnet
+has a head, and beneath that hodden gray a heart, better than a
+thousand such as yours."  What the poet termed the "man within," what
+the Scripture calls the "hidden man of the heart," is character--the
+thing a man really is.  Now, there are five things to be remembered
+about _character_.
+
+I.  Character is a growth.--As the man without grows, so the man within
+grows also--grows day by day either in beauty or in deformity.  We are
+becoming, as the days and years pass on, what we shall be in our future
+earthly life, what we shall be when that life is ended.  No one becomes
+what he is at once, whether what he is be good or bad.  You may have
+seen in the winter-time an icicle forming under the eaves of a house.
+It grows, one drop at a time, until it is more than a foot long.  If
+the water is clear, the icicle remains clear and sparkles in the sun;
+but if the water is muddy, the icicle looks dirty and its beauty is
+spoiled.  So our characters are formed; one little thought or feeling
+at a time adds its influence.  If these thoughts and feelings are pure
+and right, the character will be lovely and will sparkle with light;
+but if they are impure and evil, the character will be wretched and
+deformed.
+
+Fairy tales tell us of palaces built up in a night by unseen hands, but
+those tales are not half so wonderful as what is going on in each of
+us.  Day and night, summer and winter, a building is going up within
+us, behind the outer screen of our lives.  The storeys of it are being
+silently fashioned: virtue is being added to faith, and to virtue is
+being added knowledge, and to knowledge is being added brotherly
+kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity; or meanness is being added
+to selfishness, and greed to meanness, and impurity, malice and hatred
+become courses in the building.  A wretched hovel, a poor, mean,
+squalid structure, is rising within us; and when the screen of our
+outward life is taken from us, this is what we shall be.
+
+II.  Character is independent of reputation and circumstances.--A man
+may be held in very high esteem by the world, and yet may be a very
+miserable creature so far as his character is concerned.  The rich man
+of the parable was well off and probably much thought of, but God
+called him a fool.  Here is a man who is greatly esteemed by the
+public; he is regarded in every way as admirable.  Follow him home, and
+you find him in his family a mean and sordid soul.  There you have the
+real man.  We cannot always judge a man by what he has, or by what he
+appears to us; for what he is may be something very different.  "These
+uniforms," said the Duke of Wellington, "are great illusions.  Strip
+them off, and many a pretty fellow would be a coward; when in them he
+passes muster with the rest."  We must not confound the uniform with
+the man: we are often too ready to do so.  _To a certain extent_ we can
+form an idea what a man is from the outside.  The horny hand tells of
+the life of labor; the deep-set brow tells of the thinker.  In other
+words we have a right to judge a man by his habitation.  If the fences
+are broken down, the paths are unkept, the flower-beds full of weeds,
+we may be pretty sure the inhabitants are idle, thriftless, perhaps
+intemperate.  So a clear eye, a firm step, an open countenance, tell of
+a pure, good soul within.  For example, a man of cold exterior or of
+formal manner may often have a warm heart under it all; a man of rough
+manners may have kindly feelings that he cannot express.  We are often
+long in the company of men before we really know them, and then the
+discovery of what they are comes on us by surprise.
+
+III.  Character cannot be always hidden.--There are those who seem to
+think that they can have one set of principles for themselves and
+another for the outward world; that they can be in their heart one
+thing and in society another; that they can have one character and
+another reputation.  They may be proud, but they can so hide their
+pride as to have the reputation of being humble; they can lie, but
+still have the reputation of always speaking the truth; they can be
+impure, and yet have the reputation of being virtuous.  But sooner or
+later what they really are generally becomes manifest.  Reputation and
+character come to be one.  That which they would keep secret cannot be
+concealed.  The mask which men would wear slips aside and discloses the
+face beneath it.  (1) Time reveals character.  As the years pass along,
+a man generally gets to be known for what he is.  For example, if a man
+is a coward and enlists in the army, he may swagger about and look like
+a real soldier, but a time will come when the spirit of the man will
+show itself, and he will be set down at his real value.  Or a young man
+in an office may act dishonestly and go on perhaps for long doing so,
+and thinking he is carefully concealing his frauds, but, when least
+expected, discovery takes place, and ruin and disgrace follow.  (2)
+Sorrow reveals character.  Nothing more truly shows what a man is than
+his bearing under the sorrows of life.  When the flag is wrapped around
+the flag-staff on a calm day, when no breath of wind is moving, we
+cannot read the device that is upon it, but when the storm unfurls the
+flag, we can read it plainly enough.  In the same way when the troubles
+of life beat upon men we can read clearly what they are.  Again, when
+we go along the road on a summer day we often cannot see the houses
+that are concealed by the foliage of the trees; but in winter-time,
+when the trees are bare and leafless, we know what kind of houses are
+there, whether they are squalid cottages or grand mansions.  So in the
+winter-time of life, when the leaves are blown away, men come out and
+we know what kind of character they have been building up behind the
+screen of their life.  (3) If time and sorrow do not reveal character,
+eternity will.  We will appear then, not as we seem, but as we are.
+Christ is to be our judge.  Consider what a striking thing it is in the
+life of Christ that His searching glance seemed to go right to the
+heart, to the hidden motive, to the man within.  "He knew what was in
+man."  A poor woman passed by Him as He sat in the temple.  She was
+poverty-stricken in her garb, and she stole up to the contribution-box
+and dropped in her offering.  Christ's glance went right beyond her
+outward appearance, and beyond her small and almost imperceptible
+offering, to the motive and character.  "She hath given more than they
+all."  All sorts of people were around Him: Pharisees, with their
+phylacteries; Scribes, with their sceptical notions; Samaritans, with
+their vaunted traditions: but He always went right beyond the outward
+show.  The Samaritan was good and kind, though he got no credit for
+piety; the Pharisee was corrupt and self-seeking, though he got no
+credit for piety; the Publican was a child of God, though no one would
+speak to him.  Christ reversed the judgment of men on those people whom
+they thought they knew so well, but did not know at all.  So it shall
+be at the last; we shall be judged by what we are.
+
+IV.  Character alone endures.--What a man has he leaves behind him;
+what a man is he carries with him.  It is related that when Alexander
+the Great was dying he commanded that his hands should be left outside
+his shroud, that all men might see that, though conqueror of the world
+he could take nothing away with him.  Before Saladin the Great uttered
+his last sigh he called the herald who had carried his banner before
+him in all his battles, and commanded him to fasten to the top of the
+spear a shroud in which he was to be buried, and to proclaim, "This is
+all that remains to Saladin the Great of all his glory."  So men have
+felt in all ages that death strips them, and that they take nothing
+with them of what they have gained.  But what we are ourselves we take
+with us.  All that time has made us, for good or evil, goes with us.
+We can lay up treasures in ourselves that neither moth nor rust can
+corrupt, and which thieves cannot steal away.  "The splendid treasures
+of memory, the treasures of disciplined powers, of enlarged capacities,
+of a pure and loving heart, all are treasures which a man can carry in
+him and with him into that other world."
+
+  We are but farmers of ourselves, yet may,
+  If we can stock ourselves and thrive, uplay
+  Much good treasure for the great rent-day.--DONNE.
+
+
+"All the jewels and gold a man can collect he drops from his hand when
+he dies, but every good action he has done is rooted into his soul and
+can never leave him."--Buddhist saying.
+
+V.  The highest character a man can have is the Christian
+Character.--(1) Christ is the giver of a noble character.  It is
+possible to be united to Christ as the branch is united to the tree;
+and when we are so, His life passes into ours: a change in character
+comes to us; we are renewed in the inward man, old things pass away,
+and all things become new.  In the life of St. Paul we have a striking
+instance how coming to Christ effects a change in character.  He became
+a different man from what he was; he received a new inward life; a
+transfiguring change passed over the entire character; the life he
+lived in the flesh became a life of faith in the Son of God; and his
+experience has been the experience of many.  The source of the highest
+and noblest character is Christ.  (2) Christ is also the _standard_ of
+a noble character; the true ideal of manhood is found in Him: "the
+stature of the fulness of Christ."  Take the following illustration:
+"In Holland we travel with Dutch money, in France with French money, in
+Germany with German money.  The standard of the coinage varies with
+every state we go into.  In Britain there is one standard of coinage;
+we may get some corrupted money or some light coin, but the standard of
+coinage is the same.  The standard for the Christian is the same
+throughout the years and in all places: the one perpetual standard of
+the life of Christ."  The best men are those who come the nearest to
+it.  Those who come nearest to it are those who will do best in the
+practical conduct of life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SUCCESS IN LIFE.
+
+We often hear the word success used.  The great wish that most have in
+beginning life is that they may be successful.  One man constantly asks
+another the question regarding a third, How has he succeeded?
+
+What is success in life?  It may perhaps be defined in this way: It is
+to obtain the greatest amount of happiness possible to us in this world.
+
+There are two things to be borne in mind in estimating what success is:
+
+I.  Lives which according to some are successful must in the highest
+sense be pronounced failures.--The idea of many is that success
+consists in the gaining of a livelihood, or competency, or wealth; but
+a man may gain these things who yet cannot be said to have succeeded.
+If he gets wealth at the expense of health, or if he gets it by means
+of trickery and dishonest practices, he can hardly be said to have
+succeeded.  He does not get real happiness with it.  If a man gains the
+whole world and loses his own soul, he cannot be said to have
+succeeded.  True success in life is when a fair share of the world's
+good does not cost either physical or intellectual or moral well-being.
+
+II.  Lives which according to some are failures must in the highest
+sense be pronounced successful.--The life of our blessed Lord, from one
+point of view, was a failure.  It was passed in poverty, it closed in
+darkness.  We see Him crowned with thorns, buffeted, spit upon; yet
+never was Christ so successful as when He hung upon the cross.  He had
+finished the work given Him to do.  He "saw of the travail of His soul
+and was satisfied."
+
+Milton completed his _Paradise Lost_ and a bookseller only gave him
+fifteen pounds for it, yet he cannot be said to have failed.
+
+  Speak, History, who are life's victors? unroll thy long
+      annals and say,
+  Are they those whom the world calls victors, who won
+      the success of the day,
+  The martyrs or Nero?  The Spartans who fell at
+      Thermopylae's tryst
+  Or the Persians or Xerxes?  His judges or Socrates?
+      Pilate or Christ?
+
+
+What may seem defeat to some may be in the truest sense success.
+
+_There are certain things which directly tend to success in life:_
+
+The first is Industry.--There can be no success without working hard
+for it.  There is no getting on without labor.  We live in times of
+great competition, and if a man does not work, and work hard, he is
+soon jostled aside and falls into the rear.  It is true now as in the
+days of Solomon that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich."
+
+(_a_) There are some who think they can dispense with hard work because
+they possess great natural talents and ability--that cleverness or
+genius can be a substitute for diligence.  Here the old fable of the
+hare and the tortoise applies.  They both started to run a race.  The
+hare, trusting to her natural gift of fleetness, turned aside and took
+a sleep; the tortoise plodded on and won the prize.  Constant and
+well-sustained labor carries one through, where cleverness apart from
+this fails.  History tells us that the greatest genius is most diligent
+in the cultivation of its powers.  The cleverest men have been of great
+industry and unflinching perseverance.  No truly eminent man was ever
+other than an industrious man.
+
+(_b_) There are some who think that success is in the main a matter of
+what they call "luck," the product of circumstances over which they
+have little or no control.  If circumstances are favorable they need
+not work; if they are unfavorable they need not work.  So far from man
+being the creature of circumstances he should rather be termed the
+architect of circumstances.  From the same materials one man builds
+palaces and another hovels.  Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks
+till the architect makes something out of them.  In the same way, out
+of the same circumstances one man rears a stately edifice, while
+another, idle and incompetent, lives for ever amid ruins.
+Circumstances rarely conquer a strong man; he conquers them.  He
+
+  Breaks his birth's invidious bar
+  And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
+  And breasts the blows of circumstance,
+  And grapples with his evil star.--TENNYSON.
+
+
+Against all sorts of opposing obstacles the great workers of the world
+fought their way to triumph.  Milton wrote _Paradise Lost_ in blindness
+and poverty.  Luther, before he could establish the Reformation, had to
+encounter the prestige of a thousand years, the united power of an
+imperious hierarchy and the ban of the German Empire.  Linnaeus,
+studying botany, was so poor as to be obliged to mend his shoes with
+folded paper and often to beg his meals of his friends.  Columbus, the
+discoverer of America, had to besiege and importune in turn the states
+of Genoa, Portugal, Venice, France, England, and Spain, before he could
+get the control of three small vessels and 120 men.  Hugh Miller, who
+became one of the first geological writers of his time, was apprenticed
+to a stonemason, and while working in the quarry, had already begun to
+study the stratum of red sandstone lying below one of red clay.  George
+Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive engine, was a common collier
+working in the mines.  James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine,
+was a poor sickly child not strong enough to go to school.  John
+Calvin, who gave a theology to the seventeenth and eighteenth
+centuries, which has not yet been outgrown, was tortured with disease
+all his days.  When were circumstances favorable to any great or good
+attempt, except as they were compelled by determination and industry to
+become favorable?
+
+(_c_) Even if circumstances seem in every way favorable, industry is
+necessary to success.  Though we be born, as the saying is, "with a
+silver spoon in our mouth," we cannot afford to dispense with work.
+Unless we are hard-working, life will become a weariness to us.  Work
+keeps life full and happy; it drives all diseased fancies out of the
+mind; it gives balance and regularity to all movements of the soul.
+
+If then we expect to succeed in life we must make up our mind to work
+hard.  We must not let it be our notion of a fine lady or gentleman to
+do nothing.  The idle life is a miserable life; it is bound to be so.
+God has promised many a blessing to industry; He has promised none to
+indolence.  God himself works, and He wants His children to work.
+
+_The second thing that tends directly to success in life is a distinct
+Aim_.--A man may run very hard in a race, the perspiration may stream
+from his brow and every muscle be strained, but if he is not running in
+a right direction, if he is running away from the goal, all his
+activity will not help him.  So, industrious habits are not sufficient,
+unless we have a distinct idea of what we are aiming at.  The world is
+full of purposeless people, and such people come to nothing.  Those who
+have succeeded best have chosen their line and stuck to it.
+
+  One great aim, like a guiding-star above,
+  Which tasked strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift
+  Their manhood to the height that takes the prize.
+        BROWNING.
+
+
+(_a_) The choice of a trade or profession is of enormous importance in
+settling our aim in life.  Men often fail from having adopted a calling
+for which they are entirely unfitted.  The round man in the square hole
+is a pitiful spectacle.  It is difficult to lay down any special rule
+in regard to the choice of a profession or business.  Some are obliged
+to take whatever opportunity offers, and others have to begin work at
+too early an age to permit them to form a true idea of what they are
+best fitted for, and are obliged to follow the wishes of others rather
+than their own.  This only we can say, that so far as we have a choice
+we should adopt the calling that is most congenial to us and suits our
+inclinations.  "Grasp the handle of your being" was the direction given
+by a wise counsellor to one who sought advice as to what calling he
+should follow.  Everyone has certain aptitudes, and as far as he is
+able should keep them in view.  There is often a distinct indication at
+a very early period of life for what we are best fitted.  "The tastes
+of the boy foreshadow the occupations of the man.  Ferguson's clock
+carved out of wood and supplied with rudest mechanism; Faraday's tiny
+electric machine made from a common bottle; Claude Lorraine's pictures
+in flour and charcoal on the walls of the bakers' shops; Canova's
+modelling of small images in clay; Chantrey's carving of his
+school-master's head in a bit of pine wood,--were all indications clear
+and strong of the future man."
+
+(_b_) Whatever you resolve upon, keep to it.  "One thing I do," is a
+great rule to follow.  It is much better to do one thing well than many
+things indifferently.  It may be well to have "many strings to our
+bow," but it is better to have a bow and string that will every time
+send the arrow to the target.  A rolling stone gathers no moss.  He
+that is everything by turns and nothing long comes to nothing in the
+end.
+
+  If thou canst plan a noble deed
+  And never flag till it succeed,
+  Though in the strife thy heart should bleed,
+  Whatever obstacles contend,
+  Thine hour will come, go on, thou soul!
+  Thou'lt win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal.
+        CHAS. MACKAY.
+
+
+(_c_) The higher our purpose is, the greater our attainment is likely
+to be.  The nobler our ideal, the nobler our success.  It seems
+paradoxical to say it, but it is true, that no one ever reached a goal
+without starting from it; no one ever won a victory without beginning
+the battle with it; no one ever succeeded in any work without first
+finishing it in his own mind.
+
+  Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high,
+    So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be.
+  Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky
+    Shoots higher much than he who means a tree.
+        G. HERBERT.
+
+When we go forward to life we should make up our mind what we intend to
+make of life.  Make up your mind after prayer to God, and work for that.
+
+_The third essential to success in life is Moral Character_, in its
+various elements of honesty, truthfulness, steadiness, temperance.
+"Honesty is the best policy" is one of those worldly maxims that
+express the experience of mankind.  A small leak will sink a great
+ship.  One bad string in a harp will turn its music into discord.  Any
+flaw in moral character will sooner or later bring disaster.  The most
+hopeless wrecks that toss on the broken waters of society are men who
+have failed from want of moral character.  There are thousands of such
+from whom much was expected but from whom nothing came.  It is told of
+a distinguished professor at Cambridge that he kept photographs of his
+students.  He divided them into two lots.  One he called his basket of
+adled eggs: they were the portraits of men who had failed, who had come
+to nothing though they promised much.  What brought most of them to
+grief was want of character, of moral backbone.  Some of them--a good
+many of them--went to drink, others to love of pleasure, others to the
+bad in other ways.  Good principle counts for more than can be
+expressed; it is essential.  Many things may hinder a man from getting
+on--slowness, idleness, want of ability, trifling, want of interest in
+his vocation.  Many of these faults may be borne with long by others,
+and may be battled with earnestly by ourselves; but a flaw in character
+is deadly.  To be unsteady, dishonest, or untruthful is fatal.  Before
+God and man an unfaithful servant is worthless.  We may have other
+qualifications that go to command success, such as those we have
+noticed,--industry and a distinct aim,--but want of principle will
+render them useless.  Slow and sure often go together.  The slow train
+is often the safest to travel by, but woe be to it and to us if we do
+not keep upon the rails.
+
+_The last essential to success in life is Religious
+Hopefulness_.--(_a_) Our industry, our purpose, our principles may be
+all they ought to be, yet the "race is not always to the swift nor the
+battle to the strong."  But when we find the race going from us and the
+battle going against us, if we have trust in God and the hopefulness
+that comes from religion, we will find heart to try again: we will not
+be utterly cast down.  Christian faith keeps men in good heart amid
+many discouragements.  (_b_) Even if a man or woman become rich or
+clever and have life pleasant around them, they cannot feel at the
+close of life that they have succeeded if the future is dark before
+them.  When Cardinal Wolsey, who had been the favorite of the king and
+had long held the government of England in his hand, fell from power,
+he said, "If I had served my God as truly as I served my king He would
+not have forsaken me in my gray hairs."  The world is a poor comforter
+at the last.  No man or woman has become successful until their
+essential happiness is placed beyond the reach of all outward
+fluctuation and change.  Faith in Christ, the faith that penetrates the
+future and brings down from heaven a bright and blessed hopefulness,
+which casts its illumination over the present scene and reveals the
+grand object of existence, is essential to true success.
+
+We cannot sum up the teachings of this chapter better than in the words
+of a poem of which we should try to catch the spirit: they express the
+very philosophy of success in life:
+
+  Courage, brother! do not stumble,
+    Though thy path be dark as night;
+  There's a star to guide the humble;--
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Let the road be rough and dreary,
+    And its end far out of sight,
+  Foot it bravely! strong or weary,
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Perish policy and cunning,
+    Perish all that fears the light!
+  Whether losing, whether winning,
+   Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Trust no party, sect, or faction;
+    Trust no leaders in the fight;
+  But in every word and action
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Trust no lovely forms of passion,--
+    Fiends may look like angels bright:
+  Trust no custom, school, or fashion--
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Simple rule, and safest guiding,
+    Inward peace and inward might,
+  Star upon our path abiding,--
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Some will hate thee, some will love thee,
+    Some will flatter, some will slight:
+  Cease from man, and look above thee,--
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+        NORMAN M'LEOD.
+
+
+That is the way to succeed in life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PERSONAL INFLUENCE.
+
+We are all of us in close relations to one another.  We are bound
+together in numberless ways.  As members of the same family, as members
+of the same community, as members of the same Church--we are bound so
+closely together that what any one of us does is certain to tell upon
+others.  It is out of this close connection with others that influence
+comes.  Just as one man in a crowd sends by his movements a certain
+impulse throughout the whole, just as the stone thrown into a pond
+causes waves that move far away from where the stone fell and that
+reach in faint ripples to the distant shore, so our very existence
+exercises influence beyond our knowledge and beyond our calculation.
+
+_Influence is of two kinds, Direct and Indirect_--Conscious and
+Unconscious,--The first is influence we deliberately put forth, as when
+we meet a man and argue with him, as when the orator addresses the
+multitude, or the politician seeks to gain their suffrages.  The second
+is the influence which radiates from us, whether we will it or not, as
+fire burning warms a room, or icebergs floating down from the frozen
+north change the temperature where they come.  There is a passage in
+Scripture where both kinds of influence are illustrated.  "Iron
+sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.  As
+in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man."  The
+first part of the proverb refers to direct influence: as "iron
+sharpeneth iron," so one man applying to another his powers of
+persuasion, his motives in the shape of money or some other inducement,
+moulds, fashions, sharpens him to his liking.  "As in water face
+answereth to face:" this is the silent influence which we have on
+others.  There is no conscious exercise of power, there is no
+deliberate putting forth of strength, there is no noise as of iron
+against iron; but as our shadow is silently reflected in the still
+water, so our life and character silently reflect themselves in others,
+and other hearts answer to the feelings that sway our own.
+
+I.  Direct or conscious influence.--In regard to this everyone must
+choose his own line of action.  Everyone has his own special gift, and
+everyone has his own special opportunities.  There are, however,
+certain lines of direct influence that may be indicated, and which lie
+open to all.
+
+(_a_) Keeping others in the right path.  We constantly meet with people
+who are evidently taking a wrong road; it is our duty to try and show
+them the right one, and to persuade them to walk in it.  We see men
+taking up with evil habits, evil companions, or evil opinions; we are
+bound to remonstrate with them and endeavor to warn them timeously.
+This of course needs to be wisely done, and after prayer to God to
+guide us rightly; but we ought to do it.  "A word spoken in due season
+how good is it."  Such a word has often been blessed and made
+effectual, and we should not shrink from speaking it.  The right time
+for speaking it should be chosen, but it should not be left by us
+unsaid.  When Paley the great moralist was a student at Cambridge he
+wasted his time in idleness and frivolity, and was the butt of his
+fellow-students.  One of them, however, took courage to remonstrate
+with him, and did so with good effect.  One morning he came to his
+bedside and said to him earnestly, "Paley, I have not been able to
+sleep for thinking about you.  I have been thinking what a fool you
+are!  I have the means of dissipation, and could afford to be idle; you
+are poor and cannot afford it.  I could do nothing probably even if I
+were to try; you are capable of doing anything.  I have lain awake all
+night thinking about your folly, and I have now come solemnly to warn
+you.  Indeed, if you persist in your indolence and go on in this way, I
+must renounce your society altogether."  The words took effect.  Paley
+became a changed man, and his after success sprang from his friend's
+warning.  This incident illustrates what may be the influence in this
+form of one man upon another.
+
+(_b_) Bearing testimony against evil.  This is another line of direct
+influence open to all.  It is a precept of the book of Leviticus, "If a
+soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he
+hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his
+iniquity."  If he does not give evidence against evil, even to his own
+hurt he sins.  We are bound to protest against wrongdoing in any form;
+and our protest, if distinct and well directed, always tends to good.
+To be silent in certain circumstances makes us the accomplice of sin;
+to speak out frees us from responsibility.  To be the dumb auditor of a
+shameful story, or to listen silently to the relation of a deed of
+wickedness, and not be honest and resolute in expressing our disgust
+and disapproval is to condone what no good man should condone.  The
+outspoken testimony against evil is incumbent on all Christian men.
+
+(_c_) Taking part in Christian and benevolent work.  There are many
+ways, it is evident, in which we may do so _individually_.  "The
+greatest works that have been done have been done by the ones."  No
+learned society discovered America, but one man, Columbus.  No
+parliament saved English liberties, but one man, Pym.  No confederate
+nations rescued Scotland from her political and ecclesiastical enemies,
+but one man, Knox.  By one man, Howard, our prisons were purified.  By
+one woman, Miss Nightingale, our disgraceful nursing system was
+reformed.  By one Clarkson the reproach of slavery was taken away.  God
+in all ages has blessed individual effort, and if we are strong enough
+to take up any special line of benevolent and Christian work that seems
+open to us we should not shrink from it.  We should be on the lookout
+for it.  But many from their circumstances are not able to do so, and
+such can find their best opportunity by _combining their own effort
+with the efforts of others_.  There are many agencies at work in every
+community for the helping of man, and they afford to all the
+opportunity of wisely using their power of influence.  This is true
+especially of the Christian Church.  It has been defined as "a society
+for doing good in the world."  In many ways it carries on work for the
+benefit of others.  In every Christian congregation there ought to be
+some work in which each of its members, however few his talents may be,
+can engage; and in lending a helping hand each of them may do something
+directly towards making society sweeter and better.
+
+II.  Indirect or unconscious influence.--There is an imperceptible
+personal atmosphere which surrounds every man, "an invisible belt of
+magnetism" which he bears with him wherever he goes.  It invests him,
+and others quickly detect its presence.  Take some of its simplest
+phases.
+
+(_a_) Think of the influence of a _look_.  When Christ stood in the
+courtyard of the palace of the High Priest over against His weak and
+erring disciple, whom He heard denying Him with oaths, it is said, "The
+Lord looked upon Peter."  No more than that, and it reached right down
+into his heart.  It touched him as nothing else could have touched him.
+"He went out and wept bitterly."  It was said of Keble the poet that
+"his face was like that of an illuminated clock, beaming with the
+radiance of his poetry and wisdom"; and it is written of one of the
+most spiritually-minded of Scotchmen, Erskine of Linlathen, that "his
+looks were better than a thousand homilies."  There was something in
+the very expression of his countenance that spoke to men of an inner
+life and of a spiritual dwelling in God.
+
+(_b_) Think of the influence of a _smile_: the smile of welcome when we
+call at a friend's house; the smile of recognition when we meet him in
+the street; the smile of pleasure which the speaker sees in his
+audience; the smile of satisfaction in one to whom we have done an act
+of kindness.  By the very expression of the countenance we can
+influence others, make their life more pleasant or more painful.  There
+are those who by the sweetness of their demeanor are in a household
+like fragrant flowers.  They are like the sweet ointment of spikenard
+which the woman poured upon Christ--the sweet perfume of it "filled the
+whole house."
+
+(_c_) Think of the influence of _sympathy_.  There are some natures
+that are gifted with a blessed power to bring consolation to men.  It
+is not that they are glib of tongue or facile of speech, but somehow
+the very pressure of their hand is grateful to the saddened heart.  The
+simple and kindly action, of which we think nothing, may tell
+powerfully on others, and unclose fountains of feeling deep down in the
+heart.
+
+(_d_) Think of the influence of _example_: the simple doing of what is
+right, though we say nothing about it; the upright life of a father or
+mother in a household; the steady conduct of a soldier in his company;
+the stainless character of a workman among his comrades, or a boy in
+his school.  It is bound to tell.  "Example," says Dr. Smiles, "is one
+of the most potent instructors, though it teaches without a tongue.  It
+is the practical school of mankind working by action, which is always
+more forcible than words.  Precept may point to us the way, but it is a
+silent continuous example conveyed to us by habits, and living with us
+in fact, that carries us along.  Good advice has its weight, but
+without the accompaniment of a good example it is of comparatively
+small influence, and it will be found that the common saying of 'Do as
+I say, not as I do' is usually reversed in the actual experience of
+life."  Goodness makes good.  As a man who trims his garden in a
+straight row and makes it beautiful will induce in time all his
+neighbors to follow him, or at least to be ashamed of their ragged and
+ill-kept plots in contrast with his own, so is it that the upright,
+good life of a sincere Christian man will silently tell upon others.
+
+These are some illustrations of the power of influence unconsciously
+exercised, and the whole subject teaches us (1) Our responsibility.  If
+we are ready to ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?" the answer is, you
+cannot help being so.  It is as easy to evade the law of gravitation as
+the law of responsibility.  A man was lately prosecuted for having
+waited on his customers in clothes he had worn when attending his
+children during an infectious complaint.  It was proved that he had
+sown broadcast germs of the disease.  It would have been no
+justification for him to say, What has anyone to do with the clothes I
+wear?  It is my own business.  He was a member of the community.  His
+action was silently but surely dealing out death to others.  He was
+punished, and justly punished.  We cannot live without influencing
+others.  We say perhaps that "we mean well," or at least we mean to do
+no one any harm, but is our influence harmless?  It is going from us in
+forms as subtle as the germs of an infectious disease.
+
+  Say not, "It matters not to me,
+  My brother's weal is _his_ behoof,"
+  For in this wondrous human web,
+  If your life's warp, his life is woof.
+
+  Woven together are the threads,
+  And you and he are in one loom,
+  For good or ill, for glad or sad,
+  Your lives must share one common doom.
+
+  Then let the daily shuttle glide,
+  Wound full of threads of kindly care,
+  That life's increasing length may be
+  Not only strongly wrought, but fair.
+
+  So from the stuff of each new day
+  The loving hand of Time shall make
+  Garments of joy and peace for all,
+  And human hearts shall cease to ache.
+        M. J. SAVAGE.
+
+(2) The power all have to do good.  There are some who think they can
+only serve God and man in a direct and premeditated way, by taking up
+some branch of Christian work and devoting themselves to it; and if
+they have no gift in any special direction, they think they are outside
+of the vineyard altogether.  But it is not so.  The sphere of quiet and
+unassuming Christian life is open to all.  It is impossible to measure
+the extent of our influence.  Its
+
+  Echoes roll from soul to soul,
+  And grow for ever and for ever.
+
+Like those of the Alpine horn in the solitudes of the mountains, long
+after the voice that caused them has ceased, they reverberate far and
+wide.  No man lives to himself.  He could not do so if he would.  (3)
+The secret of good influence is to be influenced for good ourselves.
+Our lamp must be first lit if it is to shine, and we must ourselves be
+personally influenced by coming to the great source of spiritual power.
+If Christ is in a man, then, wherever he may be, there will radiate
+from him influences that can only be for good.  Out of the life that is
+in him "will flow rivers of living water."
+
+  Thou must be true thyself
+    If thou the truth wouldst teach.
+  Thy soul must overflow if thou
+    Another soul wouldst reach.
+  It needs the overflowing heart
+    To give the lips full speech.
+  Think truly, and thy thought
+    Shall the world's famine feed.
+  Speak truly, and thy word
+    Shall be a fruitful seed.
+  Live truly, and thy life shall be
+    A great and noble creed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+FRIENDS.
+
+By friends we mean those whom we admit to the inner circle of our
+acquaintance.--All of us know many people.  We are bound to do so; to
+meet with men of all classes, sects, beliefs, opinions.  But with most
+of us there are a few persons who stand to us in a different relation
+from the rest.  We are intimate with them.  We take pleasure in their
+company; we tell them our thoughts: we speak to them of things we would
+not speak of to others; we confide in them, and in joy and in sorrow it
+is to them we go.  It is of this inner circle, and of those we ought to
+admit to it, that we have now to speak.
+
+Friendship has been regarded in all ages as one of the most important
+relationships of life.--Cicero, who dedicates an essay to it says that
+"it is the only thing on the importance of which mankind are agreed."
+It has been defined by Addison, the great English writer, as "a strong
+habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness
+of each other."  It has been termed by another "the golden thread that
+ties the hearts of the world."  "A faithful friend" has been called
+"the medicine of life."  Ambrose, one of the Christian Fathers, says,
+"It is the solace of this life to have one to whom you can open your
+heart, and tell your secrets; to win to yourself a faithful man, who
+will rejoice with you in sunshine, and weep in showers.  It is easy and
+common to say, 'I am wholly thine,' but to find it true is as rare."
+And Jeremy Taylor, the great preacher, calls friendship "the ease of
+our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our
+calamities, the counsellor of our doubts, the charity of our minds, the
+emission of our thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we
+meditate."  The great preachers, philosophers and poets of all time
+have dwelt on the importance and sweetness of friendship.  The _In
+Memoriam_ of Tennyson is a glorification of this relationship.
+
+The highest of all examples of friendship is to be found in
+Christ.--"His behaviour in this beautiful relationship is the very
+mirror in which all true friendship must see and mirror itself." [1]
+In His life we see the blessings of companionship in good.  "He loved
+Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus."  He had intimate friends in His
+group of disciples.  Peter and James and John stood to Him in this
+relation.  They were taken by Him into scenes which the rest of the
+disciples did not behold.  They knew a friendship with Him unenjoyed by
+the others.  And of that inner circle there was one to whom the soul of
+Jesus clung with peculiar tenderness--the beloved disciple.  Human
+friendship has been consecrated for us all by this example of Christ.
+He offers himself to every one of us as a _friend_: "Ye are my friends
+if ye do whatsoever I command you."
+
+There are two things which specially show the importance of friendship:
+
+(_a_) It is regarded by others _as a test of our character_.  The worth
+of a man will always be rated by his companions.  The proverbs of all
+nations show this.  "A man is known by the company he keeps."  "Like
+draws to like."  "Birds of a feather flock together."  If our
+companions are worthless, the verdict of society regarding us will be
+that we are worthless ourselves.  This verdict may not in all cases be
+true, but the probability is that it will be true.  If we are admitted
+to the friendship of men of honor, integrity and principle, people will
+come to believe in us.  We would not, they will feel, be admitted into
+that society unless we were in sympathy with those who compose it.  If
+we wish, therefore, that a good opinion should be formed regarding us
+by others, we need to be especially careful as to those with whom we
+associate closely and whom we admit to intimate friendship.
+
+(_b_) Friends have a special power in _moulding our character_.  George
+Herbert's saying is true, "Keep good company, and you shall be of their
+number."  It is difficult, on the other hand, to be much with the silly
+and foolish without being silly and foolish also.  It is the common
+explanation of a young man's ruin that he got among bad companions.  We
+may go into a certain society confident that we will hold our own, and
+that we can come out of it as we go in; but, as a general rule, we will
+find ourselves mistaken.  The man of the strongest individuality comes
+sooner or later to be affected by those with whom he is intimate.
+There is a subtle influence from them telling upon him that he cannot
+resist.  He will inevitably be moulded by it.  Here also the proverbs
+of the world point the lesson.  "He who goes with the lame," says the
+Latin proverb, "will begin to limp."  "He who herds with the wolves,"
+says the Spanish, "will learn to howl."  "Iron sharpeneth iron," says
+the scriptural proverb, "so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his
+friend."  The rapidity of moral deterioration in an evil companionship
+is its most startling feature.  It is appalling to see how soon an evil
+companionship will transform a young man, morally pure, of clean and
+wholesome life, into an unclean, befouled, trifling good-for-nothing.
+Lightning scarcely does its work of destruction quicker, or with more
+fell purpose.
+
+It is difficult to give precise rules in regard to the formation of
+friendship.  "A man that hath friends," says Solomon, "must show
+himself friendly."  The man of a generous and sympathetic nature will
+have many friends, and will attract to himself companions of his own
+character.  A few suggestions, however, founded on practical
+experience, may be offered for our guidance.
+
+I.  We should be (_a_) slow to make friendships, and (_b_) slow to
+break them when made.--(_a_) It is in the nature of some to take up
+with people very readily.  Some young men are like fish that rise
+readily to a gaudy and many-colored fly.  If they see anything that
+attracts them in another they admit him at once to their confidence.
+It should not be so.  Among the reported and traditional sayings of
+Christ, there is one that is full of wisdom: "Be good money changers."
+As a money changer rings the coin on his counter to test it, so we
+should test men well before we make them our friends.  There should be
+a narrow wicket leading into the inner circle of our social life at
+which we should make them stand for examination before they are
+admitted.  An old proverb says, "Before you make a friend, eat a peck
+of salt with him."  We should try before we trust; and as we should be
+careful whom we receive, we should be equally careful whom we part
+with.  "Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not."  With
+some, very little severs the bond of friendship.  They are always
+changing their companions.  They are "Hail fellow, well met," with one
+to-day, and cold and distant to-morrow.  Inconstancy in friendship is a
+bad sign.  It generally arises from readiness to admit to intimacy
+without sufficient examination.  The friendship that is quickly
+cemented is easily dissolved.  Fidelity is the very essence of true
+friendship; and, once broken, it cannot be easily renewed.  Quarrels
+between friends are the bitterest and the most lasting.  Broken
+friendship may be soldered, but never made sound.
+
+  Alas! they had been friends in youth,
+  But whispering tongues can poison truth.
+      *      *      *      *
+  They parted, ne'er to meet again,
+  But never either found another
+  To free the hollow heart from paining.
+  They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
+  Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
+  A dreary sea now flows between.
+        COLERIDGE.
+
+
+Shakespeare gives this rule for friendship in his own wonderful way.
+It could not be better stated--
+
+  The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
+  Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
+  But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
+  Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.
+
+
+II.  We should refuse friendship with those whose standard of right is
+below our own.--Anything in a man or woman that indicates low moral
+tone, or want of principle, should debar them at once from our
+friendship.  It is not easy to say in so many words what want of
+principle is, but we all know what is meant by it.  It corresponds to a
+constitutional defect in the physical system.  A person may have
+ailments, but that is different from a weak and broken constitution.
+So a person may have faults and failings, but a want of principle is
+more serious.  It is a radical defect which should prevent friendship.
+A small thing often shows us whether a person wants principle.  The
+single claw of a bird of prey tells us its nature.  According to the
+familiar saying, "We don't need to eat a leg of mutton to know whether
+it is tainted; a mouthful is sufficient."  So a single expression may
+tell us whether there is a want of moral principle.  A word showing us
+that a person thinks lightly of honesty, of purity in man, of virtue in
+woman, should be sufficient to make us keep him at a distance.  We may
+be civil to him, try to do him good, and lead him to better things, but
+he is not one to make our friend.  Cowper the poet says:
+
+  I would not enter on my list of friends,
+  Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
+  Yet wanting sensibility, the man
+  Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
+
+We may think it a small thing to set the foot upon a worm, but to do so
+needlessly and wantonly indicates a hard and cruel nature, and a man
+with such a nature is not a safe friend.
+
+III.  There should be equality in friendship.--Equality of station, of
+circumstances, of position.  It does not do to lay down a hard and fast
+line as to this.  For instance, in a "young men's guild" men of all
+stations and social conditions meet on an equality.  They are a
+brotherhood bound together by ties of a very close description.  To
+them this rule does not apply.  Among members of such an association, a
+young man may always fitly find a friend.  It is friendships formed
+outside such a circle, and in general society, that we have in view;
+and, in regard to such society, we are probably not far wrong in saying
+that we do well to choose our intimate friends from those who are
+neither much above us nor beneath us.  If a man is poor, and chooses as
+a friend one who is rich, the chances are either that he becomes a
+toady and a mere "hanger-on," or that he is made to feel his
+inferiority.  Young men in this way have been led into expenses which
+they could not afford, and into society that did them harm, and into
+debts sometimes that they could not pay.  Making friends of those
+beneath us is often equally a mistake.  We come to look upon them with
+patronizing affability.  "It is well enough to talk of our humble
+friends, but they are too often like poor relations.  We accept their
+services, and think that a mere 'thank you,' a nod, a beck, or a smile
+is sufficient recompense." [2]  Either to become a toady or a patron is
+destructive of true friendship.  We should be able to meet on the same
+platform, and join hands as brothers, having the same feelings, the
+same wants, the same aspirations.  We should be courteous to the man
+above us, and civil to the man beneath us; but if we value our
+independence and manhood we will not try to make a friend of either.
+
+IV.  We should not make a friend of one who is without reverence for
+what we deem sacred and have been taught to deem sacred.--The want of
+"reverence for that which is above us" is one of the most serious
+defects in man or woman.  We should be as slow to admit one to our
+friendship who has this defect as we would be if we knew he had entered
+into a church and stolen the vessels of the sanctuary.  We should
+consort only with those who honor the sacred name we bear, and treat it
+with reverence.  We should especially beware of admitting to intimacy
+the sceptic and infidel.  There are those who have drifted away from
+the faith of Christ, and to whom God and eternity are mere names.  Such
+are deserving of our most profound pity and sorrow, and we should do
+all in our power to lead them back to the Father's house from which
+they have wandered.  But we should never make them our friends.  We
+cannot dwell in an ill-ventilated and ill-drained house without running
+the risk of having our own constitution lowered.  We cannot associate
+in close companionship with the infidel and the sceptic without
+endangering our own spiritual life.  Doubt is as catching as disease.
+"Take my word for it," said the great Sir Robert Peel, who was a close
+observer of men, "it is not prudent, as a rule, to trust yourself to
+any man who tells you he does not believe in God, and in a future life
+after death."  We should choose our friends from those who have chosen
+the better part, and day by day we shall feel the benefit of their
+companionship in making us stronger and better.
+
+These are some plain rules drawn from long experience of life which may
+be helpful to some.  We may conclude by quoting the noble lines of
+Tennyson in which he draws the picture of his friend, Arthur Hallam,
+and the inspiration he drew from him:
+
+  Thy converse drew us with delight,
+    The men of rathe and riper years:
+    The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,
+  Forgot his weakness in thy sight.
+
+  On thee the loyal-hearted hung,
+    The proud was half disarm'd of pride,
+    Nor cared the serpent at thy side
+  To flicker with his double tongue.
+
+  The stern were mild when thou wert by,
+    The flippant put himself to school
+    And heard thee, and the brazen fool
+  Was soften'd, and he knew not why;
+
+  While I, thy nearest, sat apart,
+    And felt thy triumph was as mine;
+    And loved them more, that they were thine,
+  The graceful tact, the Christian art;
+
+  Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,
+    But mine the love that will not tire,
+    And, born of love, the vague desire
+  That spurs an imitative will.
+        TENNYSON.
+
+
+Happy are those whose friends in some degree approach the character
+here delineated.
+
+
+
+[1] Stalker's _Imago Christi_.
+
+[2] Hain Friswell, _The Gentle Life_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MONEY.
+
+Money has been defined as _the measure and standard of value, and the
+medium of exchange_.  It represents everything that may be purchased.
+He who possesses money has potentially in his possession everything
+that can be bought with money.  Money is thus power.  It seems to have
+in itself all earthly possibilities.
+
+There are three things which should be borne in mind in regard to money:
+
+I.  Money itself is neither good nor bad.--It is simply force.  It is
+like the lightning or the sunlight: it withers or nourishes; it smites
+or does other bidding; it devastates or fertilizes, according as it is
+used by us.  Whether money is good or bad depends on whether it is
+sought for in right or wrong ways, used wisely or unwisely, squandered
+where it does harm, or bestowed where it does good.  (_a_) That it may
+be a power for good is evident to all.  It enables men to benefit their
+fellow-creatures; it gives a man independence; it procures him comforts
+he could not otherwise have obtained.  It is, as it has well been
+termed, "the lever by which the race has been lifted from barbarism to
+civilization.  So long as the race could do nothing but barely live,
+man was little more than an animal who hunted and fought for his prey.
+When the race began to think and plan and save for tomorrow, it
+specially began to be human.  There is not a single feature of our
+civilization to-day that has not sprung out of money, and that does not
+depend on money for its continuance."  (_b_) That money may be a power
+for evil is equally evident.  Much of the crime and sin and sorrow of
+the world spring from its misuse.  "The love of money," as Scripture
+says, "is a root of all evil."  In the haste to be rich men too often
+lose their very manhood.  Money, it is often said, does wonders, but
+"the most wonderful thing that it does is to metalize the human soul."
+
+II.  Money and our relation to it is a test of character--The making
+and the using of it is an education.  If we know how one gets and
+spends money, we know what a man is.  "So many are the bearings of
+money upon the lives and characters of mankind, that an insight which
+would search out the life of a man in his pecuniary relations would
+penetrate into almost every cranny of his nature.  He who, like St.
+Paul, has learnt how to want and how to abound, has a great knowledge;
+for if we take account of all the virtues with which money is mixed
+up--honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought,
+self-sacrifice, and their correlative vices--it is a knowledge which
+goes to cover the length and breadth of humanity, and a right measure
+and manner in getting, saving, spending, taking, lending, borrowing and
+bequeathing would almost argue a perfect man." [1]  Nearly all the
+virtues and all the vices are connected with money.  Its acquisition
+and its distribution are almost certain indications of what we are
+morally.
+
+III.  There are some things that are better than money, and that cannot
+be purchased with it--These are indeed the best things.  All that can
+be bought money possesses actually or potentially, but there are some
+things that cannot be bought.  Love, friendship, nobleness of soul,
+genius, cannot be purchased.  We must estimate rightly the power of
+money.  It is great, but it may be exaggerated, (_a_) _Honesty_ is
+better than money.  If a man gains money at the expense of honesty and
+integrity, he pays too great a price.  He is like a savage who barters
+jewels for a string of beads.  (_b_) _Home_ is better than money.  If a
+man, struggling and striving to be rich, has no time for the joys of
+family and the rich blessings that circle round the fireside, if he
+knows nothing of the charm of love and the pleasures that spring from
+the affections, he pays too great a price--"a costly house and
+luxurious furnishings are no substitute for love in the home."  (_c_)
+_Culture_ is better than money.  If a man grows up in ignorance and
+vulgarity, shut out from the world of art, literature and science, and
+all that refines and elevates the mind--a rude, uncultured boor--he
+pays too great a price for any money he may scrape together.  (_d_)
+_Humanity_ is better than money.  The rich man who leaves Lazarus
+untended at his gates, who builds about him walls so thick that no cry
+from the suffering world ever penetrates them, who becomes mean and
+stingy, close-fisted and selfish, pays too great a price.  Of such a
+man it is said in Scripture that "in hell he lifted up his eyes."
+Surely he made a bad bargain, (_e_) _Spirituality_ is better than
+money.  He who has made an idol of his wealth, who in gaining it has
+lost his soul, who has allowed money to come between him and God, has
+paid too great a price for it.  He has well been depicted by John
+Bunyan as the man with the muck-rake gathering straws, whilst he does
+not see the golden crown that is held above him.  Christ tells us God
+regards such a man as a fool.
+
+There are certain rules of conduct which may be laid down, drawn both
+from Scripture and experience, in regard to money.
+
+1.  _We are especially to remember our stewardship_.--Money is a trust
+committed to us, for which we are to give account unto God.  We are
+answerable to Him for the use we make of it.  If we have amassed
+wealth, from God has come the power that enabled us to do so.  All we
+have is His--not our own.  To each of us shall be addressed the words,
+"Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer
+steward."  If we remember this great truth we shall be rightly guided,
+both in regard to the accumulation and the distribution of money.  We
+shall not inordinately desire it, for we shall feel that with its
+increase comes new responsibility; and we shall be careful how we spend
+it, for the question will ever be present to our minds, What would the
+great Master, to whom we have to give account, wish us to do with it?
+Those who have most wisely used their money are the men who have
+realized most intensely the thought of their stewardship.  In the "Life
+of Mr. Moore," the successful merchant, by Smiles, this is most
+admirably shown.  He amassed, by industry and by enterprise, great
+wealth; he lived a noble and benevolent life; he was honored by all men
+for his character and his generosity.  But at the root and foundation
+of his life was the thought that all he had was a trust committed to
+him by God.
+
+2.  _We should do good as we go_.--There are those who allow that they
+should do good with their money, but they defer carrying out their
+intention till they have accumulated something that they think
+considerable.  If they ever become rich, then they will do great
+things.  The folly of this is apparent, (_a_) They lose the happiness
+which the humblest may daily reap from small deeds of kindness; and
+(_b_) they lose the power which will enable them to do anything if the
+great opportunity they desire comes.  "Doing good," it has been well
+said, "is a faculty, like any other, that becomes weak and atrophied,
+palsied for lack of use.  You might as well stop practising on the
+piano, under the impression that in a year or two you will find time to
+give a month to it.  In the meantime, you will get out of practice and
+lose the power.  Keep your hand and your pocket open, or they will grow
+together, so that nothing short of death's finger can unloose them."
+[2]  However little money we may have, we should use a portion of it in
+doing good.  The two mites of the widow were in the eye of Christ a
+beautiful offering.  Giving should always go with getting.  Mere
+getting injures us, but giving brings to us a blessing.  "Gold," says
+holy George Herbert, "thou mayest safely touch; but if it stick it
+wounds thee to the quick."  George Moore, to whom we have referred,
+wrote yearly in his diary the words of wisdom--
+
+  What I saved I lost,
+  What I spent I had,
+  What I gave I have.
+
+What proportion of our money we should give every one must determine
+for himself, but we are not safe spiritually unless we cultivate the
+habit of generosity.  "The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."  "There are
+many," it has been satirically said, "who would be Good Samaritans
+without the oil and the two pence."  All of us, however humble our
+station, are bound to give "as God hath prospered us" for the help of
+man and the cause of Christ; and the discharge of the obligation will
+become to us one of the greatest pleasures in life.
+
+3.  _We should cultivate thrift_.--Thrift is just forethought.  It is
+reasonable prudence in regard to money.  It provides for "the rainy
+day."  If poverty be our lot, we must bear it bravely; but there is no
+special blessing in poverty.  It is often misery unspeakable.  It is
+often brought upon us by our self-indulgence, extravagance and
+recklessness.  We are to use every means in our power to guard against
+it.  The words of the poet Burns are full of common-sense:
+
+  To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile,
+    Assiduous wait upon her,
+  And gather gear by every wile
+    That's justified by honor;
+  Not for to hide it in a hedge,
+    Nor for a train attendant,
+  But for the glorious privilege
+    Of being independent.
+
+The squalor and wretchedness which often fall upon people come from
+their not having exercised a little thought in the use of their money.
+A little self-denial would have saved them, and those depending on
+them, from many sorrows.  A saving habit is good.  "It is coarse
+thinking to confound spending with generosity, or saving with
+meanness."  The man who puts by a little week by week or year by year,
+against possible contingencies is wise.  However small may be our
+salary and limited our income, we should try and save part of it.
+Every young man should be a member of a savings bank, or a benefit
+club, by means of which he can make provision for the future.  The
+honest endeavor to make such provision is in itself an education.
+
+4.  _We should earnestly endeavor to avoid debt_.--Debt means slavery.
+It is loss of independence.  It is misery.  "He" (says a Spanish
+proverb) "that complains of sound sleep, let him borrow the debtor's
+pillow."  Every shilling that we spend beyond our income means an
+addition to a burden that may crush us to the ground.  "Pay as you go,"
+is a good rule.  "Keep a regular account of what you spend," is
+another.  "Before you buy anything, think whether you can afford it,"
+is a third.  But whatever rule we follow in regard to our expenditure,
+let us see that it does not exceed our income.  The words of Horace
+Greeley, a great American writer and politician who had a large
+experience of life, are not too strong: "Hunger, cold, rags, hard work,
+contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable, but debt is
+infinitely worse than them all.  Never run into debt!  Avoid pecuniary
+obligation as you would pestilence or famine.  If you have but fifty
+cents and can get no more a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and
+live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar."
+
+5.  _We should resolutely set our face against gambling_.--Gambling is
+one of the curses of our time.  It is the endeavor to get money by
+dispensing with labor, to make it without honestly working for it.  It
+entails widespread ruin and degradation.  Its consequences are often of
+the most appalling character.  When the gambling spirit is once
+aroused, like drunkenness, it becomes an overpowering appetite, which
+the victim becomes almost powerless to resist.  Gambling is in itself
+evil, apart from its deadly effects.  (_a_) It proposes to confer gain
+without merit, and to reward those who do not deserve a reward, (_b_)
+It proposes to benefit us while injuring our neighbor.  "Benefit
+received," says Herbert Spencer in his _Sociology_, referring to
+gambling, "does not imply effort put forth; but the happiness of the
+winner involves the misery of the loser.  This kind of action is
+therefore essentially anti-social, sears the sympathies, cultivates a
+hard egoism, and produces general deterioration of character and
+conduct."  The young should specially guard against this vice, which
+has been a rock upon which many a promising life has made disastrous
+shipwreck.
+
+
+
+[1] Sir Henry Taylor, _Notes from Life_.
+
+[2] _Life Questions_, by M. J. Savage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+TIME.
+
+"Time," it is said, "is money."  So it is, without doubt.  But to the
+young man or young woman who is striving to make the most of himself or
+herself time is more than money, it is character and usefulness.  They
+become great and good just as they learn how to make the best use of
+their time.  On the right employment of it depends what we are to be
+now, and what we are to be hereafter, "We all complain," says the great
+Roman philosopher Seneca, "of the shortness of time, and yet we have
+more than we know what to do with.  Our lives are spent either in doing
+nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing
+that we ought to do.  We are always complaining that our days are few,
+and acting as though there would be no end of them."
+
+In regard to the right use of time--how to make the most of it and to
+get the most out of it--there are certain things that we should bear in
+mind and keep in constant remembrance.  We may arrange them for
+convenience under four heads: _Economy, System, Punctuality and
+Promptitude_.
+
+I.  Economy.--We all know what economy is.  In regard to money, in
+connection with which the word is chiefly used, it is keeping strict
+watch over our expenditure, and not spending a penny without good
+reason.  According to the oft-quoted proverb, "Take care of the pence
+and the pounds will take care of themselves."  Economy, in regard to
+time, is to watch over the minutes, hours and days, and the years will
+take care of themselves.  It is, to let every moment of time be well
+employed; to let every hour of the day as it passes be turned to use;
+to let none be spent in idleness or folly.  It is a good advice that of
+the poet--
+
+  Think nought a trifle though it small appears,
+  Sands make the mountain, moments make the years,
+  And trifles life.
+
+In the mint, where money is coined, when the visitor reaches the room
+where the gold coins are cast, it is said that the floor is a network
+of wooden bars to catch all the particles of the falling metal.  When
+the day's work is done, the floor is removed and the golden dust is
+swept up to be melted again.  In the same way we should economize time:
+gather up its golden dust, let none of its moments be lost.  Be careful
+of its spare minutes, and a wealth of culture will be the result.  It
+is said of a European cathedral that when the architect came to insert
+the stained-glass windows he was one window short.  An apprentice in
+the factory where the windows were made came forward and said that he
+thought he could make a window from the bits of glass cast aside.  He
+went to work, collected the fragments, put them together, and produced
+a window said to be the finest of all.  In the same way men have made
+much out of the bits of time that have been, so to speak, broken from
+the edges of a busy life.
+
+Many illustrations might be given from history of what men have been
+able to do by a wise economy of time.  Sir Humphry Davy established a
+laboratory in the attic of his house, and when his ordinary day's work
+was done began a course of scientific studies that continued throughout
+his memorable life.  Cobbett learned grammar when a soldier, sitting on
+the edge of his bed.  Lincoln, the famous president of America,
+acquired arithmetic during the winter evenings, mastered grammar by
+catching up his book at odd moments when he was keeping a shop, and
+studied law when following the business of a surveyor.  Douglas
+Jerrold, during his apprenticeship, arose with the dawn of day to study
+his Latin grammar, and read Shakespeare and other works before his
+daily labor began at the printing office.  At night, when his day's
+work was done, he added over two hours more to his studies.  At
+seventeen years of age he had so mastered Shakespeare that when anyone
+quoted a line from the poet he could give from memory that which came
+next.  While walking to and from his office Henry Kirke White acquired
+a knowledge of Greek.  A German physician, while visiting his patients,
+contrived to commit to memory the _Iliad_ of Homer.  Hugh Miller, while
+working as a stonemason, studied geology in his off hours.  Elihu
+Burritt, "the learned blacksmith," gained a mastery of eighteen
+languages and twenty-two dialects by using the odds and ends of time at
+his disposal.  Franklin's hours of study were stolen from the time his
+companions devoted to their meals and to sleep.[1]  Many similar
+instances might be added to show what may be done by economising time
+and strictly looking after those spare minutes which many throw away.
+The great rule is, never to be unemployed, and to find relief in
+turning from one occupation to another, due allowance of course being
+made for recreation and for rest.  The wise man economises time as he
+economises money.
+
+II.  System.--It is wonderful how much work can be got through in a day
+if we go by rule--if we map out our time, divide it off and take up one
+thing regularly after another.  To drift through our work, or to rush
+through it in _helter skelter_ fashion, ends in comparatively little
+being done.  "One thing at a time" will always perform a better day's
+work than doing two or three things at a time.  By following this rule
+one person will do more in a day than another does in a week.  "Marshal
+thy notions," said old Thomas Fuller, "into a handsome method.  One
+will carry twice as much weight trussed and packed as when it lies
+untoward, flapping and hanging about his shoulders."  Fixed rules are
+the greatest possible help to the worker.  They give steadiness to his
+labor, and they enable him to go through it with comparative ease.
+Many a man would have been saved from ruin if he had appreciated the
+value of method in his affairs.  In the peasant's cottage or the
+artisan's workshop, in the chemist's laboratory or the shipbuilder's
+yard, the two primary rules must be, "For every one his duty," and,
+"For everything its place."
+
+It is a wise thing to begin the day by taking a survey in thought of
+the work we have to get through, and thus to divide it, giving to each
+hour its own share.  The shortest way to do many things is to do one
+thing at a time.  Albert Barnes was a distinguished American theologian
+who wrote a valuable commentary on the Bible amid the work of a large
+parish.  He accomplished this by systematic arrangement of his time.
+He divided his day into parts.  He devoted each part to some duty.  He
+rigidly adhered to this arrangement, and in this way was able to
+overtake an amount of work that was truly wonderful.  In the life of
+Anthony Trollope, the great novelist, we are told that he kept
+resolutely close to a rule he laid down for himself.  He wrote so many
+pages a day of so many lines each.  He overtook an immense amount of
+work in the year.  He published many books, and he made a great deal of
+money.  The great English lawyer Sir Edward Coke divided his time
+according to the well-known couplet--
+
+  Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,
+  Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.
+
+Sir William Jones, the famous Oriental scholar, altered this rule to
+suit himself.
+
+  Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
+  Ten to the world allot, and all to Heaven.
+
+Benjamin Franklin's system of working is given in his "Life."  Each day
+was carefully portioned off.  His daily programme was the following:
+
+
+       Morning.             ) Rise, wash, and address the
+                          5 )   Almighty Father; contrive
+  [Question, What good    6 )   the day's business and take
+  shall I do this day?]   7 )   the resolution of the day;
+                            )   prosecute the present study,
+                            )   breakfast.
+
+                          8 )
+                         to ) Work
+                         11 )
+
+                         12 ) Read or look over accounts and
+       Noon.             to )   dine.
+                          1 )
+
+                          2 )
+       Afternoon,        to ) Work
+                          5 )
+
+                          6 ) Put things in their place;
+       Evening           to )   supper; music or diversion or
+  [Question, What good    9 )   conversation; examination of
+   have I done to-day?]     )   the day.
+
+                         10 )
+       Night             to ) Sleep.
+                          4 )
+
+
+It is evident that a scheme of life like this could not suit everyone.
+It is given as an illustration of the value of adhering to method in
+our work.  "Order," the poet Pope says, "is Heaven's first law," and
+time well ordered means generally work well and thoroughly done.
+
+III.  Punctuality.--This means keeping strictly as to time by any
+engagement we make either with ourselves or with others.  If we resolve
+to do anything at a certain time, we should do it neither before nor
+after that time.  It is better to be before than after.  But it is best
+to be at the very minute.  If we enter into an engagement with others
+for a certain time, we should be precise in keeping it.  In a letter
+from a celebrated merchant, Buxton, to his son, he says, "Be punctual;
+I do not mean merely being in time for lectures, but mean that spirit
+out of which punctuality grows, that love of accuracy and precision
+which mark the efficient man.  The habit of being punctual extends to
+everything--meeting friends, paying debts, going to church, reaching
+and leaving place of business, keeping promises, retiring at night and
+rising in the morning."  We may lay down a system or method of work for
+ourselves, but it will be of little service unless we keep carefully to
+it, beginning and leaving off at the appointed moment.  If the work of
+one hour is postponed to another, it will encroach on the time allotted
+to some other duty, if it do not remain altogether undone, and thus the
+whole business of the day is thrown into disorder.  If a man loses half
+an hour by rising late in the morning, he is apt to spend the rest of
+the day seeking after it.  Sir Walter Scott was not only methodical in
+his work, he was exceedingly punctual, always beginning his allotted
+task at the appointed moment.  "When a regiment," he wrote, "is under
+march, the rear is often thrown into confusion because the front does
+not move steadily and without interruption.  It is the same thing in
+business.  If that which is first in hand be not instantly despatched,
+other things accumulate betimes, till affairs begin to press all at
+once, and no brain can stand the confusion."  We should steadily
+cultivate the habit of punctuality.  We can cultivate it until it
+becomes with us a second nature, and we do everything, as the saying
+is, "by clockwork."  In rising in the morning and going to bed, in
+taking up different kinds of work, in keeping appointments with others,
+we should strive to be "to the minute."  The unpunctual man is a
+nuisance to society.  He wastes his own time, and he wastes the time of
+others; as Principal Tulloch well says, "Men who have real work of
+their own would rather do anything than do business with him." [2]
+
+IV.  Promptitude.--By this we mean acting at the present moment--all
+that is opposed to procrastination, putting off to another time, to a
+"convenient season" which probably never comes--all that is opposed
+also to what is called "loitering" or "dawdling."  There is an old
+Latin proverb, "_Bis dat qui cito dat,_"--he gives twice who gives
+quickly.  The same thing may be said of work, "He works twice who works
+quickly."  In work, of course, the first requirement is that it should
+be well done; but this does not hinder quickness and despatch.  There
+are those who, when they have anything to do, seem to go round it and
+round it, instead of attacking it at once and getting it out of the
+way; and when they do begin it they do so in a listless and
+half-hearted fashion.  There are those who look at their work,
+according to the simile of Sidney Smith, like men who stand shivering
+on the bank instead of at once taking the plunge.  "In order," he says,
+"to do anything that is worth doing in this world, we must not stand
+shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in
+and scramble through as well as we can.  It will not do to be
+perpetually calculating and adjusting nice chances; it did all very
+well before the Flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an
+intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to
+see its success for six or seven centuries afterwards, but at present a
+man doubts, and waits, and hesitates, and consults his brother, and his
+uncle, and his first cousin, and his particular friends, till one day
+he finds that he is sixty-five years of age, that he has lost so much
+time in consulting first cousins and particular friends that he has no
+time to follow their advice."  This is good sense, though humorously
+put.  Promptitude is a quality that should be assiduously cultivated.
+Like punctuality, it becomes a most valuable habit.  "Procrastination,"
+it is said, "is the thief of time," and "hell is paved with good
+intentions."  These proverbs are full of wisdom.  When we hear people
+saying, "They are going to be this thing or that thing; they _intend_
+to look to this or to that; they will by and by do this or that," we
+may be sure there is a weakness in their character.  Such people never
+come to much.  The best way is not to _speak_ about doing a thing, but
+_to do it_, and to do it _at once_.
+
+To these thoughts on the use of time we may fitly add the great words
+of Scripture, "So teach us to number our days that we may apply our
+hearts unto wisdom," Ps. xc. 12.  "Redeeming the time, because the days
+are evil," Ephes. v. 16.  We transform time into eternity by using it
+aright.
+
+
+
+[1] These illustrations are given by Mr. Davenport Adams.
+
+[2] _Beginning Life_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+COURAGE.
+
+We all know what is meant by courage, though it is not easy to define
+it.  It is the determination to hold our own, to face danger without
+flinching, to go straight on our way against opposing forces, neither
+turning to the right hand nor the left.
+
+It is a quality admirable in the eyes of all men, savage and civilized,
+Christian and non-Christian--as admirable as cowardice, the opposite
+quality, is detestable.  The brave man is the hero of the savage.
+Bravery, or, as the Scriptures term it, _virtue_, is a great requisite
+in a Christian.  If it is not the first, it is the second
+characteristic of a Christian life.  "Add," says St. Paul, "to your
+faith virtue," that is to say, courage.
+
+It is the very glory of youth to be courageous.--The "sneak" and the
+"coward" are the abhorrence of youth.  It is youth which climbs "the
+imminent deadly breach" and faces the deadly hail of battle, which
+defies the tyranny of custom and the hatred of the world.  One may have
+compassion for age, which is naturally timid and sees fears in the way,
+but youth which is cowardly is contemptible.
+
+There are two kinds of courage--the one of a lower, the other of a
+higher type.  (_a_) The first, the lower kind of courage, is that which
+has its root and foundation in our physical nature.  It is
+constitutional; there is little or no merit in it.  Some men are born
+to know no fear--men of strong nerve, of iron constitution, and
+powerful physique.  Such men laugh at danger and scorn opposition.
+Theirs is the courage of the lion or the bull-dog, and there is no
+virtue about it.  They cannot help being what they are.  (_b_) But
+there is another kind of courage which is not so much physical as
+_moral_.  It has its foundation not in man's bodily constitution so
+much as in his higher nature.  It draws its power from the invisible.
+"Are you not afraid," was a question put by a young and boastful
+officer to his companion whose face was blanched and pale, as they
+stood together amid the thickly falling shot of a battle-field.  "I
+_am_ afraid," he replied, "and if you were half as afraid as I am, you
+would run."  In his case there was little physical courage, but there
+was the higher courage drawn from a sense of duty which made him stand
+firm as a rock.  When our Lord knelt in His mysterious anguish in
+Gethsemane, His whole physical nature seemed broken down, "His sweat
+was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
+"Suffer," He said, "this cup to pass from me"; and His strength came
+from the invisible.  "Not my will," He cried, "but thine be done."
+With that sublime trust in God strengthening Him, He shrank not back
+for a moment; He took the cup and drained it to the dregs.  This is the
+highest form of courage that there is.  The weakest women have
+displayed it in face of appalling dangers.  It is the courage of the
+martyr, the patriot, the reformer.  There is a glory and beauty in it
+before which all men bow.
+
+There are three chief forms which this moral courage takes in ordinary
+life.
+
+_First, there is the courage of our opinions_.--Many people, perhaps
+the majority, do not have opinions.  They have simply notions,
+impressions, sentiments, prejudices, which they have imbibed from
+others.  They may be said to be like looking-glasses, which have a
+shadow of whatever stands before them.  So long as they are in company
+with a positive person who believes something, they have an opinion.
+When he goes the shadow on the looking-glass goes also.  They are like
+the sand on the seashore--the last person who comes the way makes a
+track and the next wave washes it away and leaves the sand ready for
+another impression.  How many are there who, when any important
+question comes up, have no opinion about it, until they read their
+paper or hear what other people are saying.  There is no sort of
+courage more needed than the courage to form an opinion and keep by it
+when we have formed it.  There is no more contemptible form of
+cowardice than to do a thing merely because others do it.  The grand
+words of President Garfield of the United States are worthy of
+remembrance: "I do not think what others may say or think about me, but
+there is one man's opinion about me which I very much value, that is
+the opinion of James Garfield; others I need not think about.  I can
+get away from them, but I have to be with him all the time.  He is with
+me when I rise up and when I lie down, when I go out and when I come
+in.  It makes a great difference whether he thinks well of me or not."
+To this noble utterance we may add the words of the poet Russell Lowell:
+
+  They are slaves who will not choose
+  Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
+  Rather than in silence shrink
+  From the truth they needs must think.
+  They are slaves who dare not be
+  In the right with two or three.
+
+
+_Second, there is the courage of resistance_.--This is the chief form
+courage should take in the young.  They are surrounded on every side by
+strong temptations--temptations addressed to their lower nature, to
+vanity, to indolence, to scepticism, to impurity, to drunkenness.
+There is many a young man beset by temptation who has in reality to
+fight far harder if he will maintain his integrity than any soldier
+belonging to an army making its way through an enemy's country.  He
+does not know when an ambush may be sprung upon him, or from what side
+the attack may come.  In an old tower on the Continent they show you,
+graven again and again on the stones of one of the dungeons, the word
+_Resist_.  It is said that a Protestant woman was kept in that hideous
+place for forty years, and during all that time her employment was in
+graving with a piece of iron, for anyone who might come after her, that
+word.  It is a word that needs to be engraven on every young man's and
+young woman's heart.  It represents the highest form of courage which
+to them is possible--the power to say "No" to every form of temptation.
+
+_Third, there is the courage of endurance_.--This is really the noblest
+form of courage.  There is no excitement in it; nothing to be won by
+it.  It is simply to bear without flinching.  In the buried city of
+Herculaneum, near Vesuvius, now uncovered, after the guide has shown
+the visitor the wonders of the place he takes him to the gate and
+points out the stone box where were found, buried in ashes, the rusted
+remains of the helmet and cuirass of the Roman sentinel.  When the
+black cloud rose from the mountain, and the hot ashes fell around him,
+and the people rushed out at the gate, he stood there immovable,
+because it was his duty, and died in his place, suffocated by the
+sulphury air.  It was a grand instance of courage, but it is seen again
+and again equalled in common life.  In men and women stricken down by
+fell disease; in those on whom adverse circumstances close like the
+walls of an iron chamber; in people for whom there was no possible
+escape, who could only bear, but who stood up firm and erect in their
+weakness, whose cross, instead of crushing them to the earth, seemed
+only to lift them up.  We are told that Robert Hall, the great
+preacher, suffered much from disease.  He was forced often to throw
+himself down and writhe on the ground in paroxysms of pain.  From these
+he would rise with a smile, saying, "I suffered much, but I did not cry
+out, did I? did I cry out?"
+
+These are the chief forms of moral courage in ordinary life.  We have
+now to point out what are the sources of such courage.
+
+The first source of courage is conviction--the feeling that we are in
+the right, the "testimony of a good conscience."  Nothing can make a
+man brave without that.  "Thrice is he armed," we are told, "who hath
+his quarrel just," and he is more than trebly armed who knows in his
+heart that it is just.  If we go over the roll of the strongest and
+bravest men the world has seen we will find that at the root of their
+courage there lay this fact of conviction.  They _believed_, therefore
+they spake, therefore they fought, therefore they bled and died.  The
+man of strong conviction is the strong man all the world over.  If a
+man wants that, he will be but a feeble character, a poor weakling to
+the end of the chapter.  Shakespeare says that "conscience makes
+cowards of us all"; but it does something else when it makes us fear
+evil--it lifts us above all other fear.  So it raised Peter, who had
+shortly before denied his Master, to such courage that he could say
+before his judges, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken
+unto you more than unto God, judge ye.  For we cannot but speak the
+things which we have seen and heard."  It has enabled men and women to
+endure a martyr's death when one word, which they would not speak,
+might have saved them.
+
+The second source of courage is faith.--We use the word in the
+Christian sense of trust in God.  When a man feels that God is with him
+he can stand up against all the powers of earth and hell.  "If God be
+for us, who can be against us?"  The heroes of the past, who subdued
+kingdoms and wrought righteousness, have all been men of faith.  Recall
+Hebrews xi., the Covenanters, the Ironsides of Cromwell, the Huguenots,
+Luther, Knox.  Their faith may not have been so enlightened as it might
+have been had their knowledge been wider.  Their religious creeds may
+have contained propositions that are no longer accepted, but they were
+strong because of their undoubted faith in God.  When His presence is
+an abiding presence with us and in us, our
+
+  Strength is as the strength of ten,
+  Because our hearts are pure.
+
+He who fears God will know no other fear.
+
+The third source of courage is sympathy.--A man who has God with him
+will be brave if he stand alone, but he will be greatly helped if he is
+in company with others like himself and knows that he has the sympathy
+of good men.  You remember St. Paul on his journey to Rome reaching a
+little village about thirty miles from the great city.  The look-out
+for him was very depressing.  He had appealed to Caesar, but what
+likelihood was there of his obtaining justice in Caesar's capital.  He
+might be thrown to the lions, or made to fight for his life in the
+Coliseum, a spectacle to the Roman multitude.  Then it was that a few
+Roman Christians who had heard of his approach came out to meet him,
+and, it is said, "he thanked God and took courage."  Such was the power
+of sympathy.  If we would be encouraged we will seek it.  If we would
+encourage others we will give it.
+
+We will only say in closing this chapter that its subject is most truly
+illustrated by the life of our Lord himself.  The mediaeval conception
+of Christ was that He exhibited only the passive virtues of meekness,
+patience, and submission to wrong.  From the gospels we form a
+different idea.  He vanquished the devil in the wilderness; He faced
+human opposition boldly and without fear; He denounced the hypocrisy of
+the Pharisees, and encountered their rage and violence.  He went calmly
+along His appointed path, neither turning to the right hand nor to the
+left.  Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, could not deter Him from doing
+His Father's work.  Amid a tumultuous tempest of ill-will He moved
+straight forward, foreseeing His death, "setting His face toward
+Jerusalem," knowing all that awaited Him there.  He went through
+Gethsemane to Calvary with the step of a conqueror.  Never was He more
+truly a king than on the cross, and the grandest crown ever worn was
+"the crown of thorns."  In Him we have the highest example of courage,
+as of all other virtues.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HEALTH.
+
+Health means soundness of body and of mind; the keeping of our physical
+system in such a condition that it is able to do its work easily,
+without disturbance, and without pain; the exercise of the mind so as
+not to harm the body.  There are certain preliminary considerations
+that we should bear in mind in connection with this subject.
+
+I.  The close connection between body and mind.--They are both related
+to each other in some mysterious way.  So close is the connection that
+the one cannot be affected without the other.  The well-being of the
+one depends on the well-being of the other.  The power which the mind
+has over the body and the body over the mind has been well and tersely
+described by a writer of our time.  "Man," he says, "is one, however
+compound.  Fire his conscience, and he blushes; check his circulation,
+and he thinks tardily or not at all; impair his secretions, and the
+moral sense is dulled, discolored, or depraved, his aspirations flag,
+his hope and love both reel; impair them still more, and he becomes a
+brute.  A cup of wine degrades his moral nature below that of the
+swine.  Again, a violent emotion of pity or horror makes him vomit; a
+lancet will restore him from delirium to clear thought; excessive
+thought will waste his energy; excess of muscular exercise will deaden
+thought; an emotion will double the strength of his muscles; and at
+last, a prick of a needle or a grain of mineral will in an instant lay
+to rest forever his body and its unity." [1]  When we consider the
+close connection between mind and body, and how the state of the one
+affects the other, we see how important it is that both should work
+together in that harmonious action which is health, and how carefully
+we should guard against anything by which that harmonious action may be
+interrupted.
+
+II.  Bodily health is almost essential to success in life.--It is not
+_absolutely_ essential, but it is _almost_ essential.  (_a_) Physical
+health is not everything.  "Give a man," it has been said, "a good deep
+chest and a stomach of which he never knew the existence, and he must
+succeed in any practical career."  This has been said by a great
+authority, Professor Huxley, but it is only partially true, for many
+worthless people fulfil these conditions.  They are, as Carlyle calls
+them, only "animated patent digesters."  (_b_) Great things also have
+been done in the world by men whose health has been feeble.  Calvin was
+a man of sickly body; Pascal was an invalid at eighteen; Pope was weak
+and deformed; William of Orange, a martyr to asthma; Hall, the famous
+preacher, suffered great paroxysms of pain; Milton was blind; Nelson,
+little and lame; St. Paul in bodily presence was weak.  On the other
+hand, some of these men might have done more if their health had been
+better.  Health is a splendid possession in the battle of life.  The
+men of great physical vitality, as a rule, achieve most; other things
+being equal, their success in life is sure.  Everything shows that the
+greatness of great men is almost as much a bodily affair as a mental
+one.  It has been computed that the average length of life of the most
+eminent philosophers, naturalists, artists, jurists, physicians,
+musical composers, scholars and authors, including poets, is sixty-five
+years.  This shows that the most successful men on the whole have had
+good bodies and been blessed with great vitality.
+
+III.  The care of the body is a religious duty.--(_a_) It is so because
+our spiritual feelings are largely dependent upon the state of our
+health.  "Certain conditions of body undeniably occasion, irritate and
+inflame those appetites and inclinations which it is one great end of
+Christianity to repress and regulate."  The spirit has sometimes to
+maintain a terrible struggle against the flesh.  Intemperance is
+largely the result of bad feeding.  "It is easier for a camel to pass
+through the eye of a needle," than for a dyspeptic person to be gentle,
+meek, long-suffering.  Dark views of God often come from the state of
+the body.  It would largely lift up the moral and spiritual condition
+of men if their surroundings were such as tended to keep them in
+health.  To improve men's dwellings, to give them healthy homes, pure
+air to breathe, and pure water to drink, would tend to help them
+morally and spiritually, (_b_) God requires of us a certain amount of
+service by and through our bodies.  We cannot perform the work if we
+destroy the machines by which the work is to be done.  (_c_) Scripture
+especially calls us to make the body the object of our reverent care.
+"Your bodies are members of Christ."  The body "is for the Lord, and
+the Lord for the body."  "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,
+which is in you, which ye have of God."  "If any man defile the temple
+of God, him will God destroy."  Yield "your members as instruments of
+righteousness unto God."  Sin is not to "reign in your mortal body."
+"Glorify God in your body."  We are to "present our bodies a living
+sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service."
+(_d_) The body is a part of that humanity which Christ by His
+_incarnation_ took, redeemed, sanctified and glorified.  (_e_) Our
+Lord's miracles were nearly all performed on the human body, for its
+relief, cure, and restoration to life.
+
+IV.  To a certain extent our health is in our own hands.--Not
+altogether, for some are constitutionally defective, and subject to
+infirmities with which they are born, and which they have perhaps
+inherited.  But a vast amount of disease is preventable, and comes from
+causes over which we have direct control.  "It is reckoned that a
+hundred thousand persons die annually in England of preventable
+diseases"--from disobedience to the laws of health, which are God's
+laws, and the transgression of which, wilfully, is sin.  Beyond all
+doubt a vast amount of sickness comes from bad living, from
+intemperance in eating and drinking, from breathing bad air, from
+inhabiting ill-constructed houses.  It is possible to live in
+accordance with the laws of health so that life may be comparatively
+free from disease and from pain.  If Providence denies health, the want
+of it must be patiently endured.  If we have inherited weakness, we
+must make the most of the strength we have.  But if we lack health
+through our own fault we are guilty of shameful sin.
+
+To discuss fully the subject and laws of health would require a whole
+treatise, and would be beyond the scope of this text-book.  There are,
+however, some outstanding conditions for the preservation of health
+which are plain to everyone, and which may be summed up in the three
+words Temperance, Exercise, and Rest.  These have been well termed the
+three great physicians, whose prescriptions are painless and cost
+nothing.
+
+1.  _Temperance_.--Man needs a certain amount of food to sustain him,
+but if that amount be increased beyond the proper quantity it is
+dangerous to health.  It overtasks the power of digestion and is
+injurious.  We need therefore to be constantly on our guard as to what
+we eat and drink lest we run into excess.  Every one must study his own
+constitution, find out its need, and suit the supply of food to its
+wants.  According to the old proverb, "We should eat to live, not live
+to eat."  It is a great matter for health when we are able to strike
+the proper medium and neither eat nor drink too much nor too little.
+To lay down rules on this subject for the individual is impossible.
+"One man's food is another man's poison."  A man must determine from
+his own experience what he ought to take, and how much, as well as what
+he ought to avoid.  The word intemperance is generally employed as
+applying to the abuse of strong drinks.  On this subject much has been
+written, some advocating total abstinence and others judicious and
+moderate use.  Into this region of controversy we cannot enter.  The
+evils of drinking habits, as they are called, are plain to all.  They
+are a terrible curse to society, and a terrible danger to the
+individual.  They have ruined many a promising career.  For many,
+perhaps we may say for most, entire abstinence is their only safety.
+He who finds that he can do his work well by drinking only water will
+be wise if he drinks nothing else.  That will never harm him, though
+other liquids may.  We must judge for ourselves, but "Temperance in all
+things" is a rule binding on every Christian man.  We cannot have
+health unless we strictly and constantly practise temperance.
+
+2.  _Exercise_.--This is as necessary to health as food.  "Only by
+exercise--physical exercise--can we maintain our muscles, organs and
+nervous system in proper vigor; only by exercise can we equalise the
+circulation and distribute the blood evenly over every part of the
+body; only by exercise can we take a cheerful and wholesome view of
+life, for exercise assists the digestion, and a good digestion is a
+sovereign antidote to low spirits; only by exercise can the brain be
+strengthened to perform the labor demanded of it." [2]  No sensible man
+will try to do without it.  If any man does so he will pay the penalty.
+As to the amount of exercise and the kind of exercise every man must
+judge for himself.  Some, from their occupation, need less than others;
+the outdoor laborer, for instance, than the clerk who is most of the
+day at the desk.  One man may take exercise best by walking, another by
+riding, another by following outdoor sports.  Athletics, such as
+football, and cricket, are a favorite form of exercise with the young,
+and if not followed to excess are most advantageous.  The walk in the
+open air is life to many.  But boy or man can never be what they ought
+to be unless they take exercise regularly and judiciously, take it not
+to exhaust but to refresh and stimulate.  It strengthens the nerve and
+clears the brain and fits for work.
+
+3.  _Rest_.--Man needs a certain amount of repose to sustain his frame
+in full vigor.  Some need more, some need less.  We must find out for
+ourselves what we need and take it.  Lack of sleep is especially a
+great waste of vitality.  Here also we must exercise our judgment as to
+the amount of sleep we require.  One needs a great deal; another can do
+with very little.  Early rising, which has been much recommended, is
+only good for those who go early to bed.  If one is compelled to sit up
+late he should sleep late in the morning.  It is no virtue on the part
+of anyone to get up early unless he has slept enough.  _That_ he must
+do if he is to have health.  A man who would be a good worker must see
+to it that he is a good sleeper; and whoever, from any cause, is
+regularly diminishing his sleep is destroying his life.  Shakespeare
+has well described the blessing of sleep when he says:
+
+  Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
+  The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
+  Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
+  Chief nourisher in life's feast.
+
+
+These are but _hints_ in connection with a great subject.  A few brief
+rules may be given of a general character:
+
+1.  Take exercise every day in the open air if possible, and make it a
+recreation and not merely a duty.
+
+2.  Eat wholesome food, drink pure water.
+
+3.  Let your house and room be well ventilated.
+
+4.  Take time enough for sleep.  Do not worry.
+
+5.  Watch yourself, but not too closely, to find out what exercise,
+air, diet, etc., agrees with you.  No man can be a rule for another.
+
+6.  If you consult a physician, it is better to do it before you are
+unwell than later.[3]
+
+We close this chapter with the powerful words of Thomas Carlyle,
+addressed to the students of the University of Edinburgh: "Finally, I
+have one advice to give you which is practically of very great
+importance.  You are to consider throughout much more than is done at
+present, and what would have been a very great thing for me if I had
+been able to consider, that health is a thing to be attended to
+continually; that you are to regard it as the very highest of all
+temporal things.  There is no kind of achievement you could make in the
+world that is equal to perfect health.  What to it are nuggets or
+millions?"
+
+
+
+[1] Frederic Harrison, _Popular Science Monthly Supplement_.
+
+[2] _Plain Living and High Thinking_.
+
+[3] These rules are given by J. Freeman Clarke in his work on
+Self-Culture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+EARNESTNESS.
+
+Another word for earnestness is enthusiasm.  The Scriptural equivalent
+is zeal.  It means putting our whole heart into whatever we are doing.
+It is a sweeping, resistless energy, which carries everything before
+it, like a river in full flood.  Its nature is well expressed in the
+saying of the old huntsman, "Throw over your heart, and your horse will
+soon follow."
+
+Earnestness is not to be confounded with noise, vehemence, or outward
+demonstration.--It is often exceedingly quiet and undemonstrative.
+Notice when the machinery of an engine is standing still, how the steam
+makes a great noise as it issues from the safety-valve, but when the
+vapor is turned into the cylinder and is used in driving the engine all
+that thundering sound disappears.  It does not follow that there is no
+steam.  It is going in another direction, and doing its appropriate
+work.  It is a great mistake to imagine that enthusiasm and what is
+called _fuss_ are identical.  The most enthusiastic men are often the
+quietest.  No one can doubt the enthusiasm of a man like Livingstone.
+He had enthusiasm for science, for philanthropy and for religion.  It
+was unflagging; yet not a boast, not a murmur escaped his lips.  He did
+the thing he meant to do, and made no noise in doing it.
+
+Earnestness is often regarded with suspicion and condemned.--It is the
+fashion with many to sneer at it.  It is often alone, and then it is
+not respectable.  It is often in excess, and is therefore ineffective.
+It is often disturbing to the sleepiness of others, and is therefore
+hated by them.  Our Lord was an enthusiast in the eyes of the
+Pharisees.  St. Paul was an enthusiast to Festus.  The early Christians
+were enthusiasts to the pagan world because they turned it upside down.
+The martyrs and confessors of all times have been regarded as
+enthusiasts by those of their own time who were not in sympathy with
+them.  An enthusiast is called by many a fanatic, and a fanatic in the
+eyes of some is a most dangerous member of society.
+
+All the great leaders of the world have been men in earnest.--Emerson
+says truly that "every great and commanding movement in the annals of
+the world is the triumph of enthusiasm."  Our civil and religious
+liberties we owe to enthusiasts for freedom.  The enthusiasm of
+Columbus gave us America; the enthusiasm of Knox reformed Scotland; the
+enthusiasm of Wesley regenerated English religious life; the enthusiasm
+of men like Garibaldi and Cavour and Mazzini has made in our own time a
+new Italy.  These men were all denounced in their day, cold water was
+thrown on all their projects, but their burning earnestness carried
+them on to triumph.  The scorned enthusiast of one generation is the
+hero of the next.
+
+Earnestness is a great element in securing success in life.--A
+well-known writer and preacher, Dr. Arnot, tells that he once heard the
+following conversation at a railway station between a farmer and the
+engineer of a train: "What are you waiting for so long?  Have you no
+water?"  "Oh, yes, we have plenty of water, but it is not boiling."  So
+there may be abundance of intelligence and splendid machinery, and all
+the appliances that help to success, but what is wanted is intense
+boiling earnestness.  We have a good illustration of the power of
+earnestness in speaking.  One man may say the right thing, and say it
+in a pleasing and cultured manner; every phrase may be well placed,
+every sentence polished, every argument in its proper place.  Another
+man may have no elegance of diction, his words may be unpolished, his
+sentences even ungrammatical, and yet he may move a great multitude, as
+the leaves of the trees are moved by the wind, through the intense
+earnestness and enthusiasm by which he is possessed.  We see the same
+thing in Christian effort.  The organization of a church may be
+perfect, its resources may be large, and it may have in its service an
+army of able and well-disciplined men; but without enthusiasm and
+burning zeal its efforts are powerless and come to nothing.  When, as
+at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends upon a church in tongues of
+fire, then there is quickening, and souls are gathered in.  No man has
+ever had a supreme influence over others without more or less
+enthusiasm in his nature.
+
+There are three directions we may give in regard to earnestness or
+enthusiasm.
+
+1.  _Respect it in others_.--Do not join with those who regard it as
+something that is not respectable.  It is always preferable to what is
+cold and formal.  Life is better than death, and when there is life
+there is energy and earnestness.  Even when enthusiasm takes forms that
+we cannot altogether approve of, it is worthy of respect.  "Next to
+being Servetus who was burnt," said one, "I would have been Calvin who
+burnt him."  That was a strong way of saying that zeal is a beautiful
+thing in itself, though "zeal that is not according to knowledge" is
+not good.  We may not approve of many of the opinions and methods of
+Francis Xavier, the great missionary and saint of the Roman Church, but
+we cannot fail to admire his burning zeal in the cause of Christ, and
+look with something like awe on his high-souled devotion to the work of
+an evangelist.  He was swept on by an enthusiasm that never failed, and
+which carried him over obstacles that would have daunted any ordinary
+man.  The Puritans were denounced by many good people of their time,
+and the great preacher, Dr. South, delivered a sermon against them,
+entitled "Enthusiasts not led by the Spirit of God."  But we all know
+how great the men were, and how great a work they did through the very
+enthusiasm that he condemned.  "It is better," according to the
+proverb, "that the pot should boil over than not boil at all."  The
+word enthusiasm literally means filled, or inspired, by God, and the
+meaning of the word may teach us how noble a thing enthusiasm is in
+itself, and how worthy it is of admiration and respect.
+
+2.  _We should cultivate it in ourselves_.--It is a virtue, like all
+others, that can be cultivated.  (_a_) By resolutely setting our face
+against doing anything in a languid and half-hearted way.  If a thing
+is worth doing, it should be done "with all our might."  (_b_) By
+studying the lives of great men.  When we do so we catch something of
+the earnestness that inspired them.  This is perhaps the best result of
+reading biography.  We feel how noble was the enthusiasm of the heroes
+of the past, and how, by means of it, they were able to do great
+things, and to march on to victory.  (_c_) By associating with those
+who are in earnest.  There is nothing so contagious as enthusiasm, and
+when we come in contact with those who live under the impulse of grand
+ideas, something of their force and power is conveyed to ourselves.
+The great soul strengthens the weak soul.  While the solitary coal on
+the hearth will go black out, when it is heaped up with others it
+springs into a blaze.
+
+  O ever earnest sun!
+    Unwearied in thy work,
+    Unhalting in thy course,
+    Unlingering in thy path,
+    Teach me thy earnest ways,
+  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
+
+  O ever earnest stars!
+    Unchanging in your light,
+    Unfaltering in your race,
+    Unswerving in your round,
+    Teach me your earnest ways,
+  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
+
+  O ever earnest flowers!
+    That with untiring growth
+    Shoot up and spread abroad
+    Your fragrance and your joy,
+    Teach me your earnest ways,
+  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
+
+  O ever earnest sea!
+    Constant in flow and ebb,
+    Heaving to moon and sun,
+    Unchanging in thy change,
+    Teach me thy earnest ways,
+  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
+        HORATIUS BONAR.
+
+3.  _We should carry earnestness into our religious life_.--This above
+all.  There are many who tolerate earnestness in other things, but who
+look upon it as dangerous in connection with religion.  It is regarded
+as of very questionable value, and spoken of with doubt and suspicion.
+Let a man become earnest in prayer, earnest in work, or rise in any way
+above the dead level in which so many are content to rest, and he will
+be often spoken of in tones of pity, sneered at as a fanatic, or
+denounced as an impostor.  This suspicion with which earnestness in the
+Church of Christ is often regarded may be accounted for.  (_a_) There
+has been a vast deal of zeal in the Church about religion which has not
+been zeal for religion: about matters of ritual, Church government, and
+the like.  (_b_) Zeal has been often expended in contentions about
+small points of doctrine; often about those very points which are
+shrouded in mystery.  (_c_) Zeal has been often manifested in the
+interest of sect and party rather than of Christ.  (_d_) Zeal has often
+taken persecution for her ally, and wielded among men the weapons of
+earthly warfare.  For these reasons its appearance in the Church is
+often regarded as we might regard the erection in a town of a gunpowder
+magazine which, at any moment, might produce disorder, ruin, and death.
+
+_Yet Scripture regards earnestness in religion as
+essential_.--Indifference and lukewarmness it regards as hateful (Rev.
+iii. 15, 16).  It calls us to a solemn choice and to a lifelong
+service.  Its heroes are those who lived in the spirit of Brainerd's
+prayer, "Oh, that I were a flaming fire in the service of my God."
+There is an allegory of Luther which may be quoted here.  "The devil,"
+he says, "held a great anniversary, at which his emissaries were
+convened to report the results of their several missions.  'I let loose
+the wild beasts of the desert,' said one, 'on a caravan of Christians,
+and their bones are now bleaching on the sands.'  'What of that?' said
+the devil; 'their souls were all saved.'  'I drove the east wind,' said
+another, 'against a ship freighted with Christians, and they were all
+drowned.'  'What of that?' said the devil; 'their souls were all
+saved.'  'For ten years I tried to get a single Christian asleep,' said
+a third, 'and I succeeded, and left him so.' Then the devil shouted,
+and the night stars of hell sang for joy."
+
+There are three spheres of religious life in which earnestness should
+be specially shown.
+
+1.  _In prayer_.--This is specially inculcated in the two parables of
+our Lord, the "unjust judge" and "the friend at midnight," and in His
+own words, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
+knock, and it shall be opened unto you."  One, it is said, came to
+Demosthenes, the great orator, and asked him to plead his cause.  He
+heard him without attention while he told his story without
+earnestness.  The man saw this, and cried out anxiously that it was all
+true.  "Ah!" said Demosthenes, "I believe you _now_."  The earnest
+prayer is the prevailing prayer.
+
+2.  _In sacrifice_.--This is in all life the test of earnestness.  The
+student giving up time for the acquisition of knowledge; the merchant
+giving up his hours to the pursuit of business; the explorer braving
+the heat of the tropics and the cold of the arctic regions in his zeal
+for discovery.  It is the same in religion.  We must count all things,
+with St. Paul, "as loss, that we may win Christ, and be found in Him."
+
+3.  _In impressing others_.--It is "out of the heart that the mouth
+speaketh," and power to impress others is given only to those who do so
+with a full heart, and who are consumed with a burning zeal for the
+salvation of souls.  These are they whom God has, in all ages, blessed
+in the conversion of men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MANNERS.
+
+The word manners comes from the Latin _manus_, the hand, and literally
+means the mode in which a thing is handled--behavior, deportment.
+Manners may be defined as the pleasing or unpleasing expression of our
+thoughts and intentions, whether in word or action.  We may say or do a
+thing in an agreeable or a disagreeable way.  According as we choose
+the one or the other, our manners may be said to be good or bad.
+
+Good manners are the result of two things.--(_a_) Self-respect and
+(_b_) consideration for the feelings of others.  The man who respects
+himself will be careful to say or do nothing that may seem to others
+degrading or unworthy.  The man who has consideration for the feelings
+of others will be equally careful to do or say nothing that may give
+them pain, or be offensive to them.
+
+Good manners beautify character.--It was a celebrated saying of an old
+bishop, William of Wykeham, "Manners maketh man."  This is, however,
+only partially true.  Manners do not make a man any more than good
+clothes make a man, but if he _is made_ they greatly improve him.  Some
+have been truly excellent who have had an uncouth and unpolished
+address, but that was rather to their disadvantage than otherwise.
+"Rough diamonds" are always precious, but a diamond that is cut and
+polished, while it retains its value, is much more beautiful.  Civility
+of speech, politeness of address, courtesy in our dealings with others,
+are qualities that adorn a man, whilst rudeness, incivility, roughness
+in behavior, detract greatly from his value, and injure his usefulness.
+Tennyson's words are true:
+
+  Manners are not idle, but the fruit
+  Of noble nature and of loyal mind.
+
+
+Good manners tend greatly to success in life.--Coarseness and gruffness
+lock doors, gentleness and refinement open them, while the rude,
+boorish man is shunned by all.  Take the case of a speaker addressing a
+public meeting.  What he says is weighty and important.  His arguments
+are powerful and well marshalled, but his speech is uncouth and
+disagreeable.  He says things that are coarse and vulgar.  His bad
+manner vastly takes away from the impression which he desires to make,
+and which, if his manner had been different, he would have made.
+Again, two young men serve in a place of business.  The one is gentle
+in his demeanor, meets his customers with a pleasant smile, is always
+polite.  The other is rough in his deportment, apparently does not care
+whether those he deals with are pleased or not.  The one is a favorite
+with everybody; the other, who may be equally worthy as far as
+character is concerned, is disliked.
+
+Good manners often disarm opposition.--People may have a prejudice
+against ourselves personally, or against the cause we represent.  It is
+wonderful, however, how much may be done to soften them by habitual
+courtesy towards them, and by studiously avoiding anything calculated
+to offend them or rouse their anger.  A wise man will always endeavor
+to be specially civil towards any one who differs from him.  It is
+related that in the early days of the Abolition movement in the United
+States, two men went out preaching: one, a sage old Quaker, brave and
+calm; the other, a fervid young man.  When the Quaker lectured, the
+audience were all attention, and his arguments met with very general
+concurrence.  But when it came to the young man's turn, a tumult
+invariably ensued, and he was pelted off the platform.  Surprised by
+their different receptions, the young man asked the Quaker the reason.
+"Friend," he said, "you and I are on the same mission; we preach the
+same things; how is it that while _you_ are received so cordially, I
+get nothing but abuse?"  "I will tell thee," replied the Quaker; "thee
+says, 'If you do so and so, you shall be punished,' and I say, 'My
+friends, if you will _but_ do so and so, you shall not be punished.'
+It is not what we say, but how we say it." [1]  In _The Memorials of a
+Quiet Life_ it is said of Augustus Hare that, on a road along which he
+frequently passed, there was a workman employed in its repair who met
+his gentle questions and observations with gruff answers and sour
+looks.  But as day after day the persevering mildness of his words and
+manner still continued, the rugged features of the man gave way, and
+his tone assumed a softer character.  Politeness is the oiled key that
+will open many a rusty lock.
+
+Good manners may be summed up in the one word, Gentleman.--That term
+implies all that good-manners ought to be.  The original derivation of
+the word is from the Latin _gentilis_, belonging to a tribe or _gens_;
+and in its first signification it applies to those of noble descent or
+family; but it has come to mean something far wider, and something
+which every man, however humble, may be--a man of high courtesy and
+refinement, to whom dishonor is hateful.  "What is it," says Thackeray,
+"to be a gentleman?  It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous,
+to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to
+exercise them in the most graceful outward manner."  It was said of our
+Lord by one of the early English poets, that he was
+
+  The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
+
+To be a gentleman in all circumstances is the highest idea we can form
+of good manners.  It is what, in our intercourse with others, we should
+strive to be--to have "high thoughts," as Sir Philip Sidney expresses
+it, "seated in a heart of courtesy."  In Bishop Patteson's life is
+given the estimate of him, as a true gentleman, by a New Zealand
+native: "Gentleman-gentleman thought nothing that ought to be done too
+mean for him.  Pig-gentleman never worked."  The savage knew by
+instinct that the good Bishop who came to live among them that he might
+teach them to be better, who treated them with invariable courtesy and
+consideration, was a true gentleman, though he had to clean his own
+hut, to cook his own food, and to mend his own kettles.  And he knew
+also that the man who made others work for him without doing them any
+good in return, who swore at them and abused them, was only a
+pig-gentleman, however rich or high in station he might be.
+
+A few advices on the subject of this chapter may be given.
+
+1.  _Cultivate a pleasing manner_.--Any one can be civil and polite if
+he sets himself to be so.  Some suppose that it is unworthy of a robust
+character to be gentle in demeanor, that it indicates a certain amount
+of effeminacy, and that strength and gruffness go together.  We hear
+men spoken of sometimes approvingly as "rough diamonds."  But history
+tells us that the noblest and strongest have been the most tender and
+courteous.  King Robert the Bruce was "brave as a lion, tender-hearted
+as a woman."  "Sir Walter Raleigh was every inch a man, a brave
+soldier, a brilliant courtier, and yet a mirror of courtesy.  Nobody
+would accuse Sir Philip Sidney of having been deficient in manliness,
+yet his fine manners were proverbial.  It is the courtesy of Bayard,
+the knight, _sans peur et sans reproche_, which has immortalized him
+quite as much as his valor." [2]  It is not beneath us to study good
+manners.  To a great extent they come naturally from refinement of
+disposition and inborn delicacy of feeling.  But they may also, to a
+great extent, be learned and acquired.  "Watch," it has wisely been
+said, "those of excellent reputation in manners.  Catch the temper of
+the great masters of literature--the nobility of Scott, the sincerity
+of Thackeray, the heartiness of Dickens, the tenderness of Macdonald,
+the delicacy of Tennyson, the grace of Longfellow, the repose of
+Shakespeare."  It is well worth while for every young man beginning
+life to form a true idea of what good manners are, and to make it his
+constant effort to acquire them.
+
+2.  _Avoid eccentricity_.--Eccentricity is the deliberate endeavor to
+make ourselves different from those around us.  (_a_) Some show it in
+their dress by wearing garments often of outrageous shape and hue.
+(_b_) Some show it in their speech by striving to say things that they
+think especially smart.  (_c_) Some show it in their actions by
+striking forced attitudes, and putting themselves in grotesque
+positions.  It all springs from love of notoriety and desire to be
+thought different from their neighbors.  It is the mark, as a rule, of
+fops and fools, and an indication of weakness of character.  It is
+fundamentally inconsistent with good manners.  Johnson was called _ursa
+major_, or big bear, from the gruffness of his manner.  This was
+probably natural to him, but many affect a similar manner from a desire
+to be eccentric.  The "big bears" of society are odious.  Johnson's own
+words are applicable to such: "A man has no more right to say an
+uncivil thing than to act one--no more right to say a rude thing to
+another than to knock him down."  Those also who are ever trying to say
+things which they think smart, but which are often impudent, and meant
+to give annoyance, ought to receive no countenance.  "Sir," said one
+such person in his Irish brogue to Dean Swift, "I _sit_ (set) up for
+being a wit."  "Then, sir," said the Dean, "I advise you to sit down."
+Similar people should be treated in the same way.
+
+3.  _Try to conquer shyness_.--This is constitutional with some, but
+even when this is the case it can be overcome by taking pains.  The shy
+man is often awkward in manner; and, what is worse, he often gives the
+impression to others of being rude, when he has no intention to be so.
+There are those who, in their own family and among their own friends,
+are known to be warm-hearted, kind and gentle, but who, from this
+defect of which we speak, have a reputation far from enviable.  Any
+young man who is afflicted with it should set himself resolutely to get
+the better of it.
+
+4.  _We should be especially courteous to those below us in
+station_.--To servants in our house, to those in our employ, to the
+poor, we should be marked in our civility.  "It is the very essence of
+gentlemanhood that one is polite to the weak, the poor, the friendless,
+the humble, the miserable, the degraded."  The conduct of our Lord to
+such is ever worthy of our imitation.  Indeed, as it has been well
+remarked, the character of men and women is perhaps better known "by
+the treatment of those below them than by anything else; for to them
+they rarely play the hypocrite."  The man who is a bully and abusive to
+those weaker or less fortunate than himself, is at heart a poor
+creature; though, in company of his equals, he may be affable and
+polished enough.  For example, Kingsley mentions regarding Sir Sydney
+Smith that "the love he won was because, without any conscious
+intention, he treated rich and poor, his own servants, and the
+noblemen, his guests, alike courteously, cheerfully, considerately,
+affectionately, bearing a blessing and reaping a blessing wherever he
+was."  When a celebrated man returned the salute of a negro, he was
+reminded that he had done what was very unfashionable.  "Perhaps so,"
+he replied, "but I would not be outdone in good manners by a negro."
+
+"Good words," says holy George Herbert, "are worth much, and cost
+little."  The same may be said of good manners.
+
+
+
+[1] _The Secret of Success_.
+
+[2] _Plain Living and High Thinking_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TEMPER.[1]
+
+Temper is the harmonious and well-balanced working of the different
+powers of the mind.  Good temper is when harmony is maintained; bad
+temper when it is violated.  "Temper," it was said by an English
+bishop, "is nine-tenths of Christianity."  We may think this an
+exaggerated statement, but there is much to commend it.  The fruit of
+the Spirit of God is peace, and peace is the condition of a heart which
+is at rest--in harmony with God and man.  Peace may be taken as the
+Scriptural word for temper.
+
+Good temper is a sign that the different powers of the soul are working
+in harmony.--For instance, the atmosphere is well tempered when it is
+neither too hot nor too cold, neither too dry nor too moist, having
+neither too much electricity nor too little.  Then the weather is
+called fine.  It is a pleasure to live.  When the weather is bad, the
+balance of the elements is broken, and life is disagreeable and
+unpleasant.  The body is well tempered when the nervous system and the
+blood and the nutritive system all work in due harmony.  When these
+three great constituents of the body are well balanced against each
+other, the result is health.  The body is not well tempered in a
+student who takes no exercise, and where everything goes to feed the
+brain; nor in a pugilist in training, where everything goes to feed the
+muscles.  The result is disease.  We all know the musical instrument
+called the harp.  All the strings are tuned into perfect harmony.  If
+there is a false note struck, that is a sign to the musician that there
+is something wrong, and that the instrument needs to be tuned.  The
+discord is a symptom, that some cords are out of order.  So, bad temper
+is a sign that some string in our moral constitution is out of harmony
+and needs to be tuned.
+
+Good temper can be acquired.--It is the result of culture.  There are
+two things often confounded with it--(_a_) good nature and (_b_) good
+humor.  Good nature is something born with us--an easy, contented
+disposition, and a tendency to take things quietly and pleasantly.  We
+inherit it.  There is little merit in possessing it.  Good humor is the
+result of pleasant surroundings and agreeable circumstances.  A
+good-humored man is so when everything goes right; when things go
+wrong, his good humor departs and bad humor takes its place.  But good
+temper results from training and self-control--keeping constant watch
+over our passions and feelings, and above all being in constant harmony
+with God; for he who is at peace with God is at peace with man, and
+will keep the "even tenor of his way."
+
+There are various signs or forms of ill-temper that may be adverted to.
+
+One form of ill-temper is irritability.--We perhaps know what it is to
+have a tooth where the nerve is exposed.  Everything that touches it
+sends a thrill of pain through us.  Some people get into a moral state
+corresponding to that.  The least thing puts them out, vexes them,
+throws them into a disagreeable frame of mind.  When one gets into that
+state, he should feel that there is something wrong with him--something
+is off the balance, some nerve is exposed.  He had better look to it
+and go off to the dentist.
+
+Another form of ill-temper is readiness to find fault.--This is a sure
+sign of a screw being loose somewhere.  An ill-tempered person is
+always making grievances, imagining himself ill-used, discontented with
+his position, dissatisfied with his circumstances.  He never blames
+himself for anything wrong; it is always someone else.  He is like a
+workman who is always excusing himself by throwing the blame on his
+tools; like a bad driver who is always finding fault with his horses.
+
+  Some fretful tempers wince at every touch,
+  You always do too little or too much;
+  He shakes with cold; you stir the fire and strive
+  To make a blaze; that's roasting him alive.
+  Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish;
+  With sole; that's just the sort he would not wish.
+  Alas! his efforts double his distress,
+  He likes yours little, and his own still less.
+  Thus, always teasing others, always teased,
+  His only pleasure is--to be displeased.
+
+If we find ourselves getting into this state of mind, it is high time
+to inquire what is wrong with us.
+
+Another form of ill-temper is passion.--Some people are very subject to
+this development.  They are "gunpowdery," and when a small spark
+touches them they fly out, and there is a blaze.  It is a very unlovely
+feature of a man's character, and if people in a passion could only see
+themselves in a glass, their eyes flashing, their brow contracted and
+their features distorted, they would feel that they have cause to be
+ashamed of themselves.  After having been in what is called "a towering
+rage," there often comes to a man the feeling expressed in the words,
+"I have made a great ass of myself."  If we have done so, we should
+resolve never to make ourselves ridiculous again.
+
+Perhaps the worst form of ill-temper is sulkiness.--This is passion not
+dying out, but continuing to smoulder like the embers of a fire where
+there is no flame.  A sullen disposition is as bad a sign of something
+being wrong as there could well be.  It is like what the doctors call
+"suppressed gout."  The disease has got driven into the system, and has
+taken so firm a hold that it cannot easily be dislodged.  Better a man
+whose temper bubbles over and is gone, than the man who cherishes it in
+his bosom and allows, not the sun of one day, but of many days, to go
+down on his wrath.
+
+A word or two is perhaps necessary, in addition to what has been said,
+as to the means by which good temper is to be preserved and bad temper
+avoided.
+
+I.  _We should cherish a deep and strong detestation of the evil
+effects of bad temper in all its forms_.--(_a_) It has a bad effect
+physically.  It produces consequences injurious to health.  The man who
+indulges in it habitually cannot do so with impunity.  Doctors
+constantly warn their patients to refrain from irritating disputes, and
+to avoid men and things likely to provoke their anger.  (_b_) It has a
+bad effect socially.  The bad-tempered man is seldom a favorite with
+society.  Men eventually dislike him and shun him as a nuisance.  His
+family, if he has one, come to regard him with dread rather than love.
+(_c_) It has a bad effect as regards success in life.  "Everything,"
+the proverb says, "comes to him who waits."  The patient and forbearing
+man attains his object much sooner than the man of passion and abuse.
+Such a person is continually thwarted in his plans.  People refuse to
+be bullied into acquiescence; and threats, which have well been called
+"the arguments of a coward," raise rather than disarm opposition.
+(_d_) It has a bad effect spiritually.  (1) The man of evil temper
+wants the calm disposition of soul necessary to communion with God.
+The glass through which he looks into the spiritual world is clouded
+and gives a distorted vision.  He whose soul is filled with anger and
+clouded by passion cannot pray.  Before he lays his gift upon the
+altar, he must be reconciled to his brother.  (2) Scripture is full of
+warnings against evil temper: "He that is soon angry dealeth
+foolishly."  "Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious
+man thou shalt not go, lest thou learn his ways and get a snare to thy
+soul."  "An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth
+in transgression."  "Be ye angry and sin not; let not the sun go down
+upon your wrath."  "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
+clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be
+ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as
+God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."  The example of our blessed
+Lord specially teaches the same lessen.  Calmly and peacefully He
+pursued His divine work.  "When reviled he reviled not again, but
+committed himself to him that judgeth righteously."  Before the High
+Priest, Pilate and Herod, His indignant silence was more eloquent than
+scorching words.
+
+II.  _We should deliberately cultivate self-control_.--If a railway
+train is going swiftly along, and the driver sees something on the
+track, he applies the brake, and thus avoids collision.  In regard to
+temper, self-control is like the brake, and we should be ever ready to
+put it on.  A person can come, in time, to get a wonderful control over
+his temper if he watches against it.  The writer knew a young man who
+was at one time of an ungovernable temper; he used to be at times like
+"one possessed."  But by watching and resolutely putting on the brake
+he grew up one of the sweetest-tempered and most lovable of men.  He
+fought the wild beast within him, lashed it and kept it down.  A
+merchant had passionately abused a Quaker, who received his outburst of
+ill-temper in silence.  Being afterwards ashamed of himself, he asked
+the other how he was able to show such patience.  "Friend," replied the
+Quaker, "I will tell thee.  I was naturally as hot and violent as thou
+art.  I knew that to indulge temper was sinful, and I found it was
+imprudent.  I observed that men in a passion always spoke loud, and I
+thought if I could control my voice I should repress my passion.  I
+have therefore made it a rule never to allow my voice to be above a
+certain key, and by a careful observance of this rule I have, by the
+blessing of God, mastered my natural temper."  Strong resolution can do
+much.  "If the pot boils," says the proverb, "take it off the fire."  A
+little care, a word swallowed, a rising sentence struck down in us by a
+simple rule, may save us humiliation.  "By reflection, by restraint and
+control a wise man can make himself an island which no floods can
+overwhelm.  He who is tolerant with the intolerant, mild with the
+fault-finders, and free from passion with the passionate, him I indeed
+call a wise man."--Buddhist saying.
+
+III.  But while an act of self-control can restore the proper temper
+and balance to the mind when it is in danger, _the best way is to keep
+it so that it will not go off the balance_.  You know that if a clock
+stops, we may perhaps make it go again by a shake; if it does not keep
+time, we can often put the hands right; but the best way is to keep the
+machinery always so well balanced and adjusted that it will not stop or
+go wrong.  We may watch and control the temper when it breaks out; but
+the better way is to keep it so well balanced that it will not break
+out.  The soul that is in harmony with God, that is full of the spirit
+of Christ, will ever be peaceful and serene.  If ill-temper is our
+besetting sin, God's grace, if we ask it, will give us power to conquer
+it  While we watch against it, we should pray against it also.  The
+beautiful words of Thomas à Kempis point out to us the secret of the
+well-tempered and well-balanced mind: "First keep thyself in peace, and
+then thou wilt be able to bring others to peace."  If "the peace of God
+which passeth all understanding" keep our hearts and minds, through
+Christ Jesus, our life will never have its serenity disturbed by
+ill-temper.
+
+
+
+[1] I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness for some hints in this
+chapter to an interesting work on "Self-Culture," by James Freeman
+Clarke.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+RECREATION.
+
+Recreation is another name for amusement.  Both words express the same
+idea.  Recreation means to create over again, the building up of the
+system when it is exhausted.  Amusement primarily is said to be derived
+from the halt which a dog makes in hunting, when he pauses to sniff the
+air in order to see in which way the scent lies.  Having done this, he
+starts off again with redoubled speed.  Both these words in themselves
+suggest the place that the things which they signify should occupy in
+life.  They are for the refreshing of our strength, in order to renewed
+effort.
+
+Recreation is a necessary part of life.--There are two great laws under
+which we live: the law of work and the law of recreation.  Man has to
+work, and to work hard, in order to live.  Work also is necessary to
+happiness.  "He that labors," says the Italian proverb, "is tempted by
+one devil; he that is idle, by a thousand."  The industrious life, it
+is perfectly plain (as we have shown in a previous chapter), is that
+which we should all follow.  But recreation is as needful in its place
+as work.  (_a_) This is the teaching of nature.  God has made us
+capable of enjoying ourselves, just as He has made us able to think, or
+talk, or work with our hands.  The first sign of intelligence in the
+infant is a smile.  The child's nature unfolds itself in play, and as
+man grows up, it develops itself in many forms.  The universe also is
+full of joy and gladness.  The sky is blue, the sea glistens, the
+flowers are strewn over the earth.  We speak of the waves playing on
+the shore, of the shadows playing on the mountain side.  All this
+indicates that there is "a certain play element" that rejoices in the
+world around us.  (_b_) This is the teaching of experience.  Unvaried
+and unbroken toil becomes a sore burden; it breaks the spirit, weakens
+energy, and saddens the heart.  "All work and no play," according to
+the proverb, "makes Jack a dull boy."  There are men around us working
+so hard that they have no family life, no social life, no time for
+thought or for culture.  They are simply cogs in a great wheel that is
+ceaselessly turning round and round--wearing themselves out before
+their time by excess of labor.  This cannot be right.  There is an
+interesting tradition of St. John, the disciple of our Lord, that while
+amusing himself with a tame partridge he was asked by a huntsman how he
+could spend his time in so unprofitable a manner.  St. John replied,
+"Why dost thou not carry thy bow always bent?"  "Because," answered the
+huntsman, "if it were always bent, I fear it would lose its spring and
+become useless."  "Be not surprised then," replied the apostle, "that I
+should sometimes remit a little of my close attention of spirit to
+enjoy a little recreation, that I may afterwards employ myself more
+fervently in divine contemplation."  It is said also of a most saintly
+man, Carlo Borromeo, that while engaged with some friends in a game of
+chess, the question was started, what they would do if they knew they
+were to die within the hour.  "I would," said Borromeo, "go on with my
+game."  He had begun it for God's glory, and in order to fit himself
+for God's work, and he would finish it.  These anecdotes illustrate the
+truth that recreation is a necessary part of life, and may be engaged
+in with the highest object.
+
+Recreation, therefore, is not to be regarded as an evil in itself--Men
+at different times have so regarded it.  (_a_) Those who have been
+termed ascetics in the Church of Rome looked upon every form of
+amusement as sinful.  Even to smile or laugh was a fault needing severe
+penance.  They were "cruel to themselves," denied themselves all
+earthly joy, and placed vice and pleasure in the same category.  (_b_)
+The Puritans also, in the time of the Stuarts, set their faces strongly
+against games and recreation of every kind.  They denounced all public
+amusements, as Macaulay tells us, "from masques, which were exhibited
+at the mansions of the great, down to the wrestling matches and
+quoiting matches on the village green."  (_c_) In all ages there have
+been good men animated by the same feeling.  Life has seemed to them so
+serious as to have no place in it for mirth.  Even one so saintly as
+Archbishop Leighton said that "pleasures are like mushrooms--it is so
+difficult to distinguish those that are wholesome from those that are
+poisonous, that it is better to abstain from them altogether."  Those
+views have something noble in them.  They spring from hatred of sin and
+from realizing intensely that
+
+Recreation is liable to abuse.--It often leads to evil.  It was the
+unbridled gaiety of the age, with its selfishness and sensuality, that
+made the Puritans denounce amusement, though the austerity they
+enforced led to dreadful consequences.  Repression passed into excess.
+"It was as if the pent-up sewerage of a mud volcano had been suddenly
+let loose.  The unclean spirit forcibly driven out by the Puritans
+returned with seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and the
+last state of Stuart England was worst than the first."  The history of
+that period shows us the mistake religion makes by frowning down all
+amusements as sinful.  But that some may be so is equally clear.  They
+are so (_a_) when they are contrary to the express commands of the Word
+of God.  There are pleasures which are in themselves unlawful, and
+which are condemned by the divine law.  These, God's children will
+shun.  They are forms of wickedness which they will ever hold in
+abhorrence.  "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride
+of life," with all that the words mean, though the world may regard
+them as pleasures, and engage in them as amusements, are evil before
+God.  But not to dwell on this, which is evident, amusements are evil
+(_b_) when they unfit for work.  "The end of labor," said the Greek
+philosopher Aristotle, "is to rest."  It is equally true that "the end
+of rest is to labor."  Pleasures that tempt us from daily duty, that
+leave us listless and weary, are pernicious.  Outdoor games, for
+instance, ought to strengthen the physical frame, they ought to make us
+healthy and strong and ready for work.  But when carried to excess they
+often produce the opposite result, and become positively hurtful.  If
+the Saturday's play unfit for the worship and rest of the Lord's day;
+if an employer, as has been stated, has been obliged to dismiss his
+clerks more than once because of their incapacity for work owing to
+football matches, cricket matches, and sports generally, it is clear
+that these have not been for their good; and the same may be said of
+the effect of other forms of amusement, especially when carried to
+excess.  The amusements that send us back to toil with a lightened
+heart and a vigorous mind are those only that we should engage in; all
+others are detrimental, and should be shunned.  (_c_) It is necessary
+to say also that amusement in any form followed as the end of life
+becomes specially sinful.  Even the heathen moralist, Cicero, could say
+"that he is not worthy to be called a man who is willing to spend a
+single day wholly in pleasure."  How much more truly may a Christian
+feel that he "who liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth."  A life
+that is simply play, that is simply amusement, is no life at all.  It
+is only a contemptible form of existence.  "A soul sodden with
+pleasure" is a lost soul.  To be a mere pleasure-seeker is not the
+chief end of man.  Nothing grows more wearying than continuous
+amusement, and no one needs amusement so much as he who is always at
+it.  He loses the power of real enjoyment.  He has, like Esau, bartered
+his birthright for a mess of pottage.  He is useless to man and guilty
+before God.
+
+It is not easy to lay down distinct and definite rules in regard to
+recreation--to set down and catalogue those amusements which it is safe
+for us to follow, and those from which we should refrain.  This has
+been attempted, but not successfully! and the reason is evident.  What
+may be safe for one person may not be safe for another.  If we are told
+that an amusement has been held to be wrong, we are ready to reply that
+the mere opinion of others is not binding upon us; and perhaps in our
+contempt for views which appear to us bigoted and straitlaced, we rush
+into the opposite extreme.  The true guide in recreation is a Christian
+spirit.  He who possesses it will need no list of what are lawful and
+unlawful made out for him.  He will be better guided than by any
+carefully compiled code of duty set before him.  All, therefore, that
+shall be attempted in this direction is to give a few general counsels
+which may be serviceable.
+
+1.  We should exercise our own judgment as to what amusements are
+helpful or the reverse.  It has been said, "When you are in Rome, do as
+the Romans do."  We would rather put the adage thus, "When you are in
+Rome, do _not_ as the Romans do."  There are questions which majorities
+may decide for us, and there are questions which every soul must decide
+for itself.  That everybody goes to bull-fights in Spain does not make
+bull-fighting right; neither is an amusement right because it is
+popular.  In this, as in other matters, we must dare sometimes to be
+singular.  Follow not a multitude to do evil.
+
+2.  What is one man's meat is another man's poison.  We are not a law
+to our neighbor, neither is our neighbor a law to us.  The amusement
+that we find injures us, lowers our moral and spiritual tone, and
+unfits us for the serious business of life, is the thing for us to
+avoid, as we avoid food which some men can take with impunity, but
+which does harm to us.
+
+3.  Keep on the safe ground of certainty.  Whatever is doubtful is
+dangerous, and had best be left alone.  If we go skating, and have a
+suspicion that the ice in a certain spot is weak, that is sufficient to
+make us avoid it.  Possibly we might pass over it without danger, but
+the thought that it may be dangerous leads us to give it a wide berth.
+"If you do not wish to hear the bell ring," says the proverb, "keep
+away from the bell rope."  There is a sufficiency of amusements which
+are beyond doubt safe and satisfying, without our trying those that may
+be dangerous.  The best recreation often comes from change of
+occupation, and there is none better than the companionship of books,
+the sweet solace of music, the softening influence of art, or the
+contemplation of the beauties of nature, "the melody of woods and winds
+and waters."  There are fountains of joy open on every side of us, from
+which we may quaff many an invigorating draught, without drinking from
+those which are often poisoned and polluted.
+
+4.  The pleasure that is more congenial than our work is to be taken
+with caution.  So long as a man enjoys his work more than his
+amusement, the latter is for him comparatively safe.  It is a
+relaxation and refreshment, and he goes from it all the better for it;
+but if a man likes his pleasure better than the duties to which God has
+called him in the world, it is a sign that he has not realized, as he
+ought to realize, the object for which life was given him.
+
+5.  For the question, What is the harm? substitute, What is the good?
+The former is that which many ask in regard to amusements, and the very
+asking of the question shows that they feel doubtful about them and
+should avoid them.  But when we ask, What is the good? it is a sign
+that we are anxious to know what benefit we may derive from them, and
+how far they may help us.  That is the true spirit in which we should
+approach our amusements, seeking out those that recruit and refresh us
+mentally, morally, and physically.
+
+Those are hints[1] which may be found useful.  "Religion never was
+designed," it is said, "to make our pleasures less."  Religion also, if
+we know what it means, will ever lead us to what are true, innocent,
+and elevating pleasures, and keep us from those that are false, bad in
+their influence, and which "leave a sting behind them."  "Rejoice, O
+young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of
+thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of
+thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring
+thee into judgment."  Let those who practise the first part of that
+text not forget the second.
+
+
+
+[1] I am indebted for some of them to an article in _The Christian
+Union_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+BOOKS.
+
+Books have an influence on life and conduct the extent of which it is
+impossible to estimate.  "The precepts they inculcate, the lessons they
+exhibit, the ideals of life and character which they portray, root
+themselves in the thoughts and imaginations of young men.  They seize
+them with a force which, in after years, appears scarcely possible."
+These words of Principal Tulloch will not appear too strong to any one
+who can look back over a long period of life.  Such must ever feel that
+books have had a powerful effect in making them all that they are.
+There are many considerations that go to show the importance of books.
+
+Books are the accumulated treasures of generations.--They are to man
+what memory is to the individual.  If all the libraries in the world
+were burned and all the books in the world destroyed, the past would be
+little more than a blank.  It would be a calamity corresponding to that
+of a man losing by a stroke the memory of past years.  The literature
+of the world is the world's memory, the world's experience, the world's
+failures.  It teaches us where we came from.  It tells us of the paths
+we have travelled.  Almost all we know of the history of this world in
+which God has placed us we know from books.  "In books," as Carlyle
+says, "lie the creative Phoenix ashes of the whole past--all that men
+have desired, discovered, done, felt, or imagined, lie recorded in
+books, wherein whoso has learned the mystery of spelling printed
+letters may find it and appropriate it."
+
+Books open to us a society from which otherwise we would be
+excluded.--They introduce us into a great human company.  They enable
+us, however humble we may be, to hold converse with the great and good
+of past ages and of the present time--the great philosophers,
+philanthropists, poets, divines, travellers.  We know their thoughts,
+we hear their words, we clasp their hands.  The chamber of the solitary
+student is peopled with immortal guests.  He has friends who are always
+steadfast, who are never false, who are silent when he is weary, who go
+forth with him to his work, who await his return.  In the literature of
+the world a grand society is open to all who choose to enter it.
+
+Books are the chief food of our intellectual life.--There are men that
+have, indeed, done great things who have read but little.  These have
+had their want of mental training compensated by their powers of
+observation and experience of life.  But they have been for the most
+part exceptional men, and it is possible they might have done better if
+they had studied more.  To the great majority of men books are the
+great teachers, the chief ministers to self-culture.  Books in a
+special manner represent intellect to those who can appreciate them.
+We cannot estimate in this aspect their importance.  They are in regard
+to self-culture what Montaigne calls "the best viaticum for the journey
+of life."  When we think of what we owe to them, we may enter into the
+feelings of Charles Lamb, who "wished to ask a grace before reading
+more than a grace before meat."
+
+In regard to books, the practical questions that present themselves
+are, what we should read, and how we should read.  The first question
+cannot be answered in any definite manner.  (_a_) The enormous number
+of books in the world forbids this.  Let any one enter a library of
+even moderate size, and he will feel how almost hopeless it would be,
+even if it were profitable, to draw out a practicable list of what may
+be advantageously chosen for reading and what may well be cast aside.
+(_b_) Still more does the infinite variety of tastes, circumstances:
+and talents, forbid the laying down of definite rules.  Reading that
+might be profitable for one might not be so for another.  Reading that
+would be pleasant to one would be to another weariness.  Every class of
+mind seeks naturally its own proper food, and the choice of books must
+ultimately depend upon a man's own bias--on his natural bent and the
+necessities of his life.  There are, however, one or two directions
+that may be given, and which may be profitable to young men.
+
+_First_, We should read, as far as possible, _the great books of the
+world_.  In the kingdom of literature there are certain works that
+stand by themselves and tower in their grandeur above all others.  They
+are referred to by Bacon, in his weighty way, when he says: "Some books
+are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, some few to be chewed and
+digested."  This last class of books may be still spoken of as few.
+Various lists have lately been published of the best hundred books,
+according to the opinion of some of the greatest men of our time.
+There is considerable agreement among the writers as to what they
+consider the best books, and there is considerable difference also.  It
+is easy to see how those who compiled these lists have been largely
+influenced in making their selection by their own peculiar tastes and
+fancies.  Probably there is not one of their lists which any young man
+would care to follow out in its entirety.  We give elsewhere the one
+which seems most likely to be useful to those into whose hands this
+text-book may probably come,[1] though it is evident that many young
+men might profitably leave out some of the books mentioned and
+substitute others.  Still one thing is clear, that it is possible to
+make a selection of outstanding works in literature.  After
+consultation with others better informed than himself, a young man can
+make a list suitable to his capacities and tastes, of books that really
+are _great_ books, and in this way he may acquire knowledge that is
+worth having, and which will furnish a good and solid foundation for
+his intellectual culture.  It is with books of this kind that he should
+begin, and a few such books thoroughly mastered will probably do him
+more good than all others that he may afterwards read.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say that there is _one_ book that may be
+termed specially great, and which all young men should make the special
+subject of their study.  (_a_) The Bible, even as a means of
+intellectual culture, stands alone and above all others.  "In the
+poorest cottages," says Carlyle, "is one book wherein for several
+thousands of years the spirit of man has found light and nourishment,
+and an interpreting response to whatever is deepest in him."  No man
+can be regarded as an educated man unless he is familiar with this
+book.  To understand its history and position in the world is in itself
+a liberal education.  Those who have been indifferent to its spiritual
+power and divine claims have acknowledged its great importance in
+regard to self-culture.  "Take the Bible," says Professor Huxley, "as a
+whole, make the severest deductions which fair criticism can dictate
+for shortcomings and for positive errors, and there still remains in
+this old literature a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur; and
+then consider the great historical fact that for three centuries this
+book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in
+English history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and
+is familiar to noble and simple from John o' Groat's house to Land's
+End; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds
+in exquisite beauties of a mere literary form; and finally, that it
+forbids the merest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of
+the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a
+great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest
+nations of the world.  By the study of what other book could children
+be so much humanized?"  In these words we have a noble tribute to the
+intellectual greatness of the Bible.  (_b_) But it has other claims
+upon us than its power to stimulate mental culture.  It is inspired by
+God.  "It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
+instruction in righteousness."  It is man's guide through the
+perplexities of life to the glory of heaven, "Wherewithal shall a young
+man cleanse his way?  By taking heed thereto according to thy word."
+
+Read then the great books of the world, and this book, the greatest of
+all.
+
+_Second_, Another suggestion that we may make in regard to the use of
+books is that _we should read from some centre or standpoint_.  A
+person takes a house in the country.  This he makes the centre of many
+excursions.  One day he climbs the mountain, another day he walks by
+winding stream, on another he sails along the shore.  In this way he
+explores the surrounding country by degrees, coming back each night to
+the place he started from.  We may do much the same thing with profit
+in our excursions among books.  For instance, we may take the
+starting-point of our _profession_, and read all we can in regard to
+it.  A farmer should read about farming, a lawyer about law, a divine
+about theology.  Or we may take the starting-point of our _physical
+frame_, and read steadily all we can as to our bodily organisation and
+its laws; or we may take as our starting point the _land_ we dwell in,
+or even the locality where we live, and seek to learn all we can
+regarding its history.  In this way distinct lines of study are opened
+up to us, and we are saved the evil of desultory reading, which too
+often fills the mind only with a jumble of facts undigested and
+unarranged, and therefore of but little value.  The writer knew a young
+minister in a Scottish manse who had among the few books in his library
+the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.  In this work he took up distinct
+courses of reading--a course of biography, a course of history, a
+course of geography--and in this way he acquired knowledge well
+systematized, which was of great value to him in his after life.  We
+should endeavor, according to some such method as we have indicated, to
+carry on our reading.  "Every man and every woman who can read at all
+should adopt some definite purpose in their reading, should take
+something for the main stem and trunk of their culture, whence branches
+might grow out in all directions, seeking air and light for the parent
+tree, which it is hoped might end in becoming something useful and
+ornamental, and which at any rate all along will have had life and
+growth in it."  These words of Sir Arthur Helps put very tersely the
+point on which we have been insisting.
+
+_Third_, We should read books _on the same principle as we associate
+with men_.  We only admit to our society those whom we deem worthy of
+our acquaintance, and from whose intercourse we are likely to derive
+benefit.  We should do the same in regards to books.  There are people
+who read books which, if they took to themselves bodily form and became
+personified, would be kicked out of their houses.  Readers often
+associate in literature with what is vile and contemptible, who would
+never think of associating with people possessing a similar character.
+Yet the society of a weak or bad book is just as harmful to us in its
+way, and should be as little tolerated by us as the society of a weak
+or bad man.  Indeed, between an author and a careful reader there is an
+intimacy established even closer than is possible in the intercourse of
+life, and evil books poison the springs of thought and feeling much
+more thoroughly than an evil acquaintanceship could do.  We cannot be
+too strict, therefore, in applying to books the rules we follow in
+regard to society, and refusing our acquaintance to those books
+unworthy of it.  (_a_) Such books may be known by reputation.  We would
+not associate with a man of bad reputation, neither should we read a
+book of which the reputation is evil.  (_b_) They may be judged of also
+by very slight experience.  Very little tells us whether a man is
+worthy to be admitted to companionship, and very slight acquaintance
+with a book is sufficient to tell us whether it is worth reading.
+(_c_) But especially by beginning with those great authors that are
+beyond doubt high toned, "the master-spirits of all time," we shall
+acquire a power of discrimination.  We shall no more care to read foul,
+impure, and unwholesome literature than a man brought up in the society
+of honorable men would choose to cast in his lot with thieves and
+blacklegs and the offscourings of society.
+
+We have anticipated much that might be said in answer to the question
+_how_ to read, and only a few words need be written in regard to it.
+(1) Read with interest.  Unless a book interests us we do not attend to
+it, we get no benefit whatever from it, and may as well throw it aside.
+(2) Read actively, not passively, putting the book under
+cross-examination as we go along--asking questions regarding it,
+weighing arguments.  Mere passive reading may do no more good than the
+stream does to the iron pipe through which it flows.  Novel-readers are
+often mere passive recipients of the stories, and thus get no real
+benefit from them.  (3) Read according to some system or method.  (4)
+Read not always for relaxation, recreation, and amusement, but chiefly
+to enable you to perform the duties to which God has called you in
+daily life.
+
+
+
+[1] See Appendix.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+FAMILY LIFE.
+
+The words Family--Home--Household--all express one idea.  They imply a
+relationship existing between certain individuals, a circle or sphere
+separate from the mass of human beings, within which there are special
+duties to be performed and a special life has to be lived.  It is not
+necessary to define particularly what is meant by the word Family, for
+it is well understood by all of us.
+
+Family life is peculiar to man.--The lower animals have nothing in all
+respects resembling it.  In some particulars their mode of life
+occasionally approaches it, but not in all.  The birds of the air, for
+instance, care tenderly for their offspring, but when these come to
+maturity the relation between them and their parents comes to an end.
+The family relation on the other hand lasts through life, and is only
+broken by the hand of death, if even then.  The family has been
+instituted by God for the welfare of man.  The condition in which we
+come into the world requires it--our training for the work of life
+demands it--it is specially adapted to promote the great ends of human
+existence.
+
+Family life is that which most truly leaves its mark upon us.--In the
+family habits are formed which make us what we are for the rest of our
+life.  Home influences accompany us to the very end of our journey.
+Let any one ask himself what are the chief sources of his virtues, and
+he will feel that a large proportion of them are derived directly or
+indirectly from association with his fellow-creatures in the family.
+The training of parents, the affection and influence of mothers and
+sisters, powerfully and lastingly affect our intellectual and moral
+nature.  From a wise father we learn more than from all our teachers.
+When a celebrated artist, Benjamin West, was asked "What made him a
+painter?" his reply was, "It was my mother's kiss."  "I should have
+been an atheist," said a great American statesman, "if it had not been
+for one recollection, and that was the memory of the time when my
+departed mother used to take my little hand in hers, and caused me on
+my knees to say, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'"  On the other hand,
+those who have been so unfortunate as to have had an unhappy home
+rarely emancipate themselves from the evil effects of their upbringing.
+If they do, it is after the severest struggle.  "The child," it has
+been said, "is the father of the man," and it is in the family the
+child receives his first impressions for good or for evil.  The world
+he first lives in is his home.
+
+Family life supplies a great test of character.--When Whitefield was
+asked whether a certain person was a Christian, he replied, "I do not
+know.  I have never seen him at home."  People are often one thing in
+the world and another in their own family.  In the close intercourse of
+the home circle they exhibit themselves in their true colors.  A man
+who is a good son or a good brother is generally found to be a good
+man.  If he is a source of evil in his own home, in his intercourse
+with the world he will, sooner or later, be found wanting.
+
+It is beyond the scope of this book to dwell at length upon the duties
+incumbent on the various members of a family.  It may be sufficient to
+indicate generally the feelings which should animate the young persons
+who belong to it.  Probably most of those into whose hands this manual
+will come are members of a family.  What should therefore be their
+conduct at home is a question that well deserves their consideration.
+
+1.  _Obedience_ is the fundamental principle of family life.  Every
+family has a head, and that head must rule.  "Order is heaven's first
+law."  Where there is no obedience there can be no order in a family.
+The first form of authority which is placed before the child is that of
+the parent, and to the parent he has to be subject.  "Children," says
+the apostle, "obey your parents in all things, for this is well
+pleasing unto the Lord."  Even for those members of a family who have
+grown out of the state of childhood obedience must be the rule, though
+in their case it is not to be, as in the case of the child,
+unquestioning obedience, but is to be founded on reason, affection and
+gratitude.  With them obedience takes the form of reverence, or, to use
+a more familiar word, respect.  The child is bound to obey his parent
+without hesitation or reply; the young man who has entered into greater
+liberty than the child will still respect his parents' wishes and
+cherish reverence for their authority.  This feeling on his part is
+termed in the Scriptures _Honor_.  "Honor thy father and thy mother" is
+one of the Ten Commandments, and can never cease to be included among
+moral and religious obligations.  It is opposed to everything like
+unseemly familiarity, discourtesy of treatment, insolence in reply, or
+deliberate defiance.  It implies respect for age and experience, and a
+sense of the great sacrifices a parent has made for his children's
+welfare.  It is said that in our time the bonds of parental authority
+are being loosened, and that young men do not regard their parents with
+the deference that once was invariably shown towards them; that they do
+little to smooth the path of life for them when they grow old and weak,
+and are more ready to cast them on the public charity than to
+contribute to their support.  Such a state of things would be shameful,
+if true.  It would indicate a corruption of social life at the
+fountain-head that must lead to serious consequences.  The family is
+the nursery both of the State and of the Church, and where the purity
+and well-being of family life is impaired, both State and Church are
+sure to suffer.  There should be therefore an earnest and prayerful
+endeavor upon the part of the young to cherish towards their parents
+that loving sense of their superiority which is implied in the word
+Honor.  "Let them learn first," says St. Paul (1 Tim. v. 4), "to show
+piety at home, and to requite their parents; for that is good and
+acceptable before God."  There can be no more pleasing memory for a
+young man to have than this, that he has been a dutiful son; none more
+bitter than this, that he has set at defiance, or neglected, those to
+whom he owes so much.
+
+2.  _Affection_ is the atmosphere that should pervade the household.
+"Without hearts," it has been truly said, "there is no home."  A
+collection of roots, and trunk, and branches, and leaves, do not make a
+tree; neither do a number of people dwelling together make a home.  "A
+certain number of animal lives that are of prescribed ages, that eat
+and drink together, by no means makes a family.  Almost as well might
+we say that it is the bricks of a house that make a home.  There may be
+a home in the forest or in the wilderness, and there may be a family
+with all its blessings, though half its members be in other lands or in
+another world.  It is the gentle memories, the mutual thought, the
+desire to bless, the sympathies that meet when duties are apart, the
+fervor of the parents' prayers, the persuasion of filial love, the
+sister's pride and the brother's benediction, that constitute the true
+elements of domestic life and sanctify the dwelling." [1]  These
+beautiful words are true.  It is love that makes home.  The dweller, in
+a distant land sends again and again his thoughts across the sea, and
+reverts with fond affection to the place of his birth.  It may be a
+humble cottage, but to him it is ever dear because of the love which
+dwelt there and united those who dwelt there by ties that distance
+cannot sever.  Even the prodigal in the matchless parable of our Lord,
+herding with the swine and eating of their husks, was led to a higher
+and a better life by the remembrance of his father's house.  A home
+without love is no home, any more than a body without a soul is a man.
+It is only a corpse.
+
+3.  _Consideration_ for those with whom we live in the family is the
+chief form which affection takes.  Each member has to remember, not his
+own comfort and wants, but the comfort and wants of those with whom he
+dwells.  His welfare as an individual he must subordinate to the
+welfare of the household.  There are various forms which want of
+consideration takes, and all of them are detestable.  (_a_) Tyranny,
+where the strong member of a family insists on the service of those
+weaker than himself.  (_b_) Greed, where one demands a larger share of
+comfort, food, or attention than that which falls to the others.  (_c_)
+Indolence, where one refuses to take his proper part in the maintenance
+of the family, spending his wages, perhaps, on his own pleasures, and
+yet expecting to be provided for by the labor of the rest.  (_d_)
+Discourtesy, where, by his language and manners, he makes the others
+unhappy, and, perhaps, by his outbursts of temper fills the whole house
+with sadness.  (_e_) Obstinacy, which will have its own way, whether
+the way be good or not.  All these forms of selfishness are violations
+of the true law of family life, and render that life impossible.  In
+the family, more than in any other sphere, everyone should bear the
+burdens of others.  Everyone should seek, not his own, but another's
+welfare, and the weak and feeble should receive the attention of all.
+
+4.  _Pleasantness_ should be the disposition which we should specially
+cultivate at home.  If we have to encounter things that annoy and
+perhaps irritate us in the outer world, we should seek to leave the
+irritation and annoyance behind when we cross the threshold of our
+dwelling.  Into it the roughness and bluster of the world should never
+be permitted to come.  It should be the place of "sweetness and light,"
+and every member may do something to make it so.  It is a bad sign when
+a young man never cares to spend his evenings at home--when he prefers
+the company of others to the society of his family, and seeks his
+amusement wholly beyond its circle.  There is something wrong when this
+is the case.  "I beseech you," said one addressing youth, "not to turn
+home into a restaurant and a sleeping bunk, spending all your leisure
+somewhere else, and going home only when all other places are shut up."
+A young man, it is admitted, may find his home uninviting through
+causes for which he has not himself to blame.  Still, even then he may
+do much to change its character, and by his pleasant and cheerful
+bearing may bring into it sunshine brighter than the sunshine outside.
+
+5.  The highest family life is that consecrated by _Religion_.  The
+household where God is acknowledged, from which the members go
+regularly together to the house of God, within whose walls is heard the
+voice of prayer and praise, is the ideal Christian family.  In such a
+family the father is the priest, daily offering up prayers for those
+whom God has given him, at the family altar.  He makes it his duty, and
+regards it as his privilege to bring up his children in "the nurture
+and admonition of the Lord," and by personal example and teaching to
+train them up as members of the household of faith.  Unlike those who
+leave the religious instruction of their children entirely to others,
+he loves to teach them himself.  A household thus pervaded by a
+Christian atmosphere is a scene of sweet and tender beauty.  Such a
+household is well depicted by our Scottish poet, Robert Burns, in his
+"Cotter's Saturday Night."  There we see how beautiful family life may
+be in the humblest dwelling.
+
+  From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
+  That makes her lov'd abroad, rever'd at home.
+
+
+
+[1] Dr. James Martineau.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHURCH.[1]
+
+The word church is derived from the Greek word _Kuriakon_, the Lord's
+(from _Kurios_, the Lord), and it has various significations.  (_a_)
+Sometimes it means the whole body of believers on earth--"the company
+of the faithful throughout the world"--"the number of the elect that
+have been, are, and shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head
+thereof; and is the spouse, the body and the fulness of Him that
+filleth all in all." [2]  (_b_) Sometimes it is applied to a body of
+Christians differing from the rest in their constitution, doctrines,
+and usages; as, for example, the Church of Rome, the Greek Church, the
+Reformed Church.  (_c_) Sometimes it refers to the Christian community
+of a country or its established religion, as when we speak of the
+Gallican Church, the Swiss Church, the Church of England, the Church of
+Scotland.  (_d_) It is used in a still more limited sense to represent
+a particular congregation of Christians who associate together and
+participate in the ordinances of Christianity, with their proper
+pastors or ministers.  (_e_) It is applied also to the building in
+which the public ministrations of religion are conducted, as when we
+speak of the church in such a street, St. James' church, St. Peter's
+church, etc.
+
+In this chapter we use the word church in the fourth sense, as
+representing a particular congregation of Christians.  To such a
+community every young man should belong, and in connection with it he
+is called to discharge certain special duties.  There are four aspects
+in which the life of the Church, in this sense, may be regarded.
+
+I.  It represents Christian worship.--(_a_) Public worship seems
+essential to the very existence of religion.  At least, every religion
+the world has seen has had its meetings for public rites and
+ceremonies.  Faith unsupported by sympathy, as a rule, languishes and
+dies out in a community.  Were our churches to be shut Sunday after
+Sunday, and men never to meet together as religious beings, it would be
+as though the reservoir that supplies a great city with water suddenly
+ran dry.  Here and there a few might draw water from their own wells,
+but the general result would be appalling.  (_b_) Public worship also
+strengthens and deepens religious feeling.  A man can pray alone and
+praise God alone; but he is, beyond all doubt, helped when he does so
+in the company of others.  He is helped by the conditions of time and
+place; and the presence and sympathy of his fellow-worshippers have
+upon him a mighty uplifting influence.  (_c_) Above all, public worship
+is the channel through which we receive special blessings from God.
+There is communion in the sanctuary between us and Him.  "The true
+worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the
+Father _seeketh_ such to worship him."  God desires our worship, and
+blesses it to us.  That He does so has been the experience of
+Christians in all ages.  They have found in the house and worship of
+God a strength and power that supported and blessed their life.  They
+have realized that the promise of Christ is still fulfilled, "Where two
+or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
+them." (Matt. xviii. 20.)
+
+II.  The Church represents Christian teaching.--In the congregation the
+Word of God is read and preached.  (_a_) Preaching has always formed
+part of the service of the Christian Church from the very earliest
+times.  In the second century Justin Martyr says: "On the day called
+Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the country gather into one
+place, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets
+are read as time permits; then when the reader has ceased, the
+president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good
+things."  This description of an early Christian service is applicable
+still.  Wherever the Church meets there is religious teaching.  (_b_)
+And it is the only such teaching that multitudes receive.  Without it
+they would be left to grope their way alone.  (_c_) Whenever,
+therefore, there has been a revival of life in the Church, great stress
+has been laid upon the preaching of the Word of God, and God has
+specially blessed it to the conversion of sinners and the edification
+of His people.
+
+III.  The Church represents Christian fellowship.--(_a_) It keeps up
+the idea of brotherhood in the world.  It brings people of different
+ranks and classes together, and that under most favorable
+circumstances.  Whatever a man is in the world, in the Church he is
+made to feel that in the eye of God he is a member of one family,
+having the same weaknesses, the same sorrows, the same needs, the same
+destiny before him as those around him.  In the Church "the rich and
+poor meet together" in equality before the same God, who is the Maker
+of them all.  (_b_) But especially in its worship is the Church a
+common bond between _believers_.  On one day of the week men of all
+nations, kindreds, peoples and tongues, a multitude whom no man can
+number, unite in spirit together.  Their prayers and praises ascend in
+unison to the Throne of Grace.  They enter into the "communion of
+saints."  They belong to one holy fellowship.  (_c_) At the table of
+the Lord they take their places as partakers of one life--as one in
+Christ.  "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion
+of the blood of Christ?  The bread which we break, is it not the
+communion of the body of Christ?  For we being many are all partakers
+of that one bread." (1 Cor. x. 16, 17.)
+
+IV.  The Church represents Christian Work.--It is not merely a society
+for instruction or for the cultivation of devout feelings.  It is an
+aggressive society.  Every congregation of believers is a branch of the
+great army which is warring against the kingdom of darkness.  Every
+individual is called upon to be a "fellow-laborer with Christ," and not
+merely to work out his own salvation, but to work for the salvation of
+others.  The motto of every true Christian Church should be, "Work for
+everybody, and everybody at work."  Those who may be able to do little
+as isolated individuals may do much by combining their efforts with
+those of others.  The Church gives them the power and the opportunity.
+
+We may now glance at some of the special duties incumbent upon those
+who are connected with the Church, and particularly upon young men.
+
+1.  We should be regular in availing ourselves of the means of grace
+which the Church affords.  If it be the home of worship, of teaching,
+of fellowship, and of work, it is a home from which we should not make
+ourselves strangers.  There is a blessing to be found there, and we are
+remiss if we do not seek it.  Every young man should be a regular
+attendant on the ministrations of religion.  He should be so (_a_) for
+his own sake, and (_b_) for the sake of others.  He may perhaps have at
+times the feeling, I can get my worship in the fields and my teaching
+from my books; I can get along without the Church.  But surely he
+undervalues the promised blessing to those who "forsake not the
+assembling of (themselves) together."  Surely he undervalues the power,
+and strength, and comfort, that come from association with believers.
+But even if he could get on without the Church, is he not bound to
+consider others?  Has any man in a world like ours, where all are bound
+together and are dependent on one another, any right to consider as to
+whether he can get on alone?  Is he not bound to consider those around
+him?  We must all feel that it would be a great calamity to a nation
+were public worship given up, churches closed, and Sunday made a day of
+recreation.  But those who absent themselves from public worship are
+undoubtedly using their influence in that direction.  If it be right
+for them to absent themselves, it must be right also for others to
+imitate them, and it is easy to see how disastrous generally such
+imitation would be.
+
+Especially should every young man become _a communicant_ at the table
+of the Lord.  Besides the many spiritual benefits of which the
+sacrament is the channel to every devout believer, it is an ordinance
+which is particularly helpful to the young.  It leads them to make a
+decision, and decision gives strength.  From the moment they
+deliberately and solemnly make their choice, there is a power imparted
+to their life that it had not before.  In the life of the well-known
+Scotsman, Adam Black, it is said that shortly after he went up to
+London he became a communicant in the Church to which he belonged.  "I
+found," he says, "this step gave a stability to my character, and
+proved a defence from follies and vices, especially as a young man in
+London, entirely my own master, with no one to guide or check me."
+
+2.  We should take each of us our full share in the work of our Church.
+It is a poor sign of a church when all the work done is by the
+minister, or by the office-bearers alone, and it is a still poorer sign
+of those who belong to it.  It is a sign that they have not felt the
+power of that grace which ever leads the soul to put the question,
+"What wilt thou have me to do?"  There are none who cannot do
+something.  The writer read lately of a church in England, the grounds
+of which were regularly tended and made beautiful by the young men
+belonging to it.  That may seem a small service, but it was something.
+It showed a good spirit.  If we are to get the most out of the Church,
+we must help it to do its work--charitable, missionary, Sunday School,
+Young Men's Guild.  If the best heart and talent of young men were put
+into these and other agencies, the power of the Church for good would
+be increased immeasurably, and not the least of the advantage would
+come to the workers themselves.  Let each do his own part.  There is
+one way, we need scarcely say, in which we can all help the Church's
+work: by giving to it "as the Lord hath prospered us."  Under the Old
+Testament dispensation every one was under strict obligation to give a
+fixed proportion of his substance for religious purposes.  Surely we
+should not be less liberal when the proportion is left to our own sense
+of duty.  Freely we have received.  Let us also freely give.
+
+3.  While loyal to our own Church, we should cherish towards all
+Christians feelings of charity and good-will.  Many of us, probably
+most of us, belong to the Church to which our parents belonged; and so
+long as we feel it ministers to our spiritual benefit we should keep by
+it and work with it.  There is little good obtained by running from
+church to church, and those who sever themselves from their early
+religious associations are often anything but gainers.  But while we
+are loyal to our own regiment in the Christian army, and proud, so far
+as a Christian may be so, of its traditions and achievements, let us
+ever feel that the army itself is greater than our own regiment, and
+not only cherish good-will and brotherly love towards those who fight
+in that army, but be ready at all times to co-operate with them, and to
+fight with them against the common enemy.  It is well to be a good
+churchman, it is infinitely better to be a good Christian.  It is best
+when one is both; for indeed he is the best Christian who is the best
+churchman, and he is the best churchman who is the best Christian.
+
+
+
+[1] The subject of "The Church, Ministry and Sacraments" is to be fully
+dealt with in a Guild text-book by the Rev. Norman Macleod, D. D.  We
+only refer in this chapter to those phases of Church life that are more
+immediately connected with Life and Conduct.
+
+[2] _Confession of Faith_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+CITIZENSHIP.
+
+Citizenship is derived from the Latin word _civitas_, the state, and
+comprehends the duties that are binding upon us as members of the
+state.  The first question then that arises in considering these is,
+What do we mean by the state?
+
+The state may be defined as the larger family.--The family is the
+origin of the state.  (_a_) In early times government was of the simple
+kind that prevails in a family.  The father was the head of the
+household and ruled over his children.  As these grew up and had
+families of their own, they naturally looked to the aged head of the
+family, listened to his counsels, and were guided by his wisdom.  Hence
+the first form of the state was the tribe or clan, and the first form
+of government was _patriarchal_.  The head of the family governed the
+tribe.  (_b_) On the death of the patriarch it was necessary that a
+successor should be appointed.  Sometimes he was the son of the
+patriarch or his nearest descendant.  Sometimes he was chosen by the
+tribe as the strongest and bravest man and most competent to lead them
+against their enemies.  Often tribes combined for mutual protection.
+Thus nations were formed, and the government passed from the
+patriarchal to the _monarchical_ form.  The head was called the _king_,
+which literally means the "father of a people."  We trace this growth
+in government in the history of the Israelites.  First, we have the
+family of Israel in immediate relation with the patriarchs.  As the
+Israelites grew and multiplied, they came under the leadership of
+Moses, who governed the tribes.  Finally, when they settled in the land
+of Canaan, they became a nation, and were governed by a king.  The
+kingdom was the expansion of the family.  (_c_) In modern times there
+has been a further development.  Government by a king or monarch was in
+the first instance _despotic_.  It is so in some cases--as in Russia at
+the present day.  The will of the sovereign is the law by which the
+people are ruled.  But just as a wise father relaxes his control over
+his full-grown sons, and admits them to a share in the government of
+the household with himself, so the people have in modern times been
+permitted to exercise power in the state.  The head of the state
+remains, but the main power of government lies with the people.  This
+form of government is called _constitutional_.  In Great Britain we
+have a _limited monarchy_; the power of the sovereign is controlled by
+the will of the people, who have a large share in making the laws.  In
+the United States of America, in France, and in other countries, we
+have _republics_, where the voice of the people is supreme, though at
+the head of the state is a president, elected by the people, and bound
+to carry out their wishes.
+
+As the state is the larger family, the duties of those who compose it
+correspond with those belonging to the members of a household.
+
+1.  There is the duty of loyalty or patriotism.  The first duty of the
+member of a family is love of home and of those who belong to it.
+However poor or humble it may be, he feels bound to it by no ordinary
+ties.  He defends its interests.  Above all other households, he loves
+his own the best.  The first duty of the citizen is of the same kind.
+He loves his land; his own country is dearer to him than any other on
+earth.  He is ready to defend it even with his life.  The words of Sir
+Walter Scott, as of many another poet, express this patriotic feeling:
+
+  Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
+  Who never to himself hath said,
+  This is my own, my native land,
+  Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
+  As home his footsteps he hath turned,
+  From wandering on a foreign strand.
+
+Many have died for their country's sake, and in all ages this has been
+thought a specially noble death.  History records with affection the
+names of such men as Wallace, Bruce, William Tell, and Garibaldi, who
+sacrificed very much for the land they loved.  And as "peace has its
+victories no less renowned than those of war," it has been the pride of
+others to serve their country by guarding its liberties, increasing its
+happiness, diminishing its evils, reforming its laws.  The _flag_ of a
+country is the symbol, to those who belong to it, of their common
+inheritance.  Brave men will follow it through the shot and shell of
+battle.  Men have wrapt it round their breasts, and have dyed its folds
+with their heart's blood to save it from the hands of the enemy; and
+wherever it waves it calls forth feelings of loyalty and allegiance.
+
+2.  Another primary duty of citizenship is obedience to the law.  Here
+again we have the rule of the family extended to the state.  The child
+is bound to obey his parents unless they bid him do what his conscience
+clearly tells him is wrong; so, a good citizen will obey the laws of
+his country, unless these laws are so evidently unjust that the good of
+all demands that they should be resisted.  Whatever the law is, he will
+endeavor to respect and obey it.  If he believes it to be an unjust or
+unrighteous law, he will do his best to get it amended or abolished.
+It is only in an extreme case, though this opens a subject on which we
+cannot enter, that he can be justified in refusing obedience.  "Let
+every soul," says Scripture, "be subject unto the higher powers.  For
+there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
+Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of
+God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves condemnation.
+For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. . . .
+Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for
+conscience sake."
+
+3.  It is a duty of citizenship to see that the laws are reasonable and
+just.  In a family, the grown-up members will use their legitimate
+influence to promote the wise regulation of the household, that there
+may be peace and harmony.  The same desire will animate the members of
+the state.  (_a_) This is specially incumbent upon those who, like
+ourselves, live under constitutional government.  With us, government
+is not the prerogative of the Crown, or of a few families; or of men of
+rank or wealth.  It is not _despotic_, or _aristocratic_, or
+_plutocratic_, but _democratic_--that is to say, it is in the hands of
+the people, or of those of the people to whom it has been entrusted,
+and who form a large proportion of the male inhabitants of the country;
+on them devolves the making of the laws by which the country is
+governed.  They are bound to do their best to see that these laws are
+what they should be--equitable and righteous, and for the interest of
+the whole community.  (_b_) This they can only do through their
+representatives.  We could conceive of a state so small that each of
+its members could take a direct part in its government.  That is not
+the case with us, and the people can only exercise their control
+through those they authorise to represent them.  These they elect, and
+in electing them are bound to see that they are men who are worthy of
+the trust committed to them, who will make laws good for every class.
+This applies not only to the election of members of Parliament, but
+wherever the representative principle is carried out, as in the case of
+councils, school boards, and other forms of local government.  Wherever
+a man exercises the privilege of choosing a representative, he is bound
+to do so conscientiously, and with an earnest desire to perform what is
+right.  It is a maxim in law that what we do by another we do
+ourselves.  We are responsible for those whom we choose to make our
+laws, and if we help to choose unworthy men we cannot be held blameless
+of the consequences that may follow.  (_c_) As it is our duty to
+exercise this privilege of citizenship rightly, we are also bound not
+to refrain from exercising it.  We hear people say sometimes that they
+have nothing to do with politics.  But by keeping altogether aloof they
+cannot rid themselves of their responsibility.  By abstaining they may
+do almost as much to further the views they disapprove of as by taking
+an active part in promoting them.  If there are evils in connection
+with government, the best way to get rid of them is for good men to
+take a part in public life, and try to bring about a better state of
+things.  In a free country no man can shake off his obligations by
+refraining from taking part in public affairs.  The talent that is
+entrusted to us we are bound to use for the glory of God and the good
+of man.  Our political power, however small, is such a talent, and we
+are responsible for its proper employment.
+
+4.  It is a duty of citizenship to take direct part in all that we
+believe is for the good of the state.  We say a direct part, as
+distinguished from the indirect part we take in government through
+representatives.  A man's duty as citizen does not end with the
+ballot-box, or with the election of members either to the national or
+local council.  A great part of the business of the nation is carried
+on by the voluntary efforts of its members.  There are men and women
+that have no part in representative government, who yet can discharge
+nobly the duties of citizenship.  (_a_) All can take a part in forming
+a healthy public opinion.  This is done in all free countries in
+various ways: through the press, through public meetings, and by means
+of the speech and communications of everyday life.  If our views are
+those of a minority, we may help, by our influence, our example, the
+fearless expression of our convictions, to turn the minority into a
+majority; and in a democratic country the views of the majority will
+ultimately prevail.  (_b_) We can also take direct part in promoting
+objects that tend to the well-being of society.  Much is left by the
+state to voluntary effort by its members.  The state undertakes the
+defence of the country by the army and navy, the relief of the poor,
+and the elementary education of the people; but beyond these and other
+instances of direct state action there is much left to be done by the
+people themselves, and for themselves.  The Volunteer movement, in
+which men take part of their own free will, and which has been of so
+much benefit to the country; the erection and support of hospitals,
+libraries, art galleries, colleges and universities; the furnishing of
+the people with amusement and recreation--are illustrations of what may
+be done by members of the community directly.  All such efforts tend to
+the welfare of the state.  All its members reap benefit from them.  He
+who does not help and encourage them is as mean as the man who would go
+to an hotel and take its entertainment, and then sneak away without
+paying the reckoning.  Whatever we can do to benefit society benefits
+ourselves, and in throwing ourselves heart and soul into any of those
+enterprises that benefit society we are discharging in a very special
+way the duties of good citizenship.
+
+It only remains to say in a word that our citizenship should be the
+outcome of our religion.  Without that, citizenship loses its high
+position.  He who fears God will honor the king, and he who "renders to
+God the things that are God's" will "render to Caesar the things that
+are Caesar's."  He will give "to all their dues: tribute to whom
+tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom
+honor."  Religion thus becomes the strength of the state, and
+"righteousness exalteth a nation."
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+The following is the list of the best hundred books referred to in
+Chapter XIII.  It is by Professor Blackie, Edinburgh, author of
+Self-Culture, and is given with his kind consent.
+
+
+I.
+
+HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.
+
+  The Bible.
+  Homer.
+  Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians.
+  Max Von Dunche's History of the Ancient World.
+  Plutarch's Lives.
+  Herodotus.
+  History of Greece--_Grote_ or _Curtius_.
+  History of Rome--_Arnold_ or _Mommsen_.
+  Menzel's History of the Germans.
+  Green's History of the English People.
+  Life of Charlemagne.
+  Life of Pope Hildebrand.
+  The Crusades.
+  Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics.
+  Prescott's America.
+  Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella.
+  Italy, by _Professor Spalding_.
+  Chronicles, by _Froissart_.
+  The Normans--_Freeman_ and _Thierry_.
+  Motley's Dutch Republic.
+  Life of Gustavus Adolphus.
+  The French Revolution--_Thiers, Carlyle, Alison_.
+  Bourrienne's Life of Napoleon.
+  Wellington's Peninsular Campaign.
+  Southey's Life of Nelson.
+  America--_Bancroft_.
+  The Stuart Rising of 1745, by _Robert Chambers_.
+  Carlyle's Life of Cromwell.
+  Foster's Statesmen of the Commonwealth.
+  Life of Arnold--_Stanley_.
+  Life of Dr. Norman Macleod.
+  Life of Baron Bunsen.
+  Neander's Church History.
+  Life of Luther.
+  History of Scottish Covenanters--_Dodds_.
+  Dean Stanley's Jewish Church.
+  Milman's Latin Christianity.
+
+
+II.
+
+RELIGION AND MORALS.
+
+  The Bible.
+  Socrates or Plato and Xenophon.
+  Marcus Aurelius Antoninus' Meditations.
+  Epictetus Seneca.
+  The Hitopadion and Dialogues of Krishna.
+  St. Augustine's Confessions.
+  Jeremy Taylor.
+  Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
+  Martineau.
+  Aesop's Fables.
+
+
+III.
+
+POETRY AND FICTION.
+
+  Homer.
+  Virgil.
+  Dante.
+  The Niebelungen Lay.
+  The Morte D'Arthur.
+  Chaucer.
+  Shakespeare.
+  Spenser.
+  Goethe--Faust, Meister, and Eckermann's Conversations.
+  Milton.
+  Pope.
+  Cowper.
+  Campbell.
+  Wordsworth.
+  Walter Scott.
+  Burns.
+  Charles Lamb.
+  Dean Swift, "Tale of a Tub" and "Gulliver's Travels."
+  Tennyson.
+  Browning.
+  Don Quixote.
+  Goldsmith, "Vicar of Wakefield."
+  George Eliot.
+  Dickens.
+  Robinson Crusoe.
+  Andersen's Fairy Tales, "Mother Bunch."
+  Grimm's Popular Songs and Ballads, especially
+    Scotch, English, Irish and German.
+
+
+IV.
+
+FINE ARTS.
+
+  Ferguson's History of Architecture.
+  Ruskin.
+  Tyrwhitt.
+
+
+V.
+
+POLITICS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.
+
+  De Tocqueville.
+  John Stuart Mill.
+  Fawcett.
+  Laveleye.
+  Adam Smith.
+  Cornewall Lewis.
+  Lord Brougham.
+  Sir J. Lubbock.
+
+
+VI.
+
+SCIENCE AND PHILOLOGY.
+
+  J. G. Wood's Books on Natural History.
+  White's Natural History of Selbourne.
+  Geology--_Hugh Miller, Ramsey, Geikie, Ansted_.
+  Botany--General Elements of British.
+  Science of Language--_Trench_ and _Farrar, Max Müller_.
+  Taylor's Words and Places.
+
+
+VII.
+
+VOYAGES AND TRAVEL.
+
+In every variety; especially the old collections.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF WORKS.
+
+The following is a list of works upon topics treated in this text-book,
+which have been consulted in its preparation, and which may be useful
+to students:
+
+_Self-Culture_, by John Stuart Blackie.  Edinburgh: David Douglas.
+Twentieth edition.  1892.
+
+_Plain Living and High Thinking, or Practical Self-Culture--Moral,
+Mental and Physical_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  London: John Hogg,
+Paternoster Row.  1880.
+
+_The Secret of Success_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  London: John Hogg,
+Paternoster Row.  1880.
+
+_The Threshold of Life_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  T. Nelson & Sons,
+Paternoster Row.  1876.
+
+_On the Threshold_, by Theodore T. Munger.  London: Ward, Lock & Co.
+1888.
+
+_Beginning Life_, by John Tulloch, D.D.  London: Chas. Burnet & Co.
+1883.
+
+_Life: a Book for Young Men_, by J. Cunninghame Geikie.  London:
+Strahan & Co.  1870.
+
+_The Gentle Life_, by J. Hain Friswell.  London: Sampson Low & Marston.
+1870.
+
+_Self-Culture_, by James Freeman Clarke.  Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.
+1881.
+
+_Life Questions_, by M. J. Savage.  Boston: Lockwood, Brooks & Co.
+1879.
+
+_Elements of Morality, for Home and School Teaching_, by Mrs. Chas.
+Bray.  London: Longmans, Green & Co.  1863.
+
+_The Family and its Duties_, by Robert Lee, D.D.  London: Longmans,
+Green & Co.  1863.
+
+_Christianity in its Relation to Social Life_, by Rev. Stephen J.
+Davis.  London: Religious Tract Society.
+
+_Home Life_, by Marianne Farningham.  London: James Clarke & Co.
+
+_The Domestic Circle_, by the Rev. John Thomson.  London: Swan
+Sonnenschein & Co.  1886.
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Life and Conduct, by J. Cameron Lees
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Life and Conduct
+
+
+Author: J. Cameron Lees
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 11, 2007  [eBook #22050]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND CONDUCT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+LIFE AND CONDUCT
+
+by
+
+J. CAMERON LEES, D.D., LL.D.,
+
+Edinburgh.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Toronto:
+William Briggs,
+Wesley Buildings.
+Montreal: C. W. Coates.
+Halifax: S. F. Huestis.
+1896.
+
+Entered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
+thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the
+Department of Agriculture.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+This book has been selected from the "Guild Series" for young people,
+published in Scotland, and reprinted in Canada by permission.
+
+The wise counsels and practical suggestions with which this book
+abounds make it eminently suitable for the Epworth League Reading
+Course.  We commend it to all young people who are desirous to form
+their character on the Christian model and to carry religious principle
+into the practical affairs of common life.
+
+Some of the chapters will furnish material for interesting programmes
+in the Literary Department.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+This hand-book has been written at the request of the Christian Life
+and Work Committee of the Church of Scotland as one of a series of
+volumes which it is at present issuing for the use of Young Men's
+Guilds and Bible Classes.
+
+The object of the writer has been to show how the principles of
+religion may be applied to the conduct of young men, and in the
+practice of everyday life.  In doing this he has endeavored to keep
+steadily in view the fact that the book is designed chiefly as a manual
+of instruction, and can only present the outlines of a somewhat wide
+subject.  His language has been necessarily simple, and he has been
+often obliged to put his statements in an abbreviated form.
+
+Most of the contents of this book have been drawn from a long and
+somewhat varied experience of life; but the author has also availed
+himself of the writings of others who have written books for the
+special benefit of young men. He has appended a list of works which he
+has consulted, and has endeavored to acknowledge his indebtedness for
+any help in the way of argument or illustration that they have afforded
+him.
+
+It will be a great gratification to him to learn that the book has been
+in any way useful to the young men, of whose position, duties, and
+temptations he has thought much when writing it; and he sends it forth
+with the earnest prayer that the Spirit of God may bless his endeavors
+to be of service to those whose interests he, in common with his
+brethren in the ministry, regards as of paramount importance.
+
+EDINBURGH,
+  _28th June, 1892._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+    I. CHARACTER
+   II. SUCCESS IN LIFE
+  III. PERSONAL INFLUENCE
+   IV. FRIENDS
+    V. MONEY
+   VI. TIME
+  VII. COURAGE
+ VIII. HEALTH
+   IX. EARNESTNESS
+    X. MANNERS
+   XI. TEMPER
+  XII. RECREATION
+ XIII. BOOKS
+  XIV. FAMILY LIFE
+   XV. CHURCH
+  XVI. CITIZENSHIP
+
+       APPENDIX
+       LIST OF WORKS
+
+
+
+
+LIFE AND CONDUCT.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHARACTER.
+
+Everything in the practical conduct of life depends upon character.
+
+What is character?  What do we mean by it?  As when we say such a man
+is a bad character, or a good character, or when we use the words, "I
+don't like the character of that man."
+
+By character we mean what a man really is, at the back of all his
+actions and his reputation and the opinion the world has of him, in the
+very depth of his being, in the sight of God, "to whom all hearts are
+open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid."
+
+It is said of Burns, the poet, that walking along the streets of
+Edinburgh with a fashionable acquaintance, he saw a poorly-dressed
+peasant, whom he rushed up to and greeted as a familiar friend.  His
+companion expressed his surprise that he could lower himself by
+speaking to one in so rustic a garb.  "Fool!" said the poet, with
+flashing eye; "it was not the dress, the peasant's bonnet and hodden
+gray, I spoke to, but the man within--the man who beneath that bonnet
+has a head, and beneath that hodden gray a heart, better than a
+thousand such as yours."  What the poet termed the "man within," what
+the Scripture calls the "hidden man of the heart," is character--the
+thing a man really is.  Now, there are five things to be remembered
+about _character_.
+
+I.  Character is a growth.--As the man without grows, so the man within
+grows also--grows day by day either in beauty or in deformity.  We are
+becoming, as the days and years pass on, what we shall be in our future
+earthly life, what we shall be when that life is ended.  No one becomes
+what he is at once, whether what he is be good or bad.  You may have
+seen in the winter-time an icicle forming under the eaves of a house.
+It grows, one drop at a time, until it is more than a foot long.  If
+the water is clear, the icicle remains clear and sparkles in the sun;
+but if the water is muddy, the icicle looks dirty and its beauty is
+spoiled.  So our characters are formed; one little thought or feeling
+at a time adds its influence.  If these thoughts and feelings are pure
+and right, the character will be lovely and will sparkle with light;
+but if they are impure and evil, the character will be wretched and
+deformed.
+
+Fairy tales tell us of palaces built up in a night by unseen hands, but
+those tales are not half so wonderful as what is going on in each of
+us.  Day and night, summer and winter, a building is going up within
+us, behind the outer screen of our lives.  The storeys of it are being
+silently fashioned: virtue is being added to faith, and to virtue is
+being added knowledge, and to knowledge is being added brotherly
+kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity; or meanness is being added
+to selfishness, and greed to meanness, and impurity, malice and hatred
+become courses in the building.  A wretched hovel, a poor, mean,
+squalid structure, is rising within us; and when the screen of our
+outward life is taken from us, this is what we shall be.
+
+II.  Character is independent of reputation and circumstances.--A man
+may be held in very high esteem by the world, and yet may be a very
+miserable creature so far as his character is concerned.  The rich man
+of the parable was well off and probably much thought of, but God
+called him a fool.  Here is a man who is greatly esteemed by the
+public; he is regarded in every way as admirable.  Follow him home, and
+you find him in his family a mean and sordid soul.  There you have the
+real man.  We cannot always judge a man by what he has, or by what he
+appears to us; for what he is may be something very different.  "These
+uniforms," said the Duke of Wellington, "are great illusions.  Strip
+them off, and many a pretty fellow would be a coward; when in them he
+passes muster with the rest."  We must not confound the uniform with
+the man: we are often too ready to do so.  _To a certain extent_ we can
+form an idea what a man is from the outside.  The horny hand tells of
+the life of labor; the deep-set brow tells of the thinker.  In other
+words we have a right to judge a man by his habitation.  If the fences
+are broken down, the paths are unkept, the flower-beds full of weeds,
+we may be pretty sure the inhabitants are idle, thriftless, perhaps
+intemperate.  So a clear eye, a firm step, an open countenance, tell of
+a pure, good soul within.  For example, a man of cold exterior or of
+formal manner may often have a warm heart under it all; a man of rough
+manners may have kindly feelings that he cannot express.  We are often
+long in the company of men before we really know them, and then the
+discovery of what they are comes on us by surprise.
+
+III.  Character cannot be always hidden.--There are those who seem to
+think that they can have one set of principles for themselves and
+another for the outward world; that they can be in their heart one
+thing and in society another; that they can have one character and
+another reputation.  They may be proud, but they can so hide their
+pride as to have the reputation of being humble; they can lie, but
+still have the reputation of always speaking the truth; they can be
+impure, and yet have the reputation of being virtuous.  But sooner or
+later what they really are generally becomes manifest.  Reputation and
+character come to be one.  That which they would keep secret cannot be
+concealed.  The mask which men would wear slips aside and discloses the
+face beneath it.  (1) Time reveals character.  As the years pass along,
+a man generally gets to be known for what he is.  For example, if a man
+is a coward and enlists in the army, he may swagger about and look like
+a real soldier, but a time will come when the spirit of the man will
+show itself, and he will be set down at his real value.  Or a young man
+in an office may act dishonestly and go on perhaps for long doing so,
+and thinking he is carefully concealing his frauds, but, when least
+expected, discovery takes place, and ruin and disgrace follow.  (2)
+Sorrow reveals character.  Nothing more truly shows what a man is than
+his bearing under the sorrows of life.  When the flag is wrapped around
+the flag-staff on a calm day, when no breath of wind is moving, we
+cannot read the device that is upon it, but when the storm unfurls the
+flag, we can read it plainly enough.  In the same way when the troubles
+of life beat upon men we can read clearly what they are.  Again, when
+we go along the road on a summer day we often cannot see the houses
+that are concealed by the foliage of the trees; but in winter-time,
+when the trees are bare and leafless, we know what kind of houses are
+there, whether they are squalid cottages or grand mansions.  So in the
+winter-time of life, when the leaves are blown away, men come out and
+we know what kind of character they have been building up behind the
+screen of their life.  (3) If time and sorrow do not reveal character,
+eternity will.  We will appear then, not as we seem, but as we are.
+Christ is to be our judge.  Consider what a striking thing it is in the
+life of Christ that His searching glance seemed to go right to the
+heart, to the hidden motive, to the man within.  "He knew what was in
+man."  A poor woman passed by Him as He sat in the temple.  She was
+poverty-stricken in her garb, and she stole up to the contribution-box
+and dropped in her offering.  Christ's glance went right beyond her
+outward appearance, and beyond her small and almost imperceptible
+offering, to the motive and character.  "She hath given more than they
+all."  All sorts of people were around Him: Pharisees, with their
+phylacteries; Scribes, with their sceptical notions; Samaritans, with
+their vaunted traditions: but He always went right beyond the outward
+show.  The Samaritan was good and kind, though he got no credit for
+piety; the Pharisee was corrupt and self-seeking, though he got no
+credit for piety; the Publican was a child of God, though no one would
+speak to him.  Christ reversed the judgment of men on those people whom
+they thought they knew so well, but did not know at all.  So it shall
+be at the last; we shall be judged by what we are.
+
+IV.  Character alone endures.--What a man has he leaves behind him;
+what a man is he carries with him.  It is related that when Alexander
+the Great was dying he commanded that his hands should be left outside
+his shroud, that all men might see that, though conqueror of the world
+he could take nothing away with him.  Before Saladin the Great uttered
+his last sigh he called the herald who had carried his banner before
+him in all his battles, and commanded him to fasten to the top of the
+spear a shroud in which he was to be buried, and to proclaim, "This is
+all that remains to Saladin the Great of all his glory."  So men have
+felt in all ages that death strips them, and that they take nothing
+with them of what they have gained.  But what we are ourselves we take
+with us.  All that time has made us, for good or evil, goes with us.
+We can lay up treasures in ourselves that neither moth nor rust can
+corrupt, and which thieves cannot steal away.  "The splendid treasures
+of memory, the treasures of disciplined powers, of enlarged capacities,
+of a pure and loving heart, all are treasures which a man can carry in
+him and with him into that other world."
+
+  We are but farmers of ourselves, yet may,
+  If we can stock ourselves and thrive, uplay
+  Much good treasure for the great rent-day.--DONNE.
+
+
+"All the jewels and gold a man can collect he drops from his hand when
+he dies, but every good action he has done is rooted into his soul and
+can never leave him."--Buddhist saying.
+
+V.  The highest character a man can have is the Christian
+Character.--(1) Christ is the giver of a noble character.  It is
+possible to be united to Christ as the branch is united to the tree;
+and when we are so, His life passes into ours: a change in character
+comes to us; we are renewed in the inward man, old things pass away,
+and all things become new.  In the life of St. Paul we have a striking
+instance how coming to Christ effects a change in character.  He became
+a different man from what he was; he received a new inward life; a
+transfiguring change passed over the entire character; the life he
+lived in the flesh became a life of faith in the Son of God; and his
+experience has been the experience of many.  The source of the highest
+and noblest character is Christ.  (2) Christ is also the _standard_ of
+a noble character; the true ideal of manhood is found in Him: "the
+stature of the fulness of Christ."  Take the following illustration:
+"In Holland we travel with Dutch money, in France with French money, in
+Germany with German money.  The standard of the coinage varies with
+every state we go into.  In Britain there is one standard of coinage;
+we may get some corrupted money or some light coin, but the standard of
+coinage is the same.  The standard for the Christian is the same
+throughout the years and in all places: the one perpetual standard of
+the life of Christ."  The best men are those who come the nearest to
+it.  Those who come nearest to it are those who will do best in the
+practical conduct of life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SUCCESS IN LIFE.
+
+We often hear the word success used.  The great wish that most have in
+beginning life is that they may be successful.  One man constantly asks
+another the question regarding a third, How has he succeeded?
+
+What is success in life?  It may perhaps be defined in this way: It is
+to obtain the greatest amount of happiness possible to us in this world.
+
+There are two things to be borne in mind in estimating what success is:
+
+I.  Lives which according to some are successful must in the highest
+sense be pronounced failures.--The idea of many is that success
+consists in the gaining of a livelihood, or competency, or wealth; but
+a man may gain these things who yet cannot be said to have succeeded.
+If he gets wealth at the expense of health, or if he gets it by means
+of trickery and dishonest practices, he can hardly be said to have
+succeeded.  He does not get real happiness with it.  If a man gains the
+whole world and loses his own soul, he cannot be said to have
+succeeded.  True success in life is when a fair share of the world's
+good does not cost either physical or intellectual or moral well-being.
+
+II.  Lives which according to some are failures must in the highest
+sense be pronounced successful.--The life of our blessed Lord, from one
+point of view, was a failure.  It was passed in poverty, it closed in
+darkness.  We see Him crowned with thorns, buffeted, spit upon; yet
+never was Christ so successful as when He hung upon the cross.  He had
+finished the work given Him to do.  He "saw of the travail of His soul
+and was satisfied."
+
+Milton completed his _Paradise Lost_ and a bookseller only gave him
+fifteen pounds for it, yet he cannot be said to have failed.
+
+  Speak, History, who are life's victors? unroll thy long
+      annals and say,
+  Are they those whom the world calls victors, who won
+      the success of the day,
+  The martyrs or Nero?  The Spartans who fell at
+      Thermopylae's tryst
+  Or the Persians or Xerxes?  His judges or Socrates?
+      Pilate or Christ?
+
+
+What may seem defeat to some may be in the truest sense success.
+
+_There are certain things which directly tend to success in life:_
+
+The first is Industry.--There can be no success without working hard
+for it.  There is no getting on without labor.  We live in times of
+great competition, and if a man does not work, and work hard, he is
+soon jostled aside and falls into the rear.  It is true now as in the
+days of Solomon that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich."
+
+(_a_) There are some who think they can dispense with hard work because
+they possess great natural talents and ability--that cleverness or
+genius can be a substitute for diligence.  Here the old fable of the
+hare and the tortoise applies.  They both started to run a race.  The
+hare, trusting to her natural gift of fleetness, turned aside and took
+a sleep; the tortoise plodded on and won the prize.  Constant and
+well-sustained labor carries one through, where cleverness apart from
+this fails.  History tells us that the greatest genius is most diligent
+in the cultivation of its powers.  The cleverest men have been of great
+industry and unflinching perseverance.  No truly eminent man was ever
+other than an industrious man.
+
+(_b_) There are some who think that success is in the main a matter of
+what they call "luck," the product of circumstances over which they
+have little or no control.  If circumstances are favorable they need
+not work; if they are unfavorable they need not work.  So far from man
+being the creature of circumstances he should rather be termed the
+architect of circumstances.  From the same materials one man builds
+palaces and another hovels.  Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks
+till the architect makes something out of them.  In the same way, out
+of the same circumstances one man rears a stately edifice, while
+another, idle and incompetent, lives for ever amid ruins.
+Circumstances rarely conquer a strong man; he conquers them.  He
+
+  Breaks his birth's invidious bar
+  And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
+  And breasts the blows of circumstance,
+  And grapples with his evil star.--TENNYSON.
+
+
+Against all sorts of opposing obstacles the great workers of the world
+fought their way to triumph.  Milton wrote _Paradise Lost_ in blindness
+and poverty.  Luther, before he could establish the Reformation, had to
+encounter the prestige of a thousand years, the united power of an
+imperious hierarchy and the ban of the German Empire.  Linnaeus,
+studying botany, was so poor as to be obliged to mend his shoes with
+folded paper and often to beg his meals of his friends.  Columbus, the
+discoverer of America, had to besiege and importune in turn the states
+of Genoa, Portugal, Venice, France, England, and Spain, before he could
+get the control of three small vessels and 120 men.  Hugh Miller, who
+became one of the first geological writers of his time, was apprenticed
+to a stonemason, and while working in the quarry, had already begun to
+study the stratum of red sandstone lying below one of red clay.  George
+Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive engine, was a common collier
+working in the mines.  James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine,
+was a poor sickly child not strong enough to go to school.  John
+Calvin, who gave a theology to the seventeenth and eighteenth
+centuries, which has not yet been outgrown, was tortured with disease
+all his days.  When were circumstances favorable to any great or good
+attempt, except as they were compelled by determination and industry to
+become favorable?
+
+(_c_) Even if circumstances seem in every way favorable, industry is
+necessary to success.  Though we be born, as the saying is, "with a
+silver spoon in our mouth," we cannot afford to dispense with work.
+Unless we are hard-working, life will become a weariness to us.  Work
+keeps life full and happy; it drives all diseased fancies out of the
+mind; it gives balance and regularity to all movements of the soul.
+
+If then we expect to succeed in life we must make up our mind to work
+hard.  We must not let it be our notion of a fine lady or gentleman to
+do nothing.  The idle life is a miserable life; it is bound to be so.
+God has promised many a blessing to industry; He has promised none to
+indolence.  God himself works, and He wants His children to work.
+
+_The second thing that tends directly to success in life is a distinct
+Aim_.--A man may run very hard in a race, the perspiration may stream
+from his brow and every muscle be strained, but if he is not running in
+a right direction, if he is running away from the goal, all his
+activity will not help him.  So, industrious habits are not sufficient,
+unless we have a distinct idea of what we are aiming at.  The world is
+full of purposeless people, and such people come to nothing.  Those who
+have succeeded best have chosen their line and stuck to it.
+
+  One great aim, like a guiding-star above,
+  Which tasked strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift
+  Their manhood to the height that takes the prize.
+        BROWNING.
+
+
+(_a_) The choice of a trade or profession is of enormous importance in
+settling our aim in life.  Men often fail from having adopted a calling
+for which they are entirely unfitted.  The round man in the square hole
+is a pitiful spectacle.  It is difficult to lay down any special rule
+in regard to the choice of a profession or business.  Some are obliged
+to take whatever opportunity offers, and others have to begin work at
+too early an age to permit them to form a true idea of what they are
+best fitted for, and are obliged to follow the wishes of others rather
+than their own.  This only we can say, that so far as we have a choice
+we should adopt the calling that is most congenial to us and suits our
+inclinations.  "Grasp the handle of your being" was the direction given
+by a wise counsellor to one who sought advice as to what calling he
+should follow.  Everyone has certain aptitudes, and as far as he is
+able should keep them in view.  There is often a distinct indication at
+a very early period of life for what we are best fitted.  "The tastes
+of the boy foreshadow the occupations of the man.  Ferguson's clock
+carved out of wood and supplied with rudest mechanism; Faraday's tiny
+electric machine made from a common bottle; Claude Lorraine's pictures
+in flour and charcoal on the walls of the bakers' shops; Canova's
+modelling of small images in clay; Chantrey's carving of his
+school-master's head in a bit of pine wood,--were all indications clear
+and strong of the future man."
+
+(_b_) Whatever you resolve upon, keep to it.  "One thing I do," is a
+great rule to follow.  It is much better to do one thing well than many
+things indifferently.  It may be well to have "many strings to our
+bow," but it is better to have a bow and string that will every time
+send the arrow to the target.  A rolling stone gathers no moss.  He
+that is everything by turns and nothing long comes to nothing in the
+end.
+
+  If thou canst plan a noble deed
+  And never flag till it succeed,
+  Though in the strife thy heart should bleed,
+  Whatever obstacles contend,
+  Thine hour will come, go on, thou soul!
+  Thou'lt win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal.
+        CHAS. MACKAY.
+
+
+(_c_) The higher our purpose is, the greater our attainment is likely
+to be.  The nobler our ideal, the nobler our success.  It seems
+paradoxical to say it, but it is true, that no one ever reached a goal
+without starting from it; no one ever won a victory without beginning
+the battle with it; no one ever succeeded in any work without first
+finishing it in his own mind.
+
+  Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high,
+    So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be.
+  Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky
+    Shoots higher much than he who means a tree.
+        G. HERBERT.
+
+When we go forward to life we should make up our mind what we intend to
+make of life.  Make up your mind after prayer to God, and work for that.
+
+_The third essential to success in life is Moral Character_, in its
+various elements of honesty, truthfulness, steadiness, temperance.
+"Honesty is the best policy" is one of those worldly maxims that
+express the experience of mankind.  A small leak will sink a great
+ship.  One bad string in a harp will turn its music into discord.  Any
+flaw in moral character will sooner or later bring disaster.  The most
+hopeless wrecks that toss on the broken waters of society are men who
+have failed from want of moral character.  There are thousands of such
+from whom much was expected but from whom nothing came.  It is told of
+a distinguished professor at Cambridge that he kept photographs of his
+students.  He divided them into two lots.  One he called his basket of
+adled eggs: they were the portraits of men who had failed, who had come
+to nothing though they promised much.  What brought most of them to
+grief was want of character, of moral backbone.  Some of them--a good
+many of them--went to drink, others to love of pleasure, others to the
+bad in other ways.  Good principle counts for more than can be
+expressed; it is essential.  Many things may hinder a man from getting
+on--slowness, idleness, want of ability, trifling, want of interest in
+his vocation.  Many of these faults may be borne with long by others,
+and may be battled with earnestly by ourselves; but a flaw in character
+is deadly.  To be unsteady, dishonest, or untruthful is fatal.  Before
+God and man an unfaithful servant is worthless.  We may have other
+qualifications that go to command success, such as those we have
+noticed,--industry and a distinct aim,--but want of principle will
+render them useless.  Slow and sure often go together.  The slow train
+is often the safest to travel by, but woe be to it and to us if we do
+not keep upon the rails.
+
+_The last essential to success in life is Religious
+Hopefulness_.--(_a_) Our industry, our purpose, our principles may be
+all they ought to be, yet the "race is not always to the swift nor the
+battle to the strong."  But when we find the race going from us and the
+battle going against us, if we have trust in God and the hopefulness
+that comes from religion, we will find heart to try again: we will not
+be utterly cast down.  Christian faith keeps men in good heart amid
+many discouragements.  (_b_) Even if a man or woman become rich or
+clever and have life pleasant around them, they cannot feel at the
+close of life that they have succeeded if the future is dark before
+them.  When Cardinal Wolsey, who had been the favorite of the king and
+had long held the government of England in his hand, fell from power,
+he said, "If I had served my God as truly as I served my king He would
+not have forsaken me in my gray hairs."  The world is a poor comforter
+at the last.  No man or woman has become successful until their
+essential happiness is placed beyond the reach of all outward
+fluctuation and change.  Faith in Christ, the faith that penetrates the
+future and brings down from heaven a bright and blessed hopefulness,
+which casts its illumination over the present scene and reveals the
+grand object of existence, is essential to true success.
+
+We cannot sum up the teachings of this chapter better than in the words
+of a poem of which we should try to catch the spirit: they express the
+very philosophy of success in life:
+
+  Courage, brother! do not stumble,
+    Though thy path be dark as night;
+  There's a star to guide the humble;--
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Let the road be rough and dreary,
+    And its end far out of sight,
+  Foot it bravely! strong or weary,
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Perish policy and cunning,
+    Perish all that fears the light!
+  Whether losing, whether winning,
+   Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Trust no party, sect, or faction;
+    Trust no leaders in the fight;
+  But in every word and action
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Trust no lovely forms of passion,--
+    Fiends may look like angels bright:
+  Trust no custom, school, or fashion--
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Simple rule, and safest guiding,
+    Inward peace and inward might,
+  Star upon our path abiding,--
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+
+  Some will hate thee, some will love thee,
+    Some will flatter, some will slight:
+  Cease from man, and look above thee,--
+    Trust in God, and do the right.
+        NORMAN M'LEOD.
+
+
+That is the way to succeed in life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PERSONAL INFLUENCE.
+
+We are all of us in close relations to one another.  We are bound
+together in numberless ways.  As members of the same family, as members
+of the same community, as members of the same Church--we are bound so
+closely together that what any one of us does is certain to tell upon
+others.  It is out of this close connection with others that influence
+comes.  Just as one man in a crowd sends by his movements a certain
+impulse throughout the whole, just as the stone thrown into a pond
+causes waves that move far away from where the stone fell and that
+reach in faint ripples to the distant shore, so our very existence
+exercises influence beyond our knowledge and beyond our calculation.
+
+_Influence is of two kinds, Direct and Indirect_--Conscious and
+Unconscious,--The first is influence we deliberately put forth, as when
+we meet a man and argue with him, as when the orator addresses the
+multitude, or the politician seeks to gain their suffrages.  The second
+is the influence which radiates from us, whether we will it or not, as
+fire burning warms a room, or icebergs floating down from the frozen
+north change the temperature where they come.  There is a passage in
+Scripture where both kinds of influence are illustrated.  "Iron
+sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.  As
+in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man."  The
+first part of the proverb refers to direct influence: as "iron
+sharpeneth iron," so one man applying to another his powers of
+persuasion, his motives in the shape of money or some other inducement,
+moulds, fashions, sharpens him to his liking.  "As in water face
+answereth to face:" this is the silent influence which we have on
+others.  There is no conscious exercise of power, there is no
+deliberate putting forth of strength, there is no noise as of iron
+against iron; but as our shadow is silently reflected in the still
+water, so our life and character silently reflect themselves in others,
+and other hearts answer to the feelings that sway our own.
+
+I.  Direct or conscious influence.--In regard to this everyone must
+choose his own line of action.  Everyone has his own special gift, and
+everyone has his own special opportunities.  There are, however,
+certain lines of direct influence that may be indicated, and which lie
+open to all.
+
+(_a_) Keeping others in the right path.  We constantly meet with people
+who are evidently taking a wrong road; it is our duty to try and show
+them the right one, and to persuade them to walk in it.  We see men
+taking up with evil habits, evil companions, or evil opinions; we are
+bound to remonstrate with them and endeavor to warn them timeously.
+This of course needs to be wisely done, and after prayer to God to
+guide us rightly; but we ought to do it.  "A word spoken in due season
+how good is it."  Such a word has often been blessed and made
+effectual, and we should not shrink from speaking it.  The right time
+for speaking it should be chosen, but it should not be left by us
+unsaid.  When Paley the great moralist was a student at Cambridge he
+wasted his time in idleness and frivolity, and was the butt of his
+fellow-students.  One of them, however, took courage to remonstrate
+with him, and did so with good effect.  One morning he came to his
+bedside and said to him earnestly, "Paley, I have not been able to
+sleep for thinking about you.  I have been thinking what a fool you
+are!  I have the means of dissipation, and could afford to be idle; you
+are poor and cannot afford it.  I could do nothing probably even if I
+were to try; you are capable of doing anything.  I have lain awake all
+night thinking about your folly, and I have now come solemnly to warn
+you.  Indeed, if you persist in your indolence and go on in this way, I
+must renounce your society altogether."  The words took effect.  Paley
+became a changed man, and his after success sprang from his friend's
+warning.  This incident illustrates what may be the influence in this
+form of one man upon another.
+
+(_b_) Bearing testimony against evil.  This is another line of direct
+influence open to all.  It is a precept of the book of Leviticus, "If a
+soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he
+hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his
+iniquity."  If he does not give evidence against evil, even to his own
+hurt he sins.  We are bound to protest against wrongdoing in any form;
+and our protest, if distinct and well directed, always tends to good.
+To be silent in certain circumstances makes us the accomplice of sin;
+to speak out frees us from responsibility.  To be the dumb auditor of a
+shameful story, or to listen silently to the relation of a deed of
+wickedness, and not be honest and resolute in expressing our disgust
+and disapproval is to condone what no good man should condone.  The
+outspoken testimony against evil is incumbent on all Christian men.
+
+(_c_) Taking part in Christian and benevolent work.  There are many
+ways, it is evident, in which we may do so _individually_.  "The
+greatest works that have been done have been done by the ones."  No
+learned society discovered America, but one man, Columbus.  No
+parliament saved English liberties, but one man, Pym.  No confederate
+nations rescued Scotland from her political and ecclesiastical enemies,
+but one man, Knox.  By one man, Howard, our prisons were purified.  By
+one woman, Miss Nightingale, our disgraceful nursing system was
+reformed.  By one Clarkson the reproach of slavery was taken away.  God
+in all ages has blessed individual effort, and if we are strong enough
+to take up any special line of benevolent and Christian work that seems
+open to us we should not shrink from it.  We should be on the lookout
+for it.  But many from their circumstances are not able to do so, and
+such can find their best opportunity by _combining their own effort
+with the efforts of others_.  There are many agencies at work in every
+community for the helping of man, and they afford to all the
+opportunity of wisely using their power of influence.  This is true
+especially of the Christian Church.  It has been defined as "a society
+for doing good in the world."  In many ways it carries on work for the
+benefit of others.  In every Christian congregation there ought to be
+some work in which each of its members, however few his talents may be,
+can engage; and in lending a helping hand each of them may do something
+directly towards making society sweeter and better.
+
+II.  Indirect or unconscious influence.--There is an imperceptible
+personal atmosphere which surrounds every man, "an invisible belt of
+magnetism" which he bears with him wherever he goes.  It invests him,
+and others quickly detect its presence.  Take some of its simplest
+phases.
+
+(_a_) Think of the influence of a _look_.  When Christ stood in the
+courtyard of the palace of the High Priest over against His weak and
+erring disciple, whom He heard denying Him with oaths, it is said, "The
+Lord looked upon Peter."  No more than that, and it reached right down
+into his heart.  It touched him as nothing else could have touched him.
+"He went out and wept bitterly."  It was said of Keble the poet that
+"his face was like that of an illuminated clock, beaming with the
+radiance of his poetry and wisdom"; and it is written of one of the
+most spiritually-minded of Scotchmen, Erskine of Linlathen, that "his
+looks were better than a thousand homilies."  There was something in
+the very expression of his countenance that spoke to men of an inner
+life and of a spiritual dwelling in God.
+
+(_b_) Think of the influence of a _smile_: the smile of welcome when we
+call at a friend's house; the smile of recognition when we meet him in
+the street; the smile of pleasure which the speaker sees in his
+audience; the smile of satisfaction in one to whom we have done an act
+of kindness.  By the very expression of the countenance we can
+influence others, make their life more pleasant or more painful.  There
+are those who by the sweetness of their demeanor are in a household
+like fragrant flowers.  They are like the sweet ointment of spikenard
+which the woman poured upon Christ--the sweet perfume of it "filled the
+whole house."
+
+(_c_) Think of the influence of _sympathy_.  There are some natures
+that are gifted with a blessed power to bring consolation to men.  It
+is not that they are glib of tongue or facile of speech, but somehow
+the very pressure of their hand is grateful to the saddened heart.  The
+simple and kindly action, of which we think nothing, may tell
+powerfully on others, and unclose fountains of feeling deep down in the
+heart.
+
+(_d_) Think of the influence of _example_: the simple doing of what is
+right, though we say nothing about it; the upright life of a father or
+mother in a household; the steady conduct of a soldier in his company;
+the stainless character of a workman among his comrades, or a boy in
+his school.  It is bound to tell.  "Example," says Dr. Smiles, "is one
+of the most potent instructors, though it teaches without a tongue.  It
+is the practical school of mankind working by action, which is always
+more forcible than words.  Precept may point to us the way, but it is a
+silent continuous example conveyed to us by habits, and living with us
+in fact, that carries us along.  Good advice has its weight, but
+without the accompaniment of a good example it is of comparatively
+small influence, and it will be found that the common saying of 'Do as
+I say, not as I do' is usually reversed in the actual experience of
+life."  Goodness makes good.  As a man who trims his garden in a
+straight row and makes it beautiful will induce in time all his
+neighbors to follow him, or at least to be ashamed of their ragged and
+ill-kept plots in contrast with his own, so is it that the upright,
+good life of a sincere Christian man will silently tell upon others.
+
+These are some illustrations of the power of influence unconsciously
+exercised, and the whole subject teaches us (1) Our responsibility.  If
+we are ready to ask, "Am I my brother's keeper?" the answer is, you
+cannot help being so.  It is as easy to evade the law of gravitation as
+the law of responsibility.  A man was lately prosecuted for having
+waited on his customers in clothes he had worn when attending his
+children during an infectious complaint.  It was proved that he had
+sown broadcast germs of the disease.  It would have been no
+justification for him to say, What has anyone to do with the clothes I
+wear?  It is my own business.  He was a member of the community.  His
+action was silently but surely dealing out death to others.  He was
+punished, and justly punished.  We cannot live without influencing
+others.  We say perhaps that "we mean well," or at least we mean to do
+no one any harm, but is our influence harmless?  It is going from us in
+forms as subtle as the germs of an infectious disease.
+
+  Say not, "It matters not to me,
+  My brother's weal is _his_ behoof,"
+  For in this wondrous human web,
+  If your life's warp, his life is woof.
+
+  Woven together are the threads,
+  And you and he are in one loom,
+  For good or ill, for glad or sad,
+  Your lives must share one common doom.
+
+  Then let the daily shuttle glide,
+  Wound full of threads of kindly care,
+  That life's increasing length may be
+  Not only strongly wrought, but fair.
+
+  So from the stuff of each new day
+  The loving hand of Time shall make
+  Garments of joy and peace for all,
+  And human hearts shall cease to ache.
+        M. J. SAVAGE.
+
+(2) The power all have to do good.  There are some who think they can
+only serve God and man in a direct and premeditated way, by taking up
+some branch of Christian work and devoting themselves to it; and if
+they have no gift in any special direction, they think they are outside
+of the vineyard altogether.  But it is not so.  The sphere of quiet and
+unassuming Christian life is open to all.  It is impossible to measure
+the extent of our influence.  Its
+
+  Echoes roll from soul to soul,
+  And grow for ever and for ever.
+
+Like those of the Alpine horn in the solitudes of the mountains, long
+after the voice that caused them has ceased, they reverberate far and
+wide.  No man lives to himself.  He could not do so if he would.  (3)
+The secret of good influence is to be influenced for good ourselves.
+Our lamp must be first lit if it is to shine, and we must ourselves be
+personally influenced by coming to the great source of spiritual power.
+If Christ is in a man, then, wherever he may be, there will radiate
+from him influences that can only be for good.  Out of the life that is
+in him "will flow rivers of living water."
+
+  Thou must be true thyself
+    If thou the truth wouldst teach.
+  Thy soul must overflow if thou
+    Another soul wouldst reach.
+  It needs the overflowing heart
+    To give the lips full speech.
+  Think truly, and thy thought
+    Shall the world's famine feed.
+  Speak truly, and thy word
+    Shall be a fruitful seed.
+  Live truly, and thy life shall be
+    A great and noble creed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+FRIENDS.
+
+By friends we mean those whom we admit to the inner circle of our
+acquaintance.--All of us know many people.  We are bound to do so; to
+meet with men of all classes, sects, beliefs, opinions.  But with most
+of us there are a few persons who stand to us in a different relation
+from the rest.  We are intimate with them.  We take pleasure in their
+company; we tell them our thoughts: we speak to them of things we would
+not speak of to others; we confide in them, and in joy and in sorrow it
+is to them we go.  It is of this inner circle, and of those we ought to
+admit to it, that we have now to speak.
+
+Friendship has been regarded in all ages as one of the most important
+relationships of life.--Cicero, who dedicates an essay to it says that
+"it is the only thing on the importance of which mankind are agreed."
+It has been defined by Addison, the great English writer, as "a strong
+habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness
+of each other."  It has been termed by another "the golden thread that
+ties the hearts of the world."  "A faithful friend" has been called
+"the medicine of life."  Ambrose, one of the Christian Fathers, says,
+"It is the solace of this life to have one to whom you can open your
+heart, and tell your secrets; to win to yourself a faithful man, who
+will rejoice with you in sunshine, and weep in showers.  It is easy and
+common to say, 'I am wholly thine,' but to find it true is as rare."
+And Jeremy Taylor, the great preacher, calls friendship "the ease of
+our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our
+calamities, the counsellor of our doubts, the charity of our minds, the
+emission of our thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we
+meditate."  The great preachers, philosophers and poets of all time
+have dwelt on the importance and sweetness of friendship.  The _In
+Memoriam_ of Tennyson is a glorification of this relationship.
+
+The highest of all examples of friendship is to be found in
+Christ.--"His behaviour in this beautiful relationship is the very
+mirror in which all true friendship must see and mirror itself." [1]
+In His life we see the blessings of companionship in good.  "He loved
+Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus."  He had intimate friends in His
+group of disciples.  Peter and James and John stood to Him in this
+relation.  They were taken by Him into scenes which the rest of the
+disciples did not behold.  They knew a friendship with Him unenjoyed by
+the others.  And of that inner circle there was one to whom the soul of
+Jesus clung with peculiar tenderness--the beloved disciple.  Human
+friendship has been consecrated for us all by this example of Christ.
+He offers himself to every one of us as a _friend_: "Ye are my friends
+if ye do whatsoever I command you."
+
+There are two things which specially show the importance of friendship:
+
+(_a_) It is regarded by others _as a test of our character_.  The worth
+of a man will always be rated by his companions.  The proverbs of all
+nations show this.  "A man is known by the company he keeps."  "Like
+draws to like."  "Birds of a feather flock together."  If our
+companions are worthless, the verdict of society regarding us will be
+that we are worthless ourselves.  This verdict may not in all cases be
+true, but the probability is that it will be true.  If we are admitted
+to the friendship of men of honor, integrity and principle, people will
+come to believe in us.  We would not, they will feel, be admitted into
+that society unless we were in sympathy with those who compose it.  If
+we wish, therefore, that a good opinion should be formed regarding us
+by others, we need to be especially careful as to those with whom we
+associate closely and whom we admit to intimate friendship.
+
+(_b_) Friends have a special power in _moulding our character_.  George
+Herbert's saying is true, "Keep good company, and you shall be of their
+number."  It is difficult, on the other hand, to be much with the silly
+and foolish without being silly and foolish also.  It is the common
+explanation of a young man's ruin that he got among bad companions.  We
+may go into a certain society confident that we will hold our own, and
+that we can come out of it as we go in; but, as a general rule, we will
+find ourselves mistaken.  The man of the strongest individuality comes
+sooner or later to be affected by those with whom he is intimate.
+There is a subtle influence from them telling upon him that he cannot
+resist.  He will inevitably be moulded by it.  Here also the proverbs
+of the world point the lesson.  "He who goes with the lame," says the
+Latin proverb, "will begin to limp."  "He who herds with the wolves,"
+says the Spanish, "will learn to howl."  "Iron sharpeneth iron," says
+the scriptural proverb, "so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his
+friend."  The rapidity of moral deterioration in an evil companionship
+is its most startling feature.  It is appalling to see how soon an evil
+companionship will transform a young man, morally pure, of clean and
+wholesome life, into an unclean, befouled, trifling good-for-nothing.
+Lightning scarcely does its work of destruction quicker, or with more
+fell purpose.
+
+It is difficult to give precise rules in regard to the formation of
+friendship.  "A man that hath friends," says Solomon, "must show
+himself friendly."  The man of a generous and sympathetic nature will
+have many friends, and will attract to himself companions of his own
+character.  A few suggestions, however, founded on practical
+experience, may be offered for our guidance.
+
+I.  We should be (_a_) slow to make friendships, and (_b_) slow to
+break them when made.--(_a_) It is in the nature of some to take up
+with people very readily.  Some young men are like fish that rise
+readily to a gaudy and many-colored fly.  If they see anything that
+attracts them in another they admit him at once to their confidence.
+It should not be so.  Among the reported and traditional sayings of
+Christ, there is one that is full of wisdom: "Be good money changers."
+As a money changer rings the coin on his counter to test it, so we
+should test men well before we make them our friends.  There should be
+a narrow wicket leading into the inner circle of our social life at
+which we should make them stand for examination before they are
+admitted.  An old proverb says, "Before you make a friend, eat a peck
+of salt with him."  We should try before we trust; and as we should be
+careful whom we receive, we should be equally careful whom we part
+with.  "Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not."  With
+some, very little severs the bond of friendship.  They are always
+changing their companions.  They are "Hail fellow, well met," with one
+to-day, and cold and distant to-morrow.  Inconstancy in friendship is a
+bad sign.  It generally arises from readiness to admit to intimacy
+without sufficient examination.  The friendship that is quickly
+cemented is easily dissolved.  Fidelity is the very essence of true
+friendship; and, once broken, it cannot be easily renewed.  Quarrels
+between friends are the bitterest and the most lasting.  Broken
+friendship may be soldered, but never made sound.
+
+  Alas! they had been friends in youth,
+  But whispering tongues can poison truth.
+      *      *      *      *
+  They parted, ne'er to meet again,
+  But never either found another
+  To free the hollow heart from paining.
+  They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
+  Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
+  A dreary sea now flows between.
+        COLERIDGE.
+
+
+Shakespeare gives this rule for friendship in his own wonderful way.
+It could not be better stated--
+
+  The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
+  Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
+  But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
+  Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.
+
+
+II.  We should refuse friendship with those whose standard of right is
+below our own.--Anything in a man or woman that indicates low moral
+tone, or want of principle, should debar them at once from our
+friendship.  It is not easy to say in so many words what want of
+principle is, but we all know what is meant by it.  It corresponds to a
+constitutional defect in the physical system.  A person may have
+ailments, but that is different from a weak and broken constitution.
+So a person may have faults and failings, but a want of principle is
+more serious.  It is a radical defect which should prevent friendship.
+A small thing often shows us whether a person wants principle.  The
+single claw of a bird of prey tells us its nature.  According to the
+familiar saying, "We don't need to eat a leg of mutton to know whether
+it is tainted; a mouthful is sufficient."  So a single expression may
+tell us whether there is a want of moral principle.  A word showing us
+that a person thinks lightly of honesty, of purity in man, of virtue in
+woman, should be sufficient to make us keep him at a distance.  We may
+be civil to him, try to do him good, and lead him to better things, but
+he is not one to make our friend.  Cowper the poet says:
+
+  I would not enter on my list of friends,
+  Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
+  Yet wanting sensibility, the man
+  Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
+
+We may think it a small thing to set the foot upon a worm, but to do so
+needlessly and wantonly indicates a hard and cruel nature, and a man
+with such a nature is not a safe friend.
+
+III.  There should be equality in friendship.--Equality of station, of
+circumstances, of position.  It does not do to lay down a hard and fast
+line as to this.  For instance, in a "young men's guild" men of all
+stations and social conditions meet on an equality.  They are a
+brotherhood bound together by ties of a very close description.  To
+them this rule does not apply.  Among members of such an association, a
+young man may always fitly find a friend.  It is friendships formed
+outside such a circle, and in general society, that we have in view;
+and, in regard to such society, we are probably not far wrong in saying
+that we do well to choose our intimate friends from those who are
+neither much above us nor beneath us.  If a man is poor, and chooses as
+a friend one who is rich, the chances are either that he becomes a
+toady and a mere "hanger-on," or that he is made to feel his
+inferiority.  Young men in this way have been led into expenses which
+they could not afford, and into society that did them harm, and into
+debts sometimes that they could not pay.  Making friends of those
+beneath us is often equally a mistake.  We come to look upon them with
+patronizing affability.  "It is well enough to talk of our humble
+friends, but they are too often like poor relations.  We accept their
+services, and think that a mere 'thank you,' a nod, a beck, or a smile
+is sufficient recompense." [2]  Either to become a toady or a patron is
+destructive of true friendship.  We should be able to meet on the same
+platform, and join hands as brothers, having the same feelings, the
+same wants, the same aspirations.  We should be courteous to the man
+above us, and civil to the man beneath us; but if we value our
+independence and manhood we will not try to make a friend of either.
+
+IV.  We should not make a friend of one who is without reverence for
+what we deem sacred and have been taught to deem sacred.--The want of
+"reverence for that which is above us" is one of the most serious
+defects in man or woman.  We should be as slow to admit one to our
+friendship who has this defect as we would be if we knew he had entered
+into a church and stolen the vessels of the sanctuary.  We should
+consort only with those who honor the sacred name we bear, and treat it
+with reverence.  We should especially beware of admitting to intimacy
+the sceptic and infidel.  There are those who have drifted away from
+the faith of Christ, and to whom God and eternity are mere names.  Such
+are deserving of our most profound pity and sorrow, and we should do
+all in our power to lead them back to the Father's house from which
+they have wandered.  But we should never make them our friends.  We
+cannot dwell in an ill-ventilated and ill-drained house without running
+the risk of having our own constitution lowered.  We cannot associate
+in close companionship with the infidel and the sceptic without
+endangering our own spiritual life.  Doubt is as catching as disease.
+"Take my word for it," said the great Sir Robert Peel, who was a close
+observer of men, "it is not prudent, as a rule, to trust yourself to
+any man who tells you he does not believe in God, and in a future life
+after death."  We should choose our friends from those who have chosen
+the better part, and day by day we shall feel the benefit of their
+companionship in making us stronger and better.
+
+These are some plain rules drawn from long experience of life which may
+be helpful to some.  We may conclude by quoting the noble lines of
+Tennyson in which he draws the picture of his friend, Arthur Hallam,
+and the inspiration he drew from him:
+
+  Thy converse drew us with delight,
+    The men of rathe and riper years:
+    The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,
+  Forgot his weakness in thy sight.
+
+  On thee the loyal-hearted hung,
+    The proud was half disarm'd of pride,
+    Nor cared the serpent at thy side
+  To flicker with his double tongue.
+
+  The stern were mild when thou wert by,
+    The flippant put himself to school
+    And heard thee, and the brazen fool
+  Was soften'd, and he knew not why;
+
+  While I, thy nearest, sat apart,
+    And felt thy triumph was as mine;
+    And loved them more, that they were thine,
+  The graceful tact, the Christian art;
+
+  Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,
+    But mine the love that will not tire,
+    And, born of love, the vague desire
+  That spurs an imitative will.
+        TENNYSON.
+
+
+Happy are those whose friends in some degree approach the character
+here delineated.
+
+
+
+[1] Stalker's _Imago Christi_.
+
+[2] Hain Friswell, _The Gentle Life_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MONEY.
+
+Money has been defined as _the measure and standard of value, and the
+medium of exchange_.  It represents everything that may be purchased.
+He who possesses money has potentially in his possession everything
+that can be bought with money.  Money is thus power.  It seems to have
+in itself all earthly possibilities.
+
+There are three things which should be borne in mind in regard to money:
+
+I.  Money itself is neither good nor bad.--It is simply force.  It is
+like the lightning or the sunlight: it withers or nourishes; it smites
+or does other bidding; it devastates or fertilizes, according as it is
+used by us.  Whether money is good or bad depends on whether it is
+sought for in right or wrong ways, used wisely or unwisely, squandered
+where it does harm, or bestowed where it does good.  (_a_) That it may
+be a power for good is evident to all.  It enables men to benefit their
+fellow-creatures; it gives a man independence; it procures him comforts
+he could not otherwise have obtained.  It is, as it has well been
+termed, "the lever by which the race has been lifted from barbarism to
+civilization.  So long as the race could do nothing but barely live,
+man was little more than an animal who hunted and fought for his prey.
+When the race began to think and plan and save for tomorrow, it
+specially began to be human.  There is not a single feature of our
+civilization to-day that has not sprung out of money, and that does not
+depend on money for its continuance."  (_b_) That money may be a power
+for evil is equally evident.  Much of the crime and sin and sorrow of
+the world spring from its misuse.  "The love of money," as Scripture
+says, "is a root of all evil."  In the haste to be rich men too often
+lose their very manhood.  Money, it is often said, does wonders, but
+"the most wonderful thing that it does is to metalize the human soul."
+
+II.  Money and our relation to it is a test of character--The making
+and the using of it is an education.  If we know how one gets and
+spends money, we know what a man is.  "So many are the bearings of
+money upon the lives and characters of mankind, that an insight which
+would search out the life of a man in his pecuniary relations would
+penetrate into almost every cranny of his nature.  He who, like St.
+Paul, has learnt how to want and how to abound, has a great knowledge;
+for if we take account of all the virtues with which money is mixed
+up--honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought,
+self-sacrifice, and their correlative vices--it is a knowledge which
+goes to cover the length and breadth of humanity, and a right measure
+and manner in getting, saving, spending, taking, lending, borrowing and
+bequeathing would almost argue a perfect man." [1]  Nearly all the
+virtues and all the vices are connected with money.  Its acquisition
+and its distribution are almost certain indications of what we are
+morally.
+
+III.  There are some things that are better than money, and that cannot
+be purchased with it--These are indeed the best things.  All that can
+be bought money possesses actually or potentially, but there are some
+things that cannot be bought.  Love, friendship, nobleness of soul,
+genius, cannot be purchased.  We must estimate rightly the power of
+money.  It is great, but it may be exaggerated, (_a_) _Honesty_ is
+better than money.  If a man gains money at the expense of honesty and
+integrity, he pays too great a price.  He is like a savage who barters
+jewels for a string of beads.  (_b_) _Home_ is better than money.  If a
+man, struggling and striving to be rich, has no time for the joys of
+family and the rich blessings that circle round the fireside, if he
+knows nothing of the charm of love and the pleasures that spring from
+the affections, he pays too great a price--"a costly house and
+luxurious furnishings are no substitute for love in the home."  (_c_)
+_Culture_ is better than money.  If a man grows up in ignorance and
+vulgarity, shut out from the world of art, literature and science, and
+all that refines and elevates the mind--a rude, uncultured boor--he
+pays too great a price for any money he may scrape together.  (_d_)
+_Humanity_ is better than money.  The rich man who leaves Lazarus
+untended at his gates, who builds about him walls so thick that no cry
+from the suffering world ever penetrates them, who becomes mean and
+stingy, close-fisted and selfish, pays too great a price.  Of such a
+man it is said in Scripture that "in hell he lifted up his eyes."
+Surely he made a bad bargain, (_e_) _Spirituality_ is better than
+money.  He who has made an idol of his wealth, who in gaining it has
+lost his soul, who has allowed money to come between him and God, has
+paid too great a price for it.  He has well been depicted by John
+Bunyan as the man with the muck-rake gathering straws, whilst he does
+not see the golden crown that is held above him.  Christ tells us God
+regards such a man as a fool.
+
+There are certain rules of conduct which may be laid down, drawn both
+from Scripture and experience, in regard to money.
+
+1.  _We are especially to remember our stewardship_.--Money is a trust
+committed to us, for which we are to give account unto God.  We are
+answerable to Him for the use we make of it.  If we have amassed
+wealth, from God has come the power that enabled us to do so.  All we
+have is His--not our own.  To each of us shall be addressed the words,
+"Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer
+steward."  If we remember this great truth we shall be rightly guided,
+both in regard to the accumulation and the distribution of money.  We
+shall not inordinately desire it, for we shall feel that with its
+increase comes new responsibility; and we shall be careful how we spend
+it, for the question will ever be present to our minds, What would the
+great Master, to whom we have to give account, wish us to do with it?
+Those who have most wisely used their money are the men who have
+realized most intensely the thought of their stewardship.  In the "Life
+of Mr. Moore," the successful merchant, by Smiles, this is most
+admirably shown.  He amassed, by industry and by enterprise, great
+wealth; he lived a noble and benevolent life; he was honored by all men
+for his character and his generosity.  But at the root and foundation
+of his life was the thought that all he had was a trust committed to
+him by God.
+
+2.  _We should do good as we go_.--There are those who allow that they
+should do good with their money, but they defer carrying out their
+intention till they have accumulated something that they think
+considerable.  If they ever become rich, then they will do great
+things.  The folly of this is apparent, (_a_) They lose the happiness
+which the humblest may daily reap from small deeds of kindness; and
+(_b_) they lose the power which will enable them to do anything if the
+great opportunity they desire comes.  "Doing good," it has been well
+said, "is a faculty, like any other, that becomes weak and atrophied,
+palsied for lack of use.  You might as well stop practising on the
+piano, under the impression that in a year or two you will find time to
+give a month to it.  In the meantime, you will get out of practice and
+lose the power.  Keep your hand and your pocket open, or they will grow
+together, so that nothing short of death's finger can unloose them."
+[2]  However little money we may have, we should use a portion of it in
+doing good.  The two mites of the widow were in the eye of Christ a
+beautiful offering.  Giving should always go with getting.  Mere
+getting injures us, but giving brings to us a blessing.  "Gold," says
+holy George Herbert, "thou mayest safely touch; but if it stick it
+wounds thee to the quick."  George Moore, to whom we have referred,
+wrote yearly in his diary the words of wisdom--
+
+  What I saved I lost,
+  What I spent I had,
+  What I gave I have.
+
+What proportion of our money we should give every one must determine
+for himself, but we are not safe spiritually unless we cultivate the
+habit of generosity.  "The Lord loveth a cheerful giver."  "There are
+many," it has been satirically said, "who would be Good Samaritans
+without the oil and the two pence."  All of us, however humble our
+station, are bound to give "as God hath prospered us" for the help of
+man and the cause of Christ; and the discharge of the obligation will
+become to us one of the greatest pleasures in life.
+
+3.  _We should cultivate thrift_.--Thrift is just forethought.  It is
+reasonable prudence in regard to money.  It provides for "the rainy
+day."  If poverty be our lot, we must bear it bravely; but there is no
+special blessing in poverty.  It is often misery unspeakable.  It is
+often brought upon us by our self-indulgence, extravagance and
+recklessness.  We are to use every means in our power to guard against
+it.  The words of the poet Burns are full of common-sense:
+
+  To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile,
+    Assiduous wait upon her,
+  And gather gear by every wile
+    That's justified by honor;
+  Not for to hide it in a hedge,
+    Nor for a train attendant,
+  But for the glorious privilege
+    Of being independent.
+
+The squalor and wretchedness which often fall upon people come from
+their not having exercised a little thought in the use of their money.
+A little self-denial would have saved them, and those depending on
+them, from many sorrows.  A saving habit is good.  "It is coarse
+thinking to confound spending with generosity, or saving with
+meanness."  The man who puts by a little week by week or year by year,
+against possible contingencies is wise.  However small may be our
+salary and limited our income, we should try and save part of it.
+Every young man should be a member of a savings bank, or a benefit
+club, by means of which he can make provision for the future.  The
+honest endeavor to make such provision is in itself an education.
+
+4.  _We should earnestly endeavor to avoid debt_.--Debt means slavery.
+It is loss of independence.  It is misery.  "He" (says a Spanish
+proverb) "that complains of sound sleep, let him borrow the debtor's
+pillow."  Every shilling that we spend beyond our income means an
+addition to a burden that may crush us to the ground.  "Pay as you go,"
+is a good rule.  "Keep a regular account of what you spend," is
+another.  "Before you buy anything, think whether you can afford it,"
+is a third.  But whatever rule we follow in regard to our expenditure,
+let us see that it does not exceed our income.  The words of Horace
+Greeley, a great American writer and politician who had a large
+experience of life, are not too strong: "Hunger, cold, rags, hard work,
+contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable, but debt is
+infinitely worse than them all.  Never run into debt!  Avoid pecuniary
+obligation as you would pestilence or famine.  If you have but fifty
+cents and can get no more a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and
+live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar."
+
+5.  _We should resolutely set our face against gambling_.--Gambling is
+one of the curses of our time.  It is the endeavor to get money by
+dispensing with labor, to make it without honestly working for it.  It
+entails widespread ruin and degradation.  Its consequences are often of
+the most appalling character.  When the gambling spirit is once
+aroused, like drunkenness, it becomes an overpowering appetite, which
+the victim becomes almost powerless to resist.  Gambling is in itself
+evil, apart from its deadly effects.  (_a_) It proposes to confer gain
+without merit, and to reward those who do not deserve a reward, (_b_)
+It proposes to benefit us while injuring our neighbor.  "Benefit
+received," says Herbert Spencer in his _Sociology_, referring to
+gambling, "does not imply effort put forth; but the happiness of the
+winner involves the misery of the loser.  This kind of action is
+therefore essentially anti-social, sears the sympathies, cultivates a
+hard egoism, and produces general deterioration of character and
+conduct."  The young should specially guard against this vice, which
+has been a rock upon which many a promising life has made disastrous
+shipwreck.
+
+
+
+[1] Sir Henry Taylor, _Notes from Life_.
+
+[2] _Life Questions_, by M. J. Savage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+TIME.
+
+"Time," it is said, "is money."  So it is, without doubt.  But to the
+young man or young woman who is striving to make the most of himself or
+herself time is more than money, it is character and usefulness.  They
+become great and good just as they learn how to make the best use of
+their time.  On the right employment of it depends what we are to be
+now, and what we are to be hereafter, "We all complain," says the great
+Roman philosopher Seneca, "of the shortness of time, and yet we have
+more than we know what to do with.  Our lives are spent either in doing
+nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing
+that we ought to do.  We are always complaining that our days are few,
+and acting as though there would be no end of them."
+
+In regard to the right use of time--how to make the most of it and to
+get the most out of it--there are certain things that we should bear in
+mind and keep in constant remembrance.  We may arrange them for
+convenience under four heads: _Economy, System, Punctuality and
+Promptitude_.
+
+I.  Economy.--We all know what economy is.  In regard to money, in
+connection with which the word is chiefly used, it is keeping strict
+watch over our expenditure, and not spending a penny without good
+reason.  According to the oft-quoted proverb, "Take care of the pence
+and the pounds will take care of themselves."  Economy, in regard to
+time, is to watch over the minutes, hours and days, and the years will
+take care of themselves.  It is, to let every moment of time be well
+employed; to let every hour of the day as it passes be turned to use;
+to let none be spent in idleness or folly.  It is a good advice that of
+the poet--
+
+  Think nought a trifle though it small appears,
+  Sands make the mountain, moments make the years,
+  And trifles life.
+
+In the mint, where money is coined, when the visitor reaches the room
+where the gold coins are cast, it is said that the floor is a network
+of wooden bars to catch all the particles of the falling metal.  When
+the day's work is done, the floor is removed and the golden dust is
+swept up to be melted again.  In the same way we should economize time:
+gather up its golden dust, let none of its moments be lost.  Be careful
+of its spare minutes, and a wealth of culture will be the result.  It
+is said of a European cathedral that when the architect came to insert
+the stained-glass windows he was one window short.  An apprentice in
+the factory where the windows were made came forward and said that he
+thought he could make a window from the bits of glass cast aside.  He
+went to work, collected the fragments, put them together, and produced
+a window said to be the finest of all.  In the same way men have made
+much out of the bits of time that have been, so to speak, broken from
+the edges of a busy life.
+
+Many illustrations might be given from history of what men have been
+able to do by a wise economy of time.  Sir Humphry Davy established a
+laboratory in the attic of his house, and when his ordinary day's work
+was done began a course of scientific studies that continued throughout
+his memorable life.  Cobbett learned grammar when a soldier, sitting on
+the edge of his bed.  Lincoln, the famous president of America,
+acquired arithmetic during the winter evenings, mastered grammar by
+catching up his book at odd moments when he was keeping a shop, and
+studied law when following the business of a surveyor.  Douglas
+Jerrold, during his apprenticeship, arose with the dawn of day to study
+his Latin grammar, and read Shakespeare and other works before his
+daily labor began at the printing office.  At night, when his day's
+work was done, he added over two hours more to his studies.  At
+seventeen years of age he had so mastered Shakespeare that when anyone
+quoted a line from the poet he could give from memory that which came
+next.  While walking to and from his office Henry Kirke White acquired
+a knowledge of Greek.  A German physician, while visiting his patients,
+contrived to commit to memory the _Iliad_ of Homer.  Hugh Miller, while
+working as a stonemason, studied geology in his off hours.  Elihu
+Burritt, "the learned blacksmith," gained a mastery of eighteen
+languages and twenty-two dialects by using the odds and ends of time at
+his disposal.  Franklin's hours of study were stolen from the time his
+companions devoted to their meals and to sleep.[1]  Many similar
+instances might be added to show what may be done by economising time
+and strictly looking after those spare minutes which many throw away.
+The great rule is, never to be unemployed, and to find relief in
+turning from one occupation to another, due allowance of course being
+made for recreation and for rest.  The wise man economises time as he
+economises money.
+
+II.  System.--It is wonderful how much work can be got through in a day
+if we go by rule--if we map out our time, divide it off and take up one
+thing regularly after another.  To drift through our work, or to rush
+through it in _helter skelter_ fashion, ends in comparatively little
+being done.  "One thing at a time" will always perform a better day's
+work than doing two or three things at a time.  By following this rule
+one person will do more in a day than another does in a week.  "Marshal
+thy notions," said old Thomas Fuller, "into a handsome method.  One
+will carry twice as much weight trussed and packed as when it lies
+untoward, flapping and hanging about his shoulders."  Fixed rules are
+the greatest possible help to the worker.  They give steadiness to his
+labor, and they enable him to go through it with comparative ease.
+Many a man would have been saved from ruin if he had appreciated the
+value of method in his affairs.  In the peasant's cottage or the
+artisan's workshop, in the chemist's laboratory or the shipbuilder's
+yard, the two primary rules must be, "For every one his duty," and,
+"For everything its place."
+
+It is a wise thing to begin the day by taking a survey in thought of
+the work we have to get through, and thus to divide it, giving to each
+hour its own share.  The shortest way to do many things is to do one
+thing at a time.  Albert Barnes was a distinguished American theologian
+who wrote a valuable commentary on the Bible amid the work of a large
+parish.  He accomplished this by systematic arrangement of his time.
+He divided his day into parts.  He devoted each part to some duty.  He
+rigidly adhered to this arrangement, and in this way was able to
+overtake an amount of work that was truly wonderful.  In the life of
+Anthony Trollope, the great novelist, we are told that he kept
+resolutely close to a rule he laid down for himself.  He wrote so many
+pages a day of so many lines each.  He overtook an immense amount of
+work in the year.  He published many books, and he made a great deal of
+money.  The great English lawyer Sir Edward Coke divided his time
+according to the well-known couplet--
+
+  Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,
+  Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.
+
+Sir William Jones, the famous Oriental scholar, altered this rule to
+suit himself.
+
+  Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
+  Ten to the world allot, and all to Heaven.
+
+Benjamin Franklin's system of working is given in his "Life."  Each day
+was carefully portioned off.  His daily programme was the following:
+
+
+       Morning.             ) Rise, wash, and address the
+                          5 )   Almighty Father; contrive
+  [Question, What good    6 )   the day's business and take
+  shall I do this day?]   7 )   the resolution of the day;
+                            )   prosecute the present study,
+                            )   breakfast.
+
+                          8 )
+                         to ) Work
+                         11 )
+
+                         12 ) Read or look over accounts and
+       Noon.             to )   dine.
+                          1 )
+
+                          2 )
+       Afternoon,        to ) Work
+                          5 )
+
+                          6 ) Put things in their place;
+       Evening           to )   supper; music or diversion or
+  [Question, What good    9 )   conversation; examination of
+   have I done to-day?]     )   the day.
+
+                         10 )
+       Night             to ) Sleep.
+                          4 )
+
+
+It is evident that a scheme of life like this could not suit everyone.
+It is given as an illustration of the value of adhering to method in
+our work.  "Order," the poet Pope says, "is Heaven's first law," and
+time well ordered means generally work well and thoroughly done.
+
+III.  Punctuality.--This means keeping strictly as to time by any
+engagement we make either with ourselves or with others.  If we resolve
+to do anything at a certain time, we should do it neither before nor
+after that time.  It is better to be before than after.  But it is best
+to be at the very minute.  If we enter into an engagement with others
+for a certain time, we should be precise in keeping it.  In a letter
+from a celebrated merchant, Buxton, to his son, he says, "Be punctual;
+I do not mean merely being in time for lectures, but mean that spirit
+out of which punctuality grows, that love of accuracy and precision
+which mark the efficient man.  The habit of being punctual extends to
+everything--meeting friends, paying debts, going to church, reaching
+and leaving place of business, keeping promises, retiring at night and
+rising in the morning."  We may lay down a system or method of work for
+ourselves, but it will be of little service unless we keep carefully to
+it, beginning and leaving off at the appointed moment.  If the work of
+one hour is postponed to another, it will encroach on the time allotted
+to some other duty, if it do not remain altogether undone, and thus the
+whole business of the day is thrown into disorder.  If a man loses half
+an hour by rising late in the morning, he is apt to spend the rest of
+the day seeking after it.  Sir Walter Scott was not only methodical in
+his work, he was exceedingly punctual, always beginning his allotted
+task at the appointed moment.  "When a regiment," he wrote, "is under
+march, the rear is often thrown into confusion because the front does
+not move steadily and without interruption.  It is the same thing in
+business.  If that which is first in hand be not instantly despatched,
+other things accumulate betimes, till affairs begin to press all at
+once, and no brain can stand the confusion."  We should steadily
+cultivate the habit of punctuality.  We can cultivate it until it
+becomes with us a second nature, and we do everything, as the saying
+is, "by clockwork."  In rising in the morning and going to bed, in
+taking up different kinds of work, in keeping appointments with others,
+we should strive to be "to the minute."  The unpunctual man is a
+nuisance to society.  He wastes his own time, and he wastes the time of
+others; as Principal Tulloch well says, "Men who have real work of
+their own would rather do anything than do business with him." [2]
+
+IV.  Promptitude.--By this we mean acting at the present moment--all
+that is opposed to procrastination, putting off to another time, to a
+"convenient season" which probably never comes--all that is opposed
+also to what is called "loitering" or "dawdling."  There is an old
+Latin proverb, "_Bis dat qui cito dat,_"--he gives twice who gives
+quickly.  The same thing may be said of work, "He works twice who works
+quickly."  In work, of course, the first requirement is that it should
+be well done; but this does not hinder quickness and despatch.  There
+are those who, when they have anything to do, seem to go round it and
+round it, instead of attacking it at once and getting it out of the
+way; and when they do begin it they do so in a listless and
+half-hearted fashion.  There are those who look at their work,
+according to the simile of Sidney Smith, like men who stand shivering
+on the bank instead of at once taking the plunge.  "In order," he says,
+"to do anything that is worth doing in this world, we must not stand
+shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in
+and scramble through as well as we can.  It will not do to be
+perpetually calculating and adjusting nice chances; it did all very
+well before the Flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an
+intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to
+see its success for six or seven centuries afterwards, but at present a
+man doubts, and waits, and hesitates, and consults his brother, and his
+uncle, and his first cousin, and his particular friends, till one day
+he finds that he is sixty-five years of age, that he has lost so much
+time in consulting first cousins and particular friends that he has no
+time to follow their advice."  This is good sense, though humorously
+put.  Promptitude is a quality that should be assiduously cultivated.
+Like punctuality, it becomes a most valuable habit.  "Procrastination,"
+it is said, "is the thief of time," and "hell is paved with good
+intentions."  These proverbs are full of wisdom.  When we hear people
+saying, "They are going to be this thing or that thing; they _intend_
+to look to this or to that; they will by and by do this or that," we
+may be sure there is a weakness in their character.  Such people never
+come to much.  The best way is not to _speak_ about doing a thing, but
+_to do it_, and to do it _at once_.
+
+To these thoughts on the use of time we may fitly add the great words
+of Scripture, "So teach us to number our days that we may apply our
+hearts unto wisdom," Ps. xc. 12.  "Redeeming the time, because the days
+are evil," Ephes. v. 16.  We transform time into eternity by using it
+aright.
+
+
+
+[1] These illustrations are given by Mr. Davenport Adams.
+
+[2] _Beginning Life_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+COURAGE.
+
+We all know what is meant by courage, though it is not easy to define
+it.  It is the determination to hold our own, to face danger without
+flinching, to go straight on our way against opposing forces, neither
+turning to the right hand nor the left.
+
+It is a quality admirable in the eyes of all men, savage and civilized,
+Christian and non-Christian--as admirable as cowardice, the opposite
+quality, is detestable.  The brave man is the hero of the savage.
+Bravery, or, as the Scriptures term it, _virtue_, is a great requisite
+in a Christian.  If it is not the first, it is the second
+characteristic of a Christian life.  "Add," says St. Paul, "to your
+faith virtue," that is to say, courage.
+
+It is the very glory of youth to be courageous.--The "sneak" and the
+"coward" are the abhorrence of youth.  It is youth which climbs "the
+imminent deadly breach" and faces the deadly hail of battle, which
+defies the tyranny of custom and the hatred of the world.  One may have
+compassion for age, which is naturally timid and sees fears in the way,
+but youth which is cowardly is contemptible.
+
+There are two kinds of courage--the one of a lower, the other of a
+higher type.  (_a_) The first, the lower kind of courage, is that which
+has its root and foundation in our physical nature.  It is
+constitutional; there is little or no merit in it.  Some men are born
+to know no fear--men of strong nerve, of iron constitution, and
+powerful physique.  Such men laugh at danger and scorn opposition.
+Theirs is the courage of the lion or the bull-dog, and there is no
+virtue about it.  They cannot help being what they are.  (_b_) But
+there is another kind of courage which is not so much physical as
+_moral_.  It has its foundation not in man's bodily constitution so
+much as in his higher nature.  It draws its power from the invisible.
+"Are you not afraid," was a question put by a young and boastful
+officer to his companion whose face was blanched and pale, as they
+stood together amid the thickly falling shot of a battle-field.  "I
+_am_ afraid," he replied, "and if you were half as afraid as I am, you
+would run."  In his case there was little physical courage, but there
+was the higher courage drawn from a sense of duty which made him stand
+firm as a rock.  When our Lord knelt in His mysterious anguish in
+Gethsemane, His whole physical nature seemed broken down, "His sweat
+was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
+"Suffer," He said, "this cup to pass from me"; and His strength came
+from the invisible.  "Not my will," He cried, "but thine be done."
+With that sublime trust in God strengthening Him, He shrank not back
+for a moment; He took the cup and drained it to the dregs.  This is the
+highest form of courage that there is.  The weakest women have
+displayed it in face of appalling dangers.  It is the courage of the
+martyr, the patriot, the reformer.  There is a glory and beauty in it
+before which all men bow.
+
+There are three chief forms which this moral courage takes in ordinary
+life.
+
+_First, there is the courage of our opinions_.--Many people, perhaps
+the majority, do not have opinions.  They have simply notions,
+impressions, sentiments, prejudices, which they have imbibed from
+others.  They may be said to be like looking-glasses, which have a
+shadow of whatever stands before them.  So long as they are in company
+with a positive person who believes something, they have an opinion.
+When he goes the shadow on the looking-glass goes also.  They are like
+the sand on the seashore--the last person who comes the way makes a
+track and the next wave washes it away and leaves the sand ready for
+another impression.  How many are there who, when any important
+question comes up, have no opinion about it, until they read their
+paper or hear what other people are saying.  There is no sort of
+courage more needed than the courage to form an opinion and keep by it
+when we have formed it.  There is no more contemptible form of
+cowardice than to do a thing merely because others do it.  The grand
+words of President Garfield of the United States are worthy of
+remembrance: "I do not think what others may say or think about me, but
+there is one man's opinion about me which I very much value, that is
+the opinion of James Garfield; others I need not think about.  I can
+get away from them, but I have to be with him all the time.  He is with
+me when I rise up and when I lie down, when I go out and when I come
+in.  It makes a great difference whether he thinks well of me or not."
+To this noble utterance we may add the words of the poet Russell Lowell:
+
+  They are slaves who will not choose
+  Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
+  Rather than in silence shrink
+  From the truth they needs must think.
+  They are slaves who dare not be
+  In the right with two or three.
+
+
+_Second, there is the courage of resistance_.--This is the chief form
+courage should take in the young.  They are surrounded on every side by
+strong temptations--temptations addressed to their lower nature, to
+vanity, to indolence, to scepticism, to impurity, to drunkenness.
+There is many a young man beset by temptation who has in reality to
+fight far harder if he will maintain his integrity than any soldier
+belonging to an army making its way through an enemy's country.  He
+does not know when an ambush may be sprung upon him, or from what side
+the attack may come.  In an old tower on the Continent they show you,
+graven again and again on the stones of one of the dungeons, the word
+_Resist_.  It is said that a Protestant woman was kept in that hideous
+place for forty years, and during all that time her employment was in
+graving with a piece of iron, for anyone who might come after her, that
+word.  It is a word that needs to be engraven on every young man's and
+young woman's heart.  It represents the highest form of courage which
+to them is possible--the power to say "No" to every form of temptation.
+
+_Third, there is the courage of endurance_.--This is really the noblest
+form of courage.  There is no excitement in it; nothing to be won by
+it.  It is simply to bear without flinching.  In the buried city of
+Herculaneum, near Vesuvius, now uncovered, after the guide has shown
+the visitor the wonders of the place he takes him to the gate and
+points out the stone box where were found, buried in ashes, the rusted
+remains of the helmet and cuirass of the Roman sentinel.  When the
+black cloud rose from the mountain, and the hot ashes fell around him,
+and the people rushed out at the gate, he stood there immovable,
+because it was his duty, and died in his place, suffocated by the
+sulphury air.  It was a grand instance of courage, but it is seen again
+and again equalled in common life.  In men and women stricken down by
+fell disease; in those on whom adverse circumstances close like the
+walls of an iron chamber; in people for whom there was no possible
+escape, who could only bear, but who stood up firm and erect in their
+weakness, whose cross, instead of crushing them to the earth, seemed
+only to lift them up.  We are told that Robert Hall, the great
+preacher, suffered much from disease.  He was forced often to throw
+himself down and writhe on the ground in paroxysms of pain.  From these
+he would rise with a smile, saying, "I suffered much, but I did not cry
+out, did I? did I cry out?"
+
+These are the chief forms of moral courage in ordinary life.  We have
+now to point out what are the sources of such courage.
+
+The first source of courage is conviction--the feeling that we are in
+the right, the "testimony of a good conscience."  Nothing can make a
+man brave without that.  "Thrice is he armed," we are told, "who hath
+his quarrel just," and he is more than trebly armed who knows in his
+heart that it is just.  If we go over the roll of the strongest and
+bravest men the world has seen we will find that at the root of their
+courage there lay this fact of conviction.  They _believed_, therefore
+they spake, therefore they fought, therefore they bled and died.  The
+man of strong conviction is the strong man all the world over.  If a
+man wants that, he will be but a feeble character, a poor weakling to
+the end of the chapter.  Shakespeare says that "conscience makes
+cowards of us all"; but it does something else when it makes us fear
+evil--it lifts us above all other fear.  So it raised Peter, who had
+shortly before denied his Master, to such courage that he could say
+before his judges, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken
+unto you more than unto God, judge ye.  For we cannot but speak the
+things which we have seen and heard."  It has enabled men and women to
+endure a martyr's death when one word, which they would not speak,
+might have saved them.
+
+The second source of courage is faith.--We use the word in the
+Christian sense of trust in God.  When a man feels that God is with him
+he can stand up against all the powers of earth and hell.  "If God be
+for us, who can be against us?"  The heroes of the past, who subdued
+kingdoms and wrought righteousness, have all been men of faith.  Recall
+Hebrews xi., the Covenanters, the Ironsides of Cromwell, the Huguenots,
+Luther, Knox.  Their faith may not have been so enlightened as it might
+have been had their knowledge been wider.  Their religious creeds may
+have contained propositions that are no longer accepted, but they were
+strong because of their undoubted faith in God.  When His presence is
+an abiding presence with us and in us, our
+
+  Strength is as the strength of ten,
+  Because our hearts are pure.
+
+He who fears God will know no other fear.
+
+The third source of courage is sympathy.--A man who has God with him
+will be brave if he stand alone, but he will be greatly helped if he is
+in company with others like himself and knows that he has the sympathy
+of good men.  You remember St. Paul on his journey to Rome reaching a
+little village about thirty miles from the great city.  The look-out
+for him was very depressing.  He had appealed to Caesar, but what
+likelihood was there of his obtaining justice in Caesar's capital.  He
+might be thrown to the lions, or made to fight for his life in the
+Coliseum, a spectacle to the Roman multitude.  Then it was that a few
+Roman Christians who had heard of his approach came out to meet him,
+and, it is said, "he thanked God and took courage."  Such was the power
+of sympathy.  If we would be encouraged we will seek it.  If we would
+encourage others we will give it.
+
+We will only say in closing this chapter that its subject is most truly
+illustrated by the life of our Lord himself.  The mediaeval conception
+of Christ was that He exhibited only the passive virtues of meekness,
+patience, and submission to wrong.  From the gospels we form a
+different idea.  He vanquished the devil in the wilderness; He faced
+human opposition boldly and without fear; He denounced the hypocrisy of
+the Pharisees, and encountered their rage and violence.  He went calmly
+along His appointed path, neither turning to the right hand nor to the
+left.  Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, could not deter Him from doing
+His Father's work.  Amid a tumultuous tempest of ill-will He moved
+straight forward, foreseeing His death, "setting His face toward
+Jerusalem," knowing all that awaited Him there.  He went through
+Gethsemane to Calvary with the step of a conqueror.  Never was He more
+truly a king than on the cross, and the grandest crown ever worn was
+"the crown of thorns."  In Him we have the highest example of courage,
+as of all other virtues.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HEALTH.
+
+Health means soundness of body and of mind; the keeping of our physical
+system in such a condition that it is able to do its work easily,
+without disturbance, and without pain; the exercise of the mind so as
+not to harm the body.  There are certain preliminary considerations
+that we should bear in mind in connection with this subject.
+
+I.  The close connection between body and mind.--They are both related
+to each other in some mysterious way.  So close is the connection that
+the one cannot be affected without the other.  The well-being of the
+one depends on the well-being of the other.  The power which the mind
+has over the body and the body over the mind has been well and tersely
+described by a writer of our time.  "Man," he says, "is one, however
+compound.  Fire his conscience, and he blushes; check his circulation,
+and he thinks tardily or not at all; impair his secretions, and the
+moral sense is dulled, discolored, or depraved, his aspirations flag,
+his hope and love both reel; impair them still more, and he becomes a
+brute.  A cup of wine degrades his moral nature below that of the
+swine.  Again, a violent emotion of pity or horror makes him vomit; a
+lancet will restore him from delirium to clear thought; excessive
+thought will waste his energy; excess of muscular exercise will deaden
+thought; an emotion will double the strength of his muscles; and at
+last, a prick of a needle or a grain of mineral will in an instant lay
+to rest forever his body and its unity." [1]  When we consider the
+close connection between mind and body, and how the state of the one
+affects the other, we see how important it is that both should work
+together in that harmonious action which is health, and how carefully
+we should guard against anything by which that harmonious action may be
+interrupted.
+
+II.  Bodily health is almost essential to success in life.--It is not
+_absolutely_ essential, but it is _almost_ essential.  (_a_) Physical
+health is not everything.  "Give a man," it has been said, "a good deep
+chest and a stomach of which he never knew the existence, and he must
+succeed in any practical career."  This has been said by a great
+authority, Professor Huxley, but it is only partially true, for many
+worthless people fulfil these conditions.  They are, as Carlyle calls
+them, only "animated patent digesters."  (_b_) Great things also have
+been done in the world by men whose health has been feeble.  Calvin was
+a man of sickly body; Pascal was an invalid at eighteen; Pope was weak
+and deformed; William of Orange, a martyr to asthma; Hall, the famous
+preacher, suffered great paroxysms of pain; Milton was blind; Nelson,
+little and lame; St. Paul in bodily presence was weak.  On the other
+hand, some of these men might have done more if their health had been
+better.  Health is a splendid possession in the battle of life.  The
+men of great physical vitality, as a rule, achieve most; other things
+being equal, their success in life is sure.  Everything shows that the
+greatness of great men is almost as much a bodily affair as a mental
+one.  It has been computed that the average length of life of the most
+eminent philosophers, naturalists, artists, jurists, physicians,
+musical composers, scholars and authors, including poets, is sixty-five
+years.  This shows that the most successful men on the whole have had
+good bodies and been blessed with great vitality.
+
+III.  The care of the body is a religious duty.--(_a_) It is so because
+our spiritual feelings are largely dependent upon the state of our
+health.  "Certain conditions of body undeniably occasion, irritate and
+inflame those appetites and inclinations which it is one great end of
+Christianity to repress and regulate."  The spirit has sometimes to
+maintain a terrible struggle against the flesh.  Intemperance is
+largely the result of bad feeding.  "It is easier for a camel to pass
+through the eye of a needle," than for a dyspeptic person to be gentle,
+meek, long-suffering.  Dark views of God often come from the state of
+the body.  It would largely lift up the moral and spiritual condition
+of men if their surroundings were such as tended to keep them in
+health.  To improve men's dwellings, to give them healthy homes, pure
+air to breathe, and pure water to drink, would tend to help them
+morally and spiritually, (_b_) God requires of us a certain amount of
+service by and through our bodies.  We cannot perform the work if we
+destroy the machines by which the work is to be done.  (_c_) Scripture
+especially calls us to make the body the object of our reverent care.
+"Your bodies are members of Christ."  The body "is for the Lord, and
+the Lord for the body."  "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,
+which is in you, which ye have of God."  "If any man defile the temple
+of God, him will God destroy."  Yield "your members as instruments of
+righteousness unto God."  Sin is not to "reign in your mortal body."
+"Glorify God in your body."  We are to "present our bodies a living
+sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service."
+(_d_) The body is a part of that humanity which Christ by His
+_incarnation_ took, redeemed, sanctified and glorified.  (_e_) Our
+Lord's miracles were nearly all performed on the human body, for its
+relief, cure, and restoration to life.
+
+IV.  To a certain extent our health is in our own hands.--Not
+altogether, for some are constitutionally defective, and subject to
+infirmities with which they are born, and which they have perhaps
+inherited.  But a vast amount of disease is preventable, and comes from
+causes over which we have direct control.  "It is reckoned that a
+hundred thousand persons die annually in England of preventable
+diseases"--from disobedience to the laws of health, which are God's
+laws, and the transgression of which, wilfully, is sin.  Beyond all
+doubt a vast amount of sickness comes from bad living, from
+intemperance in eating and drinking, from breathing bad air, from
+inhabiting ill-constructed houses.  It is possible to live in
+accordance with the laws of health so that life may be comparatively
+free from disease and from pain.  If Providence denies health, the want
+of it must be patiently endured.  If we have inherited weakness, we
+must make the most of the strength we have.  But if we lack health
+through our own fault we are guilty of shameful sin.
+
+To discuss fully the subject and laws of health would require a whole
+treatise, and would be beyond the scope of this text-book.  There are,
+however, some outstanding conditions for the preservation of health
+which are plain to everyone, and which may be summed up in the three
+words Temperance, Exercise, and Rest.  These have been well termed the
+three great physicians, whose prescriptions are painless and cost
+nothing.
+
+1.  _Temperance_.--Man needs a certain amount of food to sustain him,
+but if that amount be increased beyond the proper quantity it is
+dangerous to health.  It overtasks the power of digestion and is
+injurious.  We need therefore to be constantly on our guard as to what
+we eat and drink lest we run into excess.  Every one must study his own
+constitution, find out its need, and suit the supply of food to its
+wants.  According to the old proverb, "We should eat to live, not live
+to eat."  It is a great matter for health when we are able to strike
+the proper medium and neither eat nor drink too much nor too little.
+To lay down rules on this subject for the individual is impossible.
+"One man's food is another man's poison."  A man must determine from
+his own experience what he ought to take, and how much, as well as what
+he ought to avoid.  The word intemperance is generally employed as
+applying to the abuse of strong drinks.  On this subject much has been
+written, some advocating total abstinence and others judicious and
+moderate use.  Into this region of controversy we cannot enter.  The
+evils of drinking habits, as they are called, are plain to all.  They
+are a terrible curse to society, and a terrible danger to the
+individual.  They have ruined many a promising career.  For many,
+perhaps we may say for most, entire abstinence is their only safety.
+He who finds that he can do his work well by drinking only water will
+be wise if he drinks nothing else.  That will never harm him, though
+other liquids may.  We must judge for ourselves, but "Temperance in all
+things" is a rule binding on every Christian man.  We cannot have
+health unless we strictly and constantly practise temperance.
+
+2.  _Exercise_.--This is as necessary to health as food.  "Only by
+exercise--physical exercise--can we maintain our muscles, organs and
+nervous system in proper vigor; only by exercise can we equalise the
+circulation and distribute the blood evenly over every part of the
+body; only by exercise can we take a cheerful and wholesome view of
+life, for exercise assists the digestion, and a good digestion is a
+sovereign antidote to low spirits; only by exercise can the brain be
+strengthened to perform the labor demanded of it." [2]  No sensible man
+will try to do without it.  If any man does so he will pay the penalty.
+As to the amount of exercise and the kind of exercise every man must
+judge for himself.  Some, from their occupation, need less than others;
+the outdoor laborer, for instance, than the clerk who is most of the
+day at the desk.  One man may take exercise best by walking, another by
+riding, another by following outdoor sports.  Athletics, such as
+football, and cricket, are a favorite form of exercise with the young,
+and if not followed to excess are most advantageous.  The walk in the
+open air is life to many.  But boy or man can never be what they ought
+to be unless they take exercise regularly and judiciously, take it not
+to exhaust but to refresh and stimulate.  It strengthens the nerve and
+clears the brain and fits for work.
+
+3.  _Rest_.--Man needs a certain amount of repose to sustain his frame
+in full vigor.  Some need more, some need less.  We must find out for
+ourselves what we need and take it.  Lack of sleep is especially a
+great waste of vitality.  Here also we must exercise our judgment as to
+the amount of sleep we require.  One needs a great deal; another can do
+with very little.  Early rising, which has been much recommended, is
+only good for those who go early to bed.  If one is compelled to sit up
+late he should sleep late in the morning.  It is no virtue on the part
+of anyone to get up early unless he has slept enough.  _That_ he must
+do if he is to have health.  A man who would be a good worker must see
+to it that he is a good sleeper; and whoever, from any cause, is
+regularly diminishing his sleep is destroying his life.  Shakespeare
+has well described the blessing of sleep when he says:
+
+  Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
+  The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
+  Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
+  Chief nourisher in life's feast.
+
+
+These are but _hints_ in connection with a great subject.  A few brief
+rules may be given of a general character:
+
+1.  Take exercise every day in the open air if possible, and make it a
+recreation and not merely a duty.
+
+2.  Eat wholesome food, drink pure water.
+
+3.  Let your house and room be well ventilated.
+
+4.  Take time enough for sleep.  Do not worry.
+
+5.  Watch yourself, but not too closely, to find out what exercise,
+air, diet, etc., agrees with you.  No man can be a rule for another.
+
+6.  If you consult a physician, it is better to do it before you are
+unwell than later.[3]
+
+We close this chapter with the powerful words of Thomas Carlyle,
+addressed to the students of the University of Edinburgh: "Finally, I
+have one advice to give you which is practically of very great
+importance.  You are to consider throughout much more than is done at
+present, and what would have been a very great thing for me if I had
+been able to consider, that health is a thing to be attended to
+continually; that you are to regard it as the very highest of all
+temporal things.  There is no kind of achievement you could make in the
+world that is equal to perfect health.  What to it are nuggets or
+millions?"
+
+
+
+[1] Frederic Harrison, _Popular Science Monthly Supplement_.
+
+[2] _Plain Living and High Thinking_.
+
+[3] These rules are given by J. Freeman Clarke in his work on
+Self-Culture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+EARNESTNESS.
+
+Another word for earnestness is enthusiasm.  The Scriptural equivalent
+is zeal.  It means putting our whole heart into whatever we are doing.
+It is a sweeping, resistless energy, which carries everything before
+it, like a river in full flood.  Its nature is well expressed in the
+saying of the old huntsman, "Throw over your heart, and your horse will
+soon follow."
+
+Earnestness is not to be confounded with noise, vehemence, or outward
+demonstration.--It is often exceedingly quiet and undemonstrative.
+Notice when the machinery of an engine is standing still, how the steam
+makes a great noise as it issues from the safety-valve, but when the
+vapor is turned into the cylinder and is used in driving the engine all
+that thundering sound disappears.  It does not follow that there is no
+steam.  It is going in another direction, and doing its appropriate
+work.  It is a great mistake to imagine that enthusiasm and what is
+called _fuss_ are identical.  The most enthusiastic men are often the
+quietest.  No one can doubt the enthusiasm of a man like Livingstone.
+He had enthusiasm for science, for philanthropy and for religion.  It
+was unflagging; yet not a boast, not a murmur escaped his lips.  He did
+the thing he meant to do, and made no noise in doing it.
+
+Earnestness is often regarded with suspicion and condemned.--It is the
+fashion with many to sneer at it.  It is often alone, and then it is
+not respectable.  It is often in excess, and is therefore ineffective.
+It is often disturbing to the sleepiness of others, and is therefore
+hated by them.  Our Lord was an enthusiast in the eyes of the
+Pharisees.  St. Paul was an enthusiast to Festus.  The early Christians
+were enthusiasts to the pagan world because they turned it upside down.
+The martyrs and confessors of all times have been regarded as
+enthusiasts by those of their own time who were not in sympathy with
+them.  An enthusiast is called by many a fanatic, and a fanatic in the
+eyes of some is a most dangerous member of society.
+
+All the great leaders of the world have been men in earnest.--Emerson
+says truly that "every great and commanding movement in the annals of
+the world is the triumph of enthusiasm."  Our civil and religious
+liberties we owe to enthusiasts for freedom.  The enthusiasm of
+Columbus gave us America; the enthusiasm of Knox reformed Scotland; the
+enthusiasm of Wesley regenerated English religious life; the enthusiasm
+of men like Garibaldi and Cavour and Mazzini has made in our own time a
+new Italy.  These men were all denounced in their day, cold water was
+thrown on all their projects, but their burning earnestness carried
+them on to triumph.  The scorned enthusiast of one generation is the
+hero of the next.
+
+Earnestness is a great element in securing success in life.--A
+well-known writer and preacher, Dr. Arnot, tells that he once heard the
+following conversation at a railway station between a farmer and the
+engineer of a train: "What are you waiting for so long?  Have you no
+water?"  "Oh, yes, we have plenty of water, but it is not boiling."  So
+there may be abundance of intelligence and splendid machinery, and all
+the appliances that help to success, but what is wanted is intense
+boiling earnestness.  We have a good illustration of the power of
+earnestness in speaking.  One man may say the right thing, and say it
+in a pleasing and cultured manner; every phrase may be well placed,
+every sentence polished, every argument in its proper place.  Another
+man may have no elegance of diction, his words may be unpolished, his
+sentences even ungrammatical, and yet he may move a great multitude, as
+the leaves of the trees are moved by the wind, through the intense
+earnestness and enthusiasm by which he is possessed.  We see the same
+thing in Christian effort.  The organization of a church may be
+perfect, its resources may be large, and it may have in its service an
+army of able and well-disciplined men; but without enthusiasm and
+burning zeal its efforts are powerless and come to nothing.  When, as
+at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends upon a church in tongues of
+fire, then there is quickening, and souls are gathered in.  No man has
+ever had a supreme influence over others without more or less
+enthusiasm in his nature.
+
+There are three directions we may give in regard to earnestness or
+enthusiasm.
+
+1.  _Respect it in others_.--Do not join with those who regard it as
+something that is not respectable.  It is always preferable to what is
+cold and formal.  Life is better than death, and when there is life
+there is energy and earnestness.  Even when enthusiasm takes forms that
+we cannot altogether approve of, it is worthy of respect.  "Next to
+being Servetus who was burnt," said one, "I would have been Calvin who
+burnt him."  That was a strong way of saying that zeal is a beautiful
+thing in itself, though "zeal that is not according to knowledge" is
+not good.  We may not approve of many of the opinions and methods of
+Francis Xavier, the great missionary and saint of the Roman Church, but
+we cannot fail to admire his burning zeal in the cause of Christ, and
+look with something like awe on his high-souled devotion to the work of
+an evangelist.  He was swept on by an enthusiasm that never failed, and
+which carried him over obstacles that would have daunted any ordinary
+man.  The Puritans were denounced by many good people of their time,
+and the great preacher, Dr. South, delivered a sermon against them,
+entitled "Enthusiasts not led by the Spirit of God."  But we all know
+how great the men were, and how great a work they did through the very
+enthusiasm that he condemned.  "It is better," according to the
+proverb, "that the pot should boil over than not boil at all."  The
+word enthusiasm literally means filled, or inspired, by God, and the
+meaning of the word may teach us how noble a thing enthusiasm is in
+itself, and how worthy it is of admiration and respect.
+
+2.  _We should cultivate it in ourselves_.--It is a virtue, like all
+others, that can be cultivated.  (_a_) By resolutely setting our face
+against doing anything in a languid and half-hearted way.  If a thing
+is worth doing, it should be done "with all our might."  (_b_) By
+studying the lives of great men.  When we do so we catch something of
+the earnestness that inspired them.  This is perhaps the best result of
+reading biography.  We feel how noble was the enthusiasm of the heroes
+of the past, and how, by means of it, they were able to do great
+things, and to march on to victory.  (_c_) By associating with those
+who are in earnest.  There is nothing so contagious as enthusiasm, and
+when we come in contact with those who live under the impulse of grand
+ideas, something of their force and power is conveyed to ourselves.
+The great soul strengthens the weak soul.  While the solitary coal on
+the hearth will go black out, when it is heaped up with others it
+springs into a blaze.
+
+  O ever earnest sun!
+    Unwearied in thy work,
+    Unhalting in thy course,
+    Unlingering in thy path,
+    Teach me thy earnest ways,
+  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
+
+  O ever earnest stars!
+    Unchanging in your light,
+    Unfaltering in your race,
+    Unswerving in your round,
+    Teach me your earnest ways,
+  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
+
+  O ever earnest flowers!
+    That with untiring growth
+    Shoot up and spread abroad
+    Your fragrance and your joy,
+    Teach me your earnest ways,
+  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
+
+  O ever earnest sea!
+    Constant in flow and ebb,
+    Heaving to moon and sun,
+    Unchanging in thy change,
+    Teach me thy earnest ways,
+  That mine may be a life of steadfast work and praise.
+        HORATIUS BONAR.
+
+3.  _We should carry earnestness into our religious life_.--This above
+all.  There are many who tolerate earnestness in other things, but who
+look upon it as dangerous in connection with religion.  It is regarded
+as of very questionable value, and spoken of with doubt and suspicion.
+Let a man become earnest in prayer, earnest in work, or rise in any way
+above the dead level in which so many are content to rest, and he will
+be often spoken of in tones of pity, sneered at as a fanatic, or
+denounced as an impostor.  This suspicion with which earnestness in the
+Church of Christ is often regarded may be accounted for.  (_a_) There
+has been a vast deal of zeal in the Church about religion which has not
+been zeal for religion: about matters of ritual, Church government, and
+the like.  (_b_) Zeal has been often expended in contentions about
+small points of doctrine; often about those very points which are
+shrouded in mystery.  (_c_) Zeal has been often manifested in the
+interest of sect and party rather than of Christ.  (_d_) Zeal has often
+taken persecution for her ally, and wielded among men the weapons of
+earthly warfare.  For these reasons its appearance in the Church is
+often regarded as we might regard the erection in a town of a gunpowder
+magazine which, at any moment, might produce disorder, ruin, and death.
+
+_Yet Scripture regards earnestness in religion as
+essential_.--Indifference and lukewarmness it regards as hateful (Rev.
+iii. 15, 16).  It calls us to a solemn choice and to a lifelong
+service.  Its heroes are those who lived in the spirit of Brainerd's
+prayer, "Oh, that I were a flaming fire in the service of my God."
+There is an allegory of Luther which may be quoted here.  "The devil,"
+he says, "held a great anniversary, at which his emissaries were
+convened to report the results of their several missions.  'I let loose
+the wild beasts of the desert,' said one, 'on a caravan of Christians,
+and their bones are now bleaching on the sands.'  'What of that?' said
+the devil; 'their souls were all saved.'  'I drove the east wind,' said
+another, 'against a ship freighted with Christians, and they were all
+drowned.'  'What of that?' said the devil; 'their souls were all
+saved.'  'For ten years I tried to get a single Christian asleep,' said
+a third, 'and I succeeded, and left him so.' Then the devil shouted,
+and the night stars of hell sang for joy."
+
+There are three spheres of religious life in which earnestness should
+be specially shown.
+
+1.  _In prayer_.--This is specially inculcated in the two parables of
+our Lord, the "unjust judge" and "the friend at midnight," and in His
+own words, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
+knock, and it shall be opened unto you."  One, it is said, came to
+Demosthenes, the great orator, and asked him to plead his cause.  He
+heard him without attention while he told his story without
+earnestness.  The man saw this, and cried out anxiously that it was all
+true.  "Ah!" said Demosthenes, "I believe you _now_."  The earnest
+prayer is the prevailing prayer.
+
+2.  _In sacrifice_.--This is in all life the test of earnestness.  The
+student giving up time for the acquisition of knowledge; the merchant
+giving up his hours to the pursuit of business; the explorer braving
+the heat of the tropics and the cold of the arctic regions in his zeal
+for discovery.  It is the same in religion.  We must count all things,
+with St. Paul, "as loss, that we may win Christ, and be found in Him."
+
+3.  _In impressing others_.--It is "out of the heart that the mouth
+speaketh," and power to impress others is given only to those who do so
+with a full heart, and who are consumed with a burning zeal for the
+salvation of souls.  These are they whom God has, in all ages, blessed
+in the conversion of men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MANNERS.
+
+The word manners comes from the Latin _manus_, the hand, and literally
+means the mode in which a thing is handled--behavior, deportment.
+Manners may be defined as the pleasing or unpleasing expression of our
+thoughts and intentions, whether in word or action.  We may say or do a
+thing in an agreeable or a disagreeable way.  According as we choose
+the one or the other, our manners may be said to be good or bad.
+
+Good manners are the result of two things.--(_a_) Self-respect and
+(_b_) consideration for the feelings of others.  The man who respects
+himself will be careful to say or do nothing that may seem to others
+degrading or unworthy.  The man who has consideration for the feelings
+of others will be equally careful to do or say nothing that may give
+them pain, or be offensive to them.
+
+Good manners beautify character.--It was a celebrated saying of an old
+bishop, William of Wykeham, "Manners maketh man."  This is, however,
+only partially true.  Manners do not make a man any more than good
+clothes make a man, but if he _is made_ they greatly improve him.  Some
+have been truly excellent who have had an uncouth and unpolished
+address, but that was rather to their disadvantage than otherwise.
+"Rough diamonds" are always precious, but a diamond that is cut and
+polished, while it retains its value, is much more beautiful.  Civility
+of speech, politeness of address, courtesy in our dealings with others,
+are qualities that adorn a man, whilst rudeness, incivility, roughness
+in behavior, detract greatly from his value, and injure his usefulness.
+Tennyson's words are true:
+
+  Manners are not idle, but the fruit
+  Of noble nature and of loyal mind.
+
+
+Good manners tend greatly to success in life.--Coarseness and gruffness
+lock doors, gentleness and refinement open them, while the rude,
+boorish man is shunned by all.  Take the case of a speaker addressing a
+public meeting.  What he says is weighty and important.  His arguments
+are powerful and well marshalled, but his speech is uncouth and
+disagreeable.  He says things that are coarse and vulgar.  His bad
+manner vastly takes away from the impression which he desires to make,
+and which, if his manner had been different, he would have made.
+Again, two young men serve in a place of business.  The one is gentle
+in his demeanor, meets his customers with a pleasant smile, is always
+polite.  The other is rough in his deportment, apparently does not care
+whether those he deals with are pleased or not.  The one is a favorite
+with everybody; the other, who may be equally worthy as far as
+character is concerned, is disliked.
+
+Good manners often disarm opposition.--People may have a prejudice
+against ourselves personally, or against the cause we represent.  It is
+wonderful, however, how much may be done to soften them by habitual
+courtesy towards them, and by studiously avoiding anything calculated
+to offend them or rouse their anger.  A wise man will always endeavor
+to be specially civil towards any one who differs from him.  It is
+related that in the early days of the Abolition movement in the United
+States, two men went out preaching: one, a sage old Quaker, brave and
+calm; the other, a fervid young man.  When the Quaker lectured, the
+audience were all attention, and his arguments met with very general
+concurrence.  But when it came to the young man's turn, a tumult
+invariably ensued, and he was pelted off the platform.  Surprised by
+their different receptions, the young man asked the Quaker the reason.
+"Friend," he said, "you and I are on the same mission; we preach the
+same things; how is it that while _you_ are received so cordially, I
+get nothing but abuse?"  "I will tell thee," replied the Quaker; "thee
+says, 'If you do so and so, you shall be punished,' and I say, 'My
+friends, if you will _but_ do so and so, you shall not be punished.'
+It is not what we say, but how we say it." [1]  In _The Memorials of a
+Quiet Life_ it is said of Augustus Hare that, on a road along which he
+frequently passed, there was a workman employed in its repair who met
+his gentle questions and observations with gruff answers and sour
+looks.  But as day after day the persevering mildness of his words and
+manner still continued, the rugged features of the man gave way, and
+his tone assumed a softer character.  Politeness is the oiled key that
+will open many a rusty lock.
+
+Good manners may be summed up in the one word, Gentleman.--That term
+implies all that good-manners ought to be.  The original derivation of
+the word is from the Latin _gentilis_, belonging to a tribe or _gens_;
+and in its first signification it applies to those of noble descent or
+family; but it has come to mean something far wider, and something
+which every man, however humble, may be--a man of high courtesy and
+refinement, to whom dishonor is hateful.  "What is it," says Thackeray,
+"to be a gentleman?  It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous,
+to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to
+exercise them in the most graceful outward manner."  It was said of our
+Lord by one of the early English poets, that he was
+
+  The first true gentleman that ever breathed.
+
+To be a gentleman in all circumstances is the highest idea we can form
+of good manners.  It is what, in our intercourse with others, we should
+strive to be--to have "high thoughts," as Sir Philip Sidney expresses
+it, "seated in a heart of courtesy."  In Bishop Patteson's life is
+given the estimate of him, as a true gentleman, by a New Zealand
+native: "Gentleman-gentleman thought nothing that ought to be done too
+mean for him.  Pig-gentleman never worked."  The savage knew by
+instinct that the good Bishop who came to live among them that he might
+teach them to be better, who treated them with invariable courtesy and
+consideration, was a true gentleman, though he had to clean his own
+hut, to cook his own food, and to mend his own kettles.  And he knew
+also that the man who made others work for him without doing them any
+good in return, who swore at them and abused them, was only a
+pig-gentleman, however rich or high in station he might be.
+
+A few advices on the subject of this chapter may be given.
+
+1.  _Cultivate a pleasing manner_.--Any one can be civil and polite if
+he sets himself to be so.  Some suppose that it is unworthy of a robust
+character to be gentle in demeanor, that it indicates a certain amount
+of effeminacy, and that strength and gruffness go together.  We hear
+men spoken of sometimes approvingly as "rough diamonds."  But history
+tells us that the noblest and strongest have been the most tender and
+courteous.  King Robert the Bruce was "brave as a lion, tender-hearted
+as a woman."  "Sir Walter Raleigh was every inch a man, a brave
+soldier, a brilliant courtier, and yet a mirror of courtesy.  Nobody
+would accuse Sir Philip Sidney of having been deficient in manliness,
+yet his fine manners were proverbial.  It is the courtesy of Bayard,
+the knight, _sans peur et sans reproche_, which has immortalized him
+quite as much as his valor." [2]  It is not beneath us to study good
+manners.  To a great extent they come naturally from refinement of
+disposition and inborn delicacy of feeling.  But they may also, to a
+great extent, be learned and acquired.  "Watch," it has wisely been
+said, "those of excellent reputation in manners.  Catch the temper of
+the great masters of literature--the nobility of Scott, the sincerity
+of Thackeray, the heartiness of Dickens, the tenderness of Macdonald,
+the delicacy of Tennyson, the grace of Longfellow, the repose of
+Shakespeare."  It is well worth while for every young man beginning
+life to form a true idea of what good manners are, and to make it his
+constant effort to acquire them.
+
+2.  _Avoid eccentricity_.--Eccentricity is the deliberate endeavor to
+make ourselves different from those around us.  (_a_) Some show it in
+their dress by wearing garments often of outrageous shape and hue.
+(_b_) Some show it in their speech by striving to say things that they
+think especially smart.  (_c_) Some show it in their actions by
+striking forced attitudes, and putting themselves in grotesque
+positions.  It all springs from love of notoriety and desire to be
+thought different from their neighbors.  It is the mark, as a rule, of
+fops and fools, and an indication of weakness of character.  It is
+fundamentally inconsistent with good manners.  Johnson was called _ursa
+major_, or big bear, from the gruffness of his manner.  This was
+probably natural to him, but many affect a similar manner from a desire
+to be eccentric.  The "big bears" of society are odious.  Johnson's own
+words are applicable to such: "A man has no more right to say an
+uncivil thing than to act one--no more right to say a rude thing to
+another than to knock him down."  Those also who are ever trying to say
+things which they think smart, but which are often impudent, and meant
+to give annoyance, ought to receive no countenance.  "Sir," said one
+such person in his Irish brogue to Dean Swift, "I _sit_ (set) up for
+being a wit."  "Then, sir," said the Dean, "I advise you to sit down."
+Similar people should be treated in the same way.
+
+3.  _Try to conquer shyness_.--This is constitutional with some, but
+even when this is the case it can be overcome by taking pains.  The shy
+man is often awkward in manner; and, what is worse, he often gives the
+impression to others of being rude, when he has no intention to be so.
+There are those who, in their own family and among their own friends,
+are known to be warm-hearted, kind and gentle, but who, from this
+defect of which we speak, have a reputation far from enviable.  Any
+young man who is afflicted with it should set himself resolutely to get
+the better of it.
+
+4.  _We should be especially courteous to those below us in
+station_.--To servants in our house, to those in our employ, to the
+poor, we should be marked in our civility.  "It is the very essence of
+gentlemanhood that one is polite to the weak, the poor, the friendless,
+the humble, the miserable, the degraded."  The conduct of our Lord to
+such is ever worthy of our imitation.  Indeed, as it has been well
+remarked, the character of men and women is perhaps better known "by
+the treatment of those below them than by anything else; for to them
+they rarely play the hypocrite."  The man who is a bully and abusive to
+those weaker or less fortunate than himself, is at heart a poor
+creature; though, in company of his equals, he may be affable and
+polished enough.  For example, Kingsley mentions regarding Sir Sydney
+Smith that "the love he won was because, without any conscious
+intention, he treated rich and poor, his own servants, and the
+noblemen, his guests, alike courteously, cheerfully, considerately,
+affectionately, bearing a blessing and reaping a blessing wherever he
+was."  When a celebrated man returned the salute of a negro, he was
+reminded that he had done what was very unfashionable.  "Perhaps so,"
+he replied, "but I would not be outdone in good manners by a negro."
+
+"Good words," says holy George Herbert, "are worth much, and cost
+little."  The same may be said of good manners.
+
+
+
+[1] _The Secret of Success_.
+
+[2] _Plain Living and High Thinking_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TEMPER.[1]
+
+Temper is the harmonious and well-balanced working of the different
+powers of the mind.  Good temper is when harmony is maintained; bad
+temper when it is violated.  "Temper," it was said by an English
+bishop, "is nine-tenths of Christianity."  We may think this an
+exaggerated statement, but there is much to commend it.  The fruit of
+the Spirit of God is peace, and peace is the condition of a heart which
+is at rest--in harmony with God and man.  Peace may be taken as the
+Scriptural word for temper.
+
+Good temper is a sign that the different powers of the soul are working
+in harmony.--For instance, the atmosphere is well tempered when it is
+neither too hot nor too cold, neither too dry nor too moist, having
+neither too much electricity nor too little.  Then the weather is
+called fine.  It is a pleasure to live.  When the weather is bad, the
+balance of the elements is broken, and life is disagreeable and
+unpleasant.  The body is well tempered when the nervous system and the
+blood and the nutritive system all work in due harmony.  When these
+three great constituents of the body are well balanced against each
+other, the result is health.  The body is not well tempered in a
+student who takes no exercise, and where everything goes to feed the
+brain; nor in a pugilist in training, where everything goes to feed the
+muscles.  The result is disease.  We all know the musical instrument
+called the harp.  All the strings are tuned into perfect harmony.  If
+there is a false note struck, that is a sign to the musician that there
+is something wrong, and that the instrument needs to be tuned.  The
+discord is a symptom, that some cords are out of order.  So, bad temper
+is a sign that some string in our moral constitution is out of harmony
+and needs to be tuned.
+
+Good temper can be acquired.--It is the result of culture.  There are
+two things often confounded with it--(_a_) good nature and (_b_) good
+humor.  Good nature is something born with us--an easy, contented
+disposition, and a tendency to take things quietly and pleasantly.  We
+inherit it.  There is little merit in possessing it.  Good humor is the
+result of pleasant surroundings and agreeable circumstances.  A
+good-humored man is so when everything goes right; when things go
+wrong, his good humor departs and bad humor takes its place.  But good
+temper results from training and self-control--keeping constant watch
+over our passions and feelings, and above all being in constant harmony
+with God; for he who is at peace with God is at peace with man, and
+will keep the "even tenor of his way."
+
+There are various signs or forms of ill-temper that may be adverted to.
+
+One form of ill-temper is irritability.--We perhaps know what it is to
+have a tooth where the nerve is exposed.  Everything that touches it
+sends a thrill of pain through us.  Some people get into a moral state
+corresponding to that.  The least thing puts them out, vexes them,
+throws them into a disagreeable frame of mind.  When one gets into that
+state, he should feel that there is something wrong with him--something
+is off the balance, some nerve is exposed.  He had better look to it
+and go off to the dentist.
+
+Another form of ill-temper is readiness to find fault.--This is a sure
+sign of a screw being loose somewhere.  An ill-tempered person is
+always making grievances, imagining himself ill-used, discontented with
+his position, dissatisfied with his circumstances.  He never blames
+himself for anything wrong; it is always someone else.  He is like a
+workman who is always excusing himself by throwing the blame on his
+tools; like a bad driver who is always finding fault with his horses.
+
+  Some fretful tempers wince at every touch,
+  You always do too little or too much;
+  He shakes with cold; you stir the fire and strive
+  To make a blaze; that's roasting him alive.
+  Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish;
+  With sole; that's just the sort he would not wish.
+  Alas! his efforts double his distress,
+  He likes yours little, and his own still less.
+  Thus, always teasing others, always teased,
+  His only pleasure is--to be displeased.
+
+If we find ourselves getting into this state of mind, it is high time
+to inquire what is wrong with us.
+
+Another form of ill-temper is passion.--Some people are very subject to
+this development.  They are "gunpowdery," and when a small spark
+touches them they fly out, and there is a blaze.  It is a very unlovely
+feature of a man's character, and if people in a passion could only see
+themselves in a glass, their eyes flashing, their brow contracted and
+their features distorted, they would feel that they have cause to be
+ashamed of themselves.  After having been in what is called "a towering
+rage," there often comes to a man the feeling expressed in the words,
+"I have made a great ass of myself."  If we have done so, we should
+resolve never to make ourselves ridiculous again.
+
+Perhaps the worst form of ill-temper is sulkiness.--This is passion not
+dying out, but continuing to smoulder like the embers of a fire where
+there is no flame.  A sullen disposition is as bad a sign of something
+being wrong as there could well be.  It is like what the doctors call
+"suppressed gout."  The disease has got driven into the system, and has
+taken so firm a hold that it cannot easily be dislodged.  Better a man
+whose temper bubbles over and is gone, than the man who cherishes it in
+his bosom and allows, not the sun of one day, but of many days, to go
+down on his wrath.
+
+A word or two is perhaps necessary, in addition to what has been said,
+as to the means by which good temper is to be preserved and bad temper
+avoided.
+
+I.  _We should cherish a deep and strong detestation of the evil
+effects of bad temper in all its forms_.--(_a_) It has a bad effect
+physically.  It produces consequences injurious to health.  The man who
+indulges in it habitually cannot do so with impunity.  Doctors
+constantly warn their patients to refrain from irritating disputes, and
+to avoid men and things likely to provoke their anger.  (_b_) It has a
+bad effect socially.  The bad-tempered man is seldom a favorite with
+society.  Men eventually dislike him and shun him as a nuisance.  His
+family, if he has one, come to regard him with dread rather than love.
+(_c_) It has a bad effect as regards success in life.  "Everything,"
+the proverb says, "comes to him who waits."  The patient and forbearing
+man attains his object much sooner than the man of passion and abuse.
+Such a person is continually thwarted in his plans.  People refuse to
+be bullied into acquiescence; and threats, which have well been called
+"the arguments of a coward," raise rather than disarm opposition.
+(_d_) It has a bad effect spiritually.  (1) The man of evil temper
+wants the calm disposition of soul necessary to communion with God.
+The glass through which he looks into the spiritual world is clouded
+and gives a distorted vision.  He whose soul is filled with anger and
+clouded by passion cannot pray.  Before he lays his gift upon the
+altar, he must be reconciled to his brother.  (2) Scripture is full of
+warnings against evil temper: "He that is soon angry dealeth
+foolishly."  "Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious
+man thou shalt not go, lest thou learn his ways and get a snare to thy
+soul."  "An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth
+in transgression."  "Be ye angry and sin not; let not the sun go down
+upon your wrath."  "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
+clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be
+ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as
+God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."  The example of our blessed
+Lord specially teaches the same lessen.  Calmly and peacefully He
+pursued His divine work.  "When reviled he reviled not again, but
+committed himself to him that judgeth righteously."  Before the High
+Priest, Pilate and Herod, His indignant silence was more eloquent than
+scorching words.
+
+II.  _We should deliberately cultivate self-control_.--If a railway
+train is going swiftly along, and the driver sees something on the
+track, he applies the brake, and thus avoids collision.  In regard to
+temper, self-control is like the brake, and we should be ever ready to
+put it on.  A person can come, in time, to get a wonderful control over
+his temper if he watches against it.  The writer knew a young man who
+was at one time of an ungovernable temper; he used to be at times like
+"one possessed."  But by watching and resolutely putting on the brake
+he grew up one of the sweetest-tempered and most lovable of men.  He
+fought the wild beast within him, lashed it and kept it down.  A
+merchant had passionately abused a Quaker, who received his outburst of
+ill-temper in silence.  Being afterwards ashamed of himself, he asked
+the other how he was able to show such patience.  "Friend," replied the
+Quaker, "I will tell thee.  I was naturally as hot and violent as thou
+art.  I knew that to indulge temper was sinful, and I found it was
+imprudent.  I observed that men in a passion always spoke loud, and I
+thought if I could control my voice I should repress my passion.  I
+have therefore made it a rule never to allow my voice to be above a
+certain key, and by a careful observance of this rule I have, by the
+blessing of God, mastered my natural temper."  Strong resolution can do
+much.  "If the pot boils," says the proverb, "take it off the fire."  A
+little care, a word swallowed, a rising sentence struck down in us by a
+simple rule, may save us humiliation.  "By reflection, by restraint and
+control a wise man can make himself an island which no floods can
+overwhelm.  He who is tolerant with the intolerant, mild with the
+fault-finders, and free from passion with the passionate, him I indeed
+call a wise man."--Buddhist saying.
+
+III.  But while an act of self-control can restore the proper temper
+and balance to the mind when it is in danger, _the best way is to keep
+it so that it will not go off the balance_.  You know that if a clock
+stops, we may perhaps make it go again by a shake; if it does not keep
+time, we can often put the hands right; but the best way is to keep the
+machinery always so well balanced and adjusted that it will not stop or
+go wrong.  We may watch and control the temper when it breaks out; but
+the better way is to keep it so well balanced that it will not break
+out.  The soul that is in harmony with God, that is full of the spirit
+of Christ, will ever be peaceful and serene.  If ill-temper is our
+besetting sin, God's grace, if we ask it, will give us power to conquer
+it  While we watch against it, we should pray against it also.  The
+beautiful words of Thomas a Kempis point out to us the secret of the
+well-tempered and well-balanced mind: "First keep thyself in peace, and
+then thou wilt be able to bring others to peace."  If "the peace of God
+which passeth all understanding" keep our hearts and minds, through
+Christ Jesus, our life will never have its serenity disturbed by
+ill-temper.
+
+
+
+[1] I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness for some hints in this
+chapter to an interesting work on "Self-Culture," by James Freeman
+Clarke.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+RECREATION.
+
+Recreation is another name for amusement.  Both words express the same
+idea.  Recreation means to create over again, the building up of the
+system when it is exhausted.  Amusement primarily is said to be derived
+from the halt which a dog makes in hunting, when he pauses to sniff the
+air in order to see in which way the scent lies.  Having done this, he
+starts off again with redoubled speed.  Both these words in themselves
+suggest the place that the things which they signify should occupy in
+life.  They are for the refreshing of our strength, in order to renewed
+effort.
+
+Recreation is a necessary part of life.--There are two great laws under
+which we live: the law of work and the law of recreation.  Man has to
+work, and to work hard, in order to live.  Work also is necessary to
+happiness.  "He that labors," says the Italian proverb, "is tempted by
+one devil; he that is idle, by a thousand."  The industrious life, it
+is perfectly plain (as we have shown in a previous chapter), is that
+which we should all follow.  But recreation is as needful in its place
+as work.  (_a_) This is the teaching of nature.  God has made us
+capable of enjoying ourselves, just as He has made us able to think, or
+talk, or work with our hands.  The first sign of intelligence in the
+infant is a smile.  The child's nature unfolds itself in play, and as
+man grows up, it develops itself in many forms.  The universe also is
+full of joy and gladness.  The sky is blue, the sea glistens, the
+flowers are strewn over the earth.  We speak of the waves playing on
+the shore, of the shadows playing on the mountain side.  All this
+indicates that there is "a certain play element" that rejoices in the
+world around us.  (_b_) This is the teaching of experience.  Unvaried
+and unbroken toil becomes a sore burden; it breaks the spirit, weakens
+energy, and saddens the heart.  "All work and no play," according to
+the proverb, "makes Jack a dull boy."  There are men around us working
+so hard that they have no family life, no social life, no time for
+thought or for culture.  They are simply cogs in a great wheel that is
+ceaselessly turning round and round--wearing themselves out before
+their time by excess of labor.  This cannot be right.  There is an
+interesting tradition of St. John, the disciple of our Lord, that while
+amusing himself with a tame partridge he was asked by a huntsman how he
+could spend his time in so unprofitable a manner.  St. John replied,
+"Why dost thou not carry thy bow always bent?"  "Because," answered the
+huntsman, "if it were always bent, I fear it would lose its spring and
+become useless."  "Be not surprised then," replied the apostle, "that I
+should sometimes remit a little of my close attention of spirit to
+enjoy a little recreation, that I may afterwards employ myself more
+fervently in divine contemplation."  It is said also of a most saintly
+man, Carlo Borromeo, that while engaged with some friends in a game of
+chess, the question was started, what they would do if they knew they
+were to die within the hour.  "I would," said Borromeo, "go on with my
+game."  He had begun it for God's glory, and in order to fit himself
+for God's work, and he would finish it.  These anecdotes illustrate the
+truth that recreation is a necessary part of life, and may be engaged
+in with the highest object.
+
+Recreation, therefore, is not to be regarded as an evil in itself--Men
+at different times have so regarded it.  (_a_) Those who have been
+termed ascetics in the Church of Rome looked upon every form of
+amusement as sinful.  Even to smile or laugh was a fault needing severe
+penance.  They were "cruel to themselves," denied themselves all
+earthly joy, and placed vice and pleasure in the same category.  (_b_)
+The Puritans also, in the time of the Stuarts, set their faces strongly
+against games and recreation of every kind.  They denounced all public
+amusements, as Macaulay tells us, "from masques, which were exhibited
+at the mansions of the great, down to the wrestling matches and
+quoiting matches on the village green."  (_c_) In all ages there have
+been good men animated by the same feeling.  Life has seemed to them so
+serious as to have no place in it for mirth.  Even one so saintly as
+Archbishop Leighton said that "pleasures are like mushrooms--it is so
+difficult to distinguish those that are wholesome from those that are
+poisonous, that it is better to abstain from them altogether."  Those
+views have something noble in them.  They spring from hatred of sin and
+from realizing intensely that
+
+Recreation is liable to abuse.--It often leads to evil.  It was the
+unbridled gaiety of the age, with its selfishness and sensuality, that
+made the Puritans denounce amusement, though the austerity they
+enforced led to dreadful consequences.  Repression passed into excess.
+"It was as if the pent-up sewerage of a mud volcano had been suddenly
+let loose.  The unclean spirit forcibly driven out by the Puritans
+returned with seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and the
+last state of Stuart England was worst than the first."  The history of
+that period shows us the mistake religion makes by frowning down all
+amusements as sinful.  But that some may be so is equally clear.  They
+are so (_a_) when they are contrary to the express commands of the Word
+of God.  There are pleasures which are in themselves unlawful, and
+which are condemned by the divine law.  These, God's children will
+shun.  They are forms of wickedness which they will ever hold in
+abhorrence.  "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride
+of life," with all that the words mean, though the world may regard
+them as pleasures, and engage in them as amusements, are evil before
+God.  But not to dwell on this, which is evident, amusements are evil
+(_b_) when they unfit for work.  "The end of labor," said the Greek
+philosopher Aristotle, "is to rest."  It is equally true that "the end
+of rest is to labor."  Pleasures that tempt us from daily duty, that
+leave us listless and weary, are pernicious.  Outdoor games, for
+instance, ought to strengthen the physical frame, they ought to make us
+healthy and strong and ready for work.  But when carried to excess they
+often produce the opposite result, and become positively hurtful.  If
+the Saturday's play unfit for the worship and rest of the Lord's day;
+if an employer, as has been stated, has been obliged to dismiss his
+clerks more than once because of their incapacity for work owing to
+football matches, cricket matches, and sports generally, it is clear
+that these have not been for their good; and the same may be said of
+the effect of other forms of amusement, especially when carried to
+excess.  The amusements that send us back to toil with a lightened
+heart and a vigorous mind are those only that we should engage in; all
+others are detrimental, and should be shunned.  (_c_) It is necessary
+to say also that amusement in any form followed as the end of life
+becomes specially sinful.  Even the heathen moralist, Cicero, could say
+"that he is not worthy to be called a man who is willing to spend a
+single day wholly in pleasure."  How much more truly may a Christian
+feel that he "who liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth."  A life
+that is simply play, that is simply amusement, is no life at all.  It
+is only a contemptible form of existence.  "A soul sodden with
+pleasure" is a lost soul.  To be a mere pleasure-seeker is not the
+chief end of man.  Nothing grows more wearying than continuous
+amusement, and no one needs amusement so much as he who is always at
+it.  He loses the power of real enjoyment.  He has, like Esau, bartered
+his birthright for a mess of pottage.  He is useless to man and guilty
+before God.
+
+It is not easy to lay down distinct and definite rules in regard to
+recreation--to set down and catalogue those amusements which it is safe
+for us to follow, and those from which we should refrain.  This has
+been attempted, but not successfully! and the reason is evident.  What
+may be safe for one person may not be safe for another.  If we are told
+that an amusement has been held to be wrong, we are ready to reply that
+the mere opinion of others is not binding upon us; and perhaps in our
+contempt for views which appear to us bigoted and straitlaced, we rush
+into the opposite extreme.  The true guide in recreation is a Christian
+spirit.  He who possesses it will need no list of what are lawful and
+unlawful made out for him.  He will be better guided than by any
+carefully compiled code of duty set before him.  All, therefore, that
+shall be attempted in this direction is to give a few general counsels
+which may be serviceable.
+
+1.  We should exercise our own judgment as to what amusements are
+helpful or the reverse.  It has been said, "When you are in Rome, do as
+the Romans do."  We would rather put the adage thus, "When you are in
+Rome, do _not_ as the Romans do."  There are questions which majorities
+may decide for us, and there are questions which every soul must decide
+for itself.  That everybody goes to bull-fights in Spain does not make
+bull-fighting right; neither is an amusement right because it is
+popular.  In this, as in other matters, we must dare sometimes to be
+singular.  Follow not a multitude to do evil.
+
+2.  What is one man's meat is another man's poison.  We are not a law
+to our neighbor, neither is our neighbor a law to us.  The amusement
+that we find injures us, lowers our moral and spiritual tone, and
+unfits us for the serious business of life, is the thing for us to
+avoid, as we avoid food which some men can take with impunity, but
+which does harm to us.
+
+3.  Keep on the safe ground of certainty.  Whatever is doubtful is
+dangerous, and had best be left alone.  If we go skating, and have a
+suspicion that the ice in a certain spot is weak, that is sufficient to
+make us avoid it.  Possibly we might pass over it without danger, but
+the thought that it may be dangerous leads us to give it a wide berth.
+"If you do not wish to hear the bell ring," says the proverb, "keep
+away from the bell rope."  There is a sufficiency of amusements which
+are beyond doubt safe and satisfying, without our trying those that may
+be dangerous.  The best recreation often comes from change of
+occupation, and there is none better than the companionship of books,
+the sweet solace of music, the softening influence of art, or the
+contemplation of the beauties of nature, "the melody of woods and winds
+and waters."  There are fountains of joy open on every side of us, from
+which we may quaff many an invigorating draught, without drinking from
+those which are often poisoned and polluted.
+
+4.  The pleasure that is more congenial than our work is to be taken
+with caution.  So long as a man enjoys his work more than his
+amusement, the latter is for him comparatively safe.  It is a
+relaxation and refreshment, and he goes from it all the better for it;
+but if a man likes his pleasure better than the duties to which God has
+called him in the world, it is a sign that he has not realized, as he
+ought to realize, the object for which life was given him.
+
+5.  For the question, What is the harm? substitute, What is the good?
+The former is that which many ask in regard to amusements, and the very
+asking of the question shows that they feel doubtful about them and
+should avoid them.  But when we ask, What is the good? it is a sign
+that we are anxious to know what benefit we may derive from them, and
+how far they may help us.  That is the true spirit in which we should
+approach our amusements, seeking out those that recruit and refresh us
+mentally, morally, and physically.
+
+Those are hints[1] which may be found useful.  "Religion never was
+designed," it is said, "to make our pleasures less."  Religion also, if
+we know what it means, will ever lead us to what are true, innocent,
+and elevating pleasures, and keep us from those that are false, bad in
+their influence, and which "leave a sting behind them."  "Rejoice, O
+young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of
+thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of
+thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring
+thee into judgment."  Let those who practise the first part of that
+text not forget the second.
+
+
+
+[1] I am indebted for some of them to an article in _The Christian
+Union_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+BOOKS.
+
+Books have an influence on life and conduct the extent of which it is
+impossible to estimate.  "The precepts they inculcate, the lessons they
+exhibit, the ideals of life and character which they portray, root
+themselves in the thoughts and imaginations of young men.  They seize
+them with a force which, in after years, appears scarcely possible."
+These words of Principal Tulloch will not appear too strong to any one
+who can look back over a long period of life.  Such must ever feel that
+books have had a powerful effect in making them all that they are.
+There are many considerations that go to show the importance of books.
+
+Books are the accumulated treasures of generations.--They are to man
+what memory is to the individual.  If all the libraries in the world
+were burned and all the books in the world destroyed, the past would be
+little more than a blank.  It would be a calamity corresponding to that
+of a man losing by a stroke the memory of past years.  The literature
+of the world is the world's memory, the world's experience, the world's
+failures.  It teaches us where we came from.  It tells us of the paths
+we have travelled.  Almost all we know of the history of this world in
+which God has placed us we know from books.  "In books," as Carlyle
+says, "lie the creative Phoenix ashes of the whole past--all that men
+have desired, discovered, done, felt, or imagined, lie recorded in
+books, wherein whoso has learned the mystery of spelling printed
+letters may find it and appropriate it."
+
+Books open to us a society from which otherwise we would be
+excluded.--They introduce us into a great human company.  They enable
+us, however humble we may be, to hold converse with the great and good
+of past ages and of the present time--the great philosophers,
+philanthropists, poets, divines, travellers.  We know their thoughts,
+we hear their words, we clasp their hands.  The chamber of the solitary
+student is peopled with immortal guests.  He has friends who are always
+steadfast, who are never false, who are silent when he is weary, who go
+forth with him to his work, who await his return.  In the literature of
+the world a grand society is open to all who choose to enter it.
+
+Books are the chief food of our intellectual life.--There are men that
+have, indeed, done great things who have read but little.  These have
+had their want of mental training compensated by their powers of
+observation and experience of life.  But they have been for the most
+part exceptional men, and it is possible they might have done better if
+they had studied more.  To the great majority of men books are the
+great teachers, the chief ministers to self-culture.  Books in a
+special manner represent intellect to those who can appreciate them.
+We cannot estimate in this aspect their importance.  They are in regard
+to self-culture what Montaigne calls "the best viaticum for the journey
+of life."  When we think of what we owe to them, we may enter into the
+feelings of Charles Lamb, who "wished to ask a grace before reading
+more than a grace before meat."
+
+In regard to books, the practical questions that present themselves
+are, what we should read, and how we should read.  The first question
+cannot be answered in any definite manner.  (_a_) The enormous number
+of books in the world forbids this.  Let any one enter a library of
+even moderate size, and he will feel how almost hopeless it would be,
+even if it were profitable, to draw out a practicable list of what may
+be advantageously chosen for reading and what may well be cast aside.
+(_b_) Still more does the infinite variety of tastes, circumstances:
+and talents, forbid the laying down of definite rules.  Reading that
+might be profitable for one might not be so for another.  Reading that
+would be pleasant to one would be to another weariness.  Every class of
+mind seeks naturally its own proper food, and the choice of books must
+ultimately depend upon a man's own bias--on his natural bent and the
+necessities of his life.  There are, however, one or two directions
+that may be given, and which may be profitable to young men.
+
+_First_, We should read, as far as possible, _the great books of the
+world_.  In the kingdom of literature there are certain works that
+stand by themselves and tower in their grandeur above all others.  They
+are referred to by Bacon, in his weighty way, when he says: "Some books
+are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, some few to be chewed and
+digested."  This last class of books may be still spoken of as few.
+Various lists have lately been published of the best hundred books,
+according to the opinion of some of the greatest men of our time.
+There is considerable agreement among the writers as to what they
+consider the best books, and there is considerable difference also.  It
+is easy to see how those who compiled these lists have been largely
+influenced in making their selection by their own peculiar tastes and
+fancies.  Probably there is not one of their lists which any young man
+would care to follow out in its entirety.  We give elsewhere the one
+which seems most likely to be useful to those into whose hands this
+text-book may probably come,[1] though it is evident that many young
+men might profitably leave out some of the books mentioned and
+substitute others.  Still one thing is clear, that it is possible to
+make a selection of outstanding works in literature.  After
+consultation with others better informed than himself, a young man can
+make a list suitable to his capacities and tastes, of books that really
+are _great_ books, and in this way he may acquire knowledge that is
+worth having, and which will furnish a good and solid foundation for
+his intellectual culture.  It is with books of this kind that he should
+begin, and a few such books thoroughly mastered will probably do him
+more good than all others that he may afterwards read.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say that there is _one_ book that may be
+termed specially great, and which all young men should make the special
+subject of their study.  (_a_) The Bible, even as a means of
+intellectual culture, stands alone and above all others.  "In the
+poorest cottages," says Carlyle, "is one book wherein for several
+thousands of years the spirit of man has found light and nourishment,
+and an interpreting response to whatever is deepest in him."  No man
+can be regarded as an educated man unless he is familiar with this
+book.  To understand its history and position in the world is in itself
+a liberal education.  Those who have been indifferent to its spiritual
+power and divine claims have acknowledged its great importance in
+regard to self-culture.  "Take the Bible," says Professor Huxley, "as a
+whole, make the severest deductions which fair criticism can dictate
+for shortcomings and for positive errors, and there still remains in
+this old literature a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur; and
+then consider the great historical fact that for three centuries this
+book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in
+English history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and
+is familiar to noble and simple from John o' Groat's house to Land's
+End; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds
+in exquisite beauties of a mere literary form; and finally, that it
+forbids the merest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of
+the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a
+great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest
+nations of the world.  By the study of what other book could children
+be so much humanized?"  In these words we have a noble tribute to the
+intellectual greatness of the Bible.  (_b_) But it has other claims
+upon us than its power to stimulate mental culture.  It is inspired by
+God.  "It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
+instruction in righteousness."  It is man's guide through the
+perplexities of life to the glory of heaven, "Wherewithal shall a young
+man cleanse his way?  By taking heed thereto according to thy word."
+
+Read then the great books of the world, and this book, the greatest of
+all.
+
+_Second_, Another suggestion that we may make in regard to the use of
+books is that _we should read from some centre or standpoint_.  A
+person takes a house in the country.  This he makes the centre of many
+excursions.  One day he climbs the mountain, another day he walks by
+winding stream, on another he sails along the shore.  In this way he
+explores the surrounding country by degrees, coming back each night to
+the place he started from.  We may do much the same thing with profit
+in our excursions among books.  For instance, we may take the
+starting-point of our _profession_, and read all we can in regard to
+it.  A farmer should read about farming, a lawyer about law, a divine
+about theology.  Or we may take the starting-point of our _physical
+frame_, and read steadily all we can as to our bodily organisation and
+its laws; or we may take as our starting point the _land_ we dwell in,
+or even the locality where we live, and seek to learn all we can
+regarding its history.  In this way distinct lines of study are opened
+up to us, and we are saved the evil of desultory reading, which too
+often fills the mind only with a jumble of facts undigested and
+unarranged, and therefore of but little value.  The writer knew a young
+minister in a Scottish manse who had among the few books in his library
+the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.  In this work he took up distinct
+courses of reading--a course of biography, a course of history, a
+course of geography--and in this way he acquired knowledge well
+systematized, which was of great value to him in his after life.  We
+should endeavor, according to some such method as we have indicated, to
+carry on our reading.  "Every man and every woman who can read at all
+should adopt some definite purpose in their reading, should take
+something for the main stem and trunk of their culture, whence branches
+might grow out in all directions, seeking air and light for the parent
+tree, which it is hoped might end in becoming something useful and
+ornamental, and which at any rate all along will have had life and
+growth in it."  These words of Sir Arthur Helps put very tersely the
+point on which we have been insisting.
+
+_Third_, We should read books _on the same principle as we associate
+with men_.  We only admit to our society those whom we deem worthy of
+our acquaintance, and from whose intercourse we are likely to derive
+benefit.  We should do the same in regards to books.  There are people
+who read books which, if they took to themselves bodily form and became
+personified, would be kicked out of their houses.  Readers often
+associate in literature with what is vile and contemptible, who would
+never think of associating with people possessing a similar character.
+Yet the society of a weak or bad book is just as harmful to us in its
+way, and should be as little tolerated by us as the society of a weak
+or bad man.  Indeed, between an author and a careful reader there is an
+intimacy established even closer than is possible in the intercourse of
+life, and evil books poison the springs of thought and feeling much
+more thoroughly than an evil acquaintanceship could do.  We cannot be
+too strict, therefore, in applying to books the rules we follow in
+regard to society, and refusing our acquaintance to those books
+unworthy of it.  (_a_) Such books may be known by reputation.  We would
+not associate with a man of bad reputation, neither should we read a
+book of which the reputation is evil.  (_b_) They may be judged of also
+by very slight experience.  Very little tells us whether a man is
+worthy to be admitted to companionship, and very slight acquaintance
+with a book is sufficient to tell us whether it is worth reading.
+(_c_) But especially by beginning with those great authors that are
+beyond doubt high toned, "the master-spirits of all time," we shall
+acquire a power of discrimination.  We shall no more care to read foul,
+impure, and unwholesome literature than a man brought up in the society
+of honorable men would choose to cast in his lot with thieves and
+blacklegs and the offscourings of society.
+
+We have anticipated much that might be said in answer to the question
+_how_ to read, and only a few words need be written in regard to it.
+(1) Read with interest.  Unless a book interests us we do not attend to
+it, we get no benefit whatever from it, and may as well throw it aside.
+(2) Read actively, not passively, putting the book under
+cross-examination as we go along--asking questions regarding it,
+weighing arguments.  Mere passive reading may do no more good than the
+stream does to the iron pipe through which it flows.  Novel-readers are
+often mere passive recipients of the stories, and thus get no real
+benefit from them.  (3) Read according to some system or method.  (4)
+Read not always for relaxation, recreation, and amusement, but chiefly
+to enable you to perform the duties to which God has called you in
+daily life.
+
+
+
+[1] See Appendix.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+FAMILY LIFE.
+
+The words Family--Home--Household--all express one idea.  They imply a
+relationship existing between certain individuals, a circle or sphere
+separate from the mass of human beings, within which there are special
+duties to be performed and a special life has to be lived.  It is not
+necessary to define particularly what is meant by the word Family, for
+it is well understood by all of us.
+
+Family life is peculiar to man.--The lower animals have nothing in all
+respects resembling it.  In some particulars their mode of life
+occasionally approaches it, but not in all.  The birds of the air, for
+instance, care tenderly for their offspring, but when these come to
+maturity the relation between them and their parents comes to an end.
+The family relation on the other hand lasts through life, and is only
+broken by the hand of death, if even then.  The family has been
+instituted by God for the welfare of man.  The condition in which we
+come into the world requires it--our training for the work of life
+demands it--it is specially adapted to promote the great ends of human
+existence.
+
+Family life is that which most truly leaves its mark upon us.--In the
+family habits are formed which make us what we are for the rest of our
+life.  Home influences accompany us to the very end of our journey.
+Let any one ask himself what are the chief sources of his virtues, and
+he will feel that a large proportion of them are derived directly or
+indirectly from association with his fellow-creatures in the family.
+The training of parents, the affection and influence of mothers and
+sisters, powerfully and lastingly affect our intellectual and moral
+nature.  From a wise father we learn more than from all our teachers.
+When a celebrated artist, Benjamin West, was asked "What made him a
+painter?" his reply was, "It was my mother's kiss."  "I should have
+been an atheist," said a great American statesman, "if it had not been
+for one recollection, and that was the memory of the time when my
+departed mother used to take my little hand in hers, and caused me on
+my knees to say, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'"  On the other hand,
+those who have been so unfortunate as to have had an unhappy home
+rarely emancipate themselves from the evil effects of their upbringing.
+If they do, it is after the severest struggle.  "The child," it has
+been said, "is the father of the man," and it is in the family the
+child receives his first impressions for good or for evil.  The world
+he first lives in is his home.
+
+Family life supplies a great test of character.--When Whitefield was
+asked whether a certain person was a Christian, he replied, "I do not
+know.  I have never seen him at home."  People are often one thing in
+the world and another in their own family.  In the close intercourse of
+the home circle they exhibit themselves in their true colors.  A man
+who is a good son or a good brother is generally found to be a good
+man.  If he is a source of evil in his own home, in his intercourse
+with the world he will, sooner or later, be found wanting.
+
+It is beyond the scope of this book to dwell at length upon the duties
+incumbent on the various members of a family.  It may be sufficient to
+indicate generally the feelings which should animate the young persons
+who belong to it.  Probably most of those into whose hands this manual
+will come are members of a family.  What should therefore be their
+conduct at home is a question that well deserves their consideration.
+
+1.  _Obedience_ is the fundamental principle of family life.  Every
+family has a head, and that head must rule.  "Order is heaven's first
+law."  Where there is no obedience there can be no order in a family.
+The first form of authority which is placed before the child is that of
+the parent, and to the parent he has to be subject.  "Children," says
+the apostle, "obey your parents in all things, for this is well
+pleasing unto the Lord."  Even for those members of a family who have
+grown out of the state of childhood obedience must be the rule, though
+in their case it is not to be, as in the case of the child,
+unquestioning obedience, but is to be founded on reason, affection and
+gratitude.  With them obedience takes the form of reverence, or, to use
+a more familiar word, respect.  The child is bound to obey his parent
+without hesitation or reply; the young man who has entered into greater
+liberty than the child will still respect his parents' wishes and
+cherish reverence for their authority.  This feeling on his part is
+termed in the Scriptures _Honor_.  "Honor thy father and thy mother" is
+one of the Ten Commandments, and can never cease to be included among
+moral and religious obligations.  It is opposed to everything like
+unseemly familiarity, discourtesy of treatment, insolence in reply, or
+deliberate defiance.  It implies respect for age and experience, and a
+sense of the great sacrifices a parent has made for his children's
+welfare.  It is said that in our time the bonds of parental authority
+are being loosened, and that young men do not regard their parents with
+the deference that once was invariably shown towards them; that they do
+little to smooth the path of life for them when they grow old and weak,
+and are more ready to cast them on the public charity than to
+contribute to their support.  Such a state of things would be shameful,
+if true.  It would indicate a corruption of social life at the
+fountain-head that must lead to serious consequences.  The family is
+the nursery both of the State and of the Church, and where the purity
+and well-being of family life is impaired, both State and Church are
+sure to suffer.  There should be therefore an earnest and prayerful
+endeavor upon the part of the young to cherish towards their parents
+that loving sense of their superiority which is implied in the word
+Honor.  "Let them learn first," says St. Paul (1 Tim. v. 4), "to show
+piety at home, and to requite their parents; for that is good and
+acceptable before God."  There can be no more pleasing memory for a
+young man to have than this, that he has been a dutiful son; none more
+bitter than this, that he has set at defiance, or neglected, those to
+whom he owes so much.
+
+2.  _Affection_ is the atmosphere that should pervade the household.
+"Without hearts," it has been truly said, "there is no home."  A
+collection of roots, and trunk, and branches, and leaves, do not make a
+tree; neither do a number of people dwelling together make a home.  "A
+certain number of animal lives that are of prescribed ages, that eat
+and drink together, by no means makes a family.  Almost as well might
+we say that it is the bricks of a house that make a home.  There may be
+a home in the forest or in the wilderness, and there may be a family
+with all its blessings, though half its members be in other lands or in
+another world.  It is the gentle memories, the mutual thought, the
+desire to bless, the sympathies that meet when duties are apart, the
+fervor of the parents' prayers, the persuasion of filial love, the
+sister's pride and the brother's benediction, that constitute the true
+elements of domestic life and sanctify the dwelling." [1]  These
+beautiful words are true.  It is love that makes home.  The dweller, in
+a distant land sends again and again his thoughts across the sea, and
+reverts with fond affection to the place of his birth.  It may be a
+humble cottage, but to him it is ever dear because of the love which
+dwelt there and united those who dwelt there by ties that distance
+cannot sever.  Even the prodigal in the matchless parable of our Lord,
+herding with the swine and eating of their husks, was led to a higher
+and a better life by the remembrance of his father's house.  A home
+without love is no home, any more than a body without a soul is a man.
+It is only a corpse.
+
+3.  _Consideration_ for those with whom we live in the family is the
+chief form which affection takes.  Each member has to remember, not his
+own comfort and wants, but the comfort and wants of those with whom he
+dwells.  His welfare as an individual he must subordinate to the
+welfare of the household.  There are various forms which want of
+consideration takes, and all of them are detestable.  (_a_) Tyranny,
+where the strong member of a family insists on the service of those
+weaker than himself.  (_b_) Greed, where one demands a larger share of
+comfort, food, or attention than that which falls to the others.  (_c_)
+Indolence, where one refuses to take his proper part in the maintenance
+of the family, spending his wages, perhaps, on his own pleasures, and
+yet expecting to be provided for by the labor of the rest.  (_d_)
+Discourtesy, where, by his language and manners, he makes the others
+unhappy, and, perhaps, by his outbursts of temper fills the whole house
+with sadness.  (_e_) Obstinacy, which will have its own way, whether
+the way be good or not.  All these forms of selfishness are violations
+of the true law of family life, and render that life impossible.  In
+the family, more than in any other sphere, everyone should bear the
+burdens of others.  Everyone should seek, not his own, but another's
+welfare, and the weak and feeble should receive the attention of all.
+
+4.  _Pleasantness_ should be the disposition which we should specially
+cultivate at home.  If we have to encounter things that annoy and
+perhaps irritate us in the outer world, we should seek to leave the
+irritation and annoyance behind when we cross the threshold of our
+dwelling.  Into it the roughness and bluster of the world should never
+be permitted to come.  It should be the place of "sweetness and light,"
+and every member may do something to make it so.  It is a bad sign when
+a young man never cares to spend his evenings at home--when he prefers
+the company of others to the society of his family, and seeks his
+amusement wholly beyond its circle.  There is something wrong when this
+is the case.  "I beseech you," said one addressing youth, "not to turn
+home into a restaurant and a sleeping bunk, spending all your leisure
+somewhere else, and going home only when all other places are shut up."
+A young man, it is admitted, may find his home uninviting through
+causes for which he has not himself to blame.  Still, even then he may
+do much to change its character, and by his pleasant and cheerful
+bearing may bring into it sunshine brighter than the sunshine outside.
+
+5.  The highest family life is that consecrated by _Religion_.  The
+household where God is acknowledged, from which the members go
+regularly together to the house of God, within whose walls is heard the
+voice of prayer and praise, is the ideal Christian family.  In such a
+family the father is the priest, daily offering up prayers for those
+whom God has given him, at the family altar.  He makes it his duty, and
+regards it as his privilege to bring up his children in "the nurture
+and admonition of the Lord," and by personal example and teaching to
+train them up as members of the household of faith.  Unlike those who
+leave the religious instruction of their children entirely to others,
+he loves to teach them himself.  A household thus pervaded by a
+Christian atmosphere is a scene of sweet and tender beauty.  Such a
+household is well depicted by our Scottish poet, Robert Burns, in his
+"Cotter's Saturday Night."  There we see how beautiful family life may
+be in the humblest dwelling.
+
+  From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
+  That makes her lov'd abroad, rever'd at home.
+
+
+
+[1] Dr. James Martineau.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+CHURCH.[1]
+
+The word church is derived from the Greek word _Kuriakon_, the Lord's
+(from _Kurios_, the Lord), and it has various significations.  (_a_)
+Sometimes it means the whole body of believers on earth--"the company
+of the faithful throughout the world"--"the number of the elect that
+have been, are, and shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head
+thereof; and is the spouse, the body and the fulness of Him that
+filleth all in all." [2]  (_b_) Sometimes it is applied to a body of
+Christians differing from the rest in their constitution, doctrines,
+and usages; as, for example, the Church of Rome, the Greek Church, the
+Reformed Church.  (_c_) Sometimes it refers to the Christian community
+of a country or its established religion, as when we speak of the
+Gallican Church, the Swiss Church, the Church of England, the Church of
+Scotland.  (_d_) It is used in a still more limited sense to represent
+a particular congregation of Christians who associate together and
+participate in the ordinances of Christianity, with their proper
+pastors or ministers.  (_e_) It is applied also to the building in
+which the public ministrations of religion are conducted, as when we
+speak of the church in such a street, St. James' church, St. Peter's
+church, etc.
+
+In this chapter we use the word church in the fourth sense, as
+representing a particular congregation of Christians.  To such a
+community every young man should belong, and in connection with it he
+is called to discharge certain special duties.  There are four aspects
+in which the life of the Church, in this sense, may be regarded.
+
+I.  It represents Christian worship.--(_a_) Public worship seems
+essential to the very existence of religion.  At least, every religion
+the world has seen has had its meetings for public rites and
+ceremonies.  Faith unsupported by sympathy, as a rule, languishes and
+dies out in a community.  Were our churches to be shut Sunday after
+Sunday, and men never to meet together as religious beings, it would be
+as though the reservoir that supplies a great city with water suddenly
+ran dry.  Here and there a few might draw water from their own wells,
+but the general result would be appalling.  (_b_) Public worship also
+strengthens and deepens religious feeling.  A man can pray alone and
+praise God alone; but he is, beyond all doubt, helped when he does so
+in the company of others.  He is helped by the conditions of time and
+place; and the presence and sympathy of his fellow-worshippers have
+upon him a mighty uplifting influence.  (_c_) Above all, public worship
+is the channel through which we receive special blessings from God.
+There is communion in the sanctuary between us and Him.  "The true
+worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the
+Father _seeketh_ such to worship him."  God desires our worship, and
+blesses it to us.  That He does so has been the experience of
+Christians in all ages.  They have found in the house and worship of
+God a strength and power that supported and blessed their life.  They
+have realized that the promise of Christ is still fulfilled, "Where two
+or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
+them." (Matt. xviii. 20.)
+
+II.  The Church represents Christian teaching.--In the congregation the
+Word of God is read and preached.  (_a_) Preaching has always formed
+part of the service of the Christian Church from the very earliest
+times.  In the second century Justin Martyr says: "On the day called
+Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the country gather into one
+place, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets
+are read as time permits; then when the reader has ceased, the
+president verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good
+things."  This description of an early Christian service is applicable
+still.  Wherever the Church meets there is religious teaching.  (_b_)
+And it is the only such teaching that multitudes receive.  Without it
+they would be left to grope their way alone.  (_c_) Whenever,
+therefore, there has been a revival of life in the Church, great stress
+has been laid upon the preaching of the Word of God, and God has
+specially blessed it to the conversion of sinners and the edification
+of His people.
+
+III.  The Church represents Christian fellowship.--(_a_) It keeps up
+the idea of brotherhood in the world.  It brings people of different
+ranks and classes together, and that under most favorable
+circumstances.  Whatever a man is in the world, in the Church he is
+made to feel that in the eye of God he is a member of one family,
+having the same weaknesses, the same sorrows, the same needs, the same
+destiny before him as those around him.  In the Church "the rich and
+poor meet together" in equality before the same God, who is the Maker
+of them all.  (_b_) But especially in its worship is the Church a
+common bond between _believers_.  On one day of the week men of all
+nations, kindreds, peoples and tongues, a multitude whom no man can
+number, unite in spirit together.  Their prayers and praises ascend in
+unison to the Throne of Grace.  They enter into the "communion of
+saints."  They belong to one holy fellowship.  (_c_) At the table of
+the Lord they take their places as partakers of one life--as one in
+Christ.  "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion
+of the blood of Christ?  The bread which we break, is it not the
+communion of the body of Christ?  For we being many are all partakers
+of that one bread." (1 Cor. x. 16, 17.)
+
+IV.  The Church represents Christian Work.--It is not merely a society
+for instruction or for the cultivation of devout feelings.  It is an
+aggressive society.  Every congregation of believers is a branch of the
+great army which is warring against the kingdom of darkness.  Every
+individual is called upon to be a "fellow-laborer with Christ," and not
+merely to work out his own salvation, but to work for the salvation of
+others.  The motto of every true Christian Church should be, "Work for
+everybody, and everybody at work."  Those who may be able to do little
+as isolated individuals may do much by combining their efforts with
+those of others.  The Church gives them the power and the opportunity.
+
+We may now glance at some of the special duties incumbent upon those
+who are connected with the Church, and particularly upon young men.
+
+1.  We should be regular in availing ourselves of the means of grace
+which the Church affords.  If it be the home of worship, of teaching,
+of fellowship, and of work, it is a home from which we should not make
+ourselves strangers.  There is a blessing to be found there, and we are
+remiss if we do not seek it.  Every young man should be a regular
+attendant on the ministrations of religion.  He should be so (_a_) for
+his own sake, and (_b_) for the sake of others.  He may perhaps have at
+times the feeling, I can get my worship in the fields and my teaching
+from my books; I can get along without the Church.  But surely he
+undervalues the promised blessing to those who "forsake not the
+assembling of (themselves) together."  Surely he undervalues the power,
+and strength, and comfort, that come from association with believers.
+But even if he could get on without the Church, is he not bound to
+consider others?  Has any man in a world like ours, where all are bound
+together and are dependent on one another, any right to consider as to
+whether he can get on alone?  Is he not bound to consider those around
+him?  We must all feel that it would be a great calamity to a nation
+were public worship given up, churches closed, and Sunday made a day of
+recreation.  But those who absent themselves from public worship are
+undoubtedly using their influence in that direction.  If it be right
+for them to absent themselves, it must be right also for others to
+imitate them, and it is easy to see how disastrous generally such
+imitation would be.
+
+Especially should every young man become _a communicant_ at the table
+of the Lord.  Besides the many spiritual benefits of which the
+sacrament is the channel to every devout believer, it is an ordinance
+which is particularly helpful to the young.  It leads them to make a
+decision, and decision gives strength.  From the moment they
+deliberately and solemnly make their choice, there is a power imparted
+to their life that it had not before.  In the life of the well-known
+Scotsman, Adam Black, it is said that shortly after he went up to
+London he became a communicant in the Church to which he belonged.  "I
+found," he says, "this step gave a stability to my character, and
+proved a defence from follies and vices, especially as a young man in
+London, entirely my own master, with no one to guide or check me."
+
+2.  We should take each of us our full share in the work of our Church.
+It is a poor sign of a church when all the work done is by the
+minister, or by the office-bearers alone, and it is a still poorer sign
+of those who belong to it.  It is a sign that they have not felt the
+power of that grace which ever leads the soul to put the question,
+"What wilt thou have me to do?"  There are none who cannot do
+something.  The writer read lately of a church in England, the grounds
+of which were regularly tended and made beautiful by the young men
+belonging to it.  That may seem a small service, but it was something.
+It showed a good spirit.  If we are to get the most out of the Church,
+we must help it to do its work--charitable, missionary, Sunday School,
+Young Men's Guild.  If the best heart and talent of young men were put
+into these and other agencies, the power of the Church for good would
+be increased immeasurably, and not the least of the advantage would
+come to the workers themselves.  Let each do his own part.  There is
+one way, we need scarcely say, in which we can all help the Church's
+work: by giving to it "as the Lord hath prospered us."  Under the Old
+Testament dispensation every one was under strict obligation to give a
+fixed proportion of his substance for religious purposes.  Surely we
+should not be less liberal when the proportion is left to our own sense
+of duty.  Freely we have received.  Let us also freely give.
+
+3.  While loyal to our own Church, we should cherish towards all
+Christians feelings of charity and good-will.  Many of us, probably
+most of us, belong to the Church to which our parents belonged; and so
+long as we feel it ministers to our spiritual benefit we should keep by
+it and work with it.  There is little good obtained by running from
+church to church, and those who sever themselves from their early
+religious associations are often anything but gainers.  But while we
+are loyal to our own regiment in the Christian army, and proud, so far
+as a Christian may be so, of its traditions and achievements, let us
+ever feel that the army itself is greater than our own regiment, and
+not only cherish good-will and brotherly love towards those who fight
+in that army, but be ready at all times to co-operate with them, and to
+fight with them against the common enemy.  It is well to be a good
+churchman, it is infinitely better to be a good Christian.  It is best
+when one is both; for indeed he is the best Christian who is the best
+churchman, and he is the best churchman who is the best Christian.
+
+
+
+[1] The subject of "The Church, Ministry and Sacraments" is to be fully
+dealt with in a Guild text-book by the Rev. Norman Macleod, D. D.  We
+only refer in this chapter to those phases of Church life that are more
+immediately connected with Life and Conduct.
+
+[2] _Confession of Faith_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+CITIZENSHIP.
+
+Citizenship is derived from the Latin word _civitas_, the state, and
+comprehends the duties that are binding upon us as members of the
+state.  The first question then that arises in considering these is,
+What do we mean by the state?
+
+The state may be defined as the larger family.--The family is the
+origin of the state.  (_a_) In early times government was of the simple
+kind that prevails in a family.  The father was the head of the
+household and ruled over his children.  As these grew up and had
+families of their own, they naturally looked to the aged head of the
+family, listened to his counsels, and were guided by his wisdom.  Hence
+the first form of the state was the tribe or clan, and the first form
+of government was _patriarchal_.  The head of the family governed the
+tribe.  (_b_) On the death of the patriarch it was necessary that a
+successor should be appointed.  Sometimes he was the son of the
+patriarch or his nearest descendant.  Sometimes he was chosen by the
+tribe as the strongest and bravest man and most competent to lead them
+against their enemies.  Often tribes combined for mutual protection.
+Thus nations were formed, and the government passed from the
+patriarchal to the _monarchical_ form.  The head was called the _king_,
+which literally means the "father of a people."  We trace this growth
+in government in the history of the Israelites.  First, we have the
+family of Israel in immediate relation with the patriarchs.  As the
+Israelites grew and multiplied, they came under the leadership of
+Moses, who governed the tribes.  Finally, when they settled in the land
+of Canaan, they became a nation, and were governed by a king.  The
+kingdom was the expansion of the family.  (_c_) In modern times there
+has been a further development.  Government by a king or monarch was in
+the first instance _despotic_.  It is so in some cases--as in Russia at
+the present day.  The will of the sovereign is the law by which the
+people are ruled.  But just as a wise father relaxes his control over
+his full-grown sons, and admits them to a share in the government of
+the household with himself, so the people have in modern times been
+permitted to exercise power in the state.  The head of the state
+remains, but the main power of government lies with the people.  This
+form of government is called _constitutional_.  In Great Britain we
+have a _limited monarchy_; the power of the sovereign is controlled by
+the will of the people, who have a large share in making the laws.  In
+the United States of America, in France, and in other countries, we
+have _republics_, where the voice of the people is supreme, though at
+the head of the state is a president, elected by the people, and bound
+to carry out their wishes.
+
+As the state is the larger family, the duties of those who compose it
+correspond with those belonging to the members of a household.
+
+1.  There is the duty of loyalty or patriotism.  The first duty of the
+member of a family is love of home and of those who belong to it.
+However poor or humble it may be, he feels bound to it by no ordinary
+ties.  He defends its interests.  Above all other households, he loves
+his own the best.  The first duty of the citizen is of the same kind.
+He loves his land; his own country is dearer to him than any other on
+earth.  He is ready to defend it even with his life.  The words of Sir
+Walter Scott, as of many another poet, express this patriotic feeling:
+
+  Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
+  Who never to himself hath said,
+  This is my own, my native land,
+  Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
+  As home his footsteps he hath turned,
+  From wandering on a foreign strand.
+
+Many have died for their country's sake, and in all ages this has been
+thought a specially noble death.  History records with affection the
+names of such men as Wallace, Bruce, William Tell, and Garibaldi, who
+sacrificed very much for the land they loved.  And as "peace has its
+victories no less renowned than those of war," it has been the pride of
+others to serve their country by guarding its liberties, increasing its
+happiness, diminishing its evils, reforming its laws.  The _flag_ of a
+country is the symbol, to those who belong to it, of their common
+inheritance.  Brave men will follow it through the shot and shell of
+battle.  Men have wrapt it round their breasts, and have dyed its folds
+with their heart's blood to save it from the hands of the enemy; and
+wherever it waves it calls forth feelings of loyalty and allegiance.
+
+2.  Another primary duty of citizenship is obedience to the law.  Here
+again we have the rule of the family extended to the state.  The child
+is bound to obey his parents unless they bid him do what his conscience
+clearly tells him is wrong; so, a good citizen will obey the laws of
+his country, unless these laws are so evidently unjust that the good of
+all demands that they should be resisted.  Whatever the law is, he will
+endeavor to respect and obey it.  If he believes it to be an unjust or
+unrighteous law, he will do his best to get it amended or abolished.
+It is only in an extreme case, though this opens a subject on which we
+cannot enter, that he can be justified in refusing obedience.  "Let
+every soul," says Scripture, "be subject unto the higher powers.  For
+there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
+Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of
+God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves condemnation.
+For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. . . .
+Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for
+conscience sake."
+
+3.  It is a duty of citizenship to see that the laws are reasonable and
+just.  In a family, the grown-up members will use their legitimate
+influence to promote the wise regulation of the household, that there
+may be peace and harmony.  The same desire will animate the members of
+the state.  (_a_) This is specially incumbent upon those who, like
+ourselves, live under constitutional government.  With us, government
+is not the prerogative of the Crown, or of a few families; or of men of
+rank or wealth.  It is not _despotic_, or _aristocratic_, or
+_plutocratic_, but _democratic_--that is to say, it is in the hands of
+the people, or of those of the people to whom it has been entrusted,
+and who form a large proportion of the male inhabitants of the country;
+on them devolves the making of the laws by which the country is
+governed.  They are bound to do their best to see that these laws are
+what they should be--equitable and righteous, and for the interest of
+the whole community.  (_b_) This they can only do through their
+representatives.  We could conceive of a state so small that each of
+its members could take a direct part in its government.  That is not
+the case with us, and the people can only exercise their control
+through those they authorise to represent them.  These they elect, and
+in electing them are bound to see that they are men who are worthy of
+the trust committed to them, who will make laws good for every class.
+This applies not only to the election of members of Parliament, but
+wherever the representative principle is carried out, as in the case of
+councils, school boards, and other forms of local government.  Wherever
+a man exercises the privilege of choosing a representative, he is bound
+to do so conscientiously, and with an earnest desire to perform what is
+right.  It is a maxim in law that what we do by another we do
+ourselves.  We are responsible for those whom we choose to make our
+laws, and if we help to choose unworthy men we cannot be held blameless
+of the consequences that may follow.  (_c_) As it is our duty to
+exercise this privilege of citizenship rightly, we are also bound not
+to refrain from exercising it.  We hear people say sometimes that they
+have nothing to do with politics.  But by keeping altogether aloof they
+cannot rid themselves of their responsibility.  By abstaining they may
+do almost as much to further the views they disapprove of as by taking
+an active part in promoting them.  If there are evils in connection
+with government, the best way to get rid of them is for good men to
+take a part in public life, and try to bring about a better state of
+things.  In a free country no man can shake off his obligations by
+refraining from taking part in public affairs.  The talent that is
+entrusted to us we are bound to use for the glory of God and the good
+of man.  Our political power, however small, is such a talent, and we
+are responsible for its proper employment.
+
+4.  It is a duty of citizenship to take direct part in all that we
+believe is for the good of the state.  We say a direct part, as
+distinguished from the indirect part we take in government through
+representatives.  A man's duty as citizen does not end with the
+ballot-box, or with the election of members either to the national or
+local council.  A great part of the business of the nation is carried
+on by the voluntary efforts of its members.  There are men and women
+that have no part in representative government, who yet can discharge
+nobly the duties of citizenship.  (_a_) All can take a part in forming
+a healthy public opinion.  This is done in all free countries in
+various ways: through the press, through public meetings, and by means
+of the speech and communications of everyday life.  If our views are
+those of a minority, we may help, by our influence, our example, the
+fearless expression of our convictions, to turn the minority into a
+majority; and in a democratic country the views of the majority will
+ultimately prevail.  (_b_) We can also take direct part in promoting
+objects that tend to the well-being of society.  Much is left by the
+state to voluntary effort by its members.  The state undertakes the
+defence of the country by the army and navy, the relief of the poor,
+and the elementary education of the people; but beyond these and other
+instances of direct state action there is much left to be done by the
+people themselves, and for themselves.  The Volunteer movement, in
+which men take part of their own free will, and which has been of so
+much benefit to the country; the erection and support of hospitals,
+libraries, art galleries, colleges and universities; the furnishing of
+the people with amusement and recreation--are illustrations of what may
+be done by members of the community directly.  All such efforts tend to
+the welfare of the state.  All its members reap benefit from them.  He
+who does not help and encourage them is as mean as the man who would go
+to an hotel and take its entertainment, and then sneak away without
+paying the reckoning.  Whatever we can do to benefit society benefits
+ourselves, and in throwing ourselves heart and soul into any of those
+enterprises that benefit society we are discharging in a very special
+way the duties of good citizenship.
+
+It only remains to say in a word that our citizenship should be the
+outcome of our religion.  Without that, citizenship loses its high
+position.  He who fears God will honor the king, and he who "renders to
+God the things that are God's" will "render to Caesar the things that
+are Caesar's."  He will give "to all their dues: tribute to whom
+tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom
+honor."  Religion thus becomes the strength of the state, and
+"righteousness exalteth a nation."
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+The following is the list of the best hundred books referred to in
+Chapter XIII.  It is by Professor Blackie, Edinburgh, author of
+Self-Culture, and is given with his kind consent.
+
+
+I.
+
+HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.
+
+  The Bible.
+  Homer.
+  Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians.
+  Max Von Dunche's History of the Ancient World.
+  Plutarch's Lives.
+  Herodotus.
+  History of Greece--_Grote_ or _Curtius_.
+  History of Rome--_Arnold_ or _Mommsen_.
+  Menzel's History of the Germans.
+  Green's History of the English People.
+  Life of Charlemagne.
+  Life of Pope Hildebrand.
+  The Crusades.
+  Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics.
+  Prescott's America.
+  Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella.
+  Italy, by _Professor Spalding_.
+  Chronicles, by _Froissart_.
+  The Normans--_Freeman_ and _Thierry_.
+  Motley's Dutch Republic.
+  Life of Gustavus Adolphus.
+  The French Revolution--_Thiers, Carlyle, Alison_.
+  Bourrienne's Life of Napoleon.
+  Wellington's Peninsular Campaign.
+  Southey's Life of Nelson.
+  America--_Bancroft_.
+  The Stuart Rising of 1745, by _Robert Chambers_.
+  Carlyle's Life of Cromwell.
+  Foster's Statesmen of the Commonwealth.
+  Life of Arnold--_Stanley_.
+  Life of Dr. Norman Macleod.
+  Life of Baron Bunsen.
+  Neander's Church History.
+  Life of Luther.
+  History of Scottish Covenanters--_Dodds_.
+  Dean Stanley's Jewish Church.
+  Milman's Latin Christianity.
+
+
+II.
+
+RELIGION AND MORALS.
+
+  The Bible.
+  Socrates or Plato and Xenophon.
+  Marcus Aurelius Antoninus' Meditations.
+  Epictetus Seneca.
+  The Hitopadion and Dialogues of Krishna.
+  St. Augustine's Confessions.
+  Jeremy Taylor.
+  Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
+  Martineau.
+  Aesop's Fables.
+
+
+III.
+
+POETRY AND FICTION.
+
+  Homer.
+  Virgil.
+  Dante.
+  The Niebelungen Lay.
+  The Morte D'Arthur.
+  Chaucer.
+  Shakespeare.
+  Spenser.
+  Goethe--Faust, Meister, and Eckermann's Conversations.
+  Milton.
+  Pope.
+  Cowper.
+  Campbell.
+  Wordsworth.
+  Walter Scott.
+  Burns.
+  Charles Lamb.
+  Dean Swift, "Tale of a Tub" and "Gulliver's Travels."
+  Tennyson.
+  Browning.
+  Don Quixote.
+  Goldsmith, "Vicar of Wakefield."
+  George Eliot.
+  Dickens.
+  Robinson Crusoe.
+  Andersen's Fairy Tales, "Mother Bunch."
+  Grimm's Popular Songs and Ballads, especially
+    Scotch, English, Irish and German.
+
+
+IV.
+
+FINE ARTS.
+
+  Ferguson's History of Architecture.
+  Ruskin.
+  Tyrwhitt.
+
+
+V.
+
+POLITICS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.
+
+  De Tocqueville.
+  John Stuart Mill.
+  Fawcett.
+  Laveleye.
+  Adam Smith.
+  Cornewall Lewis.
+  Lord Brougham.
+  Sir J. Lubbock.
+
+
+VI.
+
+SCIENCE AND PHILOLOGY.
+
+  J. G. Wood's Books on Natural History.
+  White's Natural History of Selbourne.
+  Geology--_Hugh Miller, Ramsey, Geikie, Ansted_.
+  Botany--General Elements of British.
+  Science of Language--_Trench_ and _Farrar, Max Mueller_.
+  Taylor's Words and Places.
+
+
+VII.
+
+VOYAGES AND TRAVEL.
+
+In every variety; especially the old collections.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF WORKS.
+
+The following is a list of works upon topics treated in this text-book,
+which have been consulted in its preparation, and which may be useful
+to students:
+
+_Self-Culture_, by John Stuart Blackie.  Edinburgh: David Douglas.
+Twentieth edition.  1892.
+
+_Plain Living and High Thinking, or Practical Self-Culture--Moral,
+Mental and Physical_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  London: John Hogg,
+Paternoster Row.  1880.
+
+_The Secret of Success_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  London: John Hogg,
+Paternoster Row.  1880.
+
+_The Threshold of Life_, by W. H. Davenport Adams.  T. Nelson & Sons,
+Paternoster Row.  1876.
+
+_On the Threshold_, by Theodore T. Munger.  London: Ward, Lock & Co.
+1888.
+
+_Beginning Life_, by John Tulloch, D.D.  London: Chas. Burnet & Co.
+1883.
+
+_Life: a Book for Young Men_, by J. Cunninghame Geikie.  London:
+Strahan & Co.  1870.
+
+_The Gentle Life_, by J. Hain Friswell.  London: Sampson Low & Marston.
+1870.
+
+_Self-Culture_, by James Freeman Clarke.  Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.
+1881.
+
+_Life Questions_, by M. J. Savage.  Boston: Lockwood, Brooks & Co.
+1879.
+
+_Elements of Morality, for Home and School Teaching_, by Mrs. Chas.
+Bray.  London: Longmans, Green & Co.  1863.
+
+_The Family and its Duties_, by Robert Lee, D.D.  London: Longmans,
+Green & Co.  1863.
+
+_Christianity in its Relation to Social Life_, by Rev. Stephen J.
+Davis.  London: Religious Tract Society.
+
+_Home Life_, by Marianne Farningham.  London: James Clarke & Co.
+
+_The Domestic Circle_, by the Rev. John Thomson.  London: Swan
+Sonnenschein & Co.  1886.
+
+
+
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