Our children are more effectively educated at home than in the school or in the world. The daily, insinuating influence of a mother’s voice, or glance, on the morale of her child, is like the gentle air and sunlight to young plants. The roughness or gentleness of a father’s demeanor in the household may make “roughs” or gentlemen of his boys. Mutual petulance or affectionateness between the children of a family may depend almost entirely on the same qualities in the father and mother. There is scarcely anything, however apparently trivial, in the manners of the home that is not irresistibly educational. The ladder heavenward, visioned in the mind of the patriarch, is planted at the domestic hearth, and inclines over the very cradle. Are manners minor morals, then? Nay, they are the most effective education, they form one of the most potent influences of the common, human life. There are cases in which defective manners inflict an evil equivalent to certain more apparent violations of morality.
Manners are the physiognomy of the soul. Rudeness, and especially ill-tempered severity, show an inferior morale. The personal revelation of character, particularly in familiar life, is one of the most influential forces for good or ill that acts upon men. It is in life what it is in literature, only incomparably more influential, as it is more habitual and affects our more direct and more sacred relations and intercourse. We know that in literature it is the great, the distinctive, power of an author. It is the individuality, the intellectual and moral personality of a writer, that mostly makes his productions classical or otherwise. Milton, Shakspere, Goethe, Schiller, Byron, we read themselves in their style of both language and thought; and they thus mold the souls of their readers after their own image. Pascal says, that “When we see a natural style we are surprised and delighted, for, in expecting to see an author, we find a man; while those who have good taste, often, in opening a book, expecting to see a man, find only an author.” “Style is the man,” says another great French writer. And so manners are the man—the style of the man’s conduct, and immeasurable in their silent, unconscious influence on all around us. Not only do parents thus mold the hearts and lives of their children, children the hearts and lives of one another, but pastors thus act on their churches, neighbors on neighbors, and even nations on nations. “Be courteous,” is, then, we may repeat, an important moral law—a divine commandment.
It is a fallacy to suppose that manners are matters merely of social life; they belong to a man’s whole life—his public as well as his private life. They have infinitely more to do with the success of public men than is usually supposed. They affect especially and profoundly the pastoral character and success. It is a great thing to be a true evangelist; but can you be completely so without obedience to the injunction of one who was more than an evangelist, who was an apostle—“Be courteous?” A public man who outrages good manners may not be altogether a moral nuisance, but he can not well be a salutary moral power in the community. His best theoretical instruction, if he be a public teacher, may not compensate for the continuous, insidious, demoralizing influence of his manners on his habitual hearers, especially on the incipient character of children and youth. The public teacher should, above all things, be, as Cicero insisted in regard to the orator, a good man; but, next to this, he should be a genuine gentleman. This phrase ordinarily has a somewhat ambiguous application: we need not say that we are not using it in its equivocal, conventional sense. We use it in the sense of the apostle’s command—“Be courteous,”—maintain your manners, he would say. Gentleness, so incessantly enjoined in holy Scripture, is an equivalent phrase—because genuine politeness itself always includes, as its central element, gentleness (gentility), kindliness; that is to say, a certain moral sentiment of tenderness and goodwill toward all men. It is a fact, worthy of the attention of the ethical philosopher, that true manners, genuine politeness, in not only polished life, but even in the chivalry of the age of knighthood, has thus been identified with a certain moral sentiment; that “gentility” essentially means gentleness; that even the chivalry, the bravery, of the hero, has proverbially been associated with generosity. How can a public man, then, dispense with these qualities? There is not merely a conciliatory influence in good manners on the part of the public man—an influence to win a candid hearing—but there is a positive moral power in them, a power which enhances all other power.
Let us not misunderstand the word. It is courtesy, not merely the manner or appearance of courtesy, that is enjoined. What may be manners in one country or age may not be such in another. Courtesy is the same everywhere and always. Courtesy, as meant by the apostle, and instinctively recognized by refined minds, is not so much manners, as it is the underlying sentiment of manners. And manners themselves should be distinguished from mannerisms. Mannerism is sometimes a mere perversion, a caricature of manners. The highest courtesy is often seen in the avoidance of manners—in the intercourse of true gentlemen, who have so much hearty regard for one another, so much confidence in their mutual good understanding, that they spontaneously dispense with all mere forms of courtesy. Courtesy is thus supreme in its spirit, while unconcerned about its expression. It is a sort of compliment to an intimate friend for you to show that you so far confide in his courtesy as to believe that he expects not the forms of courtesy from you. Lovers are never fastidious about the etiquette of manners. The etiquette of manners seldom enters into the most holy sanctuaries or intimacies of life. It is left outside, as in the East the sandals are left at the door; but courtesy always enters, and is most at home in the homes of the heart.
Great was Paul as a theologian, all the world acknowledges; but he was equally great as an ethical philosopher. What a fine discernment of moral distinctions he had! Love was with him the “fulfilling of the law,” and love is, in his writings, the essential principle of courtesy—gentleness, kindness, sweetness of soul. When were ever better ethics given to the world than in his discourse to the Corinthians on charity? That discourse should certainly rank next to his divine Master’s Sermon on the Mount, the second great religious document in the possession of the world. Any candid skeptic must acknowledge that, would all the world conform to it, the human race would be as perfect in morals and manners as it could be. And what is this but acknowledging the divine fitness, and, therefore, truthfulness, of the document, and, indeed, of the religion which gave it birth? What courtesy could transcend that which “thinketh no evil,” which “envieth not,” which “seeketh not its own,” which “is not puffed up,” which “believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things!”
“A holy life is made up,” says Bonar, “of a number of small things. Little words, not eloquent speeches or sermons; little deeds, not miracles nor battles, nor one great heroic act, or mighty martyrdom, make up the true Christian life. The little, constant sunbeam, not the lightning; the waters of Shiloh, ‘that go softly’ in their meek mission of refreshment, not the waters of the ‘river, strong and many,’ rushing down in torrents, noise and force, are the true symbols of a holy life. The avoidance of little evils, little sins, little inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little follies, little indiscretions and imprudences, little foibles, little indulgences of self and the flesh—the avoidance of such little things as these goes far to make up, at least, the negative beauty of a holy life.”
The aim of Christianity is to produce a sanctified and noble manhood in this world, preparatory for angelhood in a higher world. He that works well for his religion honors it, but he that lives it well honors it more, for such a life is itself the best work, and empowers all other work.
The God who created these fair heavens with the same facility as yon green sapling: he who hath bestowed on man a life of toil, of transient joys and fleeting pains, that he might not forget the higher worth of his enduring soul, and might feel that immortality waited for him beyond the grave,—he, he is one only God! his mighty name Jehovah! earth’s Creator and Judge! adored by Adam, first of men, and Adam’s sons; then by Abraham, our father. But the rites by which we serve him are obscure and dark even to our wisest men. Yet God himself prescribed our sacred types, and will in time disclose their purport.—Klopstock.