The elements of character

by Mary G. Ware

Whatever possessions we can name, whether external or internal, whether of the heart, the head, or the hand, it is love by which we truly hold them. Nothing is ours that we do not love, and through love we obtain possession of all that our hearts crave.

The love, however, that is so strong to obtain must be no superficial sentiment, but an inward passion of the heart. So long as we live in thought and imagination we are very apt to mistake mere sentiment for love; but the difference will show itself so soon as we begin to act. Sentiment is soon wearied by labor and difficulty in its pursuit of mental attainment, soon disgusted by squalor or offended by ingratitude in its attempts at benevolence, soon discouraged by the hardness of its own heart when it endeavors to acquire self-control, or to gain such virtues as seem in the abstract lovely and delightful. In short, sentiment wants a royal road to whatever it strives to reach. Love, on the contrary, is too much in earnest to be dismayed by any impediment. It will not stop half-way and make excuses for its short-comings. It rests not in its course until it has gained what it seeks; and then it rests not long, for all true love "grows by what it feeds on," and every height of excellence we reach does but enlarge the field of vision and show us new countries to be won.

Admitting love to be, indeed, this intense and all-pervading power, and the very life of our souls, the importance of training ourselves to love only that which is pure and true at once becomes manifest. The heights of heaven are not farther from the depths of hell than are the results that come to us if we seek the pure and the true from those which inevitably occur when the choice falls upon the impure and the false. Let no one think to dwell in safety because he has not deliberately said to himself, "I choose the impure and the false"; for if the pure and the true be not deliberately and voluntarily chosen, the heart out of its own inherent selfishness and worldliness will unconsciously sink gradually, but surely, into the impure and the false. There is no half-way resting-place for humanity between good and evil. We are always sinking, unless we are rising; going backward, unless we are pressing forward.

Much is said of the truth and purity of childhood, and they are very beautiful, for the angels that care for children do continually behold the face of the Heavenly Father,—do stand perpetually within the sphere of absolute truth and purity. But soon the child slips the leading-strings of its guardian spirit, and comes into its own liberty; and now, unless it freely chooses to follow with willing and constant step in the same path wherein it has thus far been led, it will wander from side to side, increasing at each turning the distance that separates it from the way of life, until at last it may wander so far that it loses the desire and even the memory which might lead it to return. Vicious propensities will, perhaps, begin to show themselves; and in the hardened and shameless youth it will be hard to recognize any trace of the innocence of infancy. But, perhaps, instead of viciousness, carelessness is developed, and youth is brightened by gayety, amiability, and ready generosity. Occasional derelictions from truth and honor find ready apologists among friends, because the boy or the girl is so "good-hearted"; but a closer inspection readily shows that the goodness of heart is very superficial, that the left hand is often unjust while the right is generous, that a lie is no offence to the conscience, if it be a good-natured one, and in short that very little dependence can be placed on the uprightness that has no firmer base than good-heartedness. Young persons of this sort are sometimes led away to commit some act so base that their eyes are opened to the dangers that beset the path in which they are travelling, and in sorrow and dismay they turn to seek the way of innocence whence they had wandered. Too often, however, the carelessness of youth passes into the indifference of adult life and the callousness of old age. What can be more revolting than an old age cold, hard, and selfish? Yet this is the natural and almost unavoidable result of a youth that does not fix its heart in unwavering love upon truth and purity,—whose aspirations are not for those things which cannot grow old, and which the world can neither give nor take away. A heart filled with love for excellence can never grow old; for it will go on increasing in all that is lovely and gracious so long as it lives; and where there is perpetual growth of the faculties there can be no decay. We grow old, not by wear, but by rust; and we can never become the prey of rust while our faculties are kept bright by the power and the exercise of earnest love. The fleshly body must grow old and die, for it is of the earth earthy; but it is by our own weakness and indolence if our spiritual body ever gathers a wrinkle on its brow. When the fleshly body drops from us, what must be our shame and our despair if we rise in a spiritual body deformed with evil passions, or corrupt with the leprosy of sin. Too many, alas! spend all their energies in feeding and clothing and sheltering the natural body, leaving the spiritual body hungry and naked and cold. We sometimes hear wonder expressed that a mind thus starved has become super-annuated and doating, while the body still carries on its functions with vigor; but had the body been treated with a similar neglect, it would have long before returned to the dust. The growth of the spiritual body should be continuous from the cradle through eternity; and seldom can any other reason, than our own neglect, be assigned for its disease or decay. The bread of life is perpetually offered for its support, and if it refuses to eat, its death is on its own head.

Infants who pass into the spiritual world before they are touched by a taint of earth are, probably, through the absence of all evil in those who are suffered to approach them, trained into a purity of Affection that fills their whole being with its genial warmth, descending, or raying out, into all the imaginations of the soul and all the thoughts of the mind. Thus they serve God in the order which the Saviour commanded, with all the heart, and soul, and mind. They, however, who remain long on earth, almost without exception, have the order of their nature so reversed, that their powers must be converted to the right, in the order of St. Paul, ascending from the lowest to the highest; or, which is the same thing, passing from the outmost to the inmost. The lowest and most external part of the being must be made obedient to the laws of Divine Order, and on this as a foundation must the higher and internal nature be built up, until it forms a sanctuary; and upon its altar shall fire from heaven descend so often as a gift is offered.

The practice of external vice, just in proportion to its grossness, incapacitates us for perceiving what is true or loving what is good. By vice is not meant crime such as exposes us to punishment by the law of the land, but sins against the laws of God, that bring their own punishment with them, by defacing the image of God in the soul. There is always need of searching the heart to find if we have committed crimes against the soul; for the laws of the land deal only with the excessive derelictions from right which we cannot ignorantly commit. We may, however, go on unconsciously in the commission of great sins until our hearts become hardened against all emotions of heavenly affection, and our eyes blinded so that we cannot distinguish the difference between darkness and light. If we would avoid this fearful condition, we must often go to the Gospels, and place the words of the Lord, in their various teachings, especially as they come to us from the Mount, as it were in judgment over against us, and reading verse by verse, fathom the depths of our hearts, and confess whether we are guilty or no. Would we escape such guilt, we must study these instructions again and again, until, as Moses commanded of the laws of the elder Scripture, "they shall be with us when we sit in our homes, or walk by the way, or lie down, or rise up. And we shall bind them for a sign upon our hands, and they shall be as frontlets between our eyes. And we shall write them upon the posts of our houses, and upon our gates."

When we place the words of the Lord in judgment over against us, and feel compelled to acknowledge our unfaithfulness to their requirements, there is danger of our falling into despair through the consciousness that is thus forced upon us of our want of love for the law of the Lord. The indulgence of our own wills is so sweet to us, that we cannot see how it is possible that the yoke of the Lord can ever become easy to our stiffened necks. We feel as though an obedience that did not spring from true love could not be called obedience, nay, was almost a sin; for it seems to savor of hypocrisy. In this state of mind, our only refuge is in that faith which St. Paul tells us "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen"; and then, unless this faith be strong enough to make us obey, though not from love, yet from a simple belief that at any rate obedience is better than disobedience, our state is wretched indeed. Our rationality tells us that obedience is naught unless we love to obey, but an inward conviction of the soul—may we not call it the voice of God?—entreats us, saying, "this do, and thou shalt live." If, in the ardor of our faith, we can forget our rationality, and cry, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief"; and if we force ourselves to do that which we are commanded, though at first it may appear to us an act purely external and dead, we shall soon find, that, if planted in darkness, it is still a living seed, and the Lord will water it till it shall spring into a growth of beauty that our hearts will cleave to with delight.

The first obedience of the soul that has entered upon the way of regeneration is hardly less ignorant than that of the little child who obeys his parent without comprehending the use or propriety of his commands; and, like that of the little child, it consists in abstaining from doing that which is wrong, rather than in doing that which is right. As the child grows older, he can look back upon those commands and understand them; and then he is filled with gratitude and love towards his parent for putting them upon him. So he who seeks to love the Lord must obey first, and understand afterward,—must keep the commandments ere he can know the doctrines,—must abstain from doing wrong before the Lord can implant in his heart the love of doing right.

In the first stages of regenerating life we think we love the Lord, although we know that we do not love our fellow-beings as we ought; and we cannot comprehend the truth, that he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love the Lord, whom he has not seen; and we think it is much easier to be pious towards God than to be charitable towards men. If our faith is strong enough to induce us to obey the external commandment of doing as we would be done by, the affection of true brotherly love by degrees grows up within us, we know not how, for the spirit of God has breathed upon us when we were not aware; and then we perceive how imperfect was the love we bore to the Lord, when we had not learned to feel that the attribute which awakens true love for him is the perfect love he bears towards each one of us, and that we can appreciate this love only so far as we imitate it by feeling willing to do all the good we can to every neighbor, without distinction of person, after the manner in which he causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall alike upon the evil and upon the good.

To live thus in charity with all men is not to do external acts of benevolence indiscriminately to all, without respect of person. There is a common, but erroneous, idea in the world, that simply to give is charity. To live what many esteem a life of charity, that is a life of indiscriminate giving, is often to pay a bounty upon idleness and improvidence, and to furnish the means of vicious indulgence. While remembering the command to give to those who ask, we must not forget the prohibition against casting pearls before swine. To give good things to those we have reason to suppose will abuse them is as wrong as to withhold our gifts from those who would use them. To give ignorantly, when we know not the value of the claim upon our benevolence, is at best but a negative virtue, and we should bear in mind that everything we bestow upon the unworthy is so much abridged from our means of aiding the worthy. Many persons seem to suppose that charity consists entirely in alms-giving, while this is only its lowest form. Kind deeds and kind words are as truly works of charity as pecuniary gifts, and we do not lead lives of charity unless we are as ready with those in the home circle and in our social relations as with these among the poor. God shows his love to his children by providing them with sustenance for the body, for the intellect, and for the affections, and if we would resemble him, we must show our love to the neighbor by being always ready to minister to the wants of those around us, in whatever form they may arise.