The elements of character

by Mary G. Ware

The powers that have been treated of in the preceding essays are sometimes found to work well so long as they work upon abstractions; but so soon as they are required to work upon the daily Life, they fail of reaching so high a point of excellence as we think we had reason to anticipate. This results from the want of either discrimination, courage, or earnestness; and the inner nature cannot be thoroughly trained until these faculties are so developed by its life-giving power, that their weakness ceases to interfere with its movements when it seeks to manifest itself in external Life.

Thought can discriminate abstractions long before it can discriminate facts in their relations with Life. It can reason logically of the true and the false in the realms of the mind long before it can tell the right from the wrong with correctness and readiness in the daily ongoings of events. To discriminate justly here, we must be able to dissipate the mists with which the love of self and the love of the world obscure the way in which we tread; hiding that which we ought to love, and displaying in enlarged proportions the things that we do love, until reason loses all just data, and accepts whatever passion offers as foundation for its judgments. Persons thus misled, often think they really meant to walk steadfastly in the right path, and that they are not responsible for having wandered into the wrong. They call what they have done an error of judgment, and rest content in the belief that their intentions were good, and therefore they are not to blame. This may be true, for "to err is human," and none but the All-wise can be sure of always judging rightly. Still, when we know that we have done wrong through an error of judgment, we should carefully examine and see if we might not have avoided this mistake had we been more careful in our investigation of facts,—more conscientious in our process of adopting our opinions. If we thus catechized our past errors, we should probably find, that, in a large proportion of cases, our error sprang from some cause we might have prevented,—from carelessness, from blindness caused by the desire to gratify our own wishes, or from indolence; in fact, that what we fancied sprang from an error of judgment only, had a much deeper root, and drew its nourishment from undisciplined Affections.

In training the faculty of discrimination, the work we must set before ourselves is to learn the relative value of principles, of persons, and of things; and in order to do this, we must look upon them in their relations with time and with eternity. We must learn to value and to judge from laws of absolute right, and not from the expediencies of the hour.

Protestants quote with horror the Romish maxim, that, "for a just cause, it is lawful to confirm equivocation with an oath," yet the same principle lurks within their own bosoms, inciting many a well-intentioned soul to "do evil that good may come of it." The two maxims are twin sisters, and children of the father of lies. Persons who think they have delicate consciences not unfrequently tell what they call small lies, or lies of expediency, in order that some good may come of it, which they esteem so great that it overbalances the evil of the falsehood. This class of persons is very numerous, and of all degrees, running from the mother who deludes her child into being a "good boy" by the promise of punishment or of favor that she has no intention of bestowing, to the juror who swears to speak the truth, and then affirms that a guilty man is innocent, fancying that it is less a sin for him to commit perjury than for the powers that be to commit what he calls oppression, injustice, or legal murder. This willingness to commit one sin, in order to prevent our neighbor from committing another, is a form of brotherly love we are nowhere enjoined to practise; it springs from an overweening self-love, that believes itself too pure to be contaminated by a small sin, while it forgets that a wilful disobedience of one commandment is in its essence disobedience towards the whole law. All who do evil that good may come of it, in any department of life, belong to this same class of persons. They ever look upon the sins of their neighbors with a sharper eye than they turn upon their own; and ever hold themselves in readiness, by "righteous indignation," intemperate zeal, and wisdom beyond, that which is written, to do battle for the Lord with weapons he has forbidden us to use, and to set the world in order by means and principles in direct opposition to his laws.

No one could be guilty of such sins who possessed a discriminating sense of right and wrong; such a sense as is derived from receiving the teachings of the Lord in simplicity of heart, and never presuming to set aside his commandments in order to place our own in their stead. His commands to refrain from doing evil are explicit, and without reserve, and he who ventures to call in question their universal application is sharpening a weapon for the destruction of his own soul.

The commands of the Lord are infinite principles, and in their natural and simple deductions cover all the acts of Life having any moral bearing, from the greatest to the least; and it is not the wisdom, but, the foolishness, of man, not his depth, but his shallowness, that endeavors to limit their significance and their application. We shall find that our vain attempts to do this occasion almost all our errors of judgment. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple," and he who is implicitly guided by it can alone walk surely; for he only has an unfailing guide in his endeavors to distinguish accurately between right and wrong.

If we learn to discriminate principles wisely, our next step is to apply a similar action of the thoughts to persons; and here again it is to the laws of absolute good and evil we must look for light. We must learn to respect persons for what they are, and not for their position, their reputation, or their worldly possessions. If we are really aiming to train our own characters in accordance with the laws of absolute right, we shall be likely to respect in others the attributes we seek in our own persons. In all other efforts, there is too often envy and jealousy among those who strive; but with those who seek true excellence, whether intellectual or moral, for its own sake, and not from love of the world, there is always pure brotherly love; and a perpetual delight is experienced in the contemplation of excellence wherever it is found.

In our estimate of the relative value of things, the same laws are called into action. If we would value them aright, we shall seek first those which aid us in improving and educating our characters, or which enlarge our powers of usefulness, and be comparatively indifferent to things which are external, and contribute only to the pleasure of the hour.

True discrimination may be defined as the faculty by which we justly estimate the value and the relations of principles, of persons, and of things; and so far as we attain to it, the power of wise Thought is ultimated in Life.

Courage, the buoyant child of Imagination, is the next faculty which we must duly cultivate, if we would use the talents God has bestowed upon us to the best advantage. It is common to look upon courage as a natural endowment, and few persons seem to be aware that it is a moral trait we are bound to cultivate. Yet when we consider how the want of courage interferes with our powers of usefulness, we cannot doubt that conscience should have force to make brave men and women of us all. In the various relations of life there is nothing that so paralyzes the powers as fear. They who are the subjects of fear are slaves, let their position or their endowments be what they may. The want of courage in practical life brings failure, casualty, and even death, in its train: intellectually, it robs us of half our power; morally, it puts us in bondage to our fellow-beings; and religiously, it leaves us without hope.