The elements of character

by Mary G. Ware

There are many persons who seem to belong by turns to each of the three great classes that have been described. These exercise their powers involuntarily. They cannot be depended upon, for they are not balanced Characters. If they happen to like what they are doing, or happen to feel in the mood of doing it, they will do it well; otherwise, they do not care how badly their work is performed, if it only can be got through with. They have not waked to the consciousness that we have no right to do anything badly, because whenever we do so we impair our own faculties, and thereby diminish our powers of usefulness; while, if the act concerns any one beside ourselves,—as almost all acts do,—we are wronging our neighbor.

Many persons are so fortunate, women especially almost always so, as to have enough employment placed before them by the circumstances of their position, without any effort of choice on their part, to occupy their time, and to train their faculties. Those who are not thus set to work by circumstance should be governed in the selection of their employment by their own inclination and talents. What we love to do we can learn to do well, and our work will then be agreeable to us. Many persons are governed in the choice of employment for themselves or for their children by a stronger consideration for what is honorable in the eyes of the world than by talent or taste. Thence it often results that persons fail ever to fulfil the duties they have chosen in a way to be satisfactory to any one beside themselves, perhaps not even to themselves. If they have sufficient force of Character to do well in spite of not doing what they like, they are still never so happy as they would have been had inclination been consulted. Where the heart is really in the employment, work is not a burden, but a natural and pleasant exercise of the powers; and it becomes comparatively easy to serve the Lord with all the strength.

Those who are not constrained to work, should remember that a life of idleness cannot be a life of innocence; for the idle cannot serve the Lord. A life that does not cultivate one's own capacities, and aid either in supplying the wants or cultivating the capacities of some one beside self, is no preparation for heaven; for the heavenly life is one of perpetual advance, because of untiring use.

There is no station in life where there is not a constant demand for the exercise of charity. We cannot be in company an hour with any person without some such demand presenting itself to us. The daily intercourse of life places it constantly in our power to make some person more or less happy than he now is, and accordingly as we may choose between these two modes of action we are fulfilling or setting aside the law of charity.

No class of human beings bears a more heavy weight of responsibility than that which is placed beyond the necessity of effort; and there is none whose position has a stronger tendency to blind it to the calls of duty. Although every gift bestowed upon us by providence, whether of mind, body, or estate, is but another talent, for the employment of which we must be one day called to account, yet these added talents too often excite in us a feeling of superiority which induces us to demand that others should minister to us, and causes us to forget that he who would be greatest must be so by doing more and greater services than others, and not by receiving them.

Persons whose position places them beyond the need of effort, would do well to select some special study or employment to occupy and develop their mental life, and save them from the inanity, ennui, and selfishness that are sure to follow in the footsteps of idleness. Poverty of mind is rendered all the more prominent and disgusting if accompanied by external wealth; and to such a mind wealth is but a means to folly, if to nothing worse.

Neither wealth nor poverty, neither strength nor weakness, neither genius nor the want of it, neither ten talents nor one, can excuse any human being from training his faculties in a way to develop them to the utmost, and forming them into a symmetrical whole, the type of a true humanity.

In the following essays it may seem to the reader that there is contradiction in treating each power of the mind as though its perfect training resulted in the upbuilding of a perfect Character; but the union between these capacities is so intimate that one cannot be rightly trained unless all the others are trained at the same time. We cannot think wisely unless we imagine truly, and love rightly, as well as warmly. We cannot love rightly unless we think justly, and imagine purely; nor can we imagine purely unless we love that which is pure. We cannot do all this unless we live out what we think, imagine, and love; for the inner life always acts narrowly and superficially unless it be widened and deepened by an efficient external life. What we do must follow closely in the footsteps of what we know, if we would arrive at breadth and depth of knowledge. So fast as we put in practice what we know we shall be able to receive more knowledge. We are told by the Lord that our knowledge of truth shall be enlarged in proportion as we are obedient to the divine will. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine."

The Divine attributes act simultaneously and equally always and everywhere, while the triune manifestation is a merciful adaptation of these attributes to the comprehension of fallen humanity. Were humanity truly regenerate, the action of its capacities would be simultaneous and homogeneous. Even in its present state these capacities are so interlaced that one cannot act strongly without inducing some action in the others; just as in the physical frame the brain, the heart, and the lungs can no one of them act unless all act in some degree; while in perfect health all act in the fulness of perfect harmony, no one organ rendering itself prominent by being more full of vitality and activity than another. Disease alone renders us conscious of the action of any one vital organ, and our moral diseases having destroyed the harmonious action of our moral powers, thereby rendering it impossible for us to appreciate the Divinity in the full harmony of unity, we have been mercifully permitted to attain to such knowledge as is possible to us through manifestations of the Divine attributes in trinity. In proportion as our faculties are trained to act in harmony we shall become unconscious of their separate functions; and in the same proportion we shall become capable of looking upon the Divinity in the

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