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THE ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER
THE ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER MARY G. CHANDLER "An exclusively intellectual education leads by a very obvious process
to hard-heartedness and the contempt of all moral influences. An
exclusively moral education tends to fatuity by the over-excitement of
the sensibilities. An exclusively religious education ends in
insanity if it do not take a directly opposite course and lead to
atheism."--EDINBURGH REVIEW.
1854
THE REV. E.H. SEARS MY FORMER PASTOR
UNDER WHOSE SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE AND INSTRUCTION MY MIND LEARNED TO DWELL
UPON RELIGIOUS THEMES WITH PLEASURE WHILE MY HEART FOUND PEACE IN
BELIEVING.
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED AS A TRIBUTE OF GRATEFUL AFFECTION BY
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
CHARACTER.
THE HUMAN TRINITY.
THOUGHT.
IMAGINATION.
AFFECTION.
LIFE.
CONVERSATION.
MANNERS.
COMPANIONSHIP.
CHARACTER.
"We have been taught consciously or unconsciously intentionally or
unintentionally to seek rather what virtue gives than what virtue is;
the reward rather than the service the felicity rather than the life
the dowry let me say rather than the bride."--T.T. STONE.
"His practice was of a more divine extraction drawn from the word of
God and wrought up by the assistance of his Spirit; therefore in the
head of all his virtues I shall set that which was the head and spring
of them all his Christianity; for this alone is the true royal blood
that runs through the whole body of virtue and every pretender to that
glorious family who has no tincture of it is an impostor. This is that
same fountain which baptizeth all the gentle virtues that so immortalize
the names of the old philosophers; herein they are regenerated and take
a new name and nature. Dug up in the wilderness of nature and dipped
in this living spring they are planted and flourish in the paradise of
God. By Christianity I intend that universal habit of grace which is
wrought in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of God whereby the whole
creature is resigned up into the divine will and love and all its
actions directed to the obedience and glory of its Maker."--MEMOIRS OF
COL. HUTCHINSON BY HIS WIDOW.
* * * * *
The weakness and helplessness of humanity in relation to the fortunes
of this life have been a favorite theme with philosophers and teachers
ever since the world began; and every term expressive of all that is
uncertain insubstantial and unstable has been exhausted in describing
the feebleness of man's power to retain in possession the good things of
this life or even life itself. However firmly the hand of man may seem
to grasp power reputation or wealth; however numerous may be the band
of children or friends that surrounds him he has no certainty that he
may not die friendless and a pauper. In fact the most brilliant success
in life seems sometimes to be permitted only that it may make the
darkness of succeeding reverses the more profound.
Weak and helpless as we may be in the affairs of this life there is
however one thing over which we have entire control. Riches may take
to themselves wings though honest industry exert its best efforts to
acquire and retain them; power is taken away from hands that seek to
use it only for the good of those they govern; reputation may become
tarnished though virtue be without spot; health may vanish though its
laws so far as we understand them be strictly obeyed; but there is one
thing left which misfortune cannot touch which God is ever seeking to
aid us in building up and over which he permits us to hold absolute
control; and this is Character. For this and for this alone we are
entirely responsible. We may fail in all else let our endeavors be
earnest and patient as they may; but all other failures touch us only in
our external lives. If we have used our best endeavors to attain success
in the pursuit of temporal objects we are not responsible though we
fail. But if we do not succeed in attaining true health and wealth
and power of Character the responsibility is all our own; and the
consequences of our failure are not bounded by the shores of time but
stretch onward through the limitless regions of eternity. If we strive
for this success is certain for the Lord works with us to will and to
do. If we do not strive it were better for us that we had never been
born.
Character is all we can take with us when we leave this world. Fortune
learning reputation power must all be left behind us in the region of
material things; but Character the spiritual substance of our being
abides with us for ever. According as the possessions of this world have
aided in building up Character--forming it to the divine or to the
infernal image--they have been cursings or blessings to the soul.
Before we can understand how Character is to be built up we must come
to a distinct faith in its reality; we must learn to feel that it is
more real than anything else that we possess; for surely that which is
eternal is more real than that which is merely temporal; it may indeed
be doubted whether that which is merely temporal has any just claim to
be called real.
Many persons confound reputation with Character and believe themselves
to be striving for the reality of the one when the fantasy of the other
alone stimulates their desires. Reputation is the opinion entertained of
us by our fellow- beings while Character is that which we really are.
When we labor to gain reputation we are not even taking a first step
toward the acquisition of Character but only putting on coverings over
that which is and protecting it against improvement. As well may we
strive to be virtuous by thinking of the reward of heaven as to build
up our Characters by thinking of the opinions of men. The cases are
precisely parallel. In each we are thinking of the pay as something
apart from the work while in fact the only pay we can have inheres in
the doing of the work. Virtue is its own reward because its performance
creates the kingdom of heaven within us and we cannot attain to virtue
until we strive after it for its own sake.
A wisely trained Character never stops to ask What will society think
of me if I do this thing or if I leave it undone? The questions by
which it tests the quality of an action are whether it is just and
wise and fitting when judged by the eternal laws of right; and in
accordance with this judgment will its manifestations ever be made. If
the mind acquires the habit of deliberately asking and answering these
questions in regard to common affairs it acquires by degrees distinct
opinions in relation to life forming a regular system in accordance
with which the Character is shaped and built up; and unless this be
done the Character cannot become consistent and harmonious. It is never
too late to begin to do this; but the earlier in life it is done the
more readily the character can be conformed to the standard of right
which is thus established. Every year added to life ere this is
attempted is an added impediment to its performance; and until it is
accomplished there is no safety for the Character for each year is
adding additional force to careless or evil habits of thought and
affection and consequently of external life.
It is not going too far to say that Character is the only permanent
possession we can have. It is in fact our spiritual body. All other
mental possessions are to the spiritual body only what clothing is to
the natural body--something put on and taken off as circumstances vary.
Character changes from year to year as we cultivate or neglect it and
so does the natural body; but these changes of the body are something
very different from the changes of our garments.
There is a transient and a permanent side to all our mental attributes.
Take for instance manners which are the most external of them all. So
far as we habituate ourselves to courtesy and good-breeding because we
shall stand better with the world if we are polite than if we are rude
we are cultivating a merely external habit which we shall be likely to
throw off as often as we think it safe to go without it as we should
an uncomfortably fitting dress; and our manners do not belong to our
Characters any more than our coats belong to our persons. This is the
transient side of manners. If on the contrary we are polite from an
inward conviction that politeness is one of the forms of love to the
neighbor and because we believe that in being polite we are performing
a duty that our neighbor has a right to claim from us and because
politeness is a trait that we love for its own inherent beauty our
manners belong to the substance of our Character--they are not its
garment but its skin; and this is the permanent side of manners. Such
manners will be ours in death and afterwards no less than in life.
In the same way every personal accomplishment and every mental
acquisition has its transient and its permanent side. So far as we
cultivate them to enrich and to ennoble our natures to enlarge and to
elevate our understandings to become wiser better and more useful to
our fellow-beings we are cultivating our Characters--the spiritual
essence of our being; but these very same acquisitions when sought from
motives wholly selfish and worldly are not only as transient as the
clothes we wear but often as useless as the ornaments of a fashionable
costume. The Character will be poor and famished and cold however great
the variety of such clothing or ornament we may put on. When the
mind has learned to appreciate the difference between reputation and
Character between the Seeming and the being it must next decide if it
would build up a worthy Character what it desires this should be; for
to build a Character requires a plan no less than to build a house. A
deep and broad foundation of sound opinions believed in with the whole
heart can alone insure safety to the superstructure. Where such a
foundation is not laid the Character will possess no architectural
unity--will have no consistency. Its emotions will be swayed by the
impulses of the moment instead of being governed by principles of
life. There is nothing reliable in such a Character for it perpetually
contradicts itself. Its powers instead of acting together like
well-trained soldiers will be ever jostling each other like a
disorderly mob.
The zeal for special reforms in morality that so strongly characterizes
the present age whatever may be its utility or its necessity may not
be without an evil effect upon the training of Character as a whole. The
intense effort after reform in certain particular directions causes many
to forget or to overlook altogether the fact that one virtue is not
enough to make a moral being. It cannot be doubted that the present
surpasses all former ages in its eagerness to put down several of the
most prominent vices to which man is subject; but it may be well to
pause and calmly examine whether a larger promise is not sometimes
uttered by the zeal so actively at work in society than will probably
be made good by its results.
Nothing can be worthy the name of Reform that is not based on the
Christian religion--that does not acknowledge the laws of eternal truth
and justice--that does not find its life in Christian charity and its
light in Christian truth. The tendency of reform at the present day is
too often to separate itself from religion; for religion cannot work
fast enough to satisfy its haste; cannot at the end of each year count
the steps it has advanced in arithmetical numbers. The reformer asks not
always for general growth and advancement in Christian Character; but
demands special evidences startling results tangible proofs. These
things all have their value and the persons who strive for them
doubtless have their reward; but if the kingdom of heaven and its
righteousness were first sought the good things so fiercely advocated
and labored after by special reformers would be added unto them as
naturally as flowers and fruits and the wealth of harvest are added to
the light and warmth of the advancing year.
Persons who devote themselves to one special branch of reform are apt to
lose the power of appreciating any virtue save that one which they have
selected as their own and which they seem to love not so much because
it is _a_ virtue as because it is _their_ virtue. They soon lose all
moral perspective and resemble him who holds some one object so closely
before his eyes that he can see nothing else and cannot see that
correctly while he insists that nothing else exists worthy of being
seen.
There is ever an effort going on in the mind of man to find some
substitute for that universal obedience to the laws of faith and charity
which the Scriptures demand; and this temptation adapts itself specially
to every different class of believers. Thus the Jew if the higher
requisitions of the Law oppress him thinks to secure himself from its
penalties by the exactness of his ritual observances. The unfaithful
Romanist hopes to atone for a life of sin by devoting his property to
the Church or to charity when he dies. The Lutheran and the Calvinist
when false to the call of duty think to be forgiven their neglect of
the laws of charity by reason of the liveliness of their faith. So the
modern reformer sometimes seems to suppose himself at liberty to neglect
the cure of any of the vices that he loves because he fancies that he
may take the kingdom of heaven by violence through his devotion to the
destruction of some special vice which he abhors. Thus temperance is
at times preached by men so intemperate in their zeal that they are
unwilling to make public addresses on the Sabbath because on that day
they are trammelled by the constraint of decency which prevents them
from entering freely into the gross and disgusting details in which they
delight. We have the emancipation of negroes sometimes preached by men
fast bound in fetters of malignity and spiritual pride. We have the
destruction of the ruling influence of the clergy inculcated by men
dogmatic as Spanish Inquisitors. We are taught that the doctrine of the
inspiration of the Scriptures is a mere figment by those who are firmly
convinced that their own inspiration is perfect and unfailing. The
result of all this is the development of characters as deformed as are
the bodies of victims to hydrocephalus or goitre; while in painful
contrast to such victims these morally distorted patients bear about
their deformities in the most conspicuous manner as if they were rare
beauties. So pagan nations when they embody their ideas of superhuman
attributes often construct figures having several heads or hands or
enormously enlarge some particular member of the frame fancying that
they thus express ideas of wisdom or power more perfectly than they
could by forming a figure whose parts should all present a symmetrical
development.
It is not that reformers over-estimate the evil of any of the vices
against which they contend; for in the abstract that is impossible; but
that they under-estimate the evil of all other vices in relation to
that one against which they arm themselves. The tree of evil has many
branches and the trimming away one of them may only make the rest grow
more vigorously. There can be no thorough progress in reform until the
evil of the whole tree is perceived and acknowledged and the whole
strength is turned to digging it up by the roots.
If a man devote himself actively to the reform of some special vice
while he at the same time shows himself indifferent to other vices in
himself or in his neighbors it is evident that his virtue is only
one of seeming. We are told that he who is guilty of breaking one
commandment is guilty of all; because if we disregard any one
commandment of the Lord habitually persisting in the preference of our
own will to his it is evident we have no true reverence for him or
that we act in conformity to his commandments in other points only
because in them our will happens not to run counter to his; and this is
no obedience at all.
If we find men leaving no stone unturned in promoting the cause of
temperance who do not hesitate to cheat and slander their neighbors
temperance is no virtue in them; but is the result of love of wealth
or of property or of reputation or of the having no desire for strong
drink; because if a man abstain from intemperance from love to God he
will abstain from cheating and slandering from love to the neighbor. "He
that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom
he hath not seen?"
So too slavery is an enormous evil and it is very easy for one who
dwells in the free States to cover with opprobrium those who hold
slaves; but if the abolitionist indulges in a violence of invective that
compels one to fear that his heart is burning with hatred towards his
Southern brothers he stands quite as low in the moral scale as a
_cruel_ slaveholder and possibly lower than a _kind_ one.
The intemperate and often malignant violence with which men preach
and lead on crusades against special vices proves them ignorant of or
indifferent to the significance of virtue as a whole. It does not enter
into their hearts to conceive of the beauty of that growth in grace
which results in the complete stature of a man--that is of an angel.
In their haste to produce great growth in some particular direction
they overlook the fact that in precise proportion to such growth must
be the dwarfing of the other members of the soul. Man was created in the
image and likeness of God; and he becomes truly a man only so far as
through the grace of God his whole being voluntarily assumes that
resemblance to the All-perfect for which he was designed. So long as he
makes no effort to become regenerate after he has arrived at an age to
be at liberty to choose between good and evil he turns himself more and
more away from God and becomes less and less like him. While in this
state he may possess many seeming virtues may enjoy an untarnished
reputation may win the love of many friends; but is none the less the
hollow image of that which should be the substance of a man. He is
following only the devices of his own heart--seeking only the good
things of this world; and there is no virtue in anything that he does
though he may seem to devote all that he has or all that he is to
purposes of charity or reform. Man begins to be truly virtuous--to be
truly a man only when relying on the strength of the Lord to sustain
his endeavors he begins to avoid sin because it is abhorrent to God
and to fulfil the commandments because they are the words of God. Then
only he begins to form himself into the symmetrical figure of a man;
and to become perfect after the manner in which the Heavenly Father is
perfect.
The virtues all lock into each other. They cannot stand alone. Like the
stones of an arch no one of them can be wanting without making all the
rest insecure. That Character alone is trustworthy in which each virtue
takes its relative position and all are held in place and confirmed by
the key-stone of a living faith in the great central fact that there is
a God of infinite goodness and truth whose commandments are the laws of
life in this world and the world to come.
We cannot religiously obey one commandment unless we desire to obey all
because in order to obey one religiously we must obey it from reverence
to the divine authority whence it emanates; and when such reverence is
aroused in the heart it sends the currents of spiritual life to every
member of the spiritual frame permeating the whole being and suffering
no disease to remain upon the soul. He therefore who devotes himself
to some one object of reform enters upon an undertaking involving one
of the most subtle temptations by which man is ever assailed. Spiritual
pride will lie in wait for him every moment telling him how clean he is
compared with those against whose vices he is contending; and unless
he is very strong in Christian humility he will soon learn this
oft-repeated lesson and will go about the world with the spirit of the
Pharisee's prayer ever in his heart--"God I thank thee that I am not
as other men intemperate a slaveholder a contemner of the rights of
the weak. I am not like many men contented with fulfilling the common
every-day duties of life. They are too small for me. I seek to do great
things; and to show my devotion to thee by going armed with all the
power the law allows to put down vice by force and drive it from the
face of the earth."
There is a class of men who assume to be and are received by many as
philanthropists who appear to delight in detecting and publishing to
the world the vices of their fellow-beings. They seem to love to hate;
and to find in vilifying the reputations of those to whom they are
opposed a pleasure that can be compared to nothing human; but rather to
the joy of a vulture as he gloats over and rends in pieces his carrion
prey. While reading or listening to the raging denunciations of such
persons one is painfully reminded of the spirit that a few generations
ago armed itself with the fagot and the axe in order to destroy those
who held opinions in opposition to the dominant power. The axe and the
fagot have disappeared; but alas for human nature! the spirit that
delighted in their use has hot wholly passed away; the flame and sword
it uses now are those of malignity and hatred; it does not scorch or
wound the body but only burns and slays the reputations of those whom
it assails. Forgetting that the Lord has declared "judgment is mine"
it hesitates but little to pass its condemnations upon those who differ
from itself; and if Christian commandments are urged against it it
passes them by with a sneer or openly sets them aside as too narrow and
imperfect for the present age. While shrinking from the dangers that
lie in wait for those who devote themselves to one idea in morality
or reform we should beware of falling into the opposite extreme of
indifference on these same points; and should be sure to give them their
full share of consideration. The ultra conservatism that holds fast to
existing customs and organizations merely because they are old or from
the love of conservation is quite as fatuous as the radicalism that
would destroy the old merely because it is old or from the love of
destruction. He whose conscience knows no higher sanction or restraint
than the Statute Book is not enough of a Christian to be a good
citizen; while he who does not respect the Statute Book as the palladium
of his country is not a citizen worthy the name of Christian. While
striving to remain unbiased by the clamor of party or the violence
of individuals we should with equal care avoid the opposite error
of looking with approval or even with indifference upon usages or
institutions whose only claim to our forbearance lies in laws or popular
opinions whose deformity should be discovered and whose power should
melt away beneath the light and warmth of a Christian sun.
True religious life consists in doing the will of God every moment of
our lives. His will must bear upon us everywhere and at all times. Where
the mind is absorbed in some one object of reform this constant
devotion to duty is almost if not quite impossible. The mind becomes
so warped in one direction that it loses the habit and almost loses the
power of turning in any other. Hence we rarely hear the word _duty_
from the lips of the reformer. He constantly descants upon rights or
wrongs while duties seem forgotten. Thus we hear perpetually of the
rights or of the wrongs of man or of woman of the citizen or of the
criminal and of the slave; but the duties of these classes seem to have
passed out of sight. Now it is only when all shall fulfil their several
duties that the rights of all can be respected; and if peace on earth
and good-will towards men are ever to reign it must be when piety and
charity shall go hand in hand--when the human race shall unite as one
to fulfil its duties towards God and towards each other.
Violence of every kind springs from a desire to do one's own will.
Egotism is the sure accompaniment of wrath. The love of God never
constrained any man to villify his brother. He who is bent on the
performance of duty--who desires simply to do the will of God is firm
as a rock but never violent. He prays with the poet--
"Let not this weak unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw;
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe."
He remembers that judgment belongs to God; and that the Lord taught
us to pray "Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us"; and surely none can hurl denunciation upon a fellow-sinner
if from his heart he offers that prayer.
Possibly the ground may be taken that we should forgive our own personal
enemies but not the enemies of the Lord against whom the reformer
directs his wrath. But is the arm of the Lord shortened that he cannot
avenge his own wrongs? and who among mortals is so pure or so strong
that he may dare to say the Lord has need of him for a champion?
It is deemed just that a soldier should suffer severe punishment if he
act without orders taking upon himself the authority of a commanding
officer. How much more is he worthy of condemnation who puts himself
in place of God and under pretence of doing him service presumes to
transgress his explicit commands.
We are prone to fancy that when we are fond of talking about any object
we are fond of the object itself; but this by no means follows of
course. We may delight in talking about philanthropy while our hearts
are burning with hatred or about temperance while intoxicated with
passion or about abolitionism while we have no respect for the liberty
of those around us and no comprehension of that liberty wherewith
Christ makes his children free; and all this because we are working from
the blind impulses of an unregenerate spirit. When the spirit becomes
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