The Elements of Character

M >> Mary G. Chandler >> The Elements of Character

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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.

Hope and fear are alike children of the Imagination; but how different
is their aspect! Fear walks through the world with abject gait,
searching constantly after something of which it may be afraid; for,
like all the other faculties, it perpetually demands food, and if it
finds it not in the world around, imagines it in the world within. Few
persons, perhaps none, are fearful in every department of life; but
almost every one is so in some particular relations. Just so far as we
succumb to fear, we lose the control of our powers, and lie at the feet
of circumstance instead of cooperating with it, and making it subserve
our benefit. Hope, on the contrary, finds cause for joy everywhere, and
when surrounded by gloom sees, in imagination, the dawn that must come
even after the blackest night, and is buoyed up by the remembrance,
that, though "sorrow may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning."
Where fear sees nothing but the black clouds that threaten coming
storms, hope looks through them to the bow of promise. Hope is the
internal principle of true courage. St. Paul, in his beautiful
description of charity, tells us that it "hopeth all things"; and we may
easily perceive how it must be so, for the external form of charity
is love to the neighbor, which leads us to hope all things for our
fellow-beings; while its internal form, which is love to God, must lead
us to hope all things for ourselves. The devils believe and tremble
because they hate God; the devout believe and hope because they love
him.

Let us consider courage specially in its four principal
relations,--physical, intellectual, moral, and religious.

Physical courage,--the courage of practical life,--though it seems the
lowest form of this virtue, is perhaps quite as rare as either of the
others. There is abundance of fool-hardiness, of brutal rashness,
indifferent to all consequences, in the World; but very little of that
calm, self-possessed courage that leaves to one the full use of his
faculties in the midst of danger, and allows him to act wisely, even
when meeting death face to face. The only sure foundation for this form
of courage is unshrinking trust in the overruling power of God,--a trust
that shall make us feel his providence ever clasping its arms about us
in all the circumstances of life, causing us ever to bear in mind, that
he who watches the fall of the sparrow cannot permit us to perish or to
suffer by chance. This trust will give us power to meet the prospect of
death with calmness, let it threaten in what form it may, whether the
summons come in the crash of the shattered car, the bowlings of the
ocean-storm, the flash of the lightning, or the quiet of our own
chamber. We shall feel that the hand of God is in, or over, them all;
and when danger threatens, our faculties will rather be quickened than
diminished by the consciousness, that, in times of emergency, if we look
to him, he will be the more abounding in pouring his grace upon us to
supply our need. Calm, self-possessed courage comes to us the moment we
lean upon God for strength; while we are rendered helpless by fear, or
rash by arrogance, if we look only to ourselves.

There are those who would feel that they were passing away by the will
of God, if disease came to them with slowly wasting hand, and would meet
his will, coming in that form, with meekness and patience; perhaps, with
willingness: and yet were they called to die by sudden casualty, would
pass into eternity, shrieking with terror. Much of this fear of sudden
death is a mere physical passion, arising from a mistaken idea that
there must be great pain in a death by violence; and some even, in spite
of the direct teaching of the Lord to the contrary, look upon such a
death as a manifestation of the wrath of God against the individual. Yet
there is, in fact, much less suffering in most deaths by casualty than
by prolonged disease; while in many such there is probably entire
freedom from suffering. The mercy of God, no less than his power, is
everywhere, and in all forms of death, no less than in life; and were
our love for him as universal as his for us, we could no more fear
while remembering that we are in his hands, than the infant fears while
clasped to its mother's breast.

The possession of this trust in God, because it makes one calm in all
positions and under all emergencies, is the surest of all safeguards
against danger. How often, in the shocking records of disaster by land
and water, is the loss of life directly traceable to the want of that
true courage that retains self-possession everywhere, and under all
circumstances, giving the power to ward off threatening danger, even
when it seems most imminent and irresistible. In pestilence, the
terrified are the first to fall victims to the scourge, while none walk
so securely as those who possess their souls in quietness.

Intellectual courage,--the courage of thought--comes second in the
ascending scale. As physical courage gives us the ability to use our
faculties with the same freedom in the most imminent danger as we should
with no alarming circumstance to excite us, making us as it were to rise
above circumstance, so intellectual courage gives us the power to think
with independence, just as we should if we did not know the opinion of
another human being upon the subject which engages our thoughts.

Persons having an humble estimate of their own abilities are apt to take
their opinions, without reserve, from those whom they most respect,
without making any effort on their own part to judge for themselves
between truth and falsehood. If this were right, it would take all
responsibility in relation to matters of thought from this class of
persons; yet every human being must be responsible for the opinions he
holds. We cannot excuse ourselves by saying we took our opinion from
another, and it is his fault if it be false. Each one must be prepared
to answer for his own opinions, just as he must be responsible for his
own actions.

Persons of a combative disposition take just the opposite course from
this, and adopt opinions merely because they are opposed to some
particular person or to some class of persons. Such persons fancy
themselves very independent, and announce their opinions with a movement
of the head, that seems to say, "You see I am afraid of nobody, and dare
to think for myself." There is, however, quite as little independence
in adopting an opinion because somebody else does not think so, as
in accepting it because he does. Independence of thought is thinking
without any undue regard to the opinion of any one else, one way or the
other.

A third class of persons, having large love of approbation, is very
numerous. These are unwilling to express any opinion in conversation
until they have ascertained the views of the person they address; cannot
tell what they think of a book until they know what the critics say;
and seem to have no idea of truth in itself, but look merely to please
others by changing their opinions as often as they change their
companions. There are many authors of this class who, in writing,
strive only to please the vanity of the reader by presenting him with a
reflection of his own ideas; and whose constant aim is to follow public
opinion, instead of leading it. They do not care whether the ideas they
promulgate are true or false, if they are but popular; and if they fail
to please, are filled with chagrin, and sometimes have even died of
despair.

A fourth class of persons, possessed of strong self-esteem, arrive at
independence of thought through pride of intellect, and this is even
more dangerous than to depend upon others for our opinions; for of all
idolatry, there is none so interior and hard to overcome as the worship
of self. If we would arrive at truth of opinion, we must be independent
of our own passions and prejudices no less than of our neighbor's.
There is but one source of truth, and whoever believes that he finds it
elsewhere is an idolater. The Lord has declared, "I am the way and the
truth and the life"; and it is only through him as the way that we can
find the truth, and we seek it through him when we love it because he is
the truth, and so seek it for its own absolute beauty and excellence,
desiring to bring it out into life.

Look where we may along the pages of history and the records of science,
it is the devout men who have been the successful promulgaters of new
ideas and searchers after truth. The scoffer and the infidel make great
boasts of their progress through their independence of Scripture; but in
a little while a devout man follows in their footsteps and proves that
their deductions are false, and that even their observations of facts
were not to be trusted. Scoffers and infidels come, promising to set the
world in order by subverting governments; but though they are quick
to pull down, they have no power to build up; and it is only when the
devout man comes, that the reign of anarchy and misrule ceases.

Common, daily life is the epitome of history. The devout man is the only
one whose opinions are trustworthy; and just so far as we become truly
devout will the scales that hinder us from seeing the truth fall from
our eyes. "If the eye be single," looking to the Lord alone, unbiassed
in its gaze by the thousand-fold passions of earth, "the whole body
shall be full of light."

Moral courage, the third phase of this virtue, is that faculty of the
soul by which we are enabled to act, in all the social relations of
life, with perfect independence of the opinions of the world, and
governed only by the laws of abstract propriety, uprightness, and
charity. It gives us power to say and to do whatever we conscienciously
believe to be right and true, without being influenced by the fear of
man's frown or the hope of his favor. This is very difficult, because
the customs and conventionalisms of society hedge us about so closely
from our very infancy, that they constrain us when we are unconscious of
it, and lead us to act and to refrain in a way which our better judgment
would forbid, did we consult its indications without being influenced by
the world.

It was a saying of a wise man, that "he who fears God can fear nothing
else"; and there is certainly no healthy way in which we can be
delivered from that fear of the world which destroys moral courage,
but the learning to fear, above all things, failing to fulfil our duty
before God. If we would have moral courage, we must accustom ourselves
to feel that we are accountable to God, and to him only, for what we do.
There is a spurious moral as well as intellectual courage, the offspring
of pride and arrogance, that pretends to independence in a spirit of
defiance of the opinion of the world; but this will never give us the
power to act wisely, for wisdom is ever the twin sister of charity
that loves the neighbor even while differing from him in opinion. True
courage of every kind is perfectly self-possessed, but never defiant. A
spirit of defiance springs from envy or hate if it be honest, and from
a consciousness of inferiority if assumed; and is sometimes only a
disguise self-assumed by fear, when it seeks to be unconscious of
itself. True moral courage results from the hope that we are acting
in harmony with the laws of eternal wisdom. Fear of every kind is
annihilated by a living hope that the Lord is on our side.

If we would test the quality of our moral courage, we must ask
ourselves, is it defiant? is it disdainful? is it envious? does it hate
its neighbor? or are its emotions affected in any way by the opinion of
the world? If we can answer all these questions in the negative, we must
go a step farther, and ask if we have gained a state of independence of
our own selfish passions, as well as of the world; for our most
inveterate foes, and those before whom we cower most abjectly, are often
those that dwell within the household of our own hearts. If the love of
ease or of sensual indulgence rules there, we need to summon our moral
courage to a stern strife, for there is no conquest more difficult than
over the evil affections that are rooted in our sensual nature. Wise
and good men have gone so far as to believe that this conquest is never
entire in this world; that the allurements of indolence and the gnawing
of sensual cravings are never quieted save when the body perishes. It
is, however, difficult to believe that passions exist in the body apart
from the soul, and if not, there can be no absolute impossibility of
conquest, even in this world. If this may be attained, it must be
through the building up of a true moral courage, that shall fight
believing that the sword of the Lord is in the hand of him who strives,
trusting in that eternal strength which is mighty even as we are weak.

Religious courage develops naturally in proportion as the growth of
moral courage becomes complete. Fear is nowhere so distressing as in our
relations with our Creator. That which is by nature best becomes worst
when it is perverted; and as the blessed hope to which, as children of
God, we are all born heirs, is in its fulness an infinite source of joy
and blessing to the soul, so when it is reversed and perverted into
fear, it becomes the source of unspeakable misery, sometimes resulting
in one of the most wretched forms of insanity.

The morbid state of the mind which induces this distressing passion is
the result of a peculiar form of egotism, which leads the thoughts
to fasten upon one's own evils so entirely that the mind ceases to
recognize, or even to remember, the long-suffering patience and mercy of
the Heavenly Father. A more common, but less painful form of this fear
is the result of vagueness in one's ideas of the Divine character and
attributes. The clear and rational views which Swedenborg has given of
the Divine Providence is undoubtedly the reason why religious melancholy
is almost never found among the members of the New Church. The peace in
believing, which is almost universal among this class of Christians,
is a subject of remark among those who observe them, wherever they are
found; and this arises, not merely from their not looking upon God as an
enemy and avenger who demands a perfect fulfilment of the letter of the
law, or infinite punishment for sin, either personally or by an atoning
Saviour; but from the possession of a distinct idea, imaged in their
minds, of the nature and the quality of the Divine Providence. Where
there is a tendency to any kind of fear, nothing increases it more than
the want of a distinct idea of the thing or person feared; because the
Imagination, which is always quick with the timid, is almost sure to
create something within the mind far more fearful than anything that
really exists. The greatest boon mankind ever received through a brother
man was the doctrine first promulgated by Swedenborg, that God has
respect even to our good intentions; and that he casts out none who
sincerely desire to be of his kingdom. If one distinctly believes this
doctrine, there is no rational ground in the mind for fear; because the
very fact of our desire for salvation--provided we understand salvation
to be a state of the mind, and not a mere position in a certain
place,--or something pertaining to our internal, and not to our
external, nature--makes it impossible that we should fail of attaining
it.

If one is oppressed with religious fear, the way to escape from it is
to use every endeavor to attain a clear and distinct idea of the Divine
character, and to strive to bring one's self into harmony with it;--to
think as little as possible about one's own sins, and to train the
thoughts to dwell upon the Divine perfections, and cultivate an ardent
desire to imitate them. It is necessary to think of one's self enough
to refrain from the commission of external sins, and just so far and so
fast as we put away sin, the Lord will implant the opposite virtue in
its place, provided we put the sin away from love to him, and not from
any selfish or worldly motive. This state of active cooperation with the
Lord is something very different from that into which one falls who is
the subject of religious fear, and cannot exist in company with it. The
religious coward can only overcome his fear by remembering that God is
not a tyrant who demands impossibilities of his slaves, but a Father of
infinite love, who would make his children eternally happy; and who, in
order that they may become so, gives them every means and every aid that
they will receive. He must not suffer his heart to sink within him by
thinking of his own weakness, but must elevate it by thinking of the
infinite power of him who has called us to salvation. Above all things,
he must not fall into reveries about himself, but seek to forget self in
the active performance of duty.

The performance of duty, the fulfiling of use, which, rightly
understood, is the universal panacea against all the troubles and
sorrows of this life, is too often a fearful bugbear in the eyes of
those who understand it not. This subject, however, brings us to the
third and last topic to be discussed under the head of Life. The love of
duty, to be effectual or real, must be earnest; for earnestness is the
certain result of living Affection. Through this, all our other powers
and faculties ultimate themselves in external Life. Earnestness is the
exact opposite of indolence. It is the external motive power, just as
Affection is the internal motive power,--the body, of which Affection is
the soul. Without earnestness, all our other powers come to naught, and
we live in vain; with it, our other endowments become alive, and ready
to impress themselves upon the external world. Indolence is a rust,
corroding and dulling all our faculties; earnestness, a vitalizing
force, quickening and brightening them. By earnestness, alone, can we
climb upward in that progress which, begun in time, pauses not at the
grave, but passing through the portal of death, goes eternally on in the
same direction which we chose for ourselves here, ever approaching more
nearly to the Divine perfection, whose life is the unresting activity of
infinite love. By indolence, we sink ever lower and lower, and through
a continuous process of deterioration, grow each day more unfit for the
heavenly life, which all but the abandoned, and perhaps even they, fancy
they desire, even when refusing to use any of the means whereby it may
be gained.

In the circle of man's evil propensities, no one, perhaps, is a more
fruitful mother of wretchedness and crime than the propensity to
indolence. It is a common saying, that the love of money is the root
of all evil; but that root often runs deeper, and finds its life in
indolence, which incites those under its dominion to seek money through
unlawful means. The desire for money impels most men to constant effort,
and there is no reason for attributing a stronger desire to him who
steals or defrauds than to him who labors steadfastly, every day of his
life, from early dawn to eve; yet we praise the latter, and condemn the
former. It is not, then, the love of money that we condemn, but the
desire to attain it by vicious means; and such desire results from a
hatred for labor, which is the only legitimate means by which it may be
gained. Money in itself is but dead matter, serving only as a minister
to some end beyond; and the simple desire for it is neither good nor
bad: the end for which it is desired elevates the desire itself to a
virtue, or degrades it to a vice; and the means which we adopt for
obtaining it, and the purposes to which we apply it, make it either a
blessing or a curse.

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