fore, wed himself to honor as to a bride, and his virtue shall be strong, and his existence fruitful.

III. A perfect character requires the development of the social sympathies. It is requisite that we have the spiritual consciousness that Paul exhibited, when he wrote, "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak for we are all members one of another; and if one member suffer, all the members suffer with him." Well developed social sympathies enable a man to realize his relations to his race, and to fulfil his fraternal obligations almost spontaneously. They render his intercourse with the world genial, so that men love the light of his countenance, and forget their cares in the charm of his presence. A halo of beneficence may be said to invest such a man, softening the asperities of coarser natures, and making the silent triumphs of his peaceful life more effective than imperial victories. "Man," says the book that heads our article, "man really alone, is something we can hardly imagine. He becomes cognizable almost entirely through his relations with God and with his fellow-men. Heathen philosophy sought to make man wise by withdrawing him from the passions and affections that move him when associated with his fellowmen, in order that he might devote himself to abstract truth. Christian philosophy teaches that truth owes its sanctity to the divine love, which alone gives it life; and, that by leading a life of love we acquire the power of understanding the truth. . . . The offices of piety belong in a great part to solitude, and the offices of charity to society; but the principle of companionship is involved in both; for piety associates us with God as charity associates us with man.' 994 These words are suggestive of the fact, that man owes the development of whatever is greatest and best in his nature, to that faithful social intercommunion which is the fruit of healthy social sympathies. It is beneficently ordered that the benefits of society shall not be limited to any class-that they shall be reciprocal, because human nature is essentially equal; and that the most widely-severed ranks may interchange blessings, through the offices of Christian friendship, as the most

4 Elements of Character, p. 213.

refined metropolitan shares with the rudest savag mutual advantages of trade. Not that it is neces while cherishing those universal sympathies which cl and humanity exact, to renounce those peculiar a ments which the pre-eminently good and great are to win, and which we are honored in bestowing them; for the counsel of Thackeray is wise, whe says:"Try to frequent the company of your better books and life, that is the most wholesome society; to admire rightly-the great pleasure of life is that." Large social sympathies lead to that intimate acqu ance with mankind, which is the basis of correct ment and moral esteem, and which fortifies one ag cynical estimates of his fellow-beings. It may be do whether any man gets through the world without strong provocations to despise human nature; par larly if his position be such as to bring him into fred collision, or rivalry, with large masses of men. Hum has its infirm side, and is prolific in a variety of mea hard for faith and affection to surmount. The pu envy of little minds will often embarrass the mental 8 as the Lilliputians bound the mighty form of Gul while he slept. Slanders will leap from the dark a fairest fame, as leeches spring upon the traveller's in the tropical woods. Popular caprice will baffle best endeavors, and the chronic stupidity of ignor will growl at the best public servant, as apparently pable of appreciating his worth as a herd of swine w be of admiring the graces of Apollo.

5 Says Bishop Taylor,-" Nature hath made friendships and ties, relations and endearments; and by something or other we to all the world; there is enough in every man that is willing to him become our friend; but when men contract friendships, inclose the commons; and what nature intended should be man's, we make proper to two or three. Friendship is like rivers the strand of seas and the air-common to all the world; but ty and evil customs, wars and want of love, have made them prope peculiar. But when Christianity came to renew our nature, a restore our laws, and to increase her privileges, then it wa clared that our friendships were to be as universal as our conv tion; that is, actual to all with whom we converse, and poten extended unto those with whom we did not. For he who was to his enemies with forgiveness and prayers, and love and benefic was indeed to have no enemies, and to have all friends."-From a course on the Nature, Offices, and Measures of Friendship.

Frequently the most generous naturés-who entered the world full of confiding trust and self-denying lovehave recoiled into skepticism and misanthropy, on obtaining a practical knowledge of human duplicity. It is sad that such beings should ever become thus perverted, and that a cause should exist adequate to such a result. But we must have patience with these trials, and not allow personal experiences of meanness to dictate a theory of the absolute character of the race. Every pictured landscape has its phase of light, to show where the sunshine falls; and so every true vision of humanity or of Providence, has its gleam of promise opening up into the eternal future, where God sheds the full orb of His completed purpose over all the austerities and abuses of time. If we will humbly mingle with, and patiently study, our race; if we will survey them in all their attitudes, and under the prismatic lights that stream upon them from the ever-shifting world,-we shall find them still worthy of our respect and affection; for we shall then knownot only the vices by which they are subdued and made guilty, but those also which they resist, and thereby become noble. Thus shall we enrich our character by the exercise of mercy.

6

IV. We come now to the crown of character, which is religious fidelity. As religion is the greatest of realities, every well-adjusted nature will enthrone it over all its interests. Religious fidelity consists in subjecting the selfish passions or desires, to a recognized law of right, having its source in God, and its sanction in the weal of mankind. It is realized, not in conforming ourselves to

6 I quote the following illustrative passage from the Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, by his Widow:-"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 [perpetual ?] 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."

the world, but in transforming ourselves, by the re of our mind, that we may know what is the goo acceptable and perfect will of God. The highest t of such fidelity is seen when the human will is b into harmony with the Divine will,-when the ren heart images on its calm surface the spirit and maj the Eternal Father, when the strife of conflicting has ceased, and the victorious soul stands forth unclouded proportions of its greatness.

In closing, let us indicate by what method re fidelity may be expected to manifest itself in practic In the first place, it will make a man devoted to w conceives to be truth; for he will recognize in tru chief renovating power of providence, and will fee the devout philosopher, that it is no less than the b the Almighty. He will not extend his elastic tole alike over all dogmas, having no real faith in any will groove the outlines of his convictions upon the of his thought, and make them stand out in bold "I persuade myself," says Middleton, “that the li faculties of man, at the best but short and limited, be employed more rationally or laudably than search of knowledge; and especially of that sort relates to our duty, and conduces to our happines these inquiries, therefore, wherever I perceive any mering of truth before me, I readily pursue and enc to trace it to its source, without any reserve or caut pushing the discovery too far, or opening too g glare of it to the public. I look upon the discov any thing which is true as a valuable acquisiti society, which cannot possibly hurt or obstruct the effect of any other truth whatsoever; for they all på of one common essence, and necessarily coincide each other." Says Lord Bacon, "The inquiry of which is the love-making or wooing it; the knowled truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good c

nature.'

Religious fidelity will also enlist a man against p nent social abuses, such as intemperance and sla

7 Montagu's Selections; notes, p. 224.

1855.]

Elements of Character.

AMWORK

We do not say that it will lead him to act against these by any special method, which another man may prescribe. The method may be such as his own conscience approves as wisest; but by some method-in some manner-he is bound to strive against them, and with all his might. For how can he pray that God's kingdom may come, and His will be done here on earth, if the activities of his life do not correspond with the petition-if he does not labor to ensure the result he professes to desire? Well has Milton said, "I can not praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary; but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." To the same end, Bacon tells us that the life "which does not cast any beam of heat or light upon human society, is not known to divinity; and the necessity of advancing the public good censures that philosophy which flies perturbations."

And, lastly, religious fidelity demands that the Christian spirit shall be recognized in the province of legislation, and that justice shall be the corner-stone of a nation's greatness. A character such as we have portrayed, will not sanction the craft of demagogues,-nor wink at the base artifices of partizans,-nor rejoice in those schemes of unhallowed ambition, by which a nation's territory is augmented at the price of its honor. The upright and perfect man is the only true patriotthe only competent or safe politician; for he alone knows the sources of a country's real prosperity, and can alone furnish the elements of enduring national greatness.

A people can not commit a greater blunder, than to select for their rulers and representatives, men who are destitute of moral and religious qualifications. What can be more threatening to a nation's safety, or more discreditable to its moral sense, than to elevate into a place of trust and power, a man who has neither the fear of God to restrain him, nor the sentiment of honor to redeem the rottenness of his heart. Better to rely upon the unperverted instincts of the uneducated, than to peril the peace of the country, and bring suspicion upon our own moral consciousness, by giving the reins of authority into such reckless hands.

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