Duty : with illustrations of courage, patience and endurance

Front matter

v r ¢

LIBRARY

Brigham Young, University %

Preface

WENTY-FOUR years since, I wrote ‘‘Self- Help.’? It was published three years later, in 1859. The writing of that book was occasioned by an apparently slight circumstance. I had delivered a few lectures at Leeds to some young men, in a place that had been used as a temporary cholera hospital. I endeavored to point out to them that their happiness and well-being in after life depended very much upon themselves—upon their diligent self-culture, self-discipline, and self-control ; and, above all, upon the honest and upright performance of individual duty, which constitutes the glory of manly character. The results were more satisfactory than I could have expected. I found that many of these young men, as they grew up into manhood, were chosen to fill positions of trust, responsibility, and usefulness ; and some of them were pleased to attribute some measure of their honest success in life to their endeavors to work up to the spirit of the lessons which they had received from their instructor.

I was thus led to prepare the memoranda for a book on the same subject ; for books reach much farther than spoken words. I prepared the work in my leisure evening moments, after the hours of business ‘were over. I entitled the book ‘‘ Self-Help,”’ being able to find no better word to suit the purpose ; though mutual help, as well as self-help, was as prominently set forward.

When the book was prepared, I offered the manuscript to a London publisher, but it was declined

4 Preface.

with thanks. The Crimean war was then raging, and books were almost unsalable. It was not until after the ‘‘ Life of George Stephenson’’ had been published that I issued ‘* Self-Help,’’ through the kindness of Mr. Murray.

It was received most favorably. I owe my greatest thanks to the reviewers. I believe their reviews have been just. With very few exceptions, they have praised my efforts perhaps more than they deserved. And yet I knew nothing of them, nor they of me.

‘* Self-Help’? was translated and published in nearly every Huropean language, as well as into some of the languages or dialects of India and Japan. In America the book has been more widely published and read than in Great Britain. But the English author can never know the fate of his book in America. Piracy of English books is protected by American law ; and the honest publisher of New York is overwhelmed by the dishonest publisher of Chicago. I cannot understand why the American legislature should be less honest than the governments of France, Germany, and Italy. In all these countries international copyright is freely granted.

Thirteen years after the appearance of ‘‘Self- Help,’”’ during which I had been engaged with other works, I wrote and published ‘‘ Character.’’ I there endeavored to fill up the picture of the noble and magnanimous man and woman, and cited numerous examples taken from the lives of the best men and women who ever lived. It seemed to me that this was the best manner of impressing the minds of young people, by giving them invigorating examples of nobility of character. ‘‘ Some people exclaim,”’’ said Isaac Disraeli, ‘‘ give me no anecdotes of an author, but give me his works; yet I have often found that the anecdotes are more interesting than the works.’’? 'Thisis the example which I have always pursued. ‘‘ It is not,’’ said Plutarch, ‘‘in the most distinguished exploits that men’s virtues or vices may be best discovered, but frequently an action of

Preface. 5 small note, a short saying, or a jest, that distinguishes a person’s real character more than the greatest battles or the most important actions.”’

Five years later, ‘* Thrift?’ appeared. In that book I assumed the dignity of labor, and urged men to economize in order to secure their independence ; to provide for their families, with a view to the future ; to live a clean, sober, and manly life ; to avoid the horrible curse of drink, which keeps so many men and women poor ; and to raise them up to an elevation of virtue, morality, and religion. I believe that the book has done much good. Biase its publication many institutions have been formed for the establishment of National Thrift; and I know, from many correspondents, that thriving Penny Banks have been established where they did not exist before.

Five years after the publication of ‘‘ Thrift,’’ I now give ‘‘ Duty,’’—the last book of the series. I hope it will be as useful as its predecessors. I have, at all events, done my best, according to the faculty that still remains in me. The reader will find, in the following pages, numerous examples given of the | best and bravest men and women in the career of well-doing. 7

Great deeds are great legacies, which work with wondrous usury. By what men have done, we learn what men can do. A great career, though balked of its end, is still a landmark of human energy. He who approaches the highest point of the supreme quality of Duty is entitled to rank with the most distinguished of his race.

“The primal duties shine aloft like stars,

And charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers.’’

Lonpon, November, 1880.

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Chapter I. Duty—conscience

The sphere of Duty—The soldier at Pompeii—The Birkenhead—An Amer ican aR ib of Duty—Freedom—Conscience—Power of Will—Religion—Self-control—The best government—Pascal on life— Teachings of Socrates—Plato—The New Testament ideal—Dr. Mac- MOO OO DETACIET 8 oN sadle ua ieee <u dud nen ar oubs dee ecsieis vee eo rages 11-30

Chapter II. Duty In Action

Duty at home—Direction of the Will—Characterless men—Locke on the Will—School teaching and morality—Human liberty—Noble work—

_ Difficulties—Laziness—Deed of a foolish man—Regolution and courage—Professor Wilson—Trimming—Pessimists—Miracles of Genius— Culture—Cultivated apathy—Indifference—Goethe—Intellectual ability —Lady Verney on literature—Discipline of home—Baron Stoffel on Discipline—The ‘* Deluge... 0600 0s coe c oe eee ya tga oo. +. 01-53

Chapter III. Honesty —truth

Lying—Little lying—Regulus the Roman—Plato and Marcus Aurelius upon truth—Honesty in business—Depreciation of manufactures—The Chinese—The Americans—Baron Dupin’s warning —Competition—Quality of work—Bad work lying—Socrates on perfection of work—Wedgwood —Thomas Brassey—Strikes and bad times—Mr. Holyoake—America on money-making—America without apprentices—Badness of trade—Commercial gambling—Failures of Banks—Sadleir of Tipperary—Bishop of Peterborough on wealth-worship—Repudiation of Pennsylvania—Illinois remains honest—Honesty of a German peasant............... 54-76

Chapter IV. Men Who Cannot Be Bought

.The unprincipled—The French quack—Ilicit commissions—Honest men wanted—Foreign bribery—The Americans—Just men—Aristides and Phocion—Demosthenes—Diocletian—Other unbought men—Andrew Marvell— Ben Jonson—Goldsmith—Pulteney’s guinea—Earl of Chatham —William Pitt—Chamillard—Sir Arthur Wellesley—Marquis of Wellesley—Sir Charles Napier—Sir James Outram—Lord Lawrence—Sir Humphry Davy—Faraday—The house of Rothschild—Macaulay...77-9% vill Contents.

Chapter V. Courage—endurance

Courage and cowardice—Sir Philip Sydney—Enduring men—Value of martyrdom—St. Pancras—The early Christians—Slaughters at Rome— Courage of Telemachus—Fall of Rome and Greece—Effects of Christianity—Persecution for dogma— Spain—Philip JII.—Persecution in France—Massacre of St. Bartholomew—LHdict of Nantes revoked—Extensive martyrdom—The Huguenot character—Martyrs in England ; in Scotland—Discovery of toleration—William Penn—Jeremy Taylor’s apologue—Men of science, Bruno, Copernicus, Galileo—Kepler—Columbus—Victories and defeats—Leonidas, Judas Maccabeus—Arnold von Winkelried—Swiss women in the Pratigiu—Wallace, Bruce—Excommunication of Bruce—Siege of Orleans—Joan of Arc.............. 98-180

Chapter VI. Endurance To The End—savonarola

Arnold of Brescia—Dante—His banishment—State of Italy—Savonarola leaves home—His preachings—Enters Florence—Lorenzo de’.Medici— Savonarola Prior of St. Mark’s—Preaches in the Duomo—His great

ower—Death of Lorenzo—Piero de’ Medici—The French enter Italy— lorence a Republic—Improvement of the city—Savonarola threatened with assassination—Offered a Cardinal’s hat—Excommunicated by the Pope-—St. Mark’s attacked—Savonarola surrenders—His last exhortation—His torture, degradation, and death—Interest of Florence...131-154

CHAPTER VIL.

THE SAILOR.

Valor of seamen—Education of the sea—The sea the path of commerce—Sir Samuel Baker—Seamen the great discoverers—Portuguese, Dutch, English navigators—A great race of seamen—The Invincible Armada—Sir Francis Drake—Drake’s attack upon Spain—Strength of the Armada— Arrival off the coast—Fighting up the Channel—The Armada off Calais— The attacks— Wreck of the Armada—Sir Richard Grenville—Naval power and commerce—Napoleon and Nelson— Captain Riou—Captain Knowles of the Northfleet—The London—Mr. Plimsoll—Captain Freemantle of the Invincible—Captain Sharp and John M’Intosh—John Maynard on Lake Erie—The Sarah Sands—Lighthouses—The Smalls—The Eddystone—T‘he Skerryvore—The first lifeboat—Saving of life by lifeboats— The Van Kook—Courage at Fraserburgh—Self-devotion at Great Yar- TOG his Sia vip a iW chain te pbs be ora io Mie aie: Weis bd aha an edngle SOK porn Wee 155-187

Chapter VIII. The Soldier

Life of Duty—Henry IV.—Turenne—Von Moltke—Chevalier D’ Assis—Great men soldiers : Socrates, Eschylus, Sophocles, Xenophon, Ceesar, Horace, Dante, Peter the Hermit—Chaucer, Buchanan, Ben Jonson, Philip Sydney, Algernon Sydney, Davenant, Lovelace, Withers, Bunyan, Otway, and Farquhar—Steele, Coleridge, Sotheby, Cobbett, Lee, Murchison—Great soldiers of Spain: Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Calderon, Mendoza de Santillana, and others—The poet Camoens—Loyola, Descartes, Maupertuis, Malus, Niépce, Droz La Mark, Rochefoucauld, Courier--The Chevalier Bayard—General Washington—The Duke of Wellington—His ideas of Duty—His obedience, courage, patience, long-suffering—His difficulties in gh Sn and Spain—His humanity, impartiality, justice, truthfulness—Wellington and Napoleon—Von Stein in Prussia—Charles

Contents. 1x

Chapter IX. Heroism In Well-doing

Virtue and valor—Self-sacrifice—Misfortune—Opportunities for well-doing —The Plague—Epimenides—Cardinal Borromeo—First Sunday-school— The Plague in London—Bishop Morton at York—Dr. Hodges and the Plague—The Rev. W. Mompesson at Eyam—Typhus fever at Leeds— Deaths of good men—Surgeons in the shay phony Siar ek Wi Soaoep ae mMe Dr. Thompson at the Alma—Dr. Kay at Benares—Corporals Derbyshire and Hopper at Moultan—The monk at Cadiz—The brave woman at Matagorda—Nursing in time of war—Miss Nightingale at Scutari—Miss Stanley at Therapeia—Miss Florence Lees before Metz—Field hospital nursing— Miss Carpenter—Miss Chisholm-—Grace Vernon Bussel—Helen Petrie of the Shetlands—Grace Darling........_.. PRO TR AiR eR Re 223-252

Chapter X. Sympathy

St. John and the children—Uses of sympathy—Sympathy and philanthropy —Money overestimated—Goethe and suffering—Bishop Wilberforce— Dr. Norman Macleod—East of London—Edward Denison—Joseph de Maistre—Judge Talfourd on sympathy—Employers and employed— Domestic service—Annie Mackay—“ Don’t care’’—Political economy and service—Utilitarians—Burns on Wealth—Michael Angelo’s servant —Thoughtfulness and kindness—The Venetians—The family—Patience —Faraday—Charles Lamb and his sister—Lady Watson and her husband

-—A woman’s memory—A Methodist love-feast—Mr. Collyer on the power of sympathy—Dr. Martineau on Christianity—The poor—Robert Raikes and Sunday-schools—Joseph Lancaster—Mary Anne Clough, the Factory Girl—Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Society.............+. 253-281

Chapter XI. Philanthropy

Physical force—The power of gentleness—Heine on lepers—St. Vincent de Paul—John Howard—The state of prisons—Mrs. Fry—Mrs. Tatnall— Mr. Edmonds at Sing Sing—Captain Pillsbury—Thomas Wright of Manchester — Reclamation of convicts—Joseph Hume, and opening public places—The great Exhibition—Trusting men............. 282-310

Chapter XII. Heroism In Missions

The Duke of Wellington on missions—Career of a missionary—Augustine’s mission to England—North of England pagan—Conversion by Paulinus —Speech of a warrior—Missionaries in Europe, China, and Africa—St. Francis Xavier—Las Casas in the West Indies—Christianizes the natives —Dr. Moffat in Africa—Dr. Livingstone—Islands of Polynesia—John Williams—London Missionary Society—Industry taught—Builds a ship —Cats and rats—Visits England—The martyr of Erromanga—Bishop Selwyn — Bishop Patteson —His voyages—His labors--His death at Nukapa—Commodore Goodenough—-Jonathan Edwards......... 311-341 x Contents.

Chapter XIII. Kindness To Animals

Cruelty—Bull-baiting—Richard Martin’s Act—Birds at Hurlingham—Birds’ wings—Protection of wild birds—Kingfishers in India—Wild fowl in Norway—Capture of larks—Kindness to larks at Aberdeen—Leonardo da Vinci—The old hermits—St. Francis—Humanity of birds—The battue —Napier and Outram—Albertus of Siena—Bird-killing in .France— Cruelty to scholars—Cruelty to children—A Christ’s Hospital flogging —Cruelty to animals—The donkey—The dog’s reason—His conscience —His affection—The dog Bobby—Sir Walter Scott and the dog—Famous dogs—Dogs of Pompeii and Herculaneum-—The brute better than the man—Androcles and the lion—Voltaire on the rights of animals— Old Tabby—Thoreau and the animals—Theodore Parker—The horse ‘¢ Cruiser” —Mr, Rarey—Non @ Cristiano—Sights at Naples— Horses in London—Miss Lisetta Rest—Cruelty to horses—The war-horse. ..342-365

Chapter XIV

HUMANITY TO HORSES—E. F. FLOWER.

Slavery of the horse—The horse in France—Bearing-reins—The missionary of horses—Chamber of Torture—Mr. Flower on ponies and horses— Emigrates to America—Landing at New York and Philadelphia—The convoy—Travelling westward—The Alleghany Mountains—Pittsburg— Rafts on the Ohio—Cincinnati—Lexington—Mr. Henry Clay—Slavery— The Rappites—The prairies—Home in the Far West—Want of food— ad reaped the Wabash—Warrington, Albion—Education of ‘‘ Ned”— Hunting the deer—The bear—Progress of the colony—The slaves—War with the oi“ tah gh cg pa pe i determined to assassinate Flower—The result—Leaves for England—Little Penn—Education at New Lanark and London—Enters business, marries, and thrives— Attempts to abate cruelty to horses—Bits and bearing-reins—Fashion and humanity—Results of Mr. Flower’s labors.......... .cseees 366-

Chapter XV. Responsibility

Duty and being— Mutual aid—Example—Negation—Science in Faith—The useless man—Operation of character—Perthes—The young man—Eternity of words and examples—Good and evil—Bad books—Responsibility of authors—The leprous book—The scrofulous novel—The giggling book—Scott’s novels —Charles Dickens—A book a living voice. Cae of Wordsworth—Krilof’s fable, ‘‘ The Author and the Robber’’ . .389-399

Chapter XVI. The Last

Youth and old age—The invisible messenger—Wilkie in the Escurial— Frederick the Great—The great Cyrus—Xerxes—Pericles—Mahmond the Ghiznevide—The Manchester manufacturer—Charles [X.—Sydne Smith at Castle Howard—Cardinal Mazarin—Sir Harry Vane—Sir Walter Raleigh—The French Marshal—Sir John Moore—Sir Walter Scott —Kant at death—Jeremy Taylor on life—A man’s true life—St. Francis of Assisi—Last words of Sir Walter Raleigh ... ....csccccecsees

La edb ot ae

Chapter I Duty—conscience

He walked attended By a strong-aiding champion—Conscience. MILTON.

Whate’er thy race or speech, thou art the same ; Before thy eyes Duty, a constant flame, Shines always steadfast with unchanging light, Through dark days and through bright. ; The Ode of Life.

Why, O man, do you vituperate the world? The world is most beautiful, framed by the best and most perfect reason, though to you indeed it may be unclean and evil, because you are unclean and evil in a good world.—MARsILIus FIcINUs.

AN does not live for himself alone. He lives for the good of others as well as of himself. Every one has his duties to perform—the richest as well as the poorest. To some life is pleasure, to others suffering. But the best do not live for self-enjoyment, or even for fame. Their strongest motive power is hopeful, useful work in every good cause. Hierocles says that each one of us is a centre, circumscribed by many concentric circles. From ourselves the first circle extends—comprising parents, wife, and children. The next concentring circle comprises relations ; then tellow-citizens ; and lastly, the whole human race.

12 Duty— Conscience. [ CHAP, “1.

To do our duty in this world toward God and toward man, consistently and steadily, requires the cultivation of all the faculties which God hath given us. And He has given us everything. It is the higher Will that instructs and guides our will. It is the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, that makes us responsible to man here, and to God hereafter.

The sphere of Duty is infinite. It exists in every station of life. We have it not in our choice to be rich or poor, to be happy or unhappy ; but it becomes us to do the duty that everywhere surrounds us. Obedience to duty, at all costs and risks, is the very essence of the highest civilized life. Great deeds must be worked for, hoped for, died for, now as in the past.

We often connect the idea of Duty with the soldier’s trust. We remember the pagan sentinel at Pompeii, found dead at his post, during the burial of the city by the ashes of Vesuvius, some eighteen hundred years ago. This was the true soldier. While others fled, he stood to his post. It was his Duty. He had been set to guard the place, and he never flinched. He was suffocated by the sulphureous vapor of the falling ashes. His body was resolved to dust, but his memory survives. His helmet, lance, and breastplate are still to be seen at the Museo Borbonico at Naples.

This soldier was obedient and disciplined. He did what he was appointed to do. Obedience, to the parent, to the master, to the officer, is what every one who would do right should be taught to learn. Childhood should begin with obedience. Yet age does not absolve us. We must be obedient even to the end. Duty, in its purest form, is so constraining that one never thinks, in performing it, of one’s self at all. It is there. It has to be done without any thought of self-sacrifice.

To come to a much later date than that of the Roman soldier at Pompeii. When the Birkenhead went down off the coast of Africa, with her brave soldiers

CHAP. I.] Duty— Conscience. a

on board firing a few de jove as they sank beneath the waves, the Duke of Wellington, after the news arrived in England, was entertained at the Banquet of the Royal Academy. Macaulay says: ‘‘ I remarked (and Mr. Lawrence, the American Minister, remarked the same thing) that in his eulogy of the poor fellows who were lost, the Duke never spoke of their courage, but always of their discipline and subordination. He reeated it several times over. The courage, I suppose, e treated as a matter of course.”’

Duty is self-devoted. It is not merely fearlessness. The gladiator who fought the lion with the courage of a lion was urged on by the ardor of the spectators, and never forgot himself and his prizes. Pizarro was full of hardihood. But he was actuated by his love of gold in the midst of his terrible hardships.

‘*“'Do you wish to be great ?’’ asks St. Augustine. “Then begin by being little. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. Modest humility is beauty’s crown.”’

The best kind of duty is done in secret, and without sight of men. There it does its work devotedly and nobly. It does not follow the routine of worldlywise morality. It does not advertise itself. It adopts a larger creed and a loftier code, which to be subject to and to obey is to consider every human life, and every human action, in the light of an eternal obligation to the race. Our evil or our careless actions incur debts every day, that humanity, sooner or later, must discharge.

But how to learn to do one’s duty? Can there be any difficulty here? First, there is the pervading, abiding sense of duty to God. Then follow others : Duty to one’s family ; duty to our neighbors ; duty of masters to servants, and of servants to masters ; duty to our fellow-creatures; duty to the state, which has also its duty to perform to the citizen.

Many of these duties are performed privately. Our

14 Duty—Conscrence. | CHAP. 1.

public tife may be well known, but in private there is that which no one sees—the inner life of the soul and spirit. We have it in our choice to be worthy or worthless. No one can kill our soul, which can perish only by its own suicide. If we can only make ourselves and each other a little better, holier, and _ nobler, we have perhaps done the most that we could.

Here is the manner in which an American legislator stood to his post :

An eclipse of the sun happened in New England about a century ago. The heavens became very dark, and it seemed by many that the Day of Judgment was at hand. The Legislature of Connecticut happened then to be in session, and on the darkness coming on, a member moved the adjournment of the House, on which an old Puritan legislator, Davenport of Stamford, rose up and said tinat if the last day had come, he desired to be found in his place and doing his duty ; for which reasons he moved that candles should be brought, so that the House might proceed with its business. Waiting at the post of Duty was the maxim of the wise man, and he carried his motion.

There was a man of delicate constitution, who devoted a great deal of his time to philanthropic work. He visited the sick, he sat by them in their miserable homes, he nursed them and helped them in all ways. He was expostulated with by his friends for neglecting his business, and threatened with the illness he was sure to contract by visiting the fevered and the dying. He replied to his friends, with firmness and simplicity, ‘‘ I look after my business for the sake of my wife and my children, but I hold that a man’s duty to society requires him to have a care for those who are not of his own household.’’

These were the words of a willing servant to duty. It is not the man who gives his money that is the true benefactor of his kind, but the man who gives himself. The man who gives his money is adver-

CHAP. I. | Duty— Conscience. 15 tised ; the man who gives his time, strength, and soul, is beloved. ‘The one may be remembered, while the other may be forgotten, though the good influence he has sown will never die.

But what is the foundation of Duty? Jules Simon has written a valuable work, ‘* Le Devoir,’’ in which he makes duty depend upon liberty. Men must be free in order to perform their public duties, as well as to build up their individual character. They are free to think; they must also be free to act. At the same time liberty may be used to do evil rather than to do good. The tyranny of a multitude is worse than the tyranny of an individual. Thoreau, the American, says that modern freedom is only the exchange of the slavery of feudality for the slavery of opinion. |

Freedom, enjoyed by all men alike, is a late idea in history.* In remote ages, men who were so-called ‘* free’’ possessed the right of being served by slaves. There was slavery in the state, and also in the family. It existed in republics as well as in monarchies. The elder Cato, the greatest economist of Republican Rome, enforced the expediency of getting rid of old slaves to avoid the burden of their maintenance. The

* The feeling that labor is not an honorable occupation is but a survival of the old pagan and feudal times, when the plough was left to the slaves, and only the villeins hoed the corn. The Roman definition of gentility was gentem habent soli cujus parentis nemini servierunt—‘‘ those only are genteel whose ancestors have never served.’’ The idea prevalent in the North American Republic, according to which slave blood, in even the extremest branch contaminates, is decidedly of Roman origin. ‘‘ Dear German peasants,’’ says Heine, ‘‘ go to America ; there you will find neither princes nor nobles ; all men are equals, with the exception, in truth, of a few millions who have a black or a brown skin, and are treated like dogs. He who has the least trace of negro descent, and betrays his vrigin no longer in color, but in the form of his features, is forced to suffer the greatest humiliations. . . . Doubtless many a noble heart may there in silence Jament the universal self-seeking and unrighteousness. Would he, however, strive against it, a martyrdom awaits him which surpasses all European conception,”

sick and infirm slaves were carried to the island of Esculapius, in the Tiber, where they were suffered to die of disease or of hunger. In Imperial Rome, the Populus Romanus was dependent upon charity. In ingland also, when slavery was abolished, and when the poor were no longer fed by the charity of the monasteries, a poor law was established, which was only a compensation for the loss of liberty.

There is a stronger word than Liberty, and that is Conscience. From the beginning of civilization the power of this word has been acknowledged. Menander, the Greek poet, who lived three hundred years before Christ, duly recognized it. ‘‘In our own breast,’’ he said, “‘ we have a god—our conscience.”’ Again he says, ‘‘’Tis not to live, to live for self alone. Whenever you do what is holy, be of good | cheer, knowing that God himself takes part with rightful courage. The rich heart is the great thing that man wants.’

Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct. It first reveals itself when we become aware of the strife between a higher and a lower nature within us—of spirit warring against flesh—of good striving for the mastery over evil. Look where you will, in the church or without the church, the same struggle is always going on—war for life or death ; men and women wrung with pain because they love the good and cannot yet attain it.

It is out of this experience that Religion is born— the higher’ law leading us up to One whom the law of conscience represents. ‘‘ It is an introspection,’’ says Canon Mosely, ‘* on which all religion has been built. Man going into himself and seeing the struggle within him, and thence getting self-knowledge, and thence the knowledge of God.’’ Under this influence man knows and feels what is right and wrong. He has the choice between good and evil. And because he is free to choose, he is responsible.

Whatever men may theoretically believe, none

CHAP. I.] Duty— Conscience. 1 practically feel that their actions are necessary and inevitable. ‘here is no constraint upon our voli tion. We know that we are not compelled, as by a spell, to obey any particular motive. ‘‘ We feel,”’ says John Stuart Mill, “‘ that if we wished to prove that we have the power of resisting the motive, we could do so; and it would be humiliating to our pride, and paralyzing to our desire of excellence, if we thought otherwise.”’

Our actions are controllable, else why do men all over the world enact laws? They are enacted in order to be obeyed, because it is the universal belief, as it is the universal fact, that men obey them or not, very much as they determine. We feel, each one of us, that our habits and temptations are not our masters, but we of them. Even in yielding to them we know that we could resist, and that, were we desirous of throwing them off altogether, there could not be required for that purpose a stronger desire or will than we know ourselves to be capable of feeling.

To enjoy spiritual freedom of the highest kind, the mind must have been awakened by knowledge. As the mind has become enlightened, and conscience shows its power, the responsibility of man increases. He submits himself to the influence of the Supreme Will, and acts in conformity with it—not by constraint, but cheerfully ; and the law which holds him is that of Love. In the act of belief, implying knowledge and confidence, his humanity unfolds. He feels that by his own free act, his faith in and his working in conformity to the purpose of a Divine Will, he is achieving good, and securing the highest

ood.

‘* Man without religion,’’ says Archdeacon Hare, ‘is the creature of circumstances ; but religion is above all circumstances, and will lift him up above them.’” And Thomas Lynch, in his Theophilus Trinal, says, ‘‘ Till fixed, we are not free. The acorn must be earthed ere the oak will develop. The man of faith is the man who has taken root—taken root in God; our works prove our heart—our heart in God.’? In the New Testament we find, ‘‘ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.’? And Cowper : ** He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside.”’

Where there is no such acknowledgment of Divine law, men act in obedience to sense, to passion, to selfishness. In indulging any vicious propensity, they know they are doing wrong. Their conscience condemns them. The law of nature cries out against them. They know that their act has been wilful and sinful. But their power to resist in the future has become weakened. Their will has lost power ; and next time the temptation offers, the resistance will be less. Then the habit is formed. The curse of every evil deed is that, propagating still, it brings forth evil.

But conscience is not dead. We cannot dig a grave for it, and tell it to lie there. We may trample it under foot, but it still lives. Every sin or crime has, at the moment of its perpetration, its own avenging angel. Wecannot blind our eyes to it, or stop our ears toit. ‘‘’Tis conscience that makes cowards of us all.””. There comesa day of judgment, even in this world, when it stands up confronting us, and warning us to return to the life of well-doing.

Conscience is permanent and universal. It is the very essence of individual character. It gives a man self-control—the power of resisting temptations and defying them. Every man is bound to develop his individuality, to endeavor to find the right way of life, and to walk in it. He has the will to do so: he has the power to be himself and not the echo of somebody else, nor the reflection of lower conditions, nor the spirit of current conventions. True manhood comes from self-control—from subjection of the lower powers to the higher conditions of our being.

The only comprehensive and sustained exercise of

CHAP. I.] Duty— Conscience. | 19 self-control is to be attained through the ascendenc of conscience—in the sense of duty performed. It is conscience alone which sets a man on his feet, frees him from the dominions of his own passions and propensities. It places him in relation to the best interests of his kind. ‘The truest source of enjoyment is found in the paths of duty alone. LEnjoyment will come as the unbidden sweetener of labor, and crown every right work.

At its fullest growth conscience bids men do whatever makes them happy in the highest sense, and forbear doing whatever makes them unhappy. ‘‘ There are few if any among civilized people,’’ says Herbert Spencer, ‘‘ who do not agree that human well-being is in accordance with the Divine Will. The doctrine is taught by all our religious teachers ; it is assumed by every writer on morality ; we may therefore safely consider it an admitted truth.”

Without conscience, a man can have no higher rinciple of action than pleasure. He does what he ikes best, whether it be sensuality or even sensuous

intellectual enjoyment. We are not sent into the world to follow our own bent—to indulge merely in self-satisfaction. The whole constitution of nature works against this idea of life. The mind ought never to be held in subjection to the lower parts of our nature. There can be no self-sacrifice, no self-denial, no self-control—except what may be necessary to avoid the consequences of human law.