Part 8

So in Life, if we compare our own lives with the lives of our neighbors, we shall be envious and jealous, or else self-conceited and proud; and our efforts will probably soon slacken, and then cease; and then we shall begin to go down hill, at the very moment, perhaps, when we are taking credit to ourselves for our rapid, or our finished, ascent. If, on the other hand, we compare our lives with that absolute perfection which the Lord sets before us as our model, we shall incur the danger of none of these vices; and though the greatness of our task may well cause us to "work in fear and trembling," we shall ever be cheered by the consciousness that "the Lord worketh within us both to will and to do."

When our characters take form in external Life, Thought must give us discrimination, Imagination must give us courage, and Affection must give us earnestness; then our external nature will be the transparent medium through which the internal nature will shine, with a lustre undiminished by the opacity which is sure to dim its radiance when dulness, fearfulness, or indolence inheres with the external nature; for then it forms a husk to hide, instead of a medium to display, the workings of the inner being.

The powers that have been treated of in the preceding essays are sometimes found to work well so long as they work upon abstractions; but so soon as they are required to work upon the daily Life, they fail of reaching so high a point of excellence as we think we had reason to anticipate. This results from the want of either discrimination, courage, or earnestness; and the inner nature cannot be thoroughly trained until these faculties are so developed by its life-giving power, that their weakness ceases to interfere with its movements when it seeks to manifest itself in external Life.

Thought can discriminate abstractions long before it can discriminate facts in their relations with Life. It can reason logically of the true and the false in the realms of the mind long before it can tell the right from the wrong with correctness and readiness in the daily ongoings of events. To discriminate justly here, we must be able to dissipate the mists with which the love of self and the love of the world obscure the way in which we tread; hiding that which we ought to love, and displaying in enlarged proportions the things that we do love, until reason loses all just data, and accepts whatever passion offers as foundation for its judgments. Persons thus misled, often think they really meant to walk steadfastly in the right path, and that they are not responsible for having wandered into the wrong. They call what they have done an error of judgment, and rest content in the belief that their intentions were good, and therefore they are not to blame. This may be true, for "to err is human," and none but the All-wise can be sure of always judging rightly. Still, when we know that we have done wrong through an error of judgment, we should carefully examine and see if we might not have avoided this mistake had we been more careful in our investigation of facts,--more conscientious in our process of adopting our opinions. If we thus catechized our past errors, we should probably find, that, in a large proportion of cases, our error sprang from some cause we might have prevented,--from carelessness, from blindness caused by the desire to gratify our own wishes, or from indolence; in fact, that what we fancied sprang from an error of judgment only, had a much deeper root, and drew its nourishment from undisciplined Affections.

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.