THE INVISIBLE SHOULD GOVERN THE VISIBLE. 119

suck out our blood; to labor for the visible in life is to sow and reap not. The flower of human beauty and the wheat of human harvest are unseen. In the realm of mind, when Reason is king and Love is queen, we should find the objects of life. To discipline and develop the children of the spirit, the immortal powers of our inmost being, is the true end of life. Not for the Seen, but the Unseen, should we labor, think, and hope. The visible world should be our field, and its garniture and all therein should be our implements. Sense should administer to soul; matter pay court to mind; time serve eternity; the Seen augment the glory of the Unseen. Over all that is sensuous should the spirit rule.

Sublime is the beauty of How all the appetites, and

a spirit enthroned in sense. passions, and lusts bow down in abeyance, and become beautiful in their garniture of humility and labors of usefulness! Every sense is a servant of the mind, and when held in subjection is beautifully useful. "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city."

Lecture Ten.

CHARACTER AND REPUTATION.

Character and Reputation Defined-The Ass in the Lion's Skin-Character and Reputation Compared-Men do not Read Character well-A Science of Character-General Correspondence between Character and Reputation-Reputation follows Character-We should not meddle with our own Reputations-Illustrations-Every Man Forms his own Character-It is not Made in a Day-Character is the Fruit of Culture and Discipline-Where Characters are Made --Washington, Franklin, Burritt-Character the Standard of Progress-Associations-Influence of Collective Character-Examples.

By Character I understand what a man is; by Reputation what he is thought to be. Falstaff was a coward; but he wanted the reputation of a man of valor; and if he had labored as hard for the character of bravery as he did for the reputation, he would have gained both.

Men often possess one kind of character and another kind of reputation. Some men possess white characters and black reputations; other men have black characters and white reputations. The ass sometimes wears the lion's skin, and when he doubles down his ears and keeps his mouth shut he gets the lion's reputation. But folding down his ears, sealing up his braying mouth, and covering up his donkey feet never so adroitly, will fail to dignify him with the lion's character. Philosophers in their day

CHARACTER AND REPUTATION DEFINED.

121 are often thought to be fools, and genius is often nicknamed "crackbrains." The most rigid and literal readers of nature among the ancients had the reputation of being visionary, while the most visionary of their senseless mythologists were resorted to as oracles of the all-pervading Divinity. The history of the Christian Church, written in the blood of martyred saints, records a thousand instances of Christian character dying at the stake of heretical reputation; and the great Teacher, Founder, and Liver of the true religion died as a malefactor. Character and Reputation, then, are very far from being synonymous. Character relates to the man, Reputation to the world. Character is personal property, Reputation is public domain; Character is capital in trade in a man's own business, Reputation is stock in public affairs which is managed by the community. Every man has a character and reputation, and between them there may be a beautiful and truthful correspondence, or there may be at great difference. Between Character and Reputation there generally is a greater or less degree of correspondence. Few are the men so fortunate as to be estimated at their true value. The plodding day-laborer is often estimated at not more than forty shillings, when he is worth his weight in gold ten times over, and the half of his value is not told then; while the pompous, bloated,, professional man or office-holder is put down at a hundred thousand pounds, when his real value is only a few farthings.

Men are not always what they appear to be to the un

122

THE ASS IN THE LION'S SKIN.

practiced eye of the world. The reason why men's reputations differ so much from their characters, is because men are such poor readers of character and have such false standards of judgment. They learn to read every thing else books, cattle, markets, merchants, nature, the signs of the times, but do not learn to read the language of Character. They have no literature elucidating the scenic beauties and varying proportions and relations of the man within. Nearly all men are Yankees in this respect-they guess out their neighbor's character. And such guessing it ought to make all honest Yankees blush! The ass is guessed a lion, the goat a sheep, the dove a hawk, and the serpent a very clever fellow. Now the truth is, there is a science of Character which reveals to the proficient student the exact conditions of the inward man. There is a law by which the outward man is made a reflex or copy of the inward, by which the form and features are molded, by which the voice is keyed, the eye lighted, the countenance sketched, the head balanced, the bearing gauged, the step controlled, and every motion of every member of the body directed. There is a law which illuminates the outward man with the revelations of the soul, and sketches the character in the thousand minute expressions that fall in living language as from many tongues, from the constant and varying movements of the human form which is instinct with Character. The knowledge of this law is the science of Character. Whoever is a faithful interpreter of this science understands the characters of the men who pass before him.

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And if all men were both theoretically and practically learned in this most beautiful and sublime of all sciences, our characters and our reputations would correspond; every man would be known as he is, estimated at his real value; deception would lay down her gossamer mask; the gaudy circumstances of life be assigned their proper places; Character would become the standard of the

man.

But after all the ignorance of man in the language of Character, their native shrewdness will guess pretty closely at each other's qualities. If they are at first deceived, they will shoot very near the mark after a while. So it may be considered a truism, that men's reputations generally correspond very nearly with their characters. In some points they may be over-estimated, in others undervalued; so that after all most men stand just about at par in the market. They are valued at just about what they are worth in the long run.

Although philosophers have been called fools and knaves good men, these are the exceptions rather than the general rule. If one man is over or undervalued, the thousand will be very nearly rightly estimated. Then the inference is, that if a man would have a good reputation he must have a good character. The former is the natural growth of the latter. If Reputation is valuable, it is made so by the value which Character gives it. As the general rule is that Reputation depends on Character, its entire value is drawn from its origin. Hence Character is the all-important, all valuable matter of consider