LECTURE IV.

FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

Life is for a Purpose-A useless Life-What is Character?-Character Self-made -Duty of Parents-Chance Character always Evil-Choice of Vice or Virtue open to all-Will or Circumstance Clothe the Mind-Goodness the only Source of Happiness-Character is "catching"-Inter-relation of Minds-Power of silent Influence-Way to do Good to the World-Molding Immortal MindsEvery One can be a Benefactor-All intended to be Happy-A vicious Course one of Difficulty-Vice respects Virtue-Character the Soul's HabilimentCharacter Eternal.

It is well to pause on the threshold of life, and ask ourselves why we live. Life means something. It is charged with eternal significance. It is big with sublime realities. Every step is a word, every day is a sentence, every week is an oration, every year is a book, full of meaning as the sun is of light. Life is a book; and we write in it something, be it much or little, sense or nonsense. we write we can not unwrite. Our pen is time-our ink is And what indelible. What we write we write, and do it for eternity. Life is not mean it is grand. If it is mean to any, he makes it so. God made it glorious. Its channel He paved with diamonds. Its banks He fringed with flowers. He overarched it with stars. the glory of the physical universe-suns, moons, worlds, Around it He spread constellations, systems-all that is magnificent in motion, sublime in magnitude, and grand in order and obedience. God would not have attended life with this broad march

LIFE IS FOR A PURPOSE.

of grandeur, if it did not mean something.

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He would not

have descended to the blade of grass, the dew-drop, and the dust-atom, if every moment of life were not a letter to spell out some word that should bear the burden of a thought. How much life means, words refuse to tell, because they can not. Youth have stepped upon its threshold. Ought they not to ask, why they live-for what object? The very doorway of life is hung around with flowery emblems, to indicate that it is for some purpose. The mystery of our being, the necessity of action, the rela tion of cause to effect, the dependence of one thing upon another, the mutual influence and affinity of all things, assure us that life is for a purpose to which every outward thing doth point. But do men study the meaning of life? Do they find out for what they live? Some there are, scores of them, who appear to live as brutes live, for naught but because life is in them, and remains there. They have an instinctive disposition to live, and so they do live. But for what, they know not, nor seem to care. They neither ask what they are nor what they ought to be. They take no solemn thought of to-day, nor forethought of to-morrow. They live for what? Ask them. For nothing. Their lives are the sport of what is around them. See that thistle-down dancing on the breeze, hither, thither, up, down. It is an emblem of their lives. They aim at nothing. They live for no purpose. They move by no un varying principle. They carry out no plan of life. They have no plan. Life to them is a mazy web-work of cir cumstances. They fix no mark at which to strike. They

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run,

A USELESS LIFE.

and gain no race. They work, and accomplish nothing. They speak, but who regards it? They make much noise and bustle, but who care for them, more than to get out of their way? They have friends, but they are worth nothing. They live among neighbors, but they are nuisances. If they stay at home, nothing is done; if they go abroad, nobody values them. They walk about among men as other people, but they leave no track behind them. Their judgment is not respected, their friendship is not wanted, their hatred is not feared. Nobody cares for them but the politician at the election, and the sexton at their burial. What are they? To themselves, nothing; to the world, nothing. And yet they work as hard as any body, talk, and feel as much as their neighbors, and have a great deal more trouble. Many such there are; and they seem to be just what they are, because they live for nothing. They have not learned the meaning of life. They have nothing in particular to be or do, and hence are and do nothing in particular. They have no character to form or sustain, no profession to fill, no trade to follow. Many of them are industrious, well-meaning people, of fair abilities and respectable feelings. But they lack the one thing needful, an object in life, something to live for.

No youth who has learned the meaning of life is ambitious to fill the place of such people. Are you, my reader? But let us ask, what is the purpose of life? We answer,

it is the formation of a genuine character.

By this we

mean a real inbred cast of soul, not a reputation; for one may have a reputation for that which he is not.

WHAT IS CHARACTER?

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The vil

The knave may be reputed an honest man. lain may be believed to be good. The hypocrite may have a reputation for what he appears to be. The fop, the dandy of the tailor, may pass for a veritable man.

Character is what a man is; reputation is what he is thought to be. Character is within; reputation is without. Character is always real; reputation may be false. Character is substantial and enduring; reputation may be vapory and fleeting. Character is at home; reputation is abroad. Character is in a man's own soul; réputation is in the minds of others. Character is the solid food of life; reputation is the dessert. Character is what gives a man value in his own eyes; what he is valued at in the eyes of others.

his real worth; reputation is his market-price.

reputation is

Character is

If the attainment of reputation was the true object of life, it might be one magnificent game of deception and hypocrisy. Men would smile in villainy, and pray with the hand on the dagger's hilt. He who lives for fame is as likely to be a devil as a man, and far more so. He is u beggar, asking that which he ought to possess at the hands of others. He lives for the shadow, and not the reality. Fame that is lived for is a bubble, hollow and thin, which bursts in attempting to secure it. To live for fame is to miss it. To make this the object of life is to fail. Real fame, that is substantial, is that which follows, not that which is run after; that which comes, not that which is sought. He who lives for fame lives in vain, for he ends life poor as he commenced it, and often poorer, for he has

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CHARACTER SELF-MADE.

robbed himself of innocence, and clothed his soul in the red garments of guilt. He has sacrificed his soul's health for the disease of sin.

No, not for this should man live, but for real character, for worth of soul, for wealth of heart, for the diamond-dust of mind. He should live to be what be ought to be, and do what he ought to do; live to make his soul great and good, to clothe it in the garments of light, and fill it with the warmth of love. Then fame will come delighted to crown him with her wreaths of honor. Then reputation will shake hands with character, and the twain will be one forever.

A man's character is what he makes for himself; it is his own workmanship; it is the statue of the man of his conception, which he carves in the studio within. It is the man he paints on the soul's canvas. God makes the soul; man makes the character. The child-soul is without character. It is a rudimental mental existence, pure as the driven snow, beautiful as a cherub angel, spotless, guileless, and innocent. It is the chart of a man, yet to be filled up with the elements of a character. Those elements are first marked on it by its parents or guardians. They limb out the first rude sketch of a character. With what delicacy should they use the pencil of parental influence, in sketching the outlines of their child's character! The young soul is soft, and the lines they make are deep, and not easily erased. It is a man they form. Responsible work! It is an immortal soul they work upon, destined to survive the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds, and bear on