XVIII.

"Quit Yourselves like Men."

66

Know, sir, that the wings
On which my soul is mounted have long since
Borne her too high to stoop to any prey
That soars not upwards. Sordid and dunghill
Minds, composed of earth, in that gross element
Fix all their happiness; but purer spirits,
Purged and refined, shake off that clog of
Human frailty."

ARLYLE says man's function "is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true things." To be a man is to be manly, and

to be manly is to do nothing mean or untrue. To be manly, it is needful to cherish thoughts that will bear the light of day, to perform actions that can endure the closest scrutiny of conscience, and so to live that no moment will cause a blush now or occasion punishment hereafter. How would the errors of youth, of manhood, of old age, be swept away and prevented, if the thought should occur on the doing of any action,— "Is this right, is this true, is this manly? Should I do it in the presence of a parent, a sister, a friend? and can I do it with a clear and an approving conscience in the presence of an all-seeing and all-knowing God?"

This can only be done by the exercise of restraint, by resisting manfully the temptations to evil, and living in innocence, let the cost in privation be what it may. It is a false and foolish notion, that the exercise of liberty to do wrong-is manliness, and that the restraint of liberty is the forfeiture of manliness. Restraint in doing wrong is conformity to the law of right; and he that does right is manly, while he that does wrong is the opposite. The law of obedience-for that is the law of restraint-is a condition of order and happiness; and without obedience, conformity to law, the true purposes of life will go awry, and success in life will not be achieved.

Early in life the thought occurs that to throw off the guidance and direction of parents and friends, to be self-directed, is manly. To adopt the habits, the manners, the course of life of companions, however objectionable that course may be, is manly. Thousands, tens of thousands, have been ruined by imitating what are wrongly termed manly habits. No well-conducted youth but would feel a blush of shame on ordering and drinking spirits for the first time in a public room; but presently, in imitation of those who do not blush, the manly habit of drinking would be contracted, and a life commenced which might end in confirmed drunkenness. The conscience, when not seared and dulled, is ever true in its pointing to the right path; its faintest doubts should lead away from temptation with the strength of unyielding determination. There should be no parleying or reasoning when conscience says No.

Conscience is the manliest instinct, and to obey its teaching and to follow its leading is in the highest and best sense to be manly. That which degrades and lowers a man's self-respect, which causes him in his better moments, when true to himself, to think meanly of his conduct, and to blush at the thought of the course he has pursued, cannot be manly in any sense. Manliness is the parent of fearlessness. Only he that has done wrong shuns the light and dreads exposure. There is no more glorious sight in creation than a fearless, honest, and upright man. What has he to fear or dread? When Shakespeare says:

"Conscience does make cowards of us all,”

he can only mean that it makes cowards of those who have done wrong, who cannot bear the stings of remembrance and the thought of evil which has been done.

But not only in performed actions is the conscience seared and dulled, but by indulgence in morbid thoughts. The real life which is lived by every man is in the mind. That which is seen may only be seeming-not the reflex of the innermost thought. The mind has properly been described as a kingdom, the ordering of which is as important as the directing of a state. To control the thoughts, to subdue base and impure thoughts, to call them home from wandering wickedly and unwisely into forbidden paths, is the work of men-is the manly work which elevates humanity, and brings us nearer to the ideal of truth

and purity. Battling with the world and its many annoyances and troubles demands the lightest efforts, in comparison to the struggle needed to command the thoughts and to rule the desires.

"I solemnly warn you," says Henry Ward Beecher, "against indulging a morbid imagination. In that busy and mischievous faculty begins the evil. Were it not for his airy imaginations man might stand his own master-not overmatched by the worst part of himself. But, ah! these summer reveries, these venturesome dreams, these fairy castles, builded for no good purposes -they are haunted by impure spirits, who will fascinate, bewitch, and corrupt you. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed art thou, most favoured of God, whose THOUGHTS are chastened; whose imagination will not breathe or fly in tainted air, and whose path hath been measured by the golden reed of Purity."

In order that "the thoughts of our hearts" may be cleansed, we must not only battle with them when they obtrude, as evil thoughts will obtrude under the most sacred conditions and circumstances, but there must be a firm resolve to quit companions and any company when improper subjects are discussed and indecent thoughts suggested. To do otherwise would be to parley with vice, to lay the heart open to the inroads of evil, and to forfeit all pretensions to manliness. The wrecking of many a life has been occasioned by suffering the ear to be entertained by an immodest joke, which, possibly, for the moment called a blush to the cheek, but which in future recitals of impure stories simply

incited silly laughter. If a stand is to be made against this inroad to a pure, manly life, which may become a vortex of perdition, it must be in the heart, the thoughts, the fountain of all action. But if this stand is not made at the outset, the next stage toward ruin is delight in the society of the coarse, the obscene, and licentious in action and conversation.

When a resolute determination to resist the inroads of these contaminating and destructive evils is not made. and kept, from that hour there is a difference in the feelings, the condition, and the prospects of the young man who thus relinquishes himself to the mastery of morbid and impure thoughts. He may not be aware of the change; but the ingenuous confidence of innocence is lost. Home is no longer the home that it has been. The presence and companionship of parents and sisters, hitherto affording delight in mutual confidence and intercourse, now only occasion embarrassment and confusion-the result of the loss of innocence and the natural purity of thought. That which is obtained in exchange for previous open, ingenuous, cheerful, sportive demeanour, is morbid sullenness, reserve, and passionate irritability. In this instance, as in all instances, if law is violated punishment follows. And what a punishment! To have every fine feeling dulled, if not destroyed! To contract a repugnance to everything of a religious nature-prayer and public worship becoming irksome and a penance instead of an enjoyment! Against this destruction of life-of all that is holy and all that makes life happy-the battle must be fought with a