ose
nature is imperfectly or abnormally developed. Now it is through the
thorough training and faithful exercise of his moral faculties and powers
that man is most capable of influence, best fitted for usefulness, and
endowed with the largest capacity for happiness. History shows this. The
men whose lot (if any but our own) we would be willing to assume, have
been, without an exception, good men. If there are in our respective
circles those whose position we deem in every respect enviable, they are
men of preeminent moral excellence. We would not take--could we have it--the
most desirable external position with a damaged character. Probably there
are few who do not regard a virtuous character as so much to be desired,
that in yielding to temptation and falling under the yoke of vicious
habits they still mean to reform and to become what they admire. Old men
who have led profligate lives always bear visible tokens of having
forfeited all the valuable purposes of life, often confess that their
whole past has been a mistake, and not infrequently bear faithful
testimony to the transcendent worth of moral goodness. To remain satisfied
without this is, therefore, a sin against one's own nature, a sacrifice of
well-being and happiness which no one has a right to make, and which no
prudent man will make.

Self-culture in virtue implies and demands reflection on duty and on the
motives to duty, on one's own nature, capacities and liabilities, and on
those great themes of thought, which by their amplitude and loftiness
enlarge and exalt the minds that become familiar with them. The mere
tongue-work or hand-*work, of virtue slackens and becomes deteriorated,
when not sustained by profound thought and feeling. Moreover, it is the
mind that acts, and it puts into its action all that it has--and no more--of
moral and spiritual energy, so that the same outward act means more or
less, is of greater or less worth, in proportion to the depth and vigor of
feeling and purpose from which it proceeds. It is thus that religious
devotion nourishes virtue, and that none are so well fitted for the duties
of the earthly life as those who, in their habitual meditation, are the
most intimately conversant with the heavenly life.

In moral self-culture great benefit is derived from example, whether of
the living or the dead. Perhaps the dead are, in this respect, more useful
than the living. In witnessing the worthy deeds and beneficent agency of a