ce of valiant self-discipline, self-respect, and
self-control. By the watchful exercise of these virtues, purity of heart
and mind become habitual, and the character is built up in chastity,
virtue, and temperance.

5. THE BEST SUPPORT.--The best support of character will always be found in
habit, which, according as the will is directed rightly or wrongly, as the
case may be, will prove either a benignant ruler, or a cruel despot. We may
be its willing subject on the one hand, or its servile slave on the other.
It may help us on the road to good, or it may hurry us on the road to ruin.

6. THE IDEAL MAN.--"In the supremacy of self-control," says Herbert
Spencer, "consists one of the perfections of the ideal man. Not to be
impulsive, not to be spurred hither and thither by each desire that in turn
comes uppermost, but to be self-restrained, self-balanced, governed by the
joint decision of the feelings in council assembled, before whom every
action shall have been fully debated, and calmly determined--that it is
which education, moral education at least, strives to produce."

7. THE BEST REGULATED HOME.--The best regulated home is always that in
which the discipline is the most perfect, and yet where it is the least
felt. Moral discipline acts with the force of a law of nature. Those
subject to it yield themselves to it unconsciously; and though it shapes
and forms the whole character, until the life becomes crystallized in
habit, the influence thus exercised is for the most part unseen, and almost
unfelt. {15}

8. PRACTICE SELF-DENIAL.--If a man would get through life honorably and
peaceably, he must necessarily learn to practice self-denial in small
things as well as in great. Men have to bear as well as to forbear. The
temper has to be held in subjection to the judgment; and the little demons
of ill-humor, petulance, and sarcasm, kept resolutely at a distance. If
once they find an entrance to the mind, they are apt to return, and to
establish for themselves a permanent occupation there.

9. POWER OF WORDS.--It is necessary to one's personal happiness, to
exercise control over one's words as well as acts: for there are words that
strike even harder than blows; and men may "speak daggers," though they use
none. The stinging repartee that rises to the lips, and which, if uttered,
might cover an adversary with confusion, how difficult it is to resist
saying it! "Heaven, keep us," says Miss Bremer, in her 'Home', "from