our character. And does not this
consideration make our mortal life of deep consequence to us?

All circumstances and experiences are chiefly important as affecting
this result. One of the highest views we can take of the universe is
that of a theatre for the soul's education. We are placed upon this
earth not to be absorbed by it, but to use it for the highest spiritual
occasions. We are placed among the joys and sorrows of our daily lives
to be trained for immortal issues. Our business, our domestic duties,
and all our various relations, constitute a school for our souls. Here
our affections and our powers are acted upon for good or for evil.
Grief strengthens our faith and elevates our thoughts; joy quickens
our gratitude, our obedience, and our trust; temptation forms in us an
exalted and spontaneous virtue, or enfeebles and enslaves us. Chiefly,
then, should we be solicitous about character, the plot of our life;
and in this solicitude our earthly existence rises to the highest
importance.

Let us, then, feel that our mortal career is not vague and aimless. Let
us realize that each life is a special history. The poorest, the most
obscure, has such a history; and although it may be unnoticed by men,
angels regard it with interest. The merchant, every day, in the dust,
and heat, and busy maze of traffic, unfolds a history. The beggar by the
way-side, it may be, outrivals kings in the grandeur and magnitude of
his history. In sainted homes,--in narrow nooks of life,--in the secret
heart of love, and prayer, and patience,--many a tale is told which
God alone sees, and which he approves. The needy tell a tale, in their
unrelieved wants and unpitied sufferings. The oppressed tell a tale,
that goes up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. The vicious tell a
tale of wo, and misspent opportunity, and wasted power. Let us think of
it, I beseech you! Each one of us in his sphere of action is developing
a plot which surely tells in character,--which is fast running into a
great fixed fact.

Once more, we may compare every life to "a tale that is told," because
it has a moral. Any story, good or bad,--the most pernicious work of
fiction, the most flimsy narrative, as the grandest history,--has its
significance. So it is with the life of a man. As all his conduct
he is building up the intrinsic results of character for
himself,--establishing in his own soul a fabric of welfare or of wo,--so
is he furnishing a lesson for other