a city,"
but to the stronger man who "ruleth his own spirit." This stronger
man is he who, by discipline, exercises a constant control over his
thoughts, his speech, and his acts. Nine-tenths of the vicious desires
that degrade society, and which, when indulged, swell into the crimes
that disgrace it, would shrink into insignificance before the advance 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.

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.

Habit is formed by careful training. And it is astonishing how much
can be accomplished by systematic discipline and drill. See how, for
instance, out of the most unpromising materials--such as roughs
picked up in the streets, or raw unkempt country lads taken from the
plough--steady discipline and drill will bring out the unsuspected
qualities of courage, endurance, and self-sacrifice; and how, in the
field of battle, or even on the more trying occasions of perils
by sea--such as the burning of the SARAH SANDS or the wreck of
the BIRKENHEAD--such men, carefully disciplined, will exhibit the
unmistakable characteristics of true bravery and heroism!

Nor is moral discipline and drill less influential in the formation of
character. Without it, there will be no proper system and order in the
regulation of the life. Upon it depends the cultivation of the sense of
self-respect, the education of the habit of obedience, the development
of the idea of duty. The most self-reliant, self-governing man is always
under discipline: and the more perfect the discipline, the higher will
be his moral condition. He has to drill his desires, and keep them in
subjection to the higher powers of his nature. They must obey the word
of command of the internal monitor, the conscience--otherwise they will
be but the mere slaves of their inclinations, the sport of feeling and
impulse.

"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