soi Bitspate Sens aa at SereLIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA er Louthan t in memory of Ur. Henry T. LouthanSPREE thea ra as aSELF-LOVE: OR, THK AFTERNOON OF SINGLE LIFE. A COMPANION TO “ JEALOUSY,” AND “FALSE PRIDE.” *“Ye may twine the living flowers Where the living fountains glide, And beneath the rosy bowers Let the selfish man abide; And the birds upon ‘the wing, ° ? °. >. 9 OSS FO And the, barks uwpcn the wavs, ~ Slallivp sense of freedom bring, Ali is’slavery to the slave ; : Marangon'’s cloge-lifik’d, Chaias have hound him, »Selg-tra posed and séldvm paste 22. 6 a Though heaven’y waiters gush?around Lim, ’ He would pine with earth’s poor thirst.’’ — Philadelphta: T B. PETERSON & BROTHERS; 306 CHESTNUT STREET.Vat alm Pagrenteayewe, ‘a oer. as » ~ te RUT. ’ ‘ >. - 3 sa fe: CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Prospects of Middle Age—Its Trials Acknowledged—De- scriptions of Melancholy—The Wish to Please—A Beauti- ful Demeanor—Perilous Self-Deception—The Love of Power—Vanity—Spiritual Disgrace—Divine Pity—Cha- grin traced to its Roots seeeeteeeversee eevee sers ee eeeeeeeee@ CHAPTER IL. Extinguished Love—The Probation of Faith—Self-Centred A ffections—The Delusiveness of Grief .........eceeees CHAPTER IIL The Issues of Hope—Misconstrued Lessons—Matured Con- victions—A. Short Time Left—Many Kinds of Joy—Spirit- ual Revolutions—Joy part of a Christian’s Duty........ CHAPTER IV. Modes of Action Manifold—The Worth of Popular Truth— Discernment of Natural Gifts—The Use of Study—The Difficulty of Self-Control—Nervous Embarrassments— Fretting over Troubles—Learning a Defence....... ee 26-47 48-57 58-72ee e -” Céntenits. CHAPTER V. Pathetic Follies—Unseasonable A ffections—Leaving an Old Home—Personal Influence—The Unremovable Strong- ie OM anette itis seesaw ee thcesee “aes OB—1DB CHAPTER VI. Simplicity—Cordial Manners—The Tyranny of Fashion— Servitude to the World—Childish Excess—Gentle Reform- ers—Late Reconciliation to Gossip... .. CHARTER: VU Selfishness—An Appeal to Memory—Low Spirits in the So- ciety of Dolls—Treatment of Youthful Hopes—Plaintive Teudencies—Presumption of the Inexperienced—L’ Esprit moqueur, S08 SFC 1S). @) 6 B26 8 & 01.6.6 10 10.016 168 6.818) bo CHAPTER VIII. Girlish Follies—Unsettled Opinions—Restrictive Measures Inefficient—Docility Becoming at all Ages—Secret Causes of Disturbance—Good Manners........ bie Stable cere dei L60 CHAPTER IX. Sorrows of Loneliness—Sufferings from Pity—The Help Lookers-on may Give—Unequal Discharge of Duties—— Virtue in Theory—Sufferings of the Poor—Sisterhoods— Reformation Carried on at Home—A Substitute for Un- natural Systems..... ee etre wm eee ee <8 suesesbevare LO1—18 CHAPTER x. Agreeable Manners—Consistency with Professed Belief— Patriotism—English Virtue—Frivolous Anxieties—A Rea- son for Studying History—Advantages Seldom Combined. 181-19 eRe swdeiesns a0 0. LU0LoG 9-146 0 rt ; 7] iContents. CHAPTER XI. Disregard of Appearances—Right Judgment in all Things— Disordered Rooms—Woman’s Work Neglected—Woman’s Power—Public Service in Private Life—Beauty and Happi- ness—Nature’s Short-Lived Gems—Beauty a Cordial— Gratitude of a Resigned Heart CHAPTER XII. Inattention—Reading Without Profit—Slightness of Modern Literature—Self-Delusions—Dilatory Movements........ CHAPTER XIIL. Deedless Decisions of the Will—Consequence of Trifling Neglects—Little Infirmities—Unremitting Self-Command —SelfKnowledge—Shyness—The Inner Voice......... CHAPTER XIV. Selfishness—The Cruelty of Self-Occupied Minds—Obstacles to Free Communication—The Feeling of Isolation—Discou- raging Experience—Charity in Practice—Dealings with the Poor—The Giving of Admonition ................ CHAPTER XV. Various Counsellors—Ecclesiastical Routine—The Love of God—Divine Fellowship—The Consolation we Neglect to Claim—Piety not Contrary to Light of Nature.......... CHAPTER XVI. The Unwise Companion—The Spirit Overwhelmed—A fflicted put not Forsaken—Coldness about Religion—Distasteful Companions—Discouragement from Good Examples— Deadness of Feeling—Unformalized Prayers—Subjects for ETAVOE cc svwesesscousss ster ee eer TS 196-216 217-229 265-279 280-299Contents. CHAPTER XVIL Being Conformed to the Likeness of Christ—Mistaken No- tions of Piety—Prayer Sometimes Easier than Patience— Eccentricity—The Unfailing Resource..........++-+--- 300-308 CHAPTER XVII. Single and Married Life Contrasted—The False Estimates of Imagination—Married Life—Happiness Independent of Externals—Celibacy—Measuring other Natures by our Own—Women Conversant with Sorrow—Transitoriness of PICSCMD UUIRIS eee cc. s cave Wh basa ew etcussecces ais GLU ao av Or CHAPTER XIX. The Triumphs of Time—Pleasures of Memory— Wholesome Fruits of Experience—Expectation of Bliss Delayed—A Prescription Offered—Diversions earnestly Recommend ed—Little Pleasures easily Obtained—Remorse for Ingrati- PUN OW UMNO. wi as'gs ne cece sc scin esas sense BAO-O43PREFACE. Ir is nct from any admiration of the use of modest formulas, intended to propitiate the reader’s favor, that I now offer an apology, but because it is in the present instance really needed. I think that such a book as this will elicit some surprise and strong disapproval; it will be said that, to the public, feelings so deep ought not to be confided; that womanly reserve should forbid such a searching inquiry into the hearts of women; that I am, in a word, too bold and too explicit. These accusations have been heard within my own heart and satisfactorily answered there long ago, or I should never have taken in hand the subject before us; they were answered thus: the old barriers of womanly reserve have been demolished more and more every year by works of fiction, which owe at least the greater portion of their popu- larity to the amazing want of shade that distinguishes them; in these the feelings of women have been exposed, analysed, and, as I think degraded, by the pens of women. If the characters in these fictions were imaginary, the passion was real; and the world of novel-readers can no longer think of a woman as a retiring creature who shrinks from notice, and would gladly keep her inner life in obscurity. This (11)xii Preface. type of woman’s nature may never have been so common as to justify us in calling a more expressive turn of character unnatural and unfemi- nine; but, I think, no one will dispute that modesty, gentleness, and prudent reserve were in previous ages attributed to the received ideal of woman, and that in our day there is much to disturb the old- fashioned impression that retirement, being most favorable to her happiness, is by woman instinctively sought. Now, as I greatly regret this demonstrativeness, I should be the last to wish to extend it still further. My desire, and my hope—perhaps unreasonably ambi- tious—is this: to call back to their proper objects the minds of some talented women, who now seem s0 much at a loss for their right work as to spend themselves in a feverish excitement, clamoring through the press for joys they do not find in their own lot; or bewailing, in the person of an imaginary sufferer, the loss of peace which is forfeited by their own foibles. I have endeavored to convince my unmarried countrywomen that we are already a privileged and happy sisterhood, and that if we wish for any more immunities, or any wider Scope, good sense will look for these in our own hearts and not elsewhere: and thus I have hoped, in some degree, to withdraw from public inspection those feelings which can only be directed happily in channels of private beneficence and quiet zeal. If in order to gain the attention my design needed, I have too prominently brought forward my Own opinions, it has not been without reluctance; and, if there was anything like a printad whisper possible, my notions on several delicate points should not have been uttered more distinctly than in a whisper. But when I have hesitated at giving public circulation to thoughts which seem more fit for the confidence of a friendly ¢ée-d-téte, I have remembered with comfort that what is individually characteristic, and therefore shy of notice, is but a small part of one’s nature compared with the com.Preface.’ Xili mon feelings which unite the most retiring spirit to the whole race of mankind, and make human sympathies as invariable ag human need. As I share in the innumerable blessings of our country’s pure faith and perfect liberty, I know not why I should shrink from admitting my cognizance of the sorrows which somewhat dim the effects of these national blessings, though at the same time they make them more dear to weakness, and more indispensable to peace. Besides, I am convinced that in every town or village of my country there are hearts whose goodness, if I knew it, would open mine to full confidence, and from whose criticism I should fear nothing colder than the kindly reproof of friends. I am not concerned with what the unthinking, unfeeling, or irreligious, may say of my efforts; it ig unlikely that they will bestow upon them even their notice, In the following chapters I have addressed myself exclusively to the unmarried; not that I suppose marriage so to affect habits of mind as to leave to spinsters the monopoly of some feclings, and the unshared burden of some kinds of grief, but because in theory married women are supposed to be more occupied with external cares, more taken out of themselves, and for the most part blessed with the superior wisdom of husbands able to advise and willing to console. Difficult questions, on which I am unable to form any opinion, I have wholly passed over, believing that to canvass them with an imperfect knowledge of their bearings is a most fruitless waste of time. The questions to which I allude are such as those on the feasibility of women applying themselves to more various and public employ- ments than has been usual hitherto; those again which suggest the reasonableness of marrying for the sake of a livelihood, or of a home, when there is no pretence to more affection than is supposed to exist of necessity with esteem: these and kindred inquiries have of late } } been mooted with much feminine vehemence, and it is to be hopedXIV Preface. that they will mect with the careful attention they deserve from any who are in a position to answer them; they must at least awaken a tender pity for all those fellow-creatures, whom they so nearly, se sadly concern. Though I have confined myself to subjects which are within reach of my observation, I trust that the silence of conscious ignorance will not be mistaken for the cold neglect of an indifferent contemporary—too much at ease to regard with sympathy tLe sorrows that might have been her own,SELF-LOVE: OR, THE AFTERNOON OF SINGLE LIFE. —_O———— FRONTISPIECE. Like passing clouds the years go by, And leave me here alone to sigh, The world has me forgotten. J. VON EICHENDORFF,. A LADY sits by a table well furnished with books, m a pretty drawing-room, complete in every comfort- able arrangement; she is alone, and she is idle, though a book, vividly written, lies open before her; but her forehead is bent down on one hand, and the other has fallen listlessly to her side. When she uncovers her eyes,—grave eyes, cold and sad in their expression,— they turn to the time-piece, which is quietly carrying on its monotonous business with a happy tick and an unvarying face. In five minutes it will strike three: (15)SHLE-LO VE. she rises and goes to the window, looking out on 4 garden bright with the gaudy flowers of September. Broad sunshine on the lawn; the mountain ash gay with berries; the lime tree thickly hung with greenish tufts of seed; and one of its side branches has thin and yellow leaves already, and a few here and there look- ing golden on the shady side of the tree,—the sun- shine passed by them many hours ago. How sear and sapless the chestnut tree looks out yonder! The prickly fruit is the only fresh-looking part of its massive growth. T'wo little girls have put their dolls to sit in a tall hole at the bottom of its stem, while they hunt for polished brown chestnuts, not yet to be found, though a high wind knocked down several green ones last week. How eager and happy those children look! Never mind the French grammar now; it is safe upstairs on the school-room table, and many pleasant things are between them and to-morrow’s lesson time. Hark! out there, beyond the trees, on the broad grass ter- race;—what merry shouts! And a light figure comes in sight, running forwards to pick up an arrow; the Sta pea Toe ee asSELF-LOVE. . 17 mirth of eighteen in her laugh, the glad confidence of a much-loved child, and a young beauty in her graceful movements as she returns to the group of her shooting companions, The indoors watcher moves on to another window in the same room, where she can see them all. They did but leave her an hour ago, after luncheon, and yet she watches them with the sad distant sort of curiosity that only isolated or captive people feel. Her sister and two brothers are there; and a brother’s wife, fondly admiring the skill of her eldest girl in archery, who listens, meanwhile, with girlish intent- ness to the polite speeches of a gentleman visitor, whose superior talents do not make him indifferent to beauty in any shape. What made the silent spectator sigh? The tran- sient vision of years far behind her now. In that same spot she had stood, young, and handsome, and energetic with gladness, on certain sunny days of pre- vious summers, and then she was anything but alone. Some of those who so eagerly measured her distances, and ran for her arrows, were interesting, warm-hearted people. 18 . Sa LiF + LO Vis Would that bright-faced girl ever linger about in the torpor of dejection as she does now? Oh! these comparisons will never do: rather let ner find a fanciful likeness to herself among all those summer-ending flowers. She thinks of the lines of Mrs. Hemans: “ Give the reed From storms a shelter,—give the drooping vine Something round which its tendrils may entwine,— Give the parch’d flower the rain-drop,—and the meed Of Love’s kind words to woman.” That will not do either; it is too sentimental to suit her case, and, besides, not true to its saddest peculiarities: first of all, she cannot compare herself with the drooping vine; she wants tendrils rather than something to clasp, since brothers, and sisters, and friends are quite kind to her, and she is dearly loved. It is what she zs not herself that causes her present despondency; not any lack in her outward life. And what then is she like? According to her own notions, she resembles that Anchusa Plant which the gardener has left standing between a glowing MarvelSELF-LOVE, 19 of Peru and a spiked band of red Zinnias ; which, having long done its regular blossoming, now and then opens a few blue stars on coo] mornings, but which is for the most part dull-looking and unsightly, ' stretching its long prickly shoots on all sides with dim and shapeless luxuriance; leaning on nothing, attaching itself to nothing, with little lovely color, and no sweet scent. For the person I am describing is no longer young —she is not yet old; she is of middle age, and just now she thinks this age a very dreary one. She turns from the window, convinced that the glaring brightness of these September days, and an almost imperceptible chill which breathes through their sunshine, have a peculiarly disagreeable effect upon her. It is true that she is not quite well; a slight headache, a feeling of chilly languor makes bodily movement irksome; but we should fall into a common mistake, if we fancied that bodily indispo- sition caused the sadness which now pervades every thought. It has brought to a crisis the depressing influences of many past weeks, and stamped them ,20 oa i F-L OVE. upon the prostrate mind with the threat of perma- nence; it has disarmed her of all the usual weapons against melancholy, and led her to suppose that they were powerless because they were not just then within her reach; but not one of the sad fancies that weigh down her spirit was originated by the infirmity of the flesh, each has arisen from some sickness of heart, taken singly she could resist each with patient good sense, but when crowding into her mind altogether she is overpowered; even her faith im the especial providence of God is a little benumbed. Perhaps an acute doctor would venture to assure her that the mind began this mournful harmony of erief, that a more cheerful turn of thought might have given to the whole system a vigorous activity which would have braced every nerve, and prevented both the slight headache and the causeless languor; she will not believe it, and as the interaction of mind and body is subject to partial investigation only, the doctor may still hold his opinion, undisturbed by what she alls facts. She now gocs to her room ; let us follow and considerSELYF-LO V FT her thoughts with pitiful respect : some among us will easily divine them, for prayer is her usual succor every day about this time. To-day she reproaches herself for its lifeless formalit y- Butshe can command her actions if not her feelings, and she means to go and see a poor person who is ill at-a short distance from the house, and her bonnet is put on. Ah! those slow-moving eyes have found their reflection in the glass, and there is another pause. I know why she turns to take off the bonnet; if I tell you, and you smile ironically, it will prove some ignorance of sorrow for which I might, some want of good feeling for which I cannot, envy you. She has seen her face looking hard, and cold, and dreary; the lines time and grief have traced there seemed so stern, the light of the eye so quenched, that she thinks, “TI shall do poor old Betty no good ; I am too heavy-hearted to speak comfortably ; I had better keep my gloomy looks to myself.” Is not sorrow often selfish? Now the head she looked at, lightly sprinkled with a few grey hairs, so few that she still observes them as fresh arrivals, had been often stroked by the soft fond hand of a mother, and *) ry2? 60 Tal = TOrvuk . yet at this moment she feels as if she had never known tenderness and perfect love. If she thought of that dead mother now, the stoni- ness of her mood might melt to tears; but she goes down stairs with slow and heavy footsteps, consider- ing what she can find the heart to do. Work? No, it leaves too much scope for painful thoughts, and music would be no music to-day, every note would bring to mind jarring discords between the past and present. How often had that same instrument felt her light touch in by-gone days, and brilliantly ex- pressed her joyousness. Let it be silent now. Why not draw? Because she feels too indifferent about everything to make it worth while. W hat is the use of cultivating her talents? What do they avail her ? No one takes an interest in them, or cares much for her success. (A “pathetic fallacy” this.) Once her father, and once some one else, whom both he and she loved rather better than he deserved, had praised her artistic taste; now it is a thing only remembered in old portfolios and fireside annals of another time. Cannot any of those books in so many languages,SEL F-L0O Mz. 92 on so many themes, speak home to her present feel- ings, and occupy her mind with their emphatic words ? Not one, at least not one of the few she has taken up or looked at with intent to open; for every power of the mind is in abe yance, or busy accumulating all imaginable pretexts for sighing, Another five minutes gloomily spent in aimless emotions, and then blank time is suddenly filled with the joy of a little child. A rosy little girl, not much above four years old, trots in holding a small tabby kitten in a basket sweet with clean hay. “Auntie, look! Uncle Herbert gave it to me; he said I might bring it in to show you; isn’t it beautiful? You shall have it on your own lap, Auntie, for a few minutes.” The heaviest heart can hardly refuse to sympathise with a happy child. My poor idler smiles gladly ; the child and the kitten are together on her lap, and she feels some of the happiness which the little one meant her to share. I do not suppose that the rest of her day will make her feel so lonely as she has been during the last24. SmLFE+ LOVE. hour; the spell of sorrow is often broken quite as unexpectedly, quite as quickly, as the spells of happi- ness. You may blame her as weak, or scorn her as a coward for being stricken down by imagined griefs, and I shall not wonder; but I pity you for your scorn, and wish that you may be wiser and stronger when some of the many days of darkness come upon you. If you have attentively observed the outlines of this sketch, you will guess that it is the imaginary portrait of one who has reached the age of thirty, perhaps some years ago. To any of you, my unmarried countrywomen, who feel the interval of time between thirty and fifty some- what less interesting than the previous years, and yourselves a little drooping under the influence of “'Time’s dull deadening; the world’s tiring; life’s settled cloudy afternoon,” I address myself, sincerely desiring your indulgence and pardon if at times my sympathy takes an intrusive, and now and then a dog- matising tone, for my purpose makes this to a degree inevitable. I cannot use towards you the simple toneSELF-LOVE. 95 of dictation, as I might more excusably when coun- selling young people; but the imperative mood, by avoiding the many circumlocutions of suggestive advice, saves time, and in these days we have none tc lose in needless ceremonies; suffer me, therefore, sometimes to dispense with them, and to speak as plainly to you as one spirit would to another. Be sure that I would not venture to touch upon ground so carefully guarded by the delicacy of self-love, if I was not urged to do so by lively compassion for sor- rows which seem to me quite within reach of remedy : sorrows that disquiet many in the stillness of English homes, and which (being ©) in a certain sense, of arti- ficial growth) ought not to be endured without a brave struggle to free ourselves from them. . While I endeavor to promote the success of this struggle, think of me as a willing frend, and do not hastily blame me as an indiscreet one.SELF-LOVE. CHAPTER 1. “Give Youth and Hope a parting tear— Look onward with a placid brow— Hope promised but to bring us here, And Reason takes the guidance now. One backward look—the last-—the last! One silent tear for youth is past. “Who goes with Hope and Passion back ? Who comes with me and Memory on? Oh, lonely looks the downward track— Joy’s music hush’d—Hope’s roses gone! To Pleasure and her giddy troop Farewell, without a sigh or tear! But heart gives way, and spirits droop, To think that Love may leave us here ! Have we no charm when youth is flown, Midway to death left sad and lone?” N. P. Wius’s lines on “ Thirty-five.’ THE unloveliness of such a state as I have tried to picture in my frontispiece has been tacitly acknow- ledged by the main body of our writers, both in | fiction and in graver works; but I think we rarely meet with any direct notice of the trials of middleSe LN- OY §. 97 age in single life *: either it is supposed that people of that age can fight their own battles unassisted, and that therefore any word of advice would be superflu- ous, or it is thought that these battles are too ignoble and obscure to interest spectators, and that to draw attention to them is unkindly impertinence; or (what I should be very unwilling to believe) the prevalence of vulgar joking about “old maids,” “old young ladies,” and the like, has affected minds that ought to pierce through the thickest accumulation of preju- dice, and has prevented them from seeing how much real sorrow and noble endurance may be hidden under the quiet aspect of a “regular old maid.” I grant that to make such an aspect agreeably pathetic, or even interesting to the imagination, would be extremely difficult, and that the attempt to do so might justly be ridiculed ; indeed, it is no small part of the trials of this lonely state that they are not redu- * Written more than two years ago, when the subject had not been brought before the public to the degree it now 1s; when women’s thoughts about women were not so often published without even the nomiaal disguise of fiction.28 SELF-LOVE. cible to any picturesque shape: but who that loves truth will stop short at appearances, and not penetrate as far as is possible to the real essence of a life? I flatter myself that whenever we come to the details of the inner life, however dull and distasteful its exterior may be, we shall find that humanity at every age, and in every class, has a strong claim upon our sympathies, and an intense interest for our minds, which no conventional habits, no frivolous jesting, or world-taught indifference can annul. We are often cruel and foolish in our careless obser- vations on the lives of other people; but cruel ‘more from ignorance than will;” from inattention to things ag they really are, and from taking up without reflec- tion the tone generally used about subjects that seldom get more than superficial notice. IT am far from holding the opinion that a single life is necessarily an unhappy life: there is too much rea- son to think otherwise; but I am very desirous that its peculiar disadvantages should be better under- stood, and rescued from the exclusive service of would-be wit; and I believe that those who feel themSELF-LOVE. 99 most bitterly will forgive a recognition of these disad- vantages, if they agree with me in thinking that an evil, clearly defined, is far less formidable than that which has the painful honor of being indescribable. The penetrating sympathy of French writers has in this direction far outrun that of our own; such, at least, is the conclusion I have come to while searching in English books for the help I could not find. Pro- bably, among us it has been considered a slight breach of decorum to put into print any admission of feelings which, I fear, the manners of the day too plainly acknowledge. It is true that within the last few years benevolent writers have been incited to plead that the existence of these feelings is a motive for some social reform; but, with this exception, I think we must expect the public to be shocked, or at least disagreeably surprised, if a woman ventures to say that those women who are not married, nor likely to be so, and who therefore resign for life their share of the sweetest and holiest feelings in human nature, deserve, if only for their position, some degree of pity, and all the consideration of tender respect.4 30 air. OV E.. I must take from a French authoress a poetical description of those sorrows which I can only speak of with reserve, and in plain prose. A. few verses from Madame de Janvier’s “La vieille Fille” will show how tenderly she has touched upon several of the dumb gricfs of single life: “ Son coeur cachant a tous sa richesse inutile, Sos secrets battements comprimés sous sa main, Mystérieux parfum enfermé dans largile, Beau trésor qu’on foulait en chemin. “Ne murmurant jamais, tant son 4me était haute, N’ayant que Dieu pour juge en ses muets combats, Et voilant son malheur comme on voile une faute, Souffrant de ces douleurs qui ne se plaignent pas. “Vivant dans ces longs jours isolée et sans guide, Et voyant chacun d’eux, fatalement pareil, Sans espoir, sans bonheur, triste, uniforme, vide, Comme un morne horizon sans pluie, et sans soleil.” Poetie descriptions, it must be remembered, are not expected to be free from exaggeration, and this, I hope, greatly overdraws the average allowance of melancholy in a lonely life; yet I doubt if it will beSHUF-LEV RE. St found far from the truth on many occasions of single life, when the heart “Veut se fuir elle-méme, et cherche autour de SO, Kt sent ennui de vivre entrer par chaque pore, Kt regarde bien loin si quelqu’un J’aime encore.” If I remember rightly, there is in “L’Education progressive” of Madame Necker de Saussure a good deal of valuable advice on this subject: it is an ex- cellent book, to which every woman may refer with advantage. ‘‘ Now comes the pain of truth, to whom ’t is pain; | O folly! for to bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty.” With any elderly reader, who wishes to keep her reason on the top of sovereignty, I may take it for eranted that she is no longer so handsome, or so fresh-looking as she once was, and that she knows it; that she is not so interesting to a stranger’s eye as she once was, and that she feels it. The facts are simple enough when thus stated; but in every-day life they may cause a complexity of chagrin, ul-32 Ci tsb O Vs humor, and depression. The most sensible, the most truly humble, are not, and do not pretend to be, indifferent as to their appearance; I doubt whether in a healthy state of mind they can be, or whether it is desirable, if possible, that they should be, in- different to it. The “Pflicht der Erscheinung®” (the duty of ap- pearance), of which Schiller speaks so earnestly,* is not only felt by frivolous people, or at an unsettled and giddy age; and those who either ignore, or re- solutely deny, its claims, fight against world-wide experience, and, in my opinion, perilously oppose nature. It is, of course, easy to deny that there is any degree of duty in that which is instinctive in its origin, and often productive of great evils in its result; far easier than to keep the oft-abused ten- dency within its right bounds, and to confess that what causes misery might be useful, and lead to good, if properly managed: but, when truth is our object, can these short cuts to expediency be safe ? * In his essay Ueber Anmuth und Wurde.SELF-LOVE. Qs oO I may rouse the indignant contempt of my country- women by such a confession of vanity; butin honesty I am obliged to give partial assent to Burns, when he Says: “Our last, our best, our dearest, That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest, Which even the rights of kings in low prostration Must humbly own—’t is dear, dear admiration.” It isso, because by a false, but very natural, inference admiration is often mistaken for incipient love. And I know not why we should be ashamed of prizing with due moderation the privilege so evidently as- signed by our Maker to the weaker sex. Surely there is sufficient proof that to a certain extent every woman was formed for pleasing, and intended to please: I do not say by her beauty, for that would perhaps make the exceptions more striking than the rule, but by whatever we mean by ‘“womanliness ;” where this is wanting, when a woman is not generally agreeable, is she any the better for the deficiency ? or do we not say emphatically that it is a pity, feeling that she has lost a very precious prerogative ? ~34 hhh Oa we. I dwell longer than a person careful of her dignity would choose to do upon a point so often passed over as immaterial, or brought into ridicule by perverse folly. “Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be Hy praised.” Those persons who have tasted the sweet- } ness of either of these transient possessions will be the first to acknowledge this. Their sighs tell us that it is true; but will they, or any who value opinions more for their truth than for their apparent expediency, dispute the fact that a woman who fears the Lord, and has beauty and favor also, is much more praised among her fellow-creatures ? If any deny this because they think it is making too much of beauty, it may be possible to them to think a fraud pious; and this may be a pious fraud, i but a fraud I shall ever think it, and expect the deserved penalties of dishonesty to follow,—feebleness of judgment, inconsistency in conduct, and a narrow conditional charity. In justice to all who are ugly or plain, let us fairly allow that beauty has a birthright of great advantages, as well as of great perils.SELF-LOVE., 85 But when I speak of pleasing, I would in no wise be understood to say that I think fine features or any striking comeliness of the body, essential for that pur- pose; for the truth of Schiller’s assertion, “even the little beautiful, even the not beautiful, can have a beautiful demeanor,” is remarkable in every walk of life; and I suppose that what we call gracefulness is a far more potent charm than any perfection of beauty where it is lacking; and this is not surprising, if it results, as I believe, from an unusual harmony of the spiritual and physical life. Now in the case of a dissatisfied “ vieille fille,” I presume that this harmony is often sadly disturbed ; for a person who feels love- less and unacceptable in society is not likely to be distinguished for her grace. J should expect in such a person to see those stiffly languid movements, that uneasy play of features, and that preoccupied expres- sion of eye, which betray to a keen observer the disquietude of a mind not fully reconciled to its lot, and yet perplexed as to the cause of its discomforts ; unless, indeed, a far sadder sight was to be witnessed, whereSELF-LOVE. “Vanity, the last of Youth’s frail peers, Arm’d with a crooked crutch, and wither’d wreath, Goes, with Despair, to fight the strength of Death.” Death which seizes on youthful charms many years before it can annihilate the hopes they nourished. The most unmitigated ugliness of feature and of dress is less displeasing to eye and heart than this piteous incongruity; for the unsuitable adornments still grasped with an unrelaxing determination to look young, can only make a shocking contrast where the many dints of time give clear evidence that life is half run out. And, as I believe that middle age has charms quite as certain, though less obvious than those of youth, I deeply regret that any one should entirely lose the advantages of riper years by obsti- nately desiring to retain those which cannot possibly be hers. I think that at this point some, whose piety would command my sincere respect, might wish to remind me that “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart:” and I would answer, that this does not apply to my present pur-SELF-LOYVKE. Sy © 4 pose, which is to recognise the effect one human being has on others; for I now Speak more of social than of spiritual life, and [ believe, with regard to this last, that a frank assumption that we do wish to please is less prejudicial to spiritual life, than struggling to Support a theoretic standard in defiance of the almost invariable contradictions of experience. I think, also, that those who attempt this are liable to that kind of self-deception which makes people attribute their natural instinctive wishes to a religious motive, because they think it would be sinful to be O actuated by anything less binding, and therefore dare not acknowledge the sway of impulses which are per mitted, though not directly enjoined, by the Christian religion; and let it never be forgotten that the self. deceptions of religious minds are often more lamen- table in their consequences than the faults of the irreligious. The proportions of vanity and pride are so different in different minds, that one woman cannot appeal to another for consent on this question of the value of good looks, with any confidence; all I ask you toO93 oii r-tr0 VE. grant is this,—that as other human beings exercise on average human nature an extremely powerful influence, making it an object of no small moment whether one is easily liked or dishiked,—and that as beauty, or grace, or any personal advantage, disposes people to regard us with a favorable interest,—the loss or the impairing of personal advantages 1s to the sensitive nature of woman no trifling loss. There may be many who, quietly owning to such a loss, could honestly assure us that they did not find it.painful; that they were quite content to leave to younger women the enjoyments they had outlived, and merely to look on in the same arena where be- fore they had been the objects of many an admiring eye; to be plain unimpressive members of society, instead of its fascinating attractions. If they were to tell me this without a tone of contempt for those who still hold what they resign, I should think them happy and truly good; I would fain be ignorant of any feelings less estimable than theirs, if with these I could combine indulgence towards the weakness from which I was exempt. One shrinks from theSELF-LOVE. 89 recognition of mature vanity, as from an insult to human nature; and yet, as we are no longer able to keep an unflawed ideal of its present dignity, it may be wiser to look to the causes of disgrace, than to pass them over in theory as impossible. Neither after the investigation is it enough to allow that vanity zs despicable, but too natural and often too pleasant a fault to be brought under control of con- science, It is true, that power over other minds, and power lodged in apparent weakness, is sweet; and the plea- sure of swaying the conduct and feelings of another by a glance, a tone, a little curl of the lip, is seducing, not only as a gratification of the love of power, but also because it satisfies a whimsical curiosity as to the strength of the chain of influence; it is also fearfully true that the woman who does not steadily resist every temptation to a selfish exercise of this power debases herself beyond all calculation, and becomes fur more permanently enslaved than the victims of her vanity, far more miserably dependent on their favor than the weakest among them had ever been on hers.40 an, Ws LO. V¥ Hs I believe that many a sin of more dreaded name brings less ruin on the soul than vanity, for vanity consumes the heart. ‘‘ Les passions les plus violentes nous laissent quelques momens de relache, mais la vanité nous agite toujours.”* And how can that heart singly desire the approbation of God, which throbs incessantly under the excitements of human applause, whether real or imagined? How can it be pitiful and tender, and considerate for the happiness and good of its fellow-creatures, when this constant agitation divides its attention, embarrasses every line of conduct with covert motives, and confuses the judgment, even to infatuation, by the useless testi- mony of scattered perceptions? Words cannot de- scribe the confusion which this corrupting principle works within us, if allowed to gain the mastery ; but some of its effects we know: utter disorder and growing darkness; restless desires to escape from the hollowness of dissimulation; discontent and appre- hension, where light and peace should be ever on the increase. * Rochefoucauld.SHLF-LOvVE. 4] Never may it be doubted that vanity is a passion of exceeding strength. When by the orderings of Providence all its projects have been baffled, still it clamors for excitement, still snatches at images of hope with a feverish clutch, still presses to the empty heart the baubles that have pierced it a hundred times before. It can suspend every movement of reason, and silence each whisper of the Holy Spirit it grieves. And, without going to the farthest lengths in this destructive road, many a heart, otherwise inclined aright, finds itself confessing by daily prac- tice—“ Though the object of my desires is contempti- bly frivolous, is base, is assuredly fruitless, contrary to my hohest resolves, and unworthy even of a wish, yet I must attain it. I must and will once more attract the notice that used to gratify my self-love.” Practice, impulse, confesses to such folly; seldom, if ever, conscious self-knowledge. Is this an extreme case? I trust it is: but if there is one such heart in my country, one person who, in the miserable bondage I describe, may chance to look at these pages, to her I must speak as pity commands42, SHLEF-LOVE. ad Let me ask her, “If you still try thus to retain former influence, to satisfy your hunger for attentions (which in happier days of girlhood were scarcely noticed, because then you had not learned to put on them the valuation of a vain world), what is to be the end of this passion?” Tt will strengthen as surely as the hin- drances to its gratification increase; the struggles of a dying hope are more violent than any that have pre- ceded them; the attractions of an unlikely admiration, an improbable love, are much stronger than those which flattered girlish vanity. The less chance you have of reaching a prize on which your heart is set, the more desperate will be the haste of your pursuit. Do you not see that in cherishing these vain desires you are feeding an insatiable destroyer, who will con- sume all your precious things; who, though ever famished, will retain strength to torture even to the day of your death, unless, by the omnipotence of Divine help, you slay or weaken it now ? Have mercy on yourself while there is yet time. It may be that as you return night after night to your room—the home of your truest being—you feel ,SHLF-LOYVE. 43 too sick-hearted with daily vanities to lift up even a sigh to the Physician of your soul: perhaps you dare not, because your mind still echoes with the folly of preceding hours; perhaps it is weighing the value of a few faded compliments, recalling looks which might be traced to something like admiring fondness, feeling about among the trifling incidents of a dinner-party or a dance for the most languid pulse of love. What vapid misery ? and yet how difficult, how almost im- possible, to dismiss at will the habitual tenants of your imagination. At such times prayer may seem to you like a mockery of holiness, for probably each day your words have asked that the thoughts of your heart might be sanctified, and your steps upheld in the right and narrow way; but do not, I beseech you, deprive yourself of the only remaining help. There is no degree of sin or folly that can make it wrong for us to cry out, “Lord! if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean!” He can—oh entreat that He will; and though you have long wandered after vain things in a barren wilderness, do not for a moment doubt that he can bring you back to peace. Cana44 SELF-LOVE. Saviour withhold His pity, His aid, His prevailing love, from one of His flock who humbly cries to Him for succor? Even Jonah, who had not the fulness of promise granted to us, said, after his act of direct dis- obedience, “I am cast out of Thy sight, yet I will look again towards Thy holy temple.” We can look unto Jesus, the propitiation for our sins, ‘‘the same yester- day, to-day, and for ever.” The most sin-stricken heart may look to Him and be saved; and, for the despair consequent upon a long servitude to vanity, there is no consolation short of His pity, and His entire knowledge. He alone discerns by what a com- plex tissue of guilt, and folly, and evil influence the devil ensnares us, and makes our weakness both the veil and the instrument of sin. And if even a fellow- creature—for those who are in the same danger are often hardest on those that fall—if a fellow-creature can feel such compassion for the sinner as leaves no room in the heart for severe condemnation, may we not hope that He who “ knows all, yet loves us better . than He knows,” still tenderly regards our prostrate souls, and may yet find a way for their escape?SELF-LOVE,; 45 “The creature was made subject to vanity,” says the inspired writer (Romans viii, ver. 20).- It may be that our subjection to its curse is something of ap- pointed doom, as well as of guilty choice; but I do not venture to allow myself this excuse for one cons scious movement of vanity, either in the heart or in outward action, nor for anything which I can forsake as being of evil tendency; it is for that instinctive appetency for what is vain, and for the bondage of the mind to external influence, that I need and apply this scriptural apology. Let us now turn from an extreme case of folly and wretchedness, and consider the more common state of those who have left youth far behind. ‘Qur bodies had their morning, have their noon, And shall not better ;—the next change is night; But their fair larger guest, t?’ whom sun and moon Are sparks and short-lived, claims another right, “The noble soul by age grows lustier.” * A comfortable creed, and in theory it must be true of * Donne,46 SHiTreLov fy, every soul that is going on unto perfection ; yet, prac- tically, there are so many retrograde movements in our spiritual course, even when we are on the whole advancing, that the light of Christian hope does not always shine more and more as it approaches perfect day. If sin does not obscure, sorrow often hides its lustre; and thus it sometimes happens that the humble-minded woman whose chief care is to serve and please God suffers very considerable abatements of happiness from finding herself less able to please her fellow-creatures than she used to be. Not to men- tion the many more disagreeable ways in which she may be reminded of this, we must allow that even the indifference of strangers strongly contrasts with the general welcome given to youth and fresh looks. It is an accidental stroke glancing lightly over the outside of her peculiar trials, but, as being connected with these, it may wound. It may remind her that her heart now shivers beside extinguished fires; that thought is still busy among the wrecks of old hopes, jooking for no new venture; and all the dust and rubbish of broken purposes and dead interests, dis-SELF-LOYVRE. 4" turbed by a transient touch, may make the atmo- sphere, long since purified by resignation, so heavy and dark that every fair prospect is for the time shut out. Her sure trust in God, and patient waiting for heaven’s joy, will save her under these influences from anguish of spirit, but not always from extreme dejec- tion. Even from this I think that there is lifting up, when the advantages of middle age are well understood.Sati +~ LO VY i. CHAPTER II. i ‘© Profound the voiceless aching of the breast, , When weary life is like a grey dull eve, Emptied of colour, withering and waste Around the prostrate soul, too weak to grieve— Stretch’d far below the tumult and strong cry Of passion—its lamenting but a sigh,” The Music Master, A love-story by WM. ALLINGHAM, “Tm monde usé pour moi n’a plus rien qui me touche.” This is the thought of many a grave woman when, pausing among the irksome trifles of an unin- teresting period, she meditates upon her position in life, and asks herself what are its objects, its hopes, its results upon earth? and finds no answer in the silence of a vacant heart. Discipline, probation, would be a sufficient answer to ‘conscience, if she asked, ‘Why do I live any longer?” but that question is at rest in a religious mind, and what she often looks for in vain is the stimulus of secondary motives, which, though utterlySELF-LOVE, 49 unable to make us happy without the predominance of religious principles, are yet with few, if any, excep- tions indispensable for earthly welfare. Observe in a religious woman the effects of losing her strongest secondary motive. The loss of a great love (of which almost every woman is able to form some estimate) is a loss greater than any human under- standing can measure, for, on whomsoever she lavished such love, it was, while it lasted, the life of her life. To call it the sunshine of her world is no exaggera- tion of poetry; though fitful, and often clouded, and sometimes cruel in its fierce shining, it was the light that suffused every thought, every action, every object seen by her during the years through which it lasted. In its genial warmth all the brightest and most tender parts of her character expanded; it was withdrawn, quenched by the will of God, no matter how, and without it she must complete her life’s long journey. Shades less dark, because uncontrasted with sunshine, may now cross her path, and a more temperate. atmo- sphere may be about her; God’s word may be a lantern under her feet, and a heht unto her paths, and yet50 S21, <2, © PRs must 1t not be to her a darkened world, not only when the first long desert of desolation is overpassed, but even when she revives, and, having seen “the vani- ties of after and before,” resolves to lead a true and patient life, unsupported by any hope that can perish? i. Even then her contentment is stern, her feelings cold; hard armour for a woman’s heart, and she must often faint under it. Then comes the effect of all this upon the temper; if missing the little dues of love that used to sweeten everything embitters it, if the unrest of a heart that has no longer an earthly home makes it pettish, if there 18 an acrimonious recollection of wasted feel- ing occasionally disturbing a constrained calm, can we wonder? All the elasticity of joy is gone; and the lost supposition that she is probably liked by all, because she is supremely loved by one, is replaced by a numbing belief that she is intrinsically unlovable. A belief which often goes far towards producing its own justification. Perhaps few of us know how much amiability and agreeable manners depend on the pleasant confidence (which only happy experience can give) that they have been and will be liked.GHEE -hO CER, 51 It is very soothing to a woman to feel that she is generally kindly thought of by all in whose society she joins; it is a superstition which cannot fail to strengthen the sweetest tendencies of every well-disci- plined nature. But, when love which “is immortal till it change or die” fades away, how can any one value mere liking, or easily believe in its permanence? Not the drooping spirit to whom it seems that ‘a terrible heart dearth Reigns for her in heaven and earth.” Yes heaven, with all its ministering angels, was fighting even in heaven; for at times she has felt as if against her: was it not known ¢here that she was leaning on a broken reed when she knelt to give thanks for secured happiness and unchangeable love? It is easy to speak confidently of the unfailing con- solations of our religious faith; but to feel them when first bewildered by a great sorrow is very difficult, and very uncommon, for any degree of despair con- fuses the mind, and the especial providence which was never doubted in happier times seems distant andSELF-LOVE. uncertain when the “cloud is thick, and the storm great.” And though faith triumphs, though by divine grace in all that the mind believes the heart com- pletely trusts, we must not expect faith to remove the sufferings which it enables us to endure. It must be fairly owned that we cannot in all ways make an imperishable hope a consoling substitute for those of which we go bitterly bewail the extinc- tion; if we could, then would not our affliction seem grievous. It is not, I think, only from man’s fatal perversity that, if no reasonable hope presents itself, one quite as unreasonable will just as fully occupy the heart and mind; an earthly hope combines with. earthly circumstances of every kind, takes nourishment from all, enlivens all; very different is the action of the one great hope worthy of our utmost efforts—the hope of pleasing God. This, though but in its earthly weakness, may kindle all our energies in solitude, and may be the mainspring of every conscious act of duty; but when the pettinesses of daily life press upon us, as, forSELF-LOVE, 53 instance, when several dull and unfamiliar compa- nions are hemming us in, how far easier, alas! how far pleasanter, to corrupt nature is the thought of an absent one who loves us, of doings that may interest and please that one, than the blessed though awful truth, “ Thou God seest me.” This can give dignity to the most insignificant occurrence, and quicken us to good, and wise, and kindly dealings with every fellow-creature. But from the extreme reluctance and occasional inability of a fallen nature thus to exalt its habitual tone of thought, it often happens that a noble-minded woman, when bereaved of her hope of this world’s happiness, declines to a much lower state of feeling than she is ever known before, without giving up any degree of hope for her future existence; she; will retain this | As ‘Hier dniy’ stay, yet lamentably overlobie many of ‘those eonsolations and incitements to happy exettion whick? that hope in- volves; in fact, she will often look upon the etemal life which through Christ we inherit, as a state so entirely future that the torpor and joylessness of a depressed spirit seem to her quite excusable. 4.54 Sty ks LO we. Well for her if under this erroneous impression she does not snatch at the poor accessories of worldly comfort as a temporary solace, and thus sink gradu- ally into the mournful condition so shocking to her earlier tastes, of a woman given up to making herself comfortable, “Se stessa amando, poiché niun pur |’ ama.” ) It is a very natural consequence of having no one on whom to lavish the infinite tenderness of a womanly heart. The heart that in other circumstances would, we may suppose, have had an inexhaustible love for all that were added to the home-circle, finds itself the centre of one so much more distant from its in- fluence, that undisputed room is left for the growth of inordinate: egotism,: time for true love and deep interest i rélations and friends but yet leisure for morbid solichtinde ‘about self Poor, lonely self! which every year makes miore incapable of love, concentrat- ing in its narrow focus more of the petty cares, the trifling but absorbing anxieties, of a never-sleeping selfishness. Nothing external can long please a heartSHEL E-hevy x: Be so perverted from tne wholesome course of nature ; and grace earnestly implored, duties scrupulously fulfilled, cannot give it joy, and hardly peace. A sad resignation to the will of God, and an unre- freshing, laborious charity, every now and then brightened by the intensities of reciprocal friendship, are all we can hope for when “anxious self, life’s cruel taskmaster,” is the most interesting object of every thought and wish. You will, perhaps, think from what is here said that, while pretending to combat, I do really agree with the tenor of your most melancholy reflections, and that I should sigh in full assent, if you say with Chénier, “Ma vie est sans couleurs, et mes pales journées > . A : ” M’offrent de longs ennuis l’enchainement certain. But it is not so; I have only stayed so long among disadvantages and sorrows to prove that it is not jgnorance, or want of sympathy, which emboldens me to assert that in great measure these sorrows are as full of delusion as the hopes which time has56 Gi Wan. O Vey already scattered; that they are not, I believe, “according to the will of God,” and often need (| not be at all. “ Grief almost always may be fancy called, And ah! too oft is joy but fancy too! But should we therefore turn aside from joy, And, slave-like, cling to rigid grief alone ? No—let us fathom deeply sorrow’s source ; fteflection is the real magic song Beneath whose spell the gloomy shadows fly Wherewith an evil spirit haunts the heart.” E. Scuvuuze. No sensitive heart will deny that “life is full of weary days;” but these need not be comfortless, even merino 5 in the “set grey life” of middle-aged women who walk through it alone; is not our eternal life already begun? Grief and inactivity belong to Death: we | can, indeed, suffer ourselves to be buried in the dying things of a dying world, to remain for a length of time sleeping for sorrow; but this is not the lot | appointed to us by our Father; not this the peace to which we were called by Him who has overcome the world, and therefore bids us to be of good cheer.SELF-LOVE. 57 Surely those who do not rejoice are ill able to advance with humble intrepidity against those enemies of His and ours that encompass every earthly posi- tion: for how can we show forth His glory, or testify of His goodness, unless we feel that to us He has been very gracious; and how can she feel this to whom every day is a burden borne wearily without use or joy? I can never forget the untold misery of an uninteresting existence, but if I can persuade you to believe what appears to me to be truth, you will see that no part of our existence need be unin teresting.SELF-LOVE. CHAPTER IIL “ Poi che voi ed io pitt volte abbiam provato, Come ’1 nostro sperar torna fallace ; Dietr’ a quel sommo ben, che mai non spiace, Levate ’l core a pit felice stato.” PETRARCA. “ Parmi udire: O stolto e pien d’ obblio, Dal pigro sonno omai Destati, e di corregger t’ apparecchia 1 folle error che gia teco s’ invecchia, Fors’ 6 presso al’ occaso, e tu nol sai Tl sol ch’ esser ti par sul mezzo giorno: Onde pit vaneggiar ti si disdice.” CASTIGLIONE Tue thoughtful heart that has survived many of its dearest hopes cannot fail to notice a manifest intention of the Divine mind to destroy or abate every hope of man, except those which wait for eternal satisfaction. Let even those who have tasted hope’s perfect fulfil- ment say whether there is not generally some alloy, some surprising flaw or rapid decay, in that rare bliss, which justifies the poet’s accusation of hope asSELF-LOVE. A cloud that gilt and painted now appears, But must drop presently in tears.” And as for disappointment, from the least thing to the greatest, we are incessantly taught its bitter but whole- some lessons. In our greatest prosperity we cannot avoid coming to these conclusions;—that happiness is seldom intended to reach us by any expected means; and that, if sanguine anticipations are a help to cheerful- ness, it is not previous instances of success that keep them alive, but the obstinate strength of a natural instinct. We learn, at last, that happiness is the gift of God, independent of the means we employ for securing it; and that it is oftener given when it seems improbable, than when it is reckoned upon as a cer- tainty. Whether this lesson is taught by reiterated he disappointments, or by the success that enables us to see the “end of all perfection,” it is equally powerful to disenchant; but not always salutary, not always producing in undeceived hearts the resignation to ' which it points. he . In some there is deep resentment against what 1s60 CHE r-5,.0 VB; called Fate, or “the state of things,” in order to avoid the obvious sin of resisting the Disposer of every fate: a resentment that vents itself in words hopelessly sad, or in confessions of a universal distrust; so trying tc ease “The mocking heart, that scarcely dares confess Hen to itself the strength of its own bitterness :” ——in others, a sullen and cold reserve, the effort so utterly to contemn the sources of past delusion, as to think them unworthy of mention, or even of inward regret :—1in others, studied frivolity, a determination to ignore anything deeper than the light impulses which the world understands, and the transient affec- tions which no reverse can wound :—while in another cast of nature we see all former interests condemned as having been ties to earth; even natural taste thwarted as a rebel: and the whole being surren- dered to a minute observance of religious discipline, and the exactions of bigotry mistaken for the best aids of godliness. | But these are not the necessary fruits of “the cer-SELF-LOVE, 61 tainty that struck hope dead.” There are those who, better understanding what the will of the Lord is, meekly accept the pains of gradual mortification. They know that they must be detached from every earthly object that in the least degree separates from God; and yet they do not turn away from these objects altogether, because they are His gifts. They know that God smites their pleasant things, and leaves them lonely in a desert land, in order that they may better hear His voice, and desire His love, and feel that He is indeed their God; and therefore they thank Him for the emptiness of their present life, confessing that only thus could the hungry soul be urged to satisfy itself with things that shall endure. When first recovering from a great affliction, this appears difficult, almost impossible; and, after recent excitements of passion, the utmost stretch of piety seems as if it: would still leave a great void and silence in the heart; but it is not found to be so by those who in the desert have trusted God. A great and wonderful works is to be wrought62 Sit. h- O-V i. every one who will submit to be guided by Infinite Wisdom; the feeble creature is to will what God wills; to be raised from all its little perishing inter- ests; and to seek the glory of God, and the good of His creatures (not excluding itself) as a portion of that glory. Whatever sorrow or bereavement. befalls is a fresh proof that this exaltation is still designed for us: do any reject it, and set their hearts upon a lower good, still God is strong and patient; still He waits *o be gracious. Observe, I entreat you, in how many ways He gently strives with our foolish propensity to go down lower. Mental pursuits, noble and good though they be, cannot console you, and will not prosper, if you begin to treat them as ultimate ends; nor will the objects of your most self-sacrificing love flourish, if you idolize them: even plans for doing good to other people will be frustrated, if every purpose and wish is not subordinated, without reserve, to the faithful service of your Master. To most of us it*is, I hope, less difficult than itSELF-LOVE. 63 once was, to believe that mercy imposes hard and sorrowful service. At an early age many souls are shaken by the surmise that the Christian religion may be only a temporary system adapted to the dis- cipline of childish intellects; later in life we have learned that it is securely based on eternal truths, which cannot be altered, though Heaven and earth should pass away; and belief in these truths, growing as we grow, establishes in us a calming persuasion that they so essentially belong to our peace, that to neglect them is to cast ourselves adrift from the only anchor we have in a stormy and dangerous sea. Again, how often, in the surprise of grief, the young are tempted to doubt the goodness of God; but each year that has taught us more and more of our natural wretchedness has added new evidence of His love; and, having known this love to support us during many severe trials, we are surely able to dis- miss, as futile, any train of ideas that would suggest the possiility of our pecuhar need being overlooked or unprovided for now. And though we cannot at all times feel this love,mien ae 156) 64 Sut ay i! «1,0 Wala hor always discern the tenderness of a father, it is none the less certain to our faith; we cannot doubt it now: as well might people recently blinded doubt that there is a glorious sun shedding light on all the world. Yet, in spite of unshaken confidence in the merci- ful designs of God, there remains much blindness to the present advantage of the means by which they are carried out. Doubtless the time will come when, looking back upon the scene of our probation, we shall say with astonishment at our past ingratitude: ‘What could have been done more for us that He has not done? how could our eternal welfare have been better secured ?” But now our spiritual perceptions are dull, and God's pitiful chastisements coming to us in the dis- guise of our own infirmity, or by the instrumentality of other second causes, we too often forget that each one 1s sent for healing, that each one is profitable to us, and indispensably needed for our cure. This barrenness of interest in our daily life, how hurtful! What a sad pity and waste of power weSELF-LOVE. 65 should think it in a world of our own arranging! J once thought it so, but now it appears to me a pause in the headlong rush of human propensities which we could ill spare. At the age of thirty-five or forty, with few exceptions, the half of life is gone ; those who have got so far in it know that they can have but a short time left for the completion of their earthly course: forty years more, or fifty, in all probability, at the longest, and their eternal state will be unalter- able (woe to them, if they reckon on even four or five); yet what a crowd of temporal interests will beset them in those few years! how eager and occu- pying will be the world around them! how heavy the pressure of body upon spirit! how increasing the infirmities of both! Do they not really need a short space of leisure and rest from external distractions, before they press forward again on the thronged road which leads so certainly to an unchangeable condi- tion? Surely it is a mercy if, at any time, it is granted to us to see where we stand, and whither we tend, without the blinding light of hope or the limited views of intense anxiety. We can then look66 dELE-LOYV 2x back and observe what faults have most nearly worked our ruin, what natural abilities we have mis- used, and what habits need reform; past experience, if honestly consulted, will be an emphatic witness on all these points. ‘“ We are” then “very sensible how hardly teaching years do learn what roots old age contracteth unto errors, and how such as are but acorns in our younger brows grow oaks in our elder heads, and become inflexible unto the powerfullest arm of reason;” for we are then conscious of follies which have gained the privilege of habit, and we know that we often most readily commit the sin for which we grieve most bitterly. But these oaks are not yet matured by old age: strong and inflexible though they be, it is yet in our power to cut down some and root out others; the plague of our bosom sins may yet be stayed. Let us not waste one hour in fruitless lamentation, for it is still day, and the time for successful work. That night, the hour of death, which surely cometh, “when no man can work,” will make us sigh for a time as rich in possibilities as this.SELF-LOVE., “Time flows from instants, and of these each one . Should be esteem’d as if it were alone. The shortest Space, which we so lightly prize When it is coming, and before our eyes, Let it but slide into the eternal main, No realms, no worlds, can purchase it again, ” In youth we know little of the worth of present time; probably it was valued mainly with regard to some future, or occupied by the thoughts of some regretted past; but now, the many deceits of hope, and the bitters occasionally offered by memory to the reverted mind, shut us up into the present more frequently, and from single-hearted attention to the husbandry of present things, we may derive a permanent vigor, which no previous feeling could have enabled us to anticipate. When the mind is no longer absorbed in one inter- est, when an engrossing object is removed even from the ken of hope, multitudes of lesser interests and unexciting joys are often discovered ; for, as “Things of delicate and tenderest worth Are swallow’d all, and made a seared dearth By one consuming flame,” os ee68 SELF-LOVE. so one predominant desire will cause you to pass by without notice many springs of happiness. Life has more affluence of joy than you can imagine when you see that all you once promised yourself is evidently mot to be found in your life; and it is at those times when you think you are come to the end of all illu- sions, and therefore suppose life to be empty of endur- ing interests, that you are most completely deluded. For this world has many and great pleasures, as well as many and cruel pains; and, when we are joyless, it is from our own deficiencies that we suffer, and not, as melancholy minds are ready to believe, from being able wisely to see through and disdain all that once pleased: perhaps we lose vivid perceptions, and imagination, and keen feeling, while we gain expe- rience and the knowledge of the world that increases sorrow; butI think one may say, without presump- tion, that every thought which terminaies in sorrow owes its plausible semblance of wisdom to ignorance and imperfect faith. You may naturally think, when looking on to a future that cannot hold the happiness for which youSELF-LOVRE. 69 have hoped hitherto, that it must necessarily be a wearisome Continuation of the present. It may be go 4 at is not often likely) ; ; but you know little of the infinite in its external features (though th resources of Provi- \ dence, and the expansive faculties of an mmortal spirit, if you think that years can pass by without causing a, renovation of its activity, and a plentiful growth of new interests, and perhaps new pleasures, fe A short time may bring more of both than you well know what to do with; you may come to feel that the varied occupations of every day are sometimes too interesting, and offer too many distractions for the mind that you would fain keep in settled composure ; iy thinking that the hurry of external proceedings de- | frauds you of the leisure necessary for your soul’s i health, you may be inclined to say, iat “Still might I keep this mind, there were enough mete Within myself (beside that cumbrous stuff i We seek without) which husbanded aright Would make me rich in all the world’s despite.” At such a time, should you attain it, you will find D 7 faeper Siphon eer ee Sane bad haat 70 Shs LO we your temptations very different from those which now trouble you. Even if you correctly anticipate the circwmstances of your life, if it is to be continued on a dead level of unbroken sameness, you cannot possibly foresce, what is of much greater consequence than its external course, the thoughts and feelings that may affect you, you know not how soon. And though it is true that to a very wonderful degree we make our own fate, and see, and hear, and notice only those things in the outer world which in some way accord with our private experience, yet God can at any moment effect the most sudden spiritual revolutions. You may not yet know them, but there are thoughts which once entering the heart can quicken it with new energy, fire every noble impulse, and leave no room for the sorrows that have been brooded over so long in sullen hopelessness. I do not mean earthly hopes in diseuise, or love, or anything that has a worldly apparatus for the formation of its spells, but an idea, a truth which may be as a mighty lever for raising the soul to heights never imagined before; and may touch it with a forceSHELF-LOVR. vs aS unexpected as the sudden rise of wind calm, a wind th after a dead at sweeps the sky clear of every cloud, and makes every leaf to dance, and every rain-drop to glitter at its glad awakening, These influences sould quickly change the atmo- Sphere of your mind, and make you to live indeed ; no longer existing only, uncertain of any advantage in this life except the discipline by which it pre- pares you for another, Now in this limitation of the worth of life lies, as I think, the great danger of many pious hearts. Be- cause those who do not fear God, too highly prize earthly blessings, those who would be holy are apt to underrate them: though to “love life and to see good days” does not seem to have been thought an unworthy desire by King David, and though we are told by St. Paul that “God giveth us richly all things to enjoy,” yet how seldom is enjoyment regarded by us as areal part of our duty. How many seek for no better attitude of mind than that of entire resigna- tion! but in the lives of most people, true gratitude and a lively faith can add joy to resignation.