acter can be proposed as a faultless model. But, could a perfect individual be found, we should only injure ourselves by indiscriminate, servile imitation; for much which is good in another, is good in him alone, belongs to his peculiar constitution, has been the growth of his peculiar experience, is harmonious and beautiful only in combination with his other attributes, and would be unnatural, awkward, and forced in a servile imitator. The very strength of emotion, which in one man is virtue, in another would be defect; for virtue depends on the balance which exists between the various principles of the soul; and that intenseness of feeling, which, when joined with force of thought and purpose, is healthful and invigorating, would prove a disease, or might approach insanity, in a weak and sensitive mind. No man should part with his individuality, and aim to become another. No process is so fatal as that which would cast all men into one mould. Every human being is intended to have a character of his own, to be what no other is, to do what no other can do. Our common nature is to be unfolded in unbounded diversities. It is rich enough for infinite manifestations. It is to wear innumerable forms of beauty and glory. Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influences to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach. Let him not, then, enslave his conscience to others, but act with the freedom, strength, and dignity of one, whose highest law is in his own breast. We know that it may be replied to us, that Providence, by placing us at birth in entire subjection to social influences, has marked out society as the great instrument of determining the human mind. The child, it ever. is said, is plainly designed to receive passively and with unresisting simplicity, a host of impressions, thoughts, and feelings, from those around him. This we know. But we know, too, that childhood is not to endure for We know that the impressions, pleasures, pains, which throng and possess the infant mind, are intended to awaken in it an energy, by which it is to subject them to itself; by which it is to separate from the crude mass what is true and pure; by which it is to act upon, and modify, and throw into new combinations, the materials forced upon it originally by sensation and society. It is only by putting forth this inward and self-forming power, that we emerge from childhood. He who continues to be passively moulded, prolongs his infancy to the tomb. There is deep wisdom in the declaration of Jesus, that to be his disciple, we must "hate father and mother"; or, in other words, that we must surrender the prejudices of education to the new lights which God gives us; that the love of truth must triumph over the influences of our best and earliest friends; that, forsaking the maxims of society, we must frame ourselves according to the standard of moral perfection set before us in the life, spirit, and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is interesting to observe how the Creator, who has subjected the child at first to social influences, has, even at that age, provided for its growing freedom, by inspiring it with an overflowing animation, an inexpressible joy, an impatience of limits, a thirst for novelty, a delight in adventure, an ardent fancy, all suited to balance the authority of the old, and gradually mingling with the credulity of infancy that questioning, doubting spirit, on which intellectual progress chiefly depends. The common opinion is, that our danger from society arises wholly from its bad members, and that we cannot easily be too much influenced by the good. But, to our apprehension, there is a peril in the influence both of good and bad. What many of us have chiefly to dread from society, is, not that we shall acquire a positive character of vice, but that it will impose on us a negative character, that we shall live and die passive beings, that the creative and self-forming energy of the soul will not be called forth in the work of our improvement. Our danger is, that we shall substitute the consciences of others for our own, that we shall paralyze our faculties through dependence on foreign guides, that we shall be moulded from abroad instead of determining ourselves. The pressure of society upon us is constant, and almost immeasurable; now open and direct in the form of authority and menace, now subtile and silent in the guise of blandishment and promise. What mighty power is lodged in a frown or a smile, in the voice of praise and flattery, in scorn or neglect, in public opinion, in domestic habits and prejudices, in the state and spirit of the community to which we belong! Nothing escapes the cognizance of society. Its legislation extends even to our dress, movements, features; and the individual bears the traces, even in countenance, air, and voice, of the social influences amidst which he has been plunged. We are in great peril of growing up slaves to this exacting, arbitrary sovereign; of forgetting, or never learning, our true responsibility; of living in unconsciousness of that divine power with which we are invested over ourselves, and in which all the dignity of our nature is concentred; of overlooking the sacredness of our minds, and laying them open to impressions from any and all who surround us. Resistance of this foreign pressure is our only safeguard, and is essential to virtue. All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self-determination. There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd, even towards the best objects. We must act from an inward spring. The good, as well as the bad, may injure us, if, through that intolerance which is a common infirmity of the good, they impose on us authoritatively their own convictions, and obstruct our own intellectual and moral activity. A state of society, in which correct habits prevail, may produce in many, a mechanical regularity and religion, which is any thing but virtue. Nothing morally great or good springs from mere sympathy and imitation. These principles will only forge chains for us, and perpetuate our infancy, unless more and more controlled and subdued by that inward lawgiver and judge, whose authority is from God, and whose sway over our whole nature, alone secures its free, glorious, and everlasting expansion. The truth is, and we need to feel it most deeply, that our connexion with society, as it is our greatest aid, so it is our greatest peril. We are in constant danger of being spoiled of our moral judgment, and of our power over ourselves; and, in losing these, we lose the chief prerogatives of spiritual beings. We sink, as far as mind can sink, into the world of matter, the chief distinction of which is, that it wants self-motion, or moves only from foreign impulse. The propensity in our fellow-creatures, which we have most to dread, is that, which, though most severely condemned by Jesus, is yet the most frequent infirmity of his followers; we mean, the propensity to rule, to tyrannize, to war with the freedom of their equals, to make themselves stand ards for other minds, to be lawgivers, instead of brethren and friends, to their race. Our great and most difficult duty, as social beings, is, to derive constant aid from society without taking its yoke'; to open our minds to the thoughts, reasonings, and persuasions of others, and yet to hold fast the sacred right of private judgment; to receive impulses from our fellow-beings, and yet to act from our own souls; to sympathize with others, and yet to determine our own feelings; to act with others, and yet to follow our own consciences; to unite social deference and self-dominion; to join moral self-subsistence with social dependence; to respect others without losing self-respect; to love our friends, and to reverence our superiors, whilst our supreme homage is given to that moral perfection which no friend and no superior has realized, and which, if faithfully pursued, will often demand separation from all around us. Such is our great work as social beings, and, to perform it, we should look habitually to Jesus Christ, who was distinguished by nothing more than by moral independence, than by resisting and overcoming the world. The reverence for our own moral nature, on which we have now insisted, needs earnest and perpetual inculcation. This virtue finds few aids from abroad. All religions and governments have more or less warred with it. Even that religion, which came from God to raise man to a moral empire over himself, has been seized on by the selfish and intolerant principles of human nature, and all its sanctions have been brought to bear against that free, independent action of thought and conscience, which it was chiefly intended to promote. In truth, men need to be instructed in nothing more |