With him statesmanship is no superficial trade, but a deep and profound philosophy, drawn from all the past, and enclosing all the future, not narrowed down to a mere consideration of material interest, but comprehensive as humanity, in the perfect development of which are involved all human instrumentalities, all governmental influences, all divine providences.

The statesman is honest, sincere, firm in the discharge of duty, in the performance of his appointed work; he cannot be otherwise. He must have well considered opinions, which are lights and laws to his own mind, and by which his action must be guided, and his policy shaped. Obedience to his moral judgments is the law of his life; hence popularity can never be sought after; it must come unsought, if it come at all. He can never flatter the public mind; his duty is to enlighten and guide it; he can never wink at public passion and popular errors; his duty is to hold in check the one, and eradicate the other. Truth and right are the ends for which he works, and he can deviate from the course they point out no more than the planets can from their orbits; the moral law binds him as tightly as physical laws do them. He must act up to his enlightened opinions and to his moral judgment, come what may ; he can no more deal in false facts and bad arguments to carry even a good cause, much less a bad one, than he could deal in base coin, or stolen goods. He is possessed of courage, that true moral courage which characterizes the martyr, whether in the State or in religion. He believes, and therefore he speaks and acts, speaks and acts out his beliefs, not any considerations of gain or loss, of personal gain or selfish gratification. He believes in the everlasting and the fixed, and hence his course must be stable, consistent, onward, halting not under any weight of responsibility which duty may lay upon him. Upheld by the consciousness of truth and right, he will be found equal to any emergency, and capable of mastering every contingency.

Such is the ideal statesman, whose lead a nation should rejoice to follow, since there alone are safety and prosperity to be found.

The people must have men in office to look after affairs of State. Will they take the scheeming partizan, or the ideal statesman? In which course lie wisdom and progress? Such a man reacts upon the public mind, and lifts it upward into regions of purity and light, where he dwells serene; whereas the partizan sinks below the public mind, and tends to lower, instead of raising its thoughts. In company with the one, all influences and tendencies are upward and onward; in company with the other, a weight of scheming thoughts and low desires is felt, sufficient to drag an angel down to dabble in the filth and dirt of this dull earth.

Such is the ideal at which every young and generous and ardent mind should aim. It will enlarge his view of things, fill his heart with noblest emotions, kindle in it a burning love and deep reverence for humanity. Sublimity will grow into his very being, and his soul will swell and overflow with high thoughts and noble sentiments as an exhaustless fountain of pure waters. It will grow into colossal proportions, while that of the partizan is dwarfed and shriveled as the withered fruit of an untimely autumn. Which of these characters appears to the young and aspiring the most inviting, the most divine? For which shall the young aspirant for fame labor and toil? Will you crawl, like the serpent, in filth and dirt, or soar sunward with the eagle? Will you shape your soul to all noble and exalted work, or dwarf it to low, cunning, and base desires, to a work destitute of dignity and without shame?

Let the young man who would aspire, believe; let him have faith in humanity, as capable through truth to work out and realize his brightest ideal. Let him understand the divine mission of the State, and the holy and sublime duties resting upon him, who works in and through it. Let him also comprehend, be fully penetrated with thoughts of the divine mission of the statesman himself, "who, when brought

Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought

Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought;
Whose high endeavors are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright;
Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Whose law is reason ; who depends

Upon that law as on the best of friends,
And fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows;
Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there shall stand
On honorable terms, or else retire,

And in himself possess his own desire;

Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with singleness of aim;

And, therefore, does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honors, or worldly state;

Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall
Like showers of manna, if they come at all;

But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment to which heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired,
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast;

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must go to dust without his fame,
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.
This is the happy statesman; this is he

Whom every youth in thought should wish to be."

CHAPTER XXXV.

MORAL CULTURE.

SELF culture is the development in man of that which constitutes his humanity; the bringing into activity and to perfection those powers and capacities with which God has endowed the soul. To do this the law of man's being must be observed; the nature of the mind regarded, and that course be pursued for which the mind is adapted. God has created the mind, the spirit, in accordance with the idea of His own mind; He has created it for certain purposes, and has ordained that these purposes shall be wrought out by the exercise of its own powers. Now, these powers must also be subject to certain laws of development; certain modes of education are fitted to bring them into play, and to strengthen them. God has created the capacities and provided the means for their development, and laid down the law of it. If God works from an idea, from a plan, this must be so, and cannot be otherwise. Our sensational nature is fitted to be developed in a particular way, and the material world is so situated that this development must take place just in accordance with the divine plan and in the divine method; so the spiritual in man must have a law for its development, by an obedience to which alone can the spirit become what the Great Creator designed it should become. God's creation must be cultivated on God's plan, or it will remain sterile and unproductive; nor does the law change, whether the

subject of this culture be matter or mind; in both cases God's mode must be followed, or the harvest will be disappointment. God has adapted every thing for something else—the male to the female, the earth to the sun, the eye to light, the ear to sound, food to the taste, and the spirit for the conception of truth and law; and each of these can be developed only by the appointed

means.

In order, then, that man should become what God designed he should be, it is necessary that he should get hold of the idea by which God wrought in his creation; that he should understand his own nature, the law of its development, and the mean by which God ordained that this development should alone take place. One of our objects has been to analyze man's moral nature, to ascertain the laws of its development and culture, and the means appointed for the accomplishment of this purpose. If we have got hold of the right idea of humanity, we are prepared to point out the way in which man alone can become what God designed him to be; the only way in which man can bring into action : 11 his powers and perfect them; the only way in which life can be developed in the spirit, and carried on to its complete development and ultimate perfection.

We have seen that the condition of all moral action, development, or culture, is beliefs, moral judgments, faith. Without these there can be no spiritual life in humanity, no morality in man, no consciousness of right and wrong, of obligation and duty, no feelings of pleasure or pain consequent upon action. Man must believe, or he cannot live in the spirit, cannot be born of the spirit, cannot live a spiritual life; if he does not believe, he is left in bondage to nature, to the life that natural generation imparts, to the development of his sensational powers. Out of the notions and facts obtained through sensation he may construct sciences, solve mathematical problems, which deal only with the relations of matter. With La Place, he may read the mechanism of the planetary and starry