The Elements of Character

The Elements of Character

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Title: The Elements of Character
Author: Mary G. Chandler
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THE
ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER.
BY
MARY G. CHANDLER.
"An exclusively intellectual education leads, by a very obvious process,
to hard-heartedness and the contempt of all moral influences. An
exclusively moral education tends to fatuity by the over-excitement of
the sensibilities. An exclusively religious education ends in insanity, if
it do not take a directly opposite course and lead to
atheism."--EDINBURGH REVIEW.
1854
THE REV. E.H. SEARS, MY FORMER PASTOR,
UNDER WHOSE SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE AND INSTRUCTION,
MY MIND LEARNED TO DWELL UPON RELIGIOUS THEMES
WITH PLEASURE, WHILE MY HEART FOUND PEACE IN
BELIEVING.
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, AS A TRIBUTE OF GRATEFUL
AFFECTION, BY THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.
CHARACTER. THE HUMAN TRINITY. THOUGHT.
IMAGINATION. AFFECTION. LIFE. CONVERSATION.
MANNERS. COMPANIONSHIP. CHARACTER.

"We have been taught, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or
unintentionally, to seek rather what virtue gives than what virtue is; the
reward rather than the service, the felicity rather than the life, the

dowry, let me say, rather than the bride."--T.T. STONE.
"His practice was of a more divine extraction, drawn from the word of
God, and wrought up by the assistance of his Spirit; therefore, in the
head of all his virtues I shall set that which was the head and spring of
them all, his Christianity; for this alone is the true royal blood that runs
through the whole body of virtue, and every pretender to that glorious
family, who has no tincture of it, is an impostor. This is that same
fountain which baptizeth all the gentle virtues that so immortalize the
names of the old philosophers; herein they are regenerated, and take a
new name and nature. Dug up in the wilderness of nature, and dipped in
this living spring, they are planted and flourish in the paradise of God.
By Christianity I intend that universal habit of grace which is wrought
in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of God, whereby the whole creature
is resigned up into the divine will and love, and all its actions directed
to the obedience and glory of its Maker."--MEMOIRS OF COL.
HUTCHINSON, BY HIS WIDOW.
* * * * *
The weakness and helplessness of humanity, in relation to the fortunes
of this life, have been a favorite theme with philosophers and teachers
ever since the world began; and every term expressive of all that is
uncertain, insubstantial, and unstable has been exhausted in describing
the feebleness of man's power to retain in possession the good things of
this life, or even life itself. However firmly the hand of man may seem
to grasp power, reputation, or wealth; however numerous may be the
band of children or friends that surrounds him, he has no certainty that
he may not die friendless and a pauper. In fact, the most brilliant
success in life seems sometimes to be permitted only that it may make
the darkness of succeeding reverses the more profound.
Weak and helpless as we may be in the affairs of this life, there is,
however, one thing over which we have entire control. Riches may take
to themselves wings, though honest industry exert its best efforts to
acquire and retain them; power is taken away from hands that seek to
use it only for the good of those they govern; reputation may become
tarnished, though virtue be without spot; health may vanish, though its
laws, so far as we understand them, be strictly obeyed; but there is one