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power over the spirit is broken; surely when the compassionate grave receives the perverted nerves, the tormented spirit will find peace.

But while we are familiar with the truth that there is tremendous power in evil habits, we do not so readily nor so clearly perceive that there is equal power in good habits. The reason is, perhaps, that we are slower to form good habits, unless we are exceptionally placed in the midst of good influences, because the formation of good habits involves self-restraint and discipline, while the formation of evil. habits does not. Still this great conservative tendency of our nature the tendency to form habits can be fully utilized in the interests of a holy life. Good habits can be formed, and when they are formed they have all the inherent and characteristic strength of habits; they are the bulwarks of religious faith and the impregnable citadels of virtue. From one point of view the most eminent virtues are only perfected habits. Many a man owes his success in business to the early formation of habits of diligence and economy and persever

ance.

I remember a boy who formed the habit at his father's wood-pile of never giving up a tough knot until he had sent his axe through the very heart of it; and many a time, I am

sure, that boy has found help in life's hardest struggles from the discipline got on that woodpile, and the habit there formed of accomplishing what he attempted. The patient effort to overcome difficulties begets the habit of overcoming difficulties, until finally difficulties cease to be formidable. Education, rightly conceived, is the habit of sound thinking secured through repeated, systematic exercise of the rational faculties. Not only the mind but the brain itself is involved in the process of education to such a degree that its conformation, and to some extent its very structure, are changed. "The great thing in all education," says Professor James, "is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we would guard against the plague." Education is thus mainly the forming of good mental habits. Rectitude is only the confirmed habit of doing what is right. The simple, common graces of politeness and amiability, which some people exhibit so constantly and win

ningly, often are not the result of a constitutional advantage over others, but of polite and amiable habits patiently formed. Cheerfulness is a habit that may be cultivated to such a degree as to render gloominess and moroseness impossible. The habit of seeing the good there is in every day's experience has contributed largely to the success of many a man in business or in a profession. David Hume declared that the habit of seeing the bright side of things was worth more than a thousand

pounds a year. Men and women sometimes complain of having "the blues;" they are victims of a doleful habit which they need not have acquired, and for which they are clearly responsible. Benevolence, too, is a habit; no man gives largely and beautifully till he has learned to give, that is, till he has formed the habit of giving. Prayer also may become a habit; not as a form merely, though in the matter of form habit is a help, but as a genuine spiritual exercise, a movement of the soul toward God in worship and communion.

Thus there is in our tendency to form habits, and our ability to form habits, a powerful conservative force for good. The perfect righteousness of saints in heaven is, from one point of view, but the finished habit of living rightly,

of "doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God."

3. Finally, consider the importance of forming right habits in youth. Then the nature is plastic and easily pressed into any mould; then the nervous system as well as the mind is most susceptible to impressions, and impressions are most enduring. The course of most lives is determined before the first twenty or twenty-five years have passed, because during those years the habits which mould character are formed. "Live as long as you may," said Southey, "the first twenty years are the longest half of your life." Smiles tells us that when the worn-out slanderer and voluptuary, Dr. Walcott, lay on his death-bed, one of his friends asked if he could do anything to gratify him. "Yes," said the dying man, eagerly, "give me back my youth." It was a vain request; there is no renewal of the ingenuousness and plasticity of youth. Opportunities once lost, are lost forever. Evil habits that have become wholly possessed of a man are relentless tyrants, rather, they are fetters which youth forges and which old age has no power to break. Disregard of this truth has brought remediless disaster and unappeasable sorrow to many a soul. Augustine in his "Confessions" bears impressive testimony

to the force of evil habit; he says: "My will the enemy held, and thence had made a chain. for me, and bound me. For of a froward will was a lust made; and a lust served became custom; and custom not resisted became necessity. By which links, as it were, joined together, a hard bondage held me inthralled."

There are few men who do not live to regret habits formed in their youth. If only the young would be wise enough to heed the examples and warnings of the old! Professor James, in his work on psychology, has written so intelligently and sagaciously that I cannot forbear quoting somewhat at length. He says:

"The physiological study of mental conditions is thus the most powerful ally of hortatory ethics. The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, 'I won't count this time!' Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may

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