Character — Ch 7a - Duty--Truthfulness

"I slept, and dreamt that life was Beauty; I woke, and found that life was Duty."

"Duty!

wondrous thought, that workest neither by fond insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by holding up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting for thyself always reverence, if not always obedience; before whom all appetites are dumb, however secretly they rebel"-- KANT.

"How happy is he born and taught, That serveth not another's will!

Whose armour is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill!

"Whose passions not his masters are, Whose soul is still prepared for death;

Unti'd unto the world by care Of public fame, or private breath.

"This man is freed from servile bands, Of hope to rise, or fear to fall: Lord of himself, though not of land;

And having nothing, yet hath all."

--WOTTON.

"His nay was nay without recall;

His yea was yea, and powerful all;

He gave his yea with careful heed, His thoughts and words were well agreed;

His word, his bond and seal."

INSCRIPTION ON BARON STEIN'S TOMB.

DUTY is a thing that is due, and must be paid by every man who would avoid present discredit and eventual moral insolvency.

It is an obligation--a debt--which can only be discharged by voluntary effort and resolute action in the affairs of life.

Duty embraces man's whole existence.

It begins in the home, where there is the duty which children owe to their parents on the one hand, and the duty which parents owe to their children on the other.

There are, in like manner, the respective duties of husbands and wives, of masters and servants; while outside the home there are the duties which men and women owe to each other as friends and neighbours, as employers and employed, as governors and governed.

"Render, therefore," says St. Paul, "to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law," Thus duty rounds the whole of life, from our entrance into it until our exit from it--duty to superiors, duty to inferiors, and duty to equals--duty to man, and duty to God.

Wherever there is power to use or to direct, there is duty.

For we are but as stewards, appointed to employ the means entrusted to us for our own and for others' good.

The abiding sense of duty is the very crown of character.

It is the upholding law of man in his highest attitudes.

Without it, the individual totters and falls before the first puff of adversity or temptation; whereas, inspired by it, the weakest becomes strong and full of courage.

"Duty," says Mrs. Jameson, "is the cement which binds the whole moral edifice together; without which, all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have no permanence; but all the fabric of existence crumbles away from under us, and leaves us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation."

Duty is based upon a sense of justice--justice inspired by love, which is the most perfect form of goodness.

Duty is not a sentiment, but a principle pervading the life: and it exhibits itself in conduct and in acts, which are mainly determined by man's conscience and freewill.

The voice of conscience speaks in duty done; and without its regulating and controlling influence, the brightest and greatest intellect may be merely as a light that leads astray.

Conscience sets a man upon his feet, while his will holds him upright.

Conscience is the moral governor of the heart--the governor of right action, of right thought, of right faith, of right life--and only through its dominating influence can the noble and upright character be fully developed.

The conscience, however, may speak never so loudly, but without energetic will it may speak in vain.

The will is free to choose between the right course and the wrong one, but the choice is nothing unless followed by immediate and decisive action.

If the sense of duty be strong, and the course of action clear, the courageous will, upheld by the conscience, enables a man to proceed on his course bravely, and to accomplish his purposes in the face of all opposition and difficulty.

And should failure be the issue, there will remain at least this satisfaction, that it has been in the cause of duty.

"Be and continue poor, young man," said Heinzelmann, "while others around you grow rich by fraud and disloyalty; be without place or power while others beg their way upwards; bear the pain of disappointed hopes, while others gain the accomplishment of theirs by flattery; forego the gracious pressure of the hand, for which others cringe and crawl.

Wrap yourself in your own virtue, and seek a friend and your daily bread.

If you have in your own cause grown gray with unbleached honour, bless God and die!"

Men inspired by high principles are often required to sacrifice all that they esteem and love rather than fail in their duty.

The old English idea of this sublime devotion to duty was expressed by the loyalist poet to his sweetheart, on taking up arms for his sovereign:-- "I could love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more."

[161] And Sertorius has said: "The man who has any dignity of character, should conquer with honour, and not use any base means even to save his life."

So St. Paul, inspired by duty and faith, declared himself as not only "ready to be bound, but to die at Jerusalem."

When the Marquis of Pescara was entreated by the princes of Italy to desert the Spanish cause, to which he was in honour bound, his noble wife, Vittoria Colonna, reminded him of his duty.

She wrote to him: "Remember your honour, which raises you above fortune and above kings; by that alone, and not by the splendour of titles, is glory acquired--that glory which it will be your happiness and pride to transmit unspotted to your posterity."

Such was the dignified view which she took of her husband's honour; and when he fell at Pavia, though young and beautiful, and besought by many admirers, she betook herself to solitude, that she might lament over her husband's loss and celebrate his exploits.

[162] To live really, is to act energetically.

Life is a battle to be fought valiantly.

Inspired by high and honourable resolve, a man must stand to his post, and die there, if need be.

Like the old Danish hero, his determination should be, "to dare nobly, to will strongly, and never to falter in the path of duty."

The power of will, be it great or small, which God has given us, is a Divine gift; and we ought neither to let it perish for want of using on the one hand, nor profane it by employing it for ignoble purposes on the other.

Robertson, of Brighton, has truly said, that man's real greatness consists not in seeking his own pleasure, or fame, or advancement--"not that every one shall save his own life, not that every man shall seek his own glory--but that every man shall do his own duty."

What most stands in the way of the performance of duty, is irresolution, weakness of purpose, and indecision.

On the one side are conscience and the knowledge of good and evil; on the other are indolence, selfishness, love of pleasure, or passion.

The weak and ill-disciplined will may remain suspended for a time between these influences; but at length the balance inclines one way or the other, according as the will is called into action or otherwise.

If it be allowed to remain passive, the lower influence of selfishness or passion will prevail; and thus manhood suffers abdication, individuality is renounced, character is degraded, and the man permits himself to become the mere passive slave of his senses.

Thus, the power of exercising the will promptly, in obedience to the dictates of conscience, and thereby resisting the impulses of the lower nature, is of essential importance in moral discipline, and absolutely necessary for the development of character in its best forms.

To acquire the habit of well-doing, to resist evil propensities, to fight against sensual desires, to overcome inborn selfishness, may require a long and persevering discipline; but when once the practice of duty is learnt, it becomes consolidated in habit, and thence-forward is comparatively easy.

The valiant good man is he who, by the resolute exercise of his freewill, has so disciplined himself as to have acquired the habit of virtue; as the bad man is he who, by allowing his freewill to remain inactive, and giving the bridle to his desires and passions, has acquired the habit of vice, by which he becomes, at last, bound as by chains of iron.

A man can only achieve strength of purpose by the action of his own freewill.

If he is to stand erect, it must be by his own efforts; for he cannot be kept propped up by the help of others.

He is master of himself and of his actions.

He can avoid falsehood, and be truthful; he can shun sensualism, and be continent; he can turn aside from doing a cruel thing, and be benevolent and forgiving.

All these lie within the sphere of individual efforts, and come within the range of self-discipline.

And it depends upon men themselves whether in these respects they will be free, pure, and good on the one hand; or enslaved, impure, and miserable on the other.

Among the wise sayings of Epictetus we find the following: "We do not choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with those parts: our simple duty is confined to playing them well.

The slave may be as free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it dwarfs all others; beside it all others are insignificant; with it all others are needless; without it no others are possible....

You must teach men that happiness is not where, in their blindness and misery, they seek it.

It is not in strength, for Myro and Ofellius were not happy; not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy; not in power, for the Consuls were not happy;

not in all these together, for Nero and Sardanapulus and Agamemnon sighed and wept and tore their hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances.

It lies in yourselves; in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; and in a power of contentment and peace, and the even flow of life amid poverty, exile, disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death."

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