The Grange advance., 1873-11-12
HOME INTERESTS.
The White Soul.

lO"eIs. 1ut urSC Walk IN ner train Tor
the love they bear her divine form, tor
the delight of gazing on those lines of
beauty which glorify her face, and for
the inefable serenity she breathes into
their seuls. The other class have their
eyes fastened solely on the rewards
scattered along her path. Blind to her
rare symmetry and the majestry Of her
step, deaf to the music of her voice,
they are only eager to clutch the shin
ing gifts she lets fall The first class
do right because right is right, not for
love Of gain nor for fear Gain is the
motive of base spirits and fear the spur
Of craven souls.
A young Frenchman brought to
D'Alembert the solution of difficult
problem. Said he Il have done this
in order to have seat in the Acade-
N.Y. Sir" replied D'Alembert,
g with such dispositions you will never
earn one. Science must be loved for
its own sa ke, and not for the advantage
to be derived. No other principle
will enable man to make progress in
the sciences And 50 of Virtue. He
who would progress in virtue must love
her for her own sake. There are two
ways in which this progress can be
made. First, by the positive love of
all that which is high, and pure,
and just, and true; and, second,
by the uprootins from the heart every
base passion, every vicious inclination.
every low tendency, every ignoble feel
ing Here each has his own besetting
sin. With one vindictive disposition
dominates over him; with another
pride is the bane Of virtue with an
other jealousy with another sensual
qualification. The wisest and best Of
ali the heathen phi! !osophers freely
avowed that he had struggled for the
mastery and won it oyer every base
passion that infests the human heart.
The person eager in his pursuit of
virtue has no temptation to corrode his
heart with schemes Of revenge, no en-
thusiasm to waste on trivial objects, no
time to waste on vain enterprises.
His eye is ever fixed and steady, and
though it may catch and reflect feeting
images Of strife: Of envy, Of revenge,
they are forgotten and melt away in
the earnest gaze upward. One excel
lent means Of cultivating whiteness Of
soul is reading biography.
Lives of great men all remind US
We can make our lives sublime
We want to get inside views of the
character Of those we read about, to
see them as they appeared in the SIM
plicity Of 6reside association and stripped
Of the robes they wore before the
crowds that honor them. In the inte-
rior life Of Lincoln, for example, how
little consciousness the man seems to
have had Of himself; how earnest he
was to get at just the exact truth Of
statements made; how sincere in his
charity for ali; how incapable Of NAL
ice toward any. The interior life of
Alice Cary appears to have been in an
uncommon degree serene, and pure; and
high. Envy, detraction, sel6shness.
scorn, had no part in that noble woman
hood. She saw not that excellence
which she had reached, but that which
was still to be pursued. She consider
ed not how far she had outrun others,
but how far distant she herself was from
the goal.
Scorn and vindictiveness tarnish and
blacken the soul quicker and more eff:
tectlvely than any other of the passions
No knight of Arthur's npblest dealt in scorn;
nut II a man were halt or luncheon, in him
Sy those whom God had made full-limbered and TALL
9co5n was allowed as part of his defect
ana ne was answered softly by the King
And all his Table"
Revenge taken into the heart and
cherished there poisons every noble as
plratlon. Envy, hatred, pride, pollute
the soul at its very center. But the
1ovo &c fr,,tL 70 e.. ii