Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-07-03
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HABIT AND LIFE.

By Henry E. Cope.

NNANOSNNA
not in the counsel Of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way or sinners, nor sit
teth in the seat OF the scornful. =
Psalm, t., l.
We spend O good deal Of time de-
nouncing bad habits and warning the
youth against them while, somehow,
we have lost sight of the fact that
there is just as much help in good
habit as there is hindrance and harm
in a bad one Habits may be allies just
as truly as we find them to be enc
mics.
There are those who are hab1tually
vicious; why should there not be those
who are habitually virtuous? It is as
easy to learn to do right and to have
the doing of right become second ma
ture as it is to learn to do wrong. 1t
is just as easy both morally and phys
ically to acquire the habit of walking
upright as to acquire that Of walking
with a SLOUGH.
Once we were taught that we were
all naturally altogether depraved, that
man was born in THIS world with
bent to evil, that the clean life and
the upward tending life really were
abnormal. Whoever first invented that
doctrine must have had terrible lot
of iniquity which he was trying to &C
count for with a theory.
Every mans chance Of holiness is at
least as good as his chance of health.
Make up your mind that you were born
to be sickly, the victim of predatory
disease, and you never will be disap-
pointed; you will have oil the aches
and pains that the most ambitious
drug store almanac could covet to cata-
log.
Make up your mind that Providence
has cast you into the universe doom
ed to depravity, branded as a fallen
being, lost, undone, miserable sinner,
and you have at least handicapped
yourself by the adoption Of such
view it any attempts to defeat Provi-
dcnce and to be better than you were
destined to be.
Health of any kind is a matter of
habit. But we never will acquire right
habits unless we believe in their posi-
bility, unless we have faith in man as
a being to whom goodness is no less
attainable than baseness. You never
will be any better than you believe
you may be-
There are two ways Of doing things,
the intermittent and the habitual, the
IF fa
speak only once year the act would
involve as much difficulty as some peo-
pie have, for example, in thinking. The
rarity of the exercise determines its
difficulty.
If the life of goodness and truth
means to you the doing with special,
separate effort of a long series Of sep
arate acts, then it certainly is path
of great toll that opens before you.
MAY it not rather mean the steady do
ing of the right in all things until the
determination and the doing of the
right seem to require no special con-
sideration and volitiOn in each case?
Habits are life tracks; they lead
either up o. down. Habit is character
in action working without conscious re-
Election. The laws Of habit apply to
the good as well as to the evil, to the
higher life as we'll as to the lower. If
it is possible habitually to breathe cor
rectly, eat sensibly, and speak correct
ly, why should it not also be possible
habitually to choose the right and do
the best?
If we had to stop and measure every
breath, count every vowel, reason over
every STEP one days living would be
enough to blight the life So in the
higher sphere Of morals, living is a
weary business if you still have to in
dividualize and argue out all your ac-
tons.
Daily living is the gymnasium of the
soul where moral muscles are trained
to habits of implicit, apparently me-
chanical obedience to the impulse of
high ideals, right motives, and noble
standards. Here power is acquired to
meet all temptations, to overcome diff
ficulties, to be master of life itself.
He has a good education who has ac-
ouired the best habits of doing and of
thinking. He is learning life's great
lessons, finding the fullness of an edu-
cation. to whom each day comes with
its opportunities of training the soul,
through tasks and troubles, to the hab-
it's of the higher life, to self-mastery,
ard to efficiency in service for our fell
lows.
SIN AND ITS MoCKERs.
By Rev. W. H. Gray.
Text.-'Fools make a mock at sin,
but among the righteous there is ia
Proverbs IA %.
There are two ways Of reading this