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    Untitled Article

    ( 805 )

    Untitled Article

    There are certain stages of human life at which the character and state of the soul are revealed to the individual himself more clearly than any course of circumstances can ever exhibit them to observers . These disclosures come uncalled-, for by the one most interested in them , and are .

    perhaps on that account , made so much less available to his improvement than they might be . Strong emotions seize on him at the time . Wonder , fear , or delight , engrosses him while the insight is new ; and unless guided by some favourable influence to take note of what is at such times discerned , he loses , when the unaccustomed impulse has passed away , all the impressions which it occasioned . Such periods come to all , though

    not at equal times , or in similar modes , or with corresponding power . In some the impression is brief and presently forgotten : to others , it comes as a mystery , and is entertained with awe , and cherished as a secret of the spirit . Some impart their new emotions to those who do not understand them , and are easily persuaded that the whole is an accidental occurrence , which has no connexion with their permanent state ; while others fall into

    the power of guides who take advantage of so favourable an opportunity of making them the disciples of superstition . —But there is no accident in the course of Providence ; and these occasional revealings have their tendency and their purpose , like all other things which befal the human spirit .

    The thou ghtful have been conscious of such a disclosure as we speak of in very early youth . It is not often occasioned by such suggestions as we are accustomed to look to for such effects . Many remain comparatively unaffected by great external changes , who are touched to the quick by some almost indiscernible influence . They may look calmly on the grave of parent or friend , and stand firm among the vicissitudes of life , while they

    are shaken to the very centre by a circumstance in which others see nothing unusual . A comparison , —which might apparently have been drawn at any previous time , —betv * een the serenity of the good and the restlessness of the wicked ; a word in season from the wise when the young heart is roused and softened by influences received through the eye and ear ; and

    especially a rapid acquaintance with a congenial mind , —these and many other impulses have the power of changing the spiritual world from a dream into a reality in the experience of the young . A new and sudden consciousness of what he is made for , what he has been , is , and ought to be , is awakened in him ; and he becomes in a degree capable of estimating religion , its offices and its powers . This consciousness seldom remains

    * On the Formation of the Christian Character : addressed to those who are seeking to lead a Religious Life . By H . Ware , Juu . Cambridge and Boston , U . S .

    Untitled Article

    ON THE FORMATION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER . *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 805, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/9/