Fortuity

“ Why should I not make to myself a name, and claim for myself authority, and power, and reverence? Why should I not have private views, and seek private ends? Why should I suffer, and forbear, and seek another’s good, rather than my own? ”

“ Why have we a choice, and a will, and a notion of justice and injustice, enabling us to be moral agents? Why have we sympathies that make the best of us so afraid of inflicting pain and sorrow, which yet we see dealt about so lavishly by the Supreme Governor? Why should our notions of right towards each other, and to all sentient beings within our influence, differ so widely from what appears to be His notion and rule, if every thing were to end here? ”

“ Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that ‘Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by Action.’ On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: ‘Do the Duty which lies nearest thee,’ which thou knowest to be a Duty! ”

“ Your virtues, and the graces of mind and character upon which you pride yourself—your strength and composure, your patience and devotion to duty, your honesty, your justice, your purity—all these belong not only to yourself but to the society which has produced you and of which you are a part. ”

“ For virtue ought not to have been stated to consist in selection, so that that very thing which was itself the chief good, was to acquire something besides itself; for all things which are to be taken, or chosen, or desired, ought to exist in the chief good, so that he who has attained that may want nothing more. Do you not see how evident it is to those men whose chief good consists in pleasure, what they ought to do and what they ought not? so that no one of them doubts what all their duties ought to regard, what they ought to pursue, or avoid. ”

“ Know then, ye philanthropists—to whatever profession of faith, or whatever determination of principles, chance, reason, or education may have conducted you—that the endeavours of the truly virtuous necessarily converge to one point, though it be hidden from them what point that is; they all labour for one end, and that controversies concerning the nature of that end serve only to weaken the strength which for the interest of virtue should be consolidated. ”

“ So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite importance to you not to be misled in,—namely, in what degree of real merit you stand either as an honest man, an useful citizen, a faithful subject to your king, or a good servant to your God,—call in religion and morality.—Look,—What is written in the law of God?—How readest thou?— Consult calm reason and the unchangeable obligations of justice and truth;- -what say they? ”

“ We speak not of external acts; and hence we lay aside the whole scheme of natural necessity. We speak of the acts of the will; and we ask, if these be not free from the dominion of moral necessity, from necessitating causes over which we have no control, can we be accountable for them? Can we be to praise or to blame for them? Can they be our virtue or our vice? ”

“ The will power is man’s, not that of the brute. The rational, voluntary agent, having conscience, moral ideas, sensibilities, and emotions, is, under law, blame- or praiseworthy, and personally responsible for what he is and does. ”

“ It is humility and truth to allow to man this liberty; and, therefore, for this we may lay our faces in the dust, and confess that our dignity and excellence suppose misery, and are imperfection, but the instrument and capacity of all duty and all virtue. ”

“ Thus employed, Prudence, or providence, includes all the duties of self-government and self-culture; Justice denotes all that is due to God and man, embracing piety and benevolence; Fortitude, which is but a synonyme for strength, is an appropriate general name for every mode, whether of defiance, resistance, or endurance, in which man shows himself superior to his inevitable surroundings ”

“ He who selfishly seeks authority shall succeed only in becoming a trembling apologist courting protection behind the back of acknowledged greatness. He who will become the servant of all men, desiring no personal authority, shall live as a man, and shall be called great. "Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the foreworld again." ”

“ The reason which they give us commonly is will and authority; or if at any time they give another reason, it is such an one as cannot clear nor resolve our consciences. But let their reasons be so good as any can be, shall we be thought obstinate for being offended, notwithstanding of their reason? ”

“ We intend to tell the whole tale and by all honorable means to bring to light and justice, those who have long fed and fattened upon the purse, the property, and the character of injured innocence; — yes, we will speak, and that too in thunder tones, to the ears of those who have thus ravaged and laid waste fond hopes, bright prospects, and virtuous principles, to gratify an unhallowed ambition. ”

“ It is the old name for everything we should now call ‘fairness’; it includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life. And Fortitude includes both kinds of courage—the kind that faces danger as well as the kind that ‘sticks it’ under pain. ”

“ Talk about it, cry about it, deride it, point the finger of scorn at it, we care not, we are the servants and handmaids of the Lord, and our business is to build up his kingdom upon the earth, and let all the world say what they please, it matters not to us. It is for us to do our duty. ”

“ Yet what rights can one exercise over another, save only as regards the body, and that which is lower than the body—I mean fortune? What! wilt thou bind with thy mandates the free spirit? Canst thou force from its due tranquillity the mind that is firmly composed by reason? ”

“ Those which do depend on circumstances, are the mutilation of one’s members, the sacrificing of one’s property, and so on. And the case of those actions which are contrary to duty, is similar. Again, of duties, some are always such, and some are not always. What is always a duty, is to live in accordance with virtue; but to ask questions, to give answers, to walk, and the like, are not always duties. And the same statement holds good with respect to acts contrary to duty. ”

“ Let us spring forth when the word is given to perform any and every duty we are called upon to perform. Let us present a firm and unbroken phalanx of strength against evil of every description, and be united in frowning it down. ”

“ We dispute of virtue, and put in question, whether prudence, justice, loyalty and honesty may be taught or no? And do we admire then the works of orators, sailors and shipmasters, architects, husbandmen, and an infinite number of other such which be extant? ”

“ Fourth standpoint.—To what extent does responsibility for a whole educate the individual in foresight, and give him a severe and terrible hand, a calculating and cold heart, majesty of bearing and of action—things which he would not allow himself if he stood only for his own rights? ”

“ Try to be, not to seem. Only so far as you earnestly wish to do right for the sake of right, can you gain a principle that will sustain you hereafter; and that is what we wish, not fair appearances now. ”

“ But that Supreme Power, to whose decrees we must all bend, has reduced me to such adversity as, if it be His will, may also visit you, notwithstanding the many friends that now surround you, and the sunshine of prosperity in which you bask. ”

“ Such are, then, the consequences of firmness and stability of character; and such the rewards which he may look for, who, solemnly devoting himself to the discharge of the duties of that station or condition which Providence has assigned him, pursues them with steady and undeviating labor. It is the character which unites all that is valuable or noble in human [160] life, the tranquillity of conscience, the honors of wisdom, and the dignity of virtue. ”

“ By assuming us capable of contract and retribution, by setting us down as like and similar unto them, by accordingly entrusting something to us, by educating, reproving, supporting us. We fulfil our duty,—that is, we justify that notion of our power for the sake of which all these things were bestowed on us, we return with the same measure with which they were meted out to us. ”

“ I soon discovered that his mind towered above these earthly distinctions; that, in his judgement, the CAUSE gave dignity to the institution, and not the wealth of its endowment or the renown of its scholars; that this door and not another was opened to him by Providence, and he only wished to be assured of his competency to fulfil his trust and this to make his few remaining years a comfort and blessing to his suffering country. I had spoken to his human feelings ”

“ As justice, integrity, prudence, frugality, fortitude, are all of them goods of one and the same mind, so that whichsoever of them pleases us, we cannot distinctly say that it is this or that, but the mind. ”

“ Think of your duties,—not of your imaginary duties as a landowner to your estate, of a merchant to your capital, of an emperor, minister, official to the state,—but of those real duties of yours, which result from your real condition of existence, which is called into life and is endowed with reason and love. ”

“ When such an one comes to his moral majority by standing for the first time upon his own careful conviction, against the popular cry, or against his own material interests or predaceous passions, and feels the constraint and joy of pure obligation which comes up from this deep source, a new, original force is brought into the world of wills. ”

“ The precious benefits and privileges which flow from justification are such as should quicken us all to give diligence to make it sure to ourselves that we are justified, and then to take the comfort it renders to us, and to do the duty it calls for from us. ”

“ Good-will is produced by dwelling on four topics:—on one derived from our own character, from that of our adversaries, from that of the judges, and from the cause itself. From our own character, if we manage so as to speak of our own actions and services without arrogance ”

“ I might indeed support the argument, that our opinion with regard to the first principles of morals has 87nought to do with our practice;—that whether I stand my virtue upon prudence, or propriety, or justice, or benevolence, or self-love, that my virtue is still one and the same;—that the dispute is not about the end, but the origin; that of all the thousands who have yielded homage to virtue, hardly one has thought of inspecting the pedestal she stands upon ”

“ I failed to keep my word, believing that the interests of the Cause could be better served by what I have here undertaken than by the fulfilment of my primal duty. But we are not allowed the free exercise of our own judgment, else what man could be depended on? ”

“ The first proposition was that to have moral worth an action must be done from duty.] ”

“ Every one should act according to the dictates of his conscience. It is my belief that Providence guides our actions. You, my friends, were fitted and designed to move in refined society, and by your example and influence to benefit the world around you. ”

“ And when this principle has been laid down, it is easy to conjecture that those parts of us are most desirable which have the most dignity; so that the virtue of each most excellent part which is sought for its own sake, is also deserving of being principally sought after. ”

“ They acknowledge Obligations to those whom fortune has plac’d in any post to oblige them; and by an affected Gratitude for favours never done, insinuate themselves into those, in whose power it is to do them, and industriously put themselves in the way of them. ”

“ This is the universal motor, which philosophy is searching for, which religion strengthens, which egotism supplants, and whose place pure reason never can fill. Duty and right are born of need, which, when considered in connection with others, is a right, and when considered in connection with ourselves, a duty. ”

“ If this lot has perhaps fallen to your share, see that you do not complain and murmur against the providence of God, and indulge in discontent in regard to your lot; do not consider this dependence to be something degrading, unworthy of a human being, and therefore to be spoken of with contempt. You may, and you should, strive to raise yourself to an independent position, through industry, energy, perseverance, prayer, and the use of lawful means. ”

“ Their vices may differ, but they are all equally remote from virtue, truth, justice, gratitude, the love of excellence, or any other of those qualities which constitute the real dignity of human nature. ”

“ Freedom and power bring responsibility. ”

“ Does my Lord think that no action can please me, or him, or the commonwealth, that should proceed from necessity? Things may be therefore 256necessary, and yet praise-worthy, as also necessary, and yet dispraised, and neither of them both in vain, because praise and dispraise, and likewise reward and punishment, do by example make and conform the will to good and evil. ”

“ I bear witness also that all besides Thee are but Thy creatures, and are held within Thy grasp. No one is favoured with means or liveth in want except by Thy Will. Thou art the King of everlasting days and the supreme Ruler. Thy might is potent over all things and all created things exist by Thy Will. All mankind recognize their lowly servitude and confess their shortcomings and naught is there which doth not celebrate Thy praise. ”

“ As moral agents, for whom alone exist all the predicaments of merit and demerit, praise and blame, effort and failure, vice and virtue, we are impotent and lost;—we are saved through that in us which is passive and involuntary; we are saved through our affections, it is as beings acted upon and influenced that we are saved! ”