CHAPTER III.

SELF-CONTROL.

Ir is very easy for us to say that we all ought to obey the moral law. But very often, and especially when we are young and have not had much experience of life, we find it hard to obey this law ourselves. Children like to have their own way when it seems to them pleasanter than to obey their parents or teachers who bid them take another way. John, for instance, is playing marbles, and his mother tells him to come and get ready for school, as he has only time enough to get there in season. But John prefers play to school, just then; perhaps he prefers it all the time! So he keeps on with his game, and his mother has to leave her work to speak to him again, and possibly she is obliged to come out and make him get ready at once. Then he is late at school, and probably he has got to feeling so ill-tempered, because he has been compelled to leave his game, that he will not study, and so he fails in his lesson, and the teacher keeps him after school to make it up. John feels worse than ever, and when he gets through he is disgusted with school and home, and he thinks it will be very fine to be a man and do as he pleases. All this is the result of his disobedience to his mother. But men and women laugh at him, and tell him that he is very foolish not to see how easy a time he is having now; his father and mother care for him, and he does not have to work to get his food and lodging and clothing and education. They are doing their utmost to make his life, present and future, good and happy; being much older, having been children themselves, and having gained

much more wisdom from experience than he can have, they know far more thoroughly what is best for him than he can know. When he is grown up, and is a man in fact, not merely in imagination, he will have a man's work to do, and he should have plenty of knowledge and skill to do that work well; he will not be able to "do as he pleases" and at the same time be a good and capable man.

A considerable number of persons who think they can do as they please find themselves, naturally, after a time, in jails or prisons, because people in general will not allow them to do as they like, when it comes to stealing or cheating, or doing bodily injury to others. No! the obedience due to father and mother and teacher is comparatively a simple and easy matter for John, if he did but know it. He is acting foolishly and unreasonably in setting himself up so, as the only person whose pleasure is to be considered. As a matter of fact, he is not so important a person as he thinks, and the sooner he learns this, the better it will be for all concerned.

Here is another boy, Thomas, who likes to play just as well as John does; but he loves his mother and desires to make her happy by obeying her cheerfully and readily. He wishes to please the teacher by being punctual, and attentive to his studies in school time. So he quits his game at once, when his mother reminds him that she has an errand for him to do on the way to school, and that it is time to go. He walks along whistling and thinking how fortunate he is that he can sometimes do little things, at least, to show his gratitude for all that his mother does for him in her love for her boy. When he gets to school he remembers that he is there to study; he puts all his mind on his book; the lesson comes easy, he recites well, the teacher is glad to see him so willing and ready, and he returns home with a light heart. All has gone well with him during the day.

Why? Because he has cheerfully done his part. It is not a great part, but it is something which no one else could do for him, and it is necessary that he should do it readily if, at home and school, all is to go on pleasantly and profitably.

When Thomas is at home, he feels that he is but one among several persons who make up the family; that his father and mother are wiser than he and anxious to have him do, and to do for him, only what is best; and that all goes well only when each one in the family group thinks of the welfare of all the others as well as of his own happiness; so he tries to do his share, to help as much as he can in making life happy for all at home. When Thomas is at school, he bears in mind that school is meant as a place to learn in, and that in order to learn well he must leave off playing, and "buckle down" to his book, and be quiet and obey the orders of the teacher. He sees that these orders are for the good of the whole school, of which he is a part and only a part, and that nothing could be more unreasonable than for him to neglect study and be noisy and mischievous, thus keeping the teacher's attention on himself and disturbing the rest of the scholars in their duty. Thomas is a healthy, lively boy, who likes to play and have a good time. But he wishes others to have a good time too; such "good times" in school mean good order, and good lessons, and teachers and scholars all pleased and busy with the good work to be done by them, in learning and teaching. That is a good time anywhere, when the thing to do in that time and place is done finely and thoroughly. Now Thomas plays with all his soul in play-hours, and in the place and time for study he studies with all his might. He has a strong impulse to play too long, or in school, but he resists it as we can resist any impulse in ourselves if we will and conquers it, and the better impulse wins the day.

We have had much to say about obedience to law as the foundation of all good human life. But we all have inclinations at times to prefer our own wishes or desires, however unreasonable they may be, to the obedience which though reasonable seems hard and disagreeable. We are so made that there is often this conflict between what we know to be the proper thing for us to do and the thing we wish at the time to do. We must, therefore, learn to control ourselves; we must practise the very necessary art of making ourselves do what is disagreeable, if it seems to us the right and reasonable thing, until it shall come to be not only right and reasonable but also agreeable to us, for this very cause. This is precisely what we often have to do in other matters than our dealings with human beings.

We need training in the art of conduct as in every other art. Mary has musical talent and she is anxious to learn to play the piano-forte. So her father buys one and engages a teacher for her; and the first lessons are very pleasant. But after a time, Mary gets tired of scales and exercises, and begins to think that it is not "worth while." She is discouraged and talks of giving up. But others tell her, she can see herself, that excellence in piano-playing comes to most persons only through diligence and patience in mastering the ele ments. She is soon encouraged to find that she can play simple exercises without keeping her eyes on the keys; after a time she can play easy tunes without notes, and, if she continues to persevere, she comes in time to do almost automatically what was once very difficult for her. She is amused now at the recollection that she ever found a certain exercise hard to play. Mary has fully complied with the conditions of excellence in music. She controls her desire to give up and try something easier. She perseveres and conquers the difficulties, one by one. By "sticking to it" and practising and practising, she establishes what are called

"lines of least resistance;" her fingers move swiftly over the keys, she acquires skill in her art, and she finds future progress much easier in proportion, as her selfcontrol increases.

With all our different characters and dispositions few of us find it easy to do always the thing that we know to be right. We must, then, if we are to acquire the fine art of good conduct, learn self-control, and this implies patience and perseverance. By practice we shall establish "lines of least resistance" in our relations with others, over which we shall in time move with an ease and freedom that will surprise ourselves.

Self-control is necessary to obedience to the laws of conduct. But it is not necessary that we should have a sense of effort and difficulty in doing what we call "right," in order that it should be truly right or "virtuous" in us. On the contrary, the ideal we should always hold before ourselves is to make the doing of right deeds, the living of a virtuous life, the easiest and most agreeable thing to do. In the beginning, we have pains and trouble in making our habits better, until they are right and good in certain respects; then habit slowly becomes a second nature, taking the place of the former untrained and undisciplined nature,1 until, at last, it is “as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,-'T is the natural way of living." We need to practise self-control until the self is altered for the better we can alter it

and then, when it is changed for the better, it may well have free play in that direction. A hasty-tempered man might find it hard at first to wait and count a hundred. according to the old rule, before he speaks, when he feels himself getting angry. But in time he should be strong enough, from long resistance to his native impulse, to trust himself to speak at once.

1 "Habit a second nature," said the great Duke of Wellington "it is ten times nature!"