"Many persons carry about their characters in their hands: not a few under their feet.”

"To be weak is misery, doing or suffering."

"He who is the cause of his own misfortune may bewail it himself."

"The house shows the owner."

"Where the drink goes in, there the wit goes out."

66

THE THREE BOATS.

HARACTER is a fine thing, boys," said Lame Felix; "character is a grand thing. With all your getting get character. Some one has called it the backbone of our moral nature, answering the same purpose as the backbone to the body, knitting together and energising all the powers, attributes, and forces of our being. A man without a character is like a leaf falling from a tree, the sport of every wind, blown hither and thither without the power of resistance, one thing alone certain, in the human leaf, as in the leaf of the tree, that it is falling, but when or where it will come to the ground no one exactly knows. Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,' was the verdict passed upon a characterless man ages and ages ago, but like everything which that grand guide-book says, how true it is! Unstable,

36

AN UNCERTAIN PROP.

constant only in inconstancy, might be the epitaph written over many a life.

"How many are the images used to illustrate the vital importance of character! It is to the life what heat is to the body—a life-giving force; it is as an anchor which enables the ship to ride out the storm; it is as the mainspring of a watch, upon the strength and durability of which the perfection of the whole depends; it is as the key-stone by which the arch is supported. Numberless, I say, are the images used to illustrate the importance of character. A man without a character is like a house without a foundation, or, as our Great Teacher says, he is 'like unto one who built his house upon the sands,' which the wind, and the waves soon knocked to pieces.

"Want of character means weakness, and weakness amounts almost to sin-I sometimes think quite for it seems to do almost as much mischief. An atom blown about by the wind gets into a person's eye, causing no end of annoyance. So circumstances drift a weak man up against you, producing some such an effect as the atom in the eye; with the one you cannot see until it is out, nor for some time after, and with the other you have no freedom for action.

"A weak, unstable, undecided man is a clog upon your energies, a weight upon your feet, a handcuff upon your hand. There is no dependence to be placed. on a weak, characterless creature. The proverb says, 'A rickety chair will not serve as a seat;' and when

THE SHATTERED PORTRAIT.

37

you are in trouble and difficulty a weak man will not do to rest upon; as he himself, although in no trouble, needs a staff, for the proverb says truly, 'A tottering man must lean upon a staff, and therefore has no strength to impart to another. There is no reliance to be placed on a characterless man; he is like a weathercock, turning whichever way the wind blows. You are never certain of him; he says one thing today and another to-morrow, while he utters quite a different thing on the third. These flabby kind of people never receive an impression with any force. They are always miserable-weakness means misery -although they have comfortable surroundings.

“I called on a man the other day, a well-to-do man, with a nicely furnished home, and a pretty, active little wife; indeed, everything that a man could wish for he in a measure possesses. I found him with a portrait of himself in his hand, through which he had just thrust his fist.

"Hallo! Mr Jones,' I cried, 'why on earth have you spoilt that excellent likeness of yourself in that savage fashion?'

"Steadman,' he replied, when I had that taken I was a happy man; and the thought was too much for me just now, so I've destroyed it.'

"Well, what is it makes you miserable?'

"I can't exactly say; but still I am miserable.' "And to my thinking, boys, he never will know why he is miserable and unhappy. To a shattered ship

38

THE WALDON FAMILY.

every wind is foul,' and every circumstance to a weak man is an occasion on which to be miserable.

"Get character, boys. Characterless people are the ruination of homes, and a characterless home is something dreadful to think of; its influence does not end with itself; the members of the family grow up and go out into the world, and make other characterless homes. There is a maxim which I have somewhere heard which runs, ‘A bare pasture enriches not the soil, nor fattens the animals, nor increases the wealth of the owner! And so with a characterless home; there is neither health, wealth, nor happiness in it.

"You all remember the Waldon family, who occupied one of Barber Coote's cottages, just up the road here— what a home theirs was! No strength of character in either husband or wife. He received good wages, yet they got into debt everywhere, and finally went to rack and ruin. The woman had no idea of prudence or economy; still, if you had seen her at meal times you would have taken her to have been the very embodiment of thrift instead of thriftlessness, for it was, 'Here, Frederick, here is your allowance; here, Augustus, here is your allowance; here, Lenora, here is your allowance,' and so on through the whole six or seven children; yet economy was a virtue unpractised. Then, too, she would gossip all her time away, so that very often her husband would come home to his dinner and find none ready for him. He, poor man, was as weak as his wife, and between them they