Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/49

Rh power or faculty of the mind. If, instead of doing every thing carelessly, and letting all things around us fall into confusion, we compel ourselves to act with order and neatness, an orderly principle of the mind comes into activity, in an orderly form of ultimate life, and the disorderly principle, finding no form in the ultimate life for its activity, lies dormant on the circumference of the mind, and, unless there be a relapse into disorderly action, will lie there forever dormant.

We would urge upon our young readers most earnestly to reflect upon what we have just said, and to endeavor, before passing on, to fully understand it; for the last paragraph we have written contains the most simple, and, at the same time, the only true philosophy of reformation. It is applicable as well to the whole life, and all that appertains to it, as to the particular thing to which we have applied it. It is only by compelling ourselves to act right, that we can do any thing towards correcting the inherited disorders of our minds. We may have right thoughts, but if we only think right, and make no effort to do right, we do not advance a single step in the work of reformation.

This is the reason why we so often meet with