likeness of God has become so defaced, distorted, and broken, that it is
often hard to find a remnant still testifying to its Divine origin. Let
us rise up from among these shattered fragments, and contemplate for a
while the means of bringing the poor, fallen human nature into harmony
with the divine;--let us develop, if we can, a system that may aid us
in training our faculties, so that the Affections shall be pure, the
Understanding wise, and Life the harmonious exponent of both.

In the attempt to restore our being to its original symmetry, the
intellectual part of the nature must not be cultivated at the expense of
the affectional, nor should the affectional be suffered to run riot with
the intellectual. Love must be wise, and wisdom must be affectionate, or
life will fail of its end. External morality has no reliable foundation
unless it be built on morality of thought and affection. Apart from
these, it is either the result of a happy organization that demands no
disorderly indulgence, or it is the figleaf garment of deceit, put on by
those who strive to seem rather than to be.

In the just training of Character, if we first learn to understand the
capacities and relations of Affection, Thought, and Life, and look
within our own natures until we learn to comprehend how everything
pertaining to our being belongs to one of these departments, we shall
better appreciate the difficulties to be overcome before we shall be
willing to make everything that we do the honest outbirth of everything
that we are. Pretence and hypocrisy, subterfuge and falsehood, will then
disappear, and life will become the adequate expression of symmetrical
Character.

The intellectual part of our being may be better understood if divided
into two departments, viz., Thought and Imagination,--the subjective and