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Untitled Article
some exalted and superior enjoyment , some feast of reason , some hie : h excitement of mind , which too often ends in delusion and
vexation . It is not in such pleasures that our daily duties will find their development ; for the most refined will find they have duties , duties hard , serious , and laborious , and which cannot be neglected with impunity . In the performance of other tasks , when executed , we rest ; but in the search for selfish gratification and amusement , there is a constantly increasing demand in proportion to the exertion . Fatigue is no obstacle , and disappointment is no obstacle ; for , though wearied and disgusted , we do
not suspect the true cause ; and while we are daily becoming more cultivated and refined , we are not aware that , on the direction given ^ to these new perceptions , does our increased happiness or misery depend * How different is Christian refinement ! the refinement of a heart touched with the holiest and tenderest interest
in the happiness of everything that lives . It is almost like a new sense : it is so kind , so intimate a sympathy in the welfare and comfort of human beings , that it opens a new world of the purest satisfaction—the most exalted and amiable feelings , to whoever will cultivate it . It adds a new power of doing good ; it enables us to relieve without overpowering the unfortunate ; to correct without wounding the erring ; and to the daily intercourse of society it gives an inexpressible charm . It enables us to see what will make others happy , and to rejoice in being capable of doing it ; to the exertions of intellect it bestows an additional relish ; and whatever is noble or beautiful in human character is the object of its quick and delighted attention .
This is Christian refinement , and it is the only refinement worth cultivating ; it does not depend on external circumstances , or artificial excitement ; it is not easily offended , nor , with all its delicacy , easily disgusted ; but in nature it everywhere perceives o-der and beauty unnoticed by others , and in the intellectual and moral world it finds a wide field for the exercise of faith , charity , and love . Where the selfish or the ignorant person possesses one source of enjoyment , a mind , thus cultivated , possesses a thousand ; and , like the bee which extracts honey from the most unpromising flowers , it converts into good even the evils and the difficulties which it meets with . In the words of an amiable moralist of the present day * , * the man who is actuated by a feeling heart , as well as by a principle of duty , is prompt and ardent in rendering his aid to the wretched , because he enters
completely into their feelings , and fully knows the bitterness of their hearts . He justly conceives the earnestness of those desires with which the wretched look around them for relief , and the bitter disappointment which they experience , when those , from whom they hoped for succour , only come to gaze upon them , and then pass on unmoved . He understands the full meaning of
* See Systematic Morality , vol . ii . « p . 69 .
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188 On Refinement of Character .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1832, page 188, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1808/page/44/
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