"The other day," said Cyrus W. Field, at a banquet given in his honor in New York on the completion of the laying of the Atlantic Cable, “Mr. Lattimer Clark telegraphed from Ireland, across the ocean and back again, WITH A BATTERY FORMED IN A LADY'S THIMBLE! And now Mr. Collett writes me from Heart's Content: 'I have just sent my compliments to Dr. Gould, of Cambridge, who is at Valentia, with a battery composed of a gun-cap, with a strip of zinc, EXCITED BY A DROP OF WATER, THE SIMPLE BULK OF A TEAR.'" That gun-cap battery is the human Will-for compressed energy the wonder of the universe.

PART IV.-DESTRUCTION OF HABIT.

"WE LIVE BY SACRIFICE ALONE.”

All things that toward the heavens grow,
In the huge struggle earth maintains,
Are clutched by power that restrains,
As waves by ocean's undertow.

Yet ever higher life remains,

Or forms decay or death makes moan:
We mark our way by crimson stains
We live by sacrifice alone.

Betimes high life must feed the low;
Betimes the high by lower gains.
The gnawing mystery ordains
Its cycle of existence so.

-

And well for him who self constrains The lesser powers to dethrone:

For thus the One Ideal reigns We live by sacrifice alone.

--

The kingdom of the soul comes slow.
O, long its battles, deep its pains;
And weak Inertia loud complains
That life a rugged way must go,

Fooled by the lie, "The struggle drains!"

The struggle makes thy self thine own!

Builds thee man-high, ne'er saps thy veins :We live by sacrifice alone.

ENVOY.

Life alway evil's drama feigns,

Yet shall its crowns all loss atone. The king his conquered foes disdains — We live by sacrifice alone.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DESTRUCTION OF IMMORAL HABITS.

UT if having been once defeated, thou shalt say, The next time I will conquer; and then the same thing over again, be sure that in the end thou wilt be brought to such a sorry and feeble state that henceforth thou wilt not so much as know that thou art sinning; but thou wilt begin to make excuses for the thing, and then confirm that saying of Hesiod to be true: 'With ills unending strives the putter-off.""

PRELIMINARY.

-Epictetus.

Francis Bacon said: "A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other." The first part of this advice we have striven in preceding chapters to follow; destroying weeds of a harmful character is to be the business of the present.

A large portion of our life represents habit. This is not necessarily an evil; indeed, the establishment of habituated action is indispensable to intelligent existence. But the word "habit" often signifies fixed tendencies to action, either physical or mental, which are injurious, or foolish or morally wrong. As the great factor in the formation of all habits is repetition continued until attention is not required, the repeated assault of the Will directed by keenest attention and governed by desire until the

fixed tendency is overcome, seems to be the only method for rooting out these obnoxious weeds of body and soul. A strong Will can master many habits at once, if the man genuinely desires that this be done. A continued effort to destroy evil habits must develop the Will. But this effort supposes conflicting desires or impulses - those running to the habit, and those opposing it. Hence the value of mental culture, and especially of strength of memory, imagination and Will, in order that the conflict may be made to turn in the right direction.

The first difficulty is a general want of self-control; a second is a faint or fickle perception of motives and consequences; a third is a bad memory of an evil past; a last is the weak desire for cure.

To overcome habits, then, one must bring his entire attention to the matter, must think intensely of the motives and outcomes involved, and must resolve to do all things necessary to turn the mind away from habit toward freedom. We affirm that we resolve; yet perhaps no resolution has really arisen in the mind. In a time of great sorrow, or of extreme excitement of pleasure, or of intense anger or disgust with self, or of fear of results, resolve sometimes is so deeply cut into the soul that it has opportunity to discover its ability to perform and to suffer, and to become habituated a little to the necessary discomfort of self-denial, and so to take a new hold by Will for a more persistent effort. By this time the "force of habit" and the test of continuance have become slightly less, while the power of Will has correspondingly grown. Perseverance now is sure prophet of reward.

It is a law, probably, that as much Will-power must be consciously expended in curing a habit, as unconsciously has been employed in acquiring it.

The entire matter may be summed up in one word: