83/100 Duty

83. Duty

"I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;

I woke, and found that life was duty."

Duty rounds out the whole of life, from our entrance into it until our exit from it. There is the duty to superiors, to inferiors, to equals, to God and to man. Wherever there is power to use or to direct, there is a duty devolving upon us. Duty is a thing that is due and must be paid by every man who would avoid present discredit, and eventual moral insolvency. It is an obligation, a debt, which can only be discharged by voluntary effort and resolute action in the affairs of life. The abiding sense of duty is the very crown of character. It is the upholding law of man in his highest attitudes. Without it the individual totters and falls before the first puff of adversity or temptation; whereas, inspired by it, the weakest become strong and full of courage.

"Duty," says Mrs. Jameson, "is the cement which binds the whole moral edifice together, without which all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have no permanence, but all the fabric of existence crumble away from under us, and leave us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation." Take man from the lowest depths of poverty or from the downy beds of wealth, and you will find that to act well his part in life he must recognize and live up to the rule of duty. As the ship is safely guided across the ocean by a helm, so on the ocean of existence duty is the helm, without which life is lost. It is the lesson of history, no less than the experience of the present age, that an attention to duty in all of its details is the only sure road to real greatness, whether individual or national.

Duty is based upon a sense of justice—justice inspired by love—which is the most perfect form of goodness. Duty is not a sentiment, but a principle pervading the life, and it exhibits itself in conduct and in action. Duty is above all consequences, and often, at a crisis of difficulty, commands us to throw them overboard. It commands us to look neither to the right nor to the left, but straight forward. Every signal act of duty is an act of faith. It is performed in the assurance that God will take care of the consequences, and will so order the course of the world that, whatever the immediate results may be, his word shall not return to him empty. The voice of conscience speaks in duty done, and without its regulating and controlling influence the brightest and greatest intellect may be merely as a light that leads astray. Conscience sets a man upon his feet, while his will holds him upright. Conscience is the moral governor of the heart, and only through its dominating influence can a noble and upright character be fully developed. That we ought to do an action is of itself a sufficient and ultimate answer to the question why we should do it.

The conscience may speak never so loudly, but without energetic will it may speak in vain. The will is free to choose between the right course and the wrong one; but the choice is nothing unless followed by immediate and decisive action. If the sense of duty be strong and the course of action clear, the courageous will, upheld by the conscience, enables a man to proceed on his course bravely, and to accomplish his purposes in the face of all opposition and difficulty; and should failure be the issue, there will remain at least the satisfaction that it has been in the cause of duty. There is a sublimity in conscious rectitude, a pleasure in the approval of one's own mind, in comparison with which the treasures of earth are not worth mentioning. The peace and happiness arising from this are above all change and beyond all decay. Disappointment and trials do but improve them; they go with us into all places and attend us through every changing scene of life. They sustain and delight at home and abroad, by day and by night, in solitude and in society, in sickness and in health, in time and eternity. All this is sure to be the reward of him who knows his duty and does it, regardless as to what others say or as to the immediate results flowing from thence.

We all have good and bad in us. The good would do what it ought to do; the bad does what it can. The good dwells in the kingdom of duty; the bad sits on the throne of might. Duty is a loyal subject; might is a royal tyrant. Duty is the evangel of God that proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord; might is the scourge of the world that riots in carnage, groans, and blood. Duty gains its victories by peace; might conquers only by war. Duty is a moralist resting on principle; might is a worldling seeking for pleasure. These are the inward principles contending with each other in every human soul.

To live truly and nobly is to act energetically. Life is a battle to be fought valiantly. Inspired by high and honorable resolves a man must stand to his post, and die there if necessary. Like the hero of old his determination should be "to dare nobly, to will strongly, and never to falter in the path of duty." It has been truly said that man's real greatness consists, not in seeking his own pleasure or fame, but that every man shall do his duty. What most stands in the way of the performance of duty is irresolution, weakness of purpose, and indecision. On the one side are conscience and the knowledge of good and evil; on the other are indolence, selfishness, and love of pleasure. The weak and ill-disciplined will may remained suspended for a time between these influences, but at length the balance inclines one way or another, as the voice of conscience is heeded or passed by. If its warning voice is unheeded the lower influence of selfishness will prevail; thus character is degraded, and manhood abdicates its throne as ruler, and sinks to the level of slave to the senses.

Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you. Their censures have no power over you, and, consequently, should not be any part of your concern. No man's spirits were ever hurt by doing his duty; on the contrary, one good action done, one temptation resisted and overcome, one sacrifice of desire or interest, purely for conscience's sake, will prove a cordial for weak souls most salutary for their real good; conducing not less to their present happiness and welfare than to their eternal and unending good.