As in civil life liberty to the whole results from the subjection of the evil passions of all to legal enactments, so in social life every individual is free and at ease in proportion as all the rest are subject to the laws of courtesy. Ease and freedom are the result of order, and it is as incorrect to call rude Manners free and easy, as to call licentiousness liberty. No man is truly free who allows his sphere of life to impinge upon that of his neighbor. Fluids are said to move easily because each particle is without angular projections that prevent it from gliding smoothly with or by its companions; and in like manner the ease of society depends on the polish of each individual. If the units of society seek their own selfish indulgence, without regard to the rights of the neighbor, the whole must form a mass of grating atoms in which no one can be free, or at ease.
Indifference, ill-temper, selfishness, envy and arrogance, all positive vices, are the characteristics that ultimate themselves in ill-manners. Rudeness is, as it were, the offensive odor exhaled from the corrupt fruit of an evil tree; and he who would be a branch of the true vine must remember, whenever he is tempted to do a rude thing, that he will never yield to such temptation unless there is hidden somewhere upon his branch fruit that should be cut off and cast into the fire.
The Christian gentleman and lady are such because they love their neighbor as themselves; and to be a thorough Christian without being a gentleman or lady is impossible. Wherever we find the rich without arrogance, and the poor without envy, the various members of society sustaining their mutual relations without suspicion or pretension, the family circle free from rivalry, fault-finding, or discord, we shall find nothing ungentle, for there the spirit of Christianity reigns. He who is pure in heart can never be vulgar in speech, and he who is meek and loving in spirit can never be rude in manner.
Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly."--THACKERAY.
"According to the temper and spirit by which it is influenced, prayer opens or shuts the kingdom of life and peace on the soul of the supplicant, elevating him either to a closer conjunction with the Lord and his angelic kingdom, or plunging him into a more deplorable depth of separation, by immersing him into association with the lost spirits of darkness."--CLOWES.