*The beneficent agency of habit no less deserves emphatic notice.* Its office in practical morality is analogous to that of labor-saving inventions in the various departments of industry. A machine by which ten men can do the work that has been done by thirty, disengages the twenty for new modes of productive labor, and thus augments the products of industry and the comfort of the community. A good habit is a labor-saving instrument. The cultivating of any specific virtue to such a degree that it shall become an inseparable and enduring element of the character demands, at the outset, vigilance, self-discipline, and, not infrequently, strenuous effort. But when the exercise of that virtue has become habitual, and therefore natural, easy, and essential to one’s conscious well-being, it ceases to task the energies; it no longer requires constant watchfulness; its occasions are met spontaneously by the appropriate dispositions and acts. The powers which have been employed in its culture are thus set free for the acquisition of yet other virtues, and the formation of other good habits. Herein lies the secret of progressive goodness, of an ever nearer approach to a perfect standard of character. The primal virtues are first made habits of the unceasing consciousness and of the daily life, and the moral power no longer needed for these is then employed in the cultivation of the finer traits of superior excellence,—the shaping of the delicate lines, roundings, and proportions, which constitute "the beauty of holiness," the symmetry and grace of character that win not only abounding respect and confidence, but universal admiration and love. *What has been said of habit, is true not only as to outward acts, but equally as to wonted directions and currents of thought, study, reflection, and reverie.* It is mainly through successive stages of habit that the mind grows in its power of application, research, and invention. It is thus that the spirit of devotion is trained to ever clearer realization of sacred truth and a more fervent love and piety. It is thus that minds of good native capacity lose their apprehensive faculties and their working power; and thus, also, that moral corruption often, no doubt, takes place before the evil desires cherished within find the opportunity of actualizing themselves in a depraved life. Chapter VIII. VIRTUES, AND THE VIRTUES.