It would not be easy to name a question of more vital interest than the importance of character to the individual and the world. The subject is peculiarly interesting at present, when, as we apprehend, a new era is opening on society, in which character shall be more than ever necessary. By character we mean qualities of soul; as these are noble or ignoble, so is your character, and so shall be the influence of your life. When we see a young woman entering upon a career of sin, it is not the amount of wrong that alarms us most; it is the fact that she is forming a character which will pursue her through life, and urge her forward in her evil ways, till rushing headlong down the paths of vice, she falls at last into hopeless dishonour here and misery hereafter. When, on the other hand, we see a young woman giving herself to the cultivation of right dispositions and good principles,—when we see her consistently subjecting the inferior principles of her nature to reason, and her lusts and passions to her conscience, and all her powers to the control of religion and the fear of God,—it is not this or that particular good thing that pleases us most; it is the fact that she is forming a character which will become to her like a guardian angel, bearing her up in the rough places of life, and at last enabling her to dwell in the purer and happier atmosphere of heaven itself. To all, as individuals, as parents, as members of a family, and as members of society in general, there is something of solemn importance in the fact that none can stand neutral: all must take one of two courses of life,—the right or the wrong,—the good or the bad,—the true or the false. The end of Providence, as a system of moral discipline, is the formation of character. The ultimate design of all the trials and disappointments and sorrows, the afflictions bodily and mental, personal and relative, to which all are subject, and from which none are exempt, is the restoration of that character which sin has destroyed. Heaven, as to its substance, consists in the perfection of character. Mental philosophy renders it a matter of certainty that the soul possesses an inherent capacity of receiving happiness or enduring misery to an extent at present wholly inconceivable. Generally speaking, the powers of your inner nature are asleep during life; but no sooner shall death have loosed the fetters that now confine them, than they will awake, never more to slumber or sleep: they will start up like the fiery whirlwind, and begin their sweep along their mighty orbit, rendering the path of the spirit one of eternal blackness and desolation; or they will then move on without let or hindrance in their path of light and joy, like the white-robed planet of the heavens around the great source of gravitation.