vulgarity that transformed the
angel's face into the countenance of a demon. Hawthorne has made a
similar study of Chillingworth, whose moral deterioration began
through evil thinking when face and physique were fully matured.
Chillingworth stood forth in middle life a thoughtful, earnest, and
just man; but, during his absence, he suffered a grievous wrong. Not
knowing the identity of his enemy, the physician came to suspect his
friend. By skillful questions he digged into Dimmesdale's heart as
the sexton might delve into the grave in search of a possible jewel
upon a dead man's breast. When suspicion had strengthened into
certainty, enmity became hatred. Then, for two years, Chillingworth
tortured his victim as once inquisitors tortured men by tweaking the
flesh with red-hot pincers. Soon the face of the physician, once so
gentle and just, took on an aspect sinister and malign. Children
feared him, men shivered in his presence--they knew not why. Once the
magistrate saw the light glimmering in his eyes "with flames that
burned blue, like the ghastly fire that darted out of Bunyan's awful
doorway on the hillside and quivered in the Pilgrim's face." All this
is Hawthorne's way of telling us how thoughts determine character and
shape destiny. He who thinks of mean and ugly things will soon show
mud in the bottom of his eye. Ugliness within soon fouls the facial
tissues. But he who thinks of "things true and just and lovely" will,
by his thinking, be transformed into the image of the ideal he
contemplates, even as the rose becomes red by exposing its bosom to
the sunbeams and soaking each petal in the sun's fine rays.

Not only are thoughts the builders of character for the individual;
they are also the architects of states and nations. All this
wonderful fabric lying over our land like a beautiful garment is a
fabric spun and woven out of ideas. Each outer substance was builded
by an inner sentiment. What the eye sees are stone and brick and iron
united by masons and carpenters, but the forces that hold these
material things together are not iron bands, but thoughts and beliefs.
Destroy the life-nerve running up through the tree, and the rings of
wood will soon fall apart. Destroy the thoughts and beliefs of our
people, and its homes, colleges and institutions will decline and
decay. Thrust a million Mohammedans into our land, and their inner
thoughts will realize themselves in mosques, minarets, and harems. But
thrust a