The building of character

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itbiNG umm

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Contents

Chapter

I. The Building of Character . .

II. Our Undiscovered Faults . .

Chapter I. The Building Of Character

" Souls are built as temples are, — Here a carving rich and quaint, There the image of a saint ; Here a deep-hued pane to tell Sacred truth or miracle.

Every little helps the much ; Every careful, careless touch Adds a charm or leaves a scar."

The building of character is the most important business of life. It matters little what works a man may leave in the world ; his real success is measured by what he has wrought along the years in his own being.

True character must be built after divine patterns. Every man's life is a plan of God.

There is a divine purpose concerning it which it should realize. In the Scriptures we find the patterns for all the parts of the character, not only for its great and prominent elements, but also for its most minute features, — the delicate lines and shadings of its ornamentation. The commandments, the beatitudes, all Christ's precepts, the ethical teachings of the apostles, all show us the patterns after which we are to fashion our character.

It is a great thing for us to have a loftythought of life, and ever to seek to reach it. Said Michael Angelo : " Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavor to create something perfect ; for God is perfection, and whosoever strives for it, strives for something that is godlike." The seeking itself makes us nobler, holier, purer, stronger. We grow ever toward that for which we long. Many searches are unrewarded. Men seek for gold, and do not find it. They strive after honor, and it eludes them. They try to attain happiness, but the vision ever recedes as they press toward it. The quest for true nobleness is one that is rewarded. " Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness ; for they shall be filled," is our Lord's own word. Longing for spiritual good shall never be in vain.

" The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment ; "

and unceasing longing, with earnest reaching after the good, little by little lifts the life into the permanent realization of that which is thus persistently sought.

There are certain things essential in all building. Every structure requires a good foundation. Without this it never can rise into real strength and grandeur. The most beautiful building reared on sand is insecure and must fall. There is only one foundation for Christian character. We must build on the rock ; that is, we must have, as the basis of our character, great, eternal principles.

One of these principles is truth. Ruskin tells us that in a famous Italian cathedral there are a number of colossal figures high up among the heavy timbers that support the roof. From the pavement, these statues have the appearance of great beauty. Curious to examine them, Ruskin says he climbed one day to the roof, and stood close beside them. Bitter was his disappointment to find that only the parts of the figures which could be seen from the pavement were carefully finished. The hidden side was rough and undressed.

It is not enough to make our lives true only so far as men can see them. We have but scorn for men who profess truth, and then in their secret life reveal falsehood, deception, insincerity. There must be truth through and through in the really noble and worthy building. A little flaw, made by a. bubble of air in the casting, has been the cause of the breaking of the great beam years afterward, and the falling of the immense bridge whose weight rested upon it. Truth must be in the character, — absolute truth. The least falsehood mars the beauty of the life.

Another of these essential principles is purity. " Whatsoever things are pure," says the apostle in the same breath with whatsoever things are true, and just, and honorable. It is a canon of art, that an artist who lives badly never can paint a good picture ; nor can a man who lives badly ever build up a really beautiful character. Only he who has a pure heart can see God, to know what life's ideal is. Only he whose hands are clean can build after the perfect pattern. One who works with stained fingers leaves spots of marring and blemish on whatever he touches. Purity is an essential fundamental principle in the perfect character.

Love is another quality which must be wrought into this foundation. Love is the reverse of selfishness. It is the holding of all the life as Christ's, to be used to bless others. "So long as I have been here," said President Lincoln, after his second election, " I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom." That is one phase of love, — never needlessly to give pain or do hurt to a fellow r -being. The other part is the positive, — to live to do the greatest good to every other being whenever opportunity offers,

" Do any hearts beat faster, Do any faces brighten, To hear your footsteps on the stair, To meet you, greet you, anywhere ? Are you so like your Master, Dark shadows to enlighten?

Are any happier to-day Through words they have heard you say?

Life were not worth the living

If no one were the better For having met you on the way, And known the sunshine of your stay."

Truth, purity, love, — these are examples of the immutable principles which must be built into the foundation of the temple of character. We never can have a noble structure without a strong and secure foundation.

On the foundation thus laid the character must be built. No magnificent building ever grew up by miracle. Stone by stone it rose, each block laid in its place by toil and effort. " You cannot dream yourself into a character," says a writer ; " you must hammer and forge yourself one." Even with the best foundation there must be faithful, patient building unto the end.

Then each one must build his own character. No one can do it for him. No one but yourself can make your life beautiful. No one can be true, pure, honorable, and loving for you. A mother's prayers and teachings cannot give you strength of soul and grandeur of spirit. We are taught to edify one another, and we do, indeed, help to build up each other's life-temple. Consciously or unconsciously, we are continually leaving touches on the souls of others, — touches of beauty or of marring. In every book we read the author lays something new on the wall of our life. Every hour's companionship with another gives either a touch of beauty, or a stain to our spirit. Every song that is sung in our ear enters into our heart and becomes part of our being. Even the natural scenery amid which we dwell leaves its impression upon us. Thus others, thus all things about us, do indeed have their place as builders of our character.

But we are ourselves the real builders.

Others may lift the blocks into place, but we must lay them on the wall. Our own hands give the touches of beauty or of blemish, whatever hands of others hold the brushes or mix the colors for us. If the building is marred or unsightly when it is finished, we cannot say it was some other one's fault. Others may have sinned, and the inheritance of the sin is yours. Others may have sorely wronged you, and the hurt yet stays in your life. You never can be the same in this world that you might have been but for the wounding. You are not responsible for these marrings of your character which were wrought by others' hands. Still you are the builder, — you and God.

" We are builders, and each one Should cut and carve as best he can; Every life is but a stone, Every one shall hew his own, Make or mar, shall every man."

Even the broken fragments of what seems a ruin you can take, and with them, through

God's grace, you can make a noble fabric. It is strange how many of earth's most beautiful lives have grown up out of what seemed defeat and failure. Indeed, God seems to love to build spiritual loveliness out of the castaway fragments of lives, even out of sin's debris. In a great cathedral there is said to be a window, made by an apprentice out of the bits of stained glass that were thrown away as refuse and worthless waste when the other windows were made, and this is the most beautiful window of all. You can build a noble character for yourself, in spite of all the hurts and injuries done to you, wittingly or unwittingly, by others, with the fragments of the broken hopes and joys and the lost opportunities that lie strewn about your feet. No others by their worst work of hurt or marring can prevent your building a beautiful character for yourself.

When the ancient temple of Solomon was reared, the whole world was sought through, and its most costly and beautiful things were gathered and put into the sacred house. We

IO THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER.

should search everywhere for whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure, to build into our life. All that we can learn from books, from music, from art, from friends ; all that we can gather from the Bible and receive from the hand of Christ himself, we should take and build into our character to make it worthy. But in order to discover the things that are lovely we must have the loveliness in our own soul. " Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful/' says one, "we must carry it in our own heart, or, go where we may, we shall find it not." Only a pure, true, loving heart can discover the things that are true, pure, and loving to build in the character. We must have Christ in us, and then we shall find Christly things everywhere, and gather them into our own life.

There are some people who, in the discouragement of defeat and failure, feel that it is then too late for them to make their character beautiful. They have lost their last opportunity, it seems to them. But this is never

THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. II

true in this world in which Christ died. A poet tells of walking in his garden and seeing a birds' nest lying on the ground. The storm had swept through the tree and ruined the nest. While he mused sadly over the wreck of the birds' home, he looked up, and there he saw them building a new one amid the branches. The birds teach us immortals a lesson. Though all seems lost, let us not sit down and weep in despair, but let us arise and begin to build again. No one can undo a wrong past. No one can repair the ruins of years that are gone. We cannot live our life over again. But, at our Father's feet, we can begin anew as little children, and make all our life new.

" Oh, to go back across the years long vanished,

To have the words unsaid, the deeds undone, The errors cancelled, the deep shadows banished,

In the glad sense of a new world begun : To be a little child, whose page of story

Is yet undimmed, unblotted by a stain, And in the sunrise of primeval glory

To know that life has had its start again!

I may go back across the years long vanished ;

I may resume my childhood, Lord, in thee, When in the shadow of thy cross are banished

All other shadows that encompass me ; And o'er the road that now is dark and dreary,

This soul, made buoyant by the strength of rest, Shall walk untired, shall run and not be weary,

To bear the blessing that has made it blest."

Chapter II. Our Undiscovered Faults

"A friend who holds a mirror to my face, And, hiding none, is not afraid to trace My faults, my smallest blemishes, within ; Who friendly warns, reproves me if I sin — Although it seems not so, he is my friend.

But he who, ever flattering, gives me praise, Who ne'er rebukes nor censures, nor delays To come with eagerness and grasp my hand, And pardon me, ere pardon I demand — He is my enemy, although he seem my friend."

We may as well confess that it is not pleasant to be told of our faults. Poets and other writers tell us that he is our truest friend who does not shrink from holding the mirror to our face. Nevertheless, we do not like it. As a rule, he who proves such a friend to another finds himself a sinecure in his friendship thereafter. Even that may not be too great a price to pay, however, for the privilege of doing for one we love a service which shall take from his life a sad blemish or a serious flaw.

No doubt there are faults in us which we ourselves do not see. Our eyes are so set in our heads that they look out and not in. It is easier, therefore, for us to detect spots in others than in ourselves. So it comes that in most of us there are blemishes of which we are altogether unaware. The Bible speaks of sins of ignorance. So there are sins which we commit of which we are not conscious. In one of the Psalms there is a prayer to be cleansed, or cleared from, secret or hidden faults. So we have faults which are not seen by ourselves.

Then we all have in us many things, both good and bad, which our fellow-men cannot see, but of which we ourselves are aware. We cannot reveal ourselves perfectly, even to our own bosom companions. With no intention to hide anything, even desiring to live a perfectly open life, there will yet be many things in the inner depths of our being which our nearest friends cannot discover. No one but ourselves knows the motives that actuate us. Sometimes neighbors praise our good deed when we know well that the good was blurred by a self-seeking intent. Or others may criticise something we do, charging us with a wrong spirit, when we know in our heart that it was true love that prompted it.

We are both better and worse than others think us to be. The best things in good lives do not flash their beauty before human eyes. None of us can ever show to others all in us that is worthy. There are countless stars in the depths of the sky which no human eye ever sees. Human lives are deeper than the heavens in which the stars are set ; and in the depths even of the most commonplace soul there are more splendors unrevealed to human gaze than are revealed. Who is there that says all the truth he tries to say, when he attempts to speak of or for his Master ? What singer ever gets into his song all the music that is in his soul when he sings? What painter ever transfers to his canvas all the loveliness of the vision which fills his heart? What Christian ever lives out all the loyalty to Christ, all the purity and holiness, all the gentleness and sweetness, all the unselfishness and helpfulness, all the grace and beauty, he longs to show in his life ? Even in those who fail and fall in defeat, and whose lives are little but shame and sin, there are yet gleams of beauty, like the shattered fragments of a once very noble ideal. We do not know what strivings, what penitences, what efforts to do better, what tears of sorrow, what hungerings after God and heaven, there are in the heart even of the depraved, in whom the world, even nearest friends, see nothing beautiful. No doubt in every life there is good which human eyes cannot see.

But there is evil, also, which our friends cannot detect, — things no one suspects, but of which we ourselves are painfully aware. Many a man goes out in the morning to be loved and welcomed by his friends, and praised and honored by the world, yet carrying in his own breast the memory of some deed of sin or shame committed in secret the night before.

OUR UNDISCOVERED FAULTS. iy

" If people only knew me," he says, " as I know myself to-day, they would scorn me instead of trusting me and honoring me." All of us are conscious of miserable things hidden within us, — secret habits wrought into fixed life, the play of unholy thoughts and feelings, the rising up of ugly passions and tempers, the movements of pride, vanity, self-conceit, envy, jealousy, doubt, which do not reveal themselves to any eye without. There are evils in every one of which the person himself knows, but which others do not even suspect.

" For no men or women that live to-day, Be they as good or as bad as they may, Even would dare to leave In faintest pencil or boldest ink All that they truly and really think, What they have said or what they have done, What they have lived, and what they have felt, Under the stars or under the sun."

But there also are faults, unlovely things and sins in our hearts, of which we ourselves are unaware. There is an eye that pierces deeper than our own into our souls. In one place St. Paul says, " I know nothing against myself: yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord." It is not enough to be innocent of conscious transgression ; there are sins of ignorance. Only God sees us through and through. We must live for his inspection and approval.

We cannot see our own faults even as our neighbors see them. The Pharisee in his prayer, which really was not a prayer at all, spoke much of other people's sins, but saw none in himself. We are all much like him. We are prejudiced in our own favor. We are very charitable and tolerant toward our own shortcomings. We make all manner of allowance for our own faults, and are wonderfully patient with our own infirmities. We see our good things magnified, and our blemishes in a light that makes them seem almost virtues. So true is this, that if we were to meet ourself some day on the street, the self God sees, even the self our neighbor sees, we probably should not recognize it as really ourself. Our own judgment of our life is not conclusive. There is a self we do not see.

Then we cannot see into the future, to know whither the subtle tendencies of our life are leading us. We do many things which to our eyes appear innocent and harmless, but which have in them a hidden evil we cannot see. We indulge ourselves in many things which to us do not appear sinful, but which leave on our soul a touch of blight, a soiling of purity, of which we do not dream. We permit ourselves many little habits in which we see no danger, but which are silently entwining their invisible threads into a cable, which some day shall bind us hand and foot. We spare ourselves self-denials and sacrifices, thinking there is no reason why we should make them, unaware that we are lowering our standard of living, and permitting the subtle beginnings of selfindulgence to creep into our heart.

There is another class of hidden faults. Sin is deceitful. No doubt there are many things in most of us, — ways of living, traits of character, qualities of disposition, — which we consider, perhaps, among our strong points, or at least fair and commendable things in us, which in God's eye are not only flaws and blemishes, but sins. Good and evil in certain qualities do not lie very far apart. It is quite easy for devotion to principle to shade off into obstinacy. It is easy for self-respect, consciousness of ability, to pass over into miserable self-conceit. It is easy for a man to make himself believe that he is cherishing justifiable anger, when the truth is, he is only giving way to very bad temper. It is easy to let gentleness become weakness, and tolerance toward sinners tolerance toward sin. It is easy for us to become very selfish in many phases of our conduct, while in general we are really quite unselfish. For example: A man may be giving his life to the good of his fellows in the larger sense, while in his own home he is utterly regardless of the comfort and convenience of those nearest to him. Without, he is polite, thoughtful, kindly ; within, he cares not how much trouble he causes, exacting and demanding attention and service, and playing the petty tyrant instead of the large-hearted, generous Christian. Who of us does not have little or greater secret blemishes lying alongside his most shining virtues ? We do not see them in ourselves. We see the faults cropping out in our neighbor, and we say, " What a pity so fine a character is so marred! " And our neighbor looks at us and says, "What a pity that with so much that is good, he has so many marring faults ! " Sin is deceitful.

The substance of all that has been said is, that besides the faults our neighbors see in us, besides those our closest friends see, besides those of which we ourselves are aware, all of us have undiscovered errors in our life, hidden, secret faults, of which only God knows.

If we are living truly, we want to find every flaw or blemish there is in us, of whatever kind. He is a coward who shrinks from the discovery of his own faults. We should be glad always to learn of any hidden unloveliness in ourselves. Some one says, "Count yourself richer that day you discover a new fault in yourself — not richer because it is there, but richer because it is no longer a hidden fault ; and if you have not yet found all your faults, pray to have them revealed to you, even if the revelation must come in a way that hurts your pride."

It is dangerous to allow any fault, however small, to stay in our life ; but hidden faults are even more perilous than those of which we are aware. They are enemies concealed, traitors in the camp, unrecognized, passing for friends. No good, true, and brave man will allow a discovered sin or fault to stay unchallenged in his life ; but an undiscovered sin lurks and nests in a man's heart, and breeds its deadly evil in his very soul. Before he is aware of its presence, it may eat out the heart of his manhood, and poison the very springs of his being.

Hidden faults, remaining undiscovered and uncured in us, will hinder our spiritual growth, and we shall not know the reason for our moral weakness, or lack of power. They will also defeat the working out of the divine plan in our life. When Canova, the great sculptor, was about to begin work upon his statue of Napoleon, it is said that his keen eye saw a tiny red line running through the upper part of the splendid block of marble out of which he was to carve the statue. The stone had been brought at great expense from Paros for this express purpose. Common eyes saw no flaw in it, but the sculptor saw it, and would not use the marble.

May it not be so ofttimes with lives which face great opportunities ? God's eye sees in them some undiscovered flaw or fault, some tiny line of marring color. God desires truth in the inward parts. The life that pleases him must be pure and white throughout. He who clings to faults discovered, refusing to cast them out, or he who refuses to let the candle of the Lord search out the hidden faults in him, that he may put them away, is marring his own destiny. God cannot use him for the larger, nobler task or trust for which he had planned to use him. The tiny red line running through the marble causes it to be set aside and rejected.

What shall we do ? God alone can know our hidden faults. We must ask him to search our hearts and try our ways, and to cleanse our lives of whatsoever evil thing he finds in us. Our prayer should be, —

"Who can discern his errors?

Clear thou me from hidden faults."

Chapter III. Life's Second Chance

"Winter makes ready for the spring By months of struggle and suffering; And the victory won from the mortal strife Strengthens the fibre and pulse of life. How if the earth in its chill despair Felt that the fight were too hard to bear, Where were the bloom and the vintage then ? Where were the harvest for hungering men ? n

Susan Coolidge.

If we had but one chance in life it would fare badly with most of us. We do scarcely anything perfectly the first time we try to do it. Nearly always do we fail. Not many lives are lived beautifully, without a break or a lapse, from childhood to age. If, therefore, the opportunity of choosing good came to us only once, and was then forever withdrawn, few of us would make anything of our life. We are in the habit of saying that opportunities never come twice to us. One writes, —

" Never comes the chance that passed: That one moment was its last.

Though thy life upon it hung, Though thy death beneath it swung, If thy future all the way Now in darkness goes astray, When the instant born of fate Passes through the golden gate, When the hour, but not the man, Comes and goes from Nature's plan, — Nevermore its countenance Beams upon thy slow advance ; Nevermore that time shall be Burden-bearer unto thee.

Weep and search o'er land and main, Lost chance never comes again."

This is all true, but it is not the whole truth. No single opportunity comes twice, but other opportunities come. Though we have failed once, that is not the end. The past is irrevocable ; but while there is even the smallest margin of life remaining, there is yet another chance.

LIFE'S SECOND CHANCE. 27

Jeremiah tells us of visiting a potter's house, and watching the potter as he wrought on the wheels. His work was marred in his hands in some way. But instead of throwing it away, he made it into another vessel. The second vessel was not so beautiful as the one the potter first intended to make, but it was useful. The clay had a second chance.

The prophet's parable had its first meaning for his own people, but its lesson is for all time. For one thing, it tells us that God has a plan for every life. The potter has a pattern after which he intends to fashion his vessel. For every human life there is a divine pattern, something which God means it to become. This first thought of God for our lives is the very best thing possible for them.

We learn, again, from this ancient acted parable that our lives may be marred in the living, so that they shall never attain God's beautiful thought for them. There is a difference, however, between a lump of clay and a human life. The marring of the clay may be the potter's fault, or it may be the result of an accident ; at least, it cannot be the fault of the clay itself. If a misshapen jar or bowl comes into your hands, you would not say, " What a careless piece of clay it was that made itself into this irregular form ! " Rather you would say, " What a careless potter it was that so spoiled this vessel, when he had the soft clay in his hands ! " But when a life is marred, and fails of the beauty and nobleness which it was designed to have, you cannot blame God. You cannot say, " I was clay on the wheel, and the great Potter gave the wrong touch, and spoiled the loveliness that ought to have been wrought in my life." You are not clay, but a human soul. You have a will, and God does not shape you as the potter moulds his plastic clay. He works through your own will, and you can resist him, and can defeat his purpose for your life, and spoil the noble design into which he would fashion you. The blotches in this fair world are all the sad work of human hands, never of God's hands.

But this is not all of the lesson. The

LIFE'S SECOiVB CHANCE. 29

potter took the clay again when the vessel he meant to make was marred, and with it made another vessel. The second could not be so fine nor so large as the first would have been but for the marring. Yet it was better that there should be an inferior vessel made than that the clay should be thrown away. It is thus that God deals with human souls. He does not cast off the life that has failed of its first and best possibilities. Even in the ruins of a soul there are divine elements, and so long as a little fragment remains God wants to give it still another chance.