Life and Conduct Part 1

Life and Conduct.

by J. Cameron Lees.

PREFACE.

This hand-book has been written at the request of the Christian Life and Work Committee of the Church of Scotland as one of a series of volumes which it is at present issuing for the use of Young Men's Guilds and Bible Cla.s.ses.

The object of the writer has been to show how the principles of religion may be applied to the conduct of young men, and in the practice of everyday life. In doing this he has endeavored to keep steadily in view the fact that the book is designed chiefly as a manual of instruction, and can only present the outlines of a somewhat wide subject. His language has been necessarily simple, and he has been often obliged to put his statements in an abbreviated form.

Most of the contents of this book have been drawn from a long and somewhat varied experience of life; but the author has also availed himself of the writings of others who have written books for the special benefit of young men. He has appended a list of works which he has consulted, and has endeavored to acknowledge his indebtedness for any help in the way of argument or ill.u.s.tration that they have afforded him.

It will be a great gratification to him to learn that the book has been in any way useful to the young men, of whose position, duties, and temptations he has thought much when writing it; and he sends it forth with the earnest prayer that the Spirit of G.o.d may bless his endeavors to be of service to those whose interests he, in common with his brethren in the ministry, regards as of paramount importance.

EDINBURGH, _28th June, 1892._

LIFE AND CONDUCT.

CHAPTER I.

CHARACTER.

Everything in the practical conduct of life depends upon character.

What is character? What do we mean by it? As when we say such a man is a bad character, or a good character, or when we use the words, "I don't like the character of that man."

By character we mean what a man really is, at the back of all his actions and his reputation and the opinion the world has of him, in the very depth of his being, in the sight of G.o.d, "to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid."

It is said of Burns, the poet, that walking along the streets of Edinburgh with a fashionable acquaintance, he saw a poorly-dressed peasant, whom he rushed up to and greeted as a familiar friend. His companion expressed his surprise that he could lower himself by speaking to one in so rustic a garb. "Fool!" said the poet, with flashing eye; "it was not the dress, the peasant's bonnet and hodden gray, I spoke to, but the man within--the man who beneath that bonnet has a head, and beneath that hodden gray a heart, better than a thousand such as yours." What the poet termed the "man within," what the Scripture calls the "hidden man of the heart," is character--the thing a man really is. Now, there are five things to be remembered about _character_.

I. Character is a growth.--As the man without grows, so the man within grows also--grows day by day either in beauty or in deformity. We are becoming, as the days and years pa.s.s on, what we shall be in our future earthly life, what we shall be when that life is ended. No one becomes what he is at once, whether what he is be good or bad. You may have seen in the winter-time an icicle forming under the eaves of a house.

It grows, one drop at a time, until it is more than a foot long. If the water is clear, the icicle remains clear and sparkles in the sun; but if the water is muddy, the icicle looks dirty and its beauty is spoiled. So our characters are formed; one little thought or feeling at a time adds its influence. If these thoughts and feelings are pure and right, the character will be lovely and will sparkle with light; but if they are impure and evil, the character will be wretched and deformed.

Fairy tales tell us of palaces built up in a night by unseen hands, but those tales are not half so wonderful as what is going on in each of us. Day and night, summer and winter, a building is going up within us, behind the outer screen of our lives. The storeys of it are being silently fashioned: virtue is being added to faith, and to virtue is being added knowledge, and to knowledge is being added brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity; or meanness is being added to selfishness, and greed to meanness, and impurity, malice and hatred become courses in the building. A wretched hovel, a poor, mean, squalid structure, is rising within us; and when the screen of our outward life is taken from us, this is what we shall be.

II. Character is independent of reputation and circ.u.mstances.--A man may be held in very high esteem by the world, and yet may be a very miserable creature so far as his character is concerned. The rich man of the parable was well off and probably much thought of, but G.o.d called him a fool. Here is a man who is greatly esteemed by the public; he is regarded in every way as admirable. Follow him home, and you find him in his family a mean and sordid soul. There you have the real man. We cannot always judge a man by what he has, or by what he appears to us; for what he is may be something very different. "These uniforms," said the Duke of Wellington, "are great illusions. Strip them off, and many a pretty fellow would be a coward; when in them he pa.s.ses muster with the rest." We must not confound the uniform with the man: we are often too ready to do so. _To a certain extent_ we can form an idea what a man is from the outside. The h.o.r.n.y hand tells of the life of labor; the deep-set brow tells of the thinker. In other words we have a right to judge a man by his habitation. If the fences are broken down, the paths are unkept, the flower-beds full of weeds, we may be pretty sure the inhabitants are idle, thriftless, perhaps intemperate. So a clear eye, a firm step, an open countenance, tell of a pure, good soul within. For example, a man of cold exterior or of formal manner may often have a warm heart under it all; a man of rough manners may have kindly feelings that he cannot express. We are often long in the company of men before we really know them, and then the discovery of what they are comes on us by surprise.

III. Character cannot be always hidden.--There are those who seem to think that they can have one set of principles for themselves and another for the outward world; that they can be in their heart one thing and in society another; that they can have one character and another reputation. They may be proud, but they can so hide their pride as to have the reputation of being humble; they can lie, but still have the reputation of always speaking the truth; they can be impure, and yet have the reputation of being virtuous. But sooner or later what they really are generally becomes manifest. Reputation and character come to be one. That which they would keep secret cannot be concealed. The mask which men would wear slips aside and discloses the face beneath it. (1) Time reveals character. As the years pa.s.s along, a man generally gets to be known for what he is. For example, if a man is a coward and enlists in the army, he may swagger about and look like a real soldier, but a time will come when the spirit of the man will show itself, and he will be set down at his real value. Or a young man in an office may act dishonestly and go on perhaps for long doing so, and thinking he is carefully concealing his frauds, but, when least expected, discovery takes place, and ruin and disgrace follow. (2) Sorrow reveals character. Nothing more truly shows what a man is than his bearing under the sorrows of life. When the flag is wrapped around the flag-staff on a calm day, when no breath of wind is moving, we cannot read the device that is upon it, but when the storm unfurls the flag, we can read it plainly enough. In the same way when the troubles of life beat upon men we can read clearly what they are. Again, when we go along the road on a summer day we often cannot see the houses that are concealed by the foliage of the trees; but in winter-time, when the trees are bare and leafless, we know what kind of houses are there, whether they are squalid cottages or grand mansions. So in the winter-time of life, when the leaves are blown away, men come out and we know what kind of character they have been building up behind the screen of their life. (3) If time and sorrow do not reveal character, eternity will. We will appear then, not as we seem, but as we are.

Christ is to be our judge. Consider what a striking thing it is in the life of Christ that His searching glance seemed to go right to the heart, to the hidden motive, to the man within. "He knew what was in man." A poor woman pa.s.sed by Him as He sat in the temple. She was poverty-stricken in her garb, and she stole up to the contribution-box and dropped in her offering. Christ's glance went right beyond her outward appearance, and beyond her small and almost imperceptible offering, to the motive and character. "She hath given more than they all." All sorts of people were around Him: Pharisees, with their phylacteries; Scribes, with their sceptical notions; Samaritans, with their vaunted traditions: but He always went right beyond the outward show. The Samaritan was good and kind, though he got no credit for piety; the Pharisee was corrupt and self-seeking, though he got no credit for piety; the Publican was a child of G.o.d, though no one would speak to him. Christ reversed the judgment of men on those people whom they thought they knew so well, but did not know at all. So it shall be at the last; we shall be judged by what we are.

IV. Character alone endures.--What a man has he leaves behind him; what a man is he carries with him. It is related that when Alexander the Great was dying he commanded that his hands should be left outside his shroud, that all men might see that, though conqueror of the world he could take nothing away with him. Before Saladin the Great uttered his last sigh he called the herald who had carried his banner before him in all his battles, and commanded him to fasten to the top of the spear a shroud in which he was to be buried, and to proclaim, "This is all that remains to Saladin the Great of all his glory." So men have felt in all ages that death strips them, and that they take nothing with them of what they have gained. But what we are ourselves we take with us. All that time has made us, for good or evil, goes with us.

We can lay up treasures in ourselves that neither moth nor rust can corrupt, and which thieves cannot steal away. "The splendid treasures of memory, the treasures of disciplined powers, of enlarged capacities, of a pure and loving heart, all are treasures which a man can carry in him and with him into that other world."

We are but farmers of ourselves, yet may, If we can stock ourselves and thrive, uplay Much good treasure for the great rent-day.--DONNE.

"All the jewels and gold a man can collect he drops from his hand when he dies, but every good action he has done is rooted into his soul and can never leave him."--Buddhist saying.

V. The highest character a man can have is the Christian Character.--(1) Christ is the giver of a n.o.ble character. It is possible to be united to Christ as the branch is united to the tree; and when we are so, His life pa.s.ses into ours: a change in character comes to us; we are renewed in the inward man, old things pa.s.s away, and all things become new. In the life of St. Paul we have a striking instance how coming to Christ effects a change in character. He became a different man from what he was; he received a new inward life; a transfiguring change pa.s.sed over the entire character; the life he lived in the flesh became a life of faith in the Son of G.o.d; and his experience has been the experience of many. The source of the highest and n.o.blest character is Christ. (2) Christ is also the _standard_ of a n.o.ble character; the true ideal of manhood is found in Him: "the stature of the fulness of Christ." Take the following ill.u.s.tration: "In Holland we travel with Dutch money, in France with French money, in Germany with German money. The standard of the coinage varies with every state we go into. In Britain there is one standard of coinage; we may get some corrupted money or some light coin, but the standard of coinage is the same. The standard for the Christian is the same throughout the years and in all places: the one perpetual standard of the life of Christ." The best men are those who come the nearest to it. Those who come nearest to it are those who will do best in the practical conduct of life.

CHAPTER II.

SUCCESS IN LIFE.

We often hear the word success used. The great wish that most have in beginning life is that they may be successful. One man constantly asks another the question regarding a third, How has he succeeded?

What is success in life? It may perhaps be defined in this way: It is to obtain the greatest amount of happiness possible to us in this world.

There are two things to be borne in mind in estimating what success is:

I. Lives which according to some are successful must in the highest sense be p.r.o.nounced failures.--The idea of many is that success consists in the gaining of a livelihood, or competency, or wealth; but a man may gain these things who yet cannot be said to have succeeded.

If he gets wealth at the expense of health, or if he gets it by means of trickery and dishonest practices, he can hardly be said to have succeeded. He does not get real happiness with it. If a man gains the whole world and loses his own soul, he cannot be said to have succeeded. True success in life is when a fair share of the world's good does not cost either physical or intellectual or moral well-being.

II. Lives which according to some are failures must in the highest sense be p.r.o.nounced successful.--The life of our blessed Lord, from one point of view, was a failure. It was pa.s.sed in poverty, it closed in darkness. We see Him crowned with thorns, buffeted, spit upon; yet never was Christ so successful as when He hung upon the cross. He had finished the work given Him to do. He "saw of the travail of His soul and was satisfied."

Milton completed his _Paradise Lost_ and a bookseller only gave him fifteen pounds for it, yet he cannot be said to have failed.

Speak, History, who are life's victors? unroll thy long annals and say, Are they those whom the world calls victors, who won the success of the day, The martyrs or Nero? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylae's tryst Or the Persians or Xerxes? His judges or Socrates?

Pilate or Christ?

What may seem defeat to some may be in the truest sense success.

_There are certain things which directly tend to success in life:_

The first is Industry.--There can be no success without working hard for it. There is no getting on without labor. We live in times of great compet.i.tion, and if a man does not work, and work hard, he is soon jostled aside and falls into the rear. It is true now as in the days of Solomon that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich."

(_a_) There are some who think they can dispense with hard work because they possess great natural talents and ability--that cleverness or genius can be a subst.i.tute for diligence. Here the old fable of the hare and the tortoise applies. They both started to run a race. The hare, trusting to her natural gift of fleetness, turned aside and took a sleep; the tortoise plodded on and won the prize. Constant and well-sustained labor carries one through, where cleverness apart from this fails. History tells us that the greatest genius is most diligent in the cultivation of its powers. The cleverest men have been of great industry and unflinching perseverance. No truly eminent man was ever other than an industrious man.

(_b_) There are some who think that success is in the main a matter of what they call "luck," the product of circ.u.mstances over which they have little or no control. If circ.u.mstances are favorable they need not work; if they are unfavorable they need not work. So far from man being the creature of circ.u.mstances he should rather be termed the architect of circ.u.mstances. From the same materials one man builds palaces and another hovels. Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks till the architect makes something out of them. In the same way, out of the same circ.u.mstances one man rears a stately edifice, while another, idle and incompetent, lives for ever amid ruins.

Circ.u.mstances rarely conquer a strong man; he conquers them. He

Breaks his birth's invidious bar And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And b.r.e.a.s.t.s the blows of circ.u.mstance, And grapples with his evil star.--TENNYSON.

Against all sorts of opposing obstacles the great workers of the world fought their way to triumph. Milton wrote _Paradise Lost_ in blindness and poverty. Luther, before he could establish the Reformation, had to encounter the prestige of a thousand years, the united power of an imperious hierarchy and the ban of the German Empire. Linnaeus, studying botany, was so poor as to be obliged to mend his shoes with folded paper and often to beg his meals of his friends. Columbus, the discoverer of America, had to besiege and importune in turn the states of Genoa, Portugal, Venice, France, England, and Spain, before he could get the control of three small vessels and 120 men. Hugh Miller, who became one of the first geological writers of his time, was apprenticed to a stonemason, and while working in the quarry, had already begun to study the stratum of red sandstone lying below one of red clay. George Stephenson, the inventor of the locomotive engine, was a common collier working in the mines. James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine, was a poor sickly child not strong enough to go to school. John Calvin, who gave a theology to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which has not yet been outgrown, was tortured with disease all his days. When were circ.u.mstances favorable to any great or good attempt, except as they were compelled by determination and industry to become favorable?

(_c_) Even if circ.u.mstances seem in every way favorable, industry is necessary to success. Though we be born, as the saying is, "with a silver spoon in our mouth," we cannot afford to dispense with work.

Unless we are hard-working, life will become a weariness to us. Work keeps life full and happy; it drives all diseased fancies out of the mind; it gives balance and regularity to all movements of the soul.

If then we expect to succeed in life we must make up our mind to work hard. We must not let it be our notion of a fine lady or gentleman to do nothing. The idle life is a miserable life; it is bound to be so.

G.o.d has promised many a blessing to industry; He has promised none to indolence. G.o.d himself works, and He wants His children to work.