E-text prepared by Al Haines
LIFE AND CONDUCT
by
J. CAMERON LEES, D.D., LL.D.,
Edinburgh.
Toronto:
William Briggs,
Wesley Buildings.
Montreal: C. W. Coates.
Halifax: S. F. Huestis.
1896.
Entered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the
Department of Agriculture.
INTRODUCTION.
This book has been selected from the "Guild Series" for young people,
published in Scotland, and reprinted in Canada by permission.
The wise counsels and practical suggestions with which this book
abounds make it eminently suitable for the Epworth League Reading
Course. We commend it to all young people who are desirous to form
their character on the Christian model and to carry religious principle
into the practical affairs of common life.
Some of the chapters will furnish material for interesting programmes
in the Literary Department.
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 Classes.
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 illustration 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 God 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._
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. CHARACTER
II. SUCCESS IN LIFE
III. PERSONAL INFLUENCE
IV. FRIENDS
V. MONEY
VI. TIME
VII. COURAGE
VIII. HEALTH
IX. EARNESTNESS
X. MANNERS
XI. TEMPER
XII. RECREATION
XIII. BOOKS
XIV. FAMILY LIFE
XV. CHURCH
XVI. CITIZENSHIP
APPENDIX
LIST OF WORKS
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 God, "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 pass 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 circumstances.--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 God
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
passes 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 horny 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 pass 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 passed 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 God, 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 noble character. It is
possible to be united to Christ as the branch is united to the tree;
and when we are so, His life passes into ours: a change in character
comes to us; we are renewed in the inward man, old things pass 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 passed over the entire character; the life he
lived in the flesh became a life of faith in the Son of God; and his
experience has been the experience of many. The source of the highest
and noblest character is Christ. (2) Christ is also the _standard_ of
a noble character; the true ideal of manhood is found in Him: "the
stature of the fulness of Christ." Take the following illustration:
"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.