LESSON L
COUNTENANCE AND CHARACTER
We know men by their looks; we read men by looking at their faces—not at their features, their eyes, their lips, because God made these; but a certain cast of motion, and shape and expression, which their features have acquired. It is this that we call the countenance.
And what makes this countenance? The inward and mental habits; the constant pressure of the mind; the perpetual repetition of its acts. You detect at once a conceited, or foolish person. It is stamped on his countenance. You can see on the faces of the cunning or dissembling, certain corresponding lines, traced on the face as legibly as if they were written there.
As it is with the countenance, so it is with the character. Character is the sum total of all our actions. It is the result of the habitual use we have been making of our intellect, heart and will. We are always at work, like the weaver at the loom. So we are always forming a character for ourselves. It is a plain truth, that everybody grows up in a certain character; some good, some bad, some excellent, and some unendurable. Every character is formed by habits. If a man is habitually proud, or vain, or false, he forms for himself a character like in kind.
The character shows itself outwardly, but it is wrought within. Every habit is a chain of acts, and every one of those acts was a free link of the will. For instance, some people are habitually false. We sometimes meet with men whose word we can never take, and for this reason they have lost the perception of truth and falsehood. They do not know when they are speaking the truth and when they are speaking falsely. They bring this state upon themselves. But there was a time when these same men had never told a lie.
A good character is to be more highly prized than riches.