EFFECT ON CHARACTER.
The greatest factor in life in all ages is not material wealth, nor social position, nor genius, nor education, but character. Since man is above things, the highest purpose is not the gathering of that beneath him, but the developing of the best and noblest that is in him.
The highest possible purpose and work is the developing of virtuous manhood.
This was the thought of our fathers when they came to these shores and built their homes and established the free institutions which we now enjoy. They sacrificed material advantages that they might be free men and secure for themselves and for their children the opportunity to reach in faith and practice the ideal manhood.
No material advantage can be regarded with favor that is detrimental to the characters of men. Position, wealth, education, are worse than worthless when associated with a corrupted manhood.
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."
The test of truth is its developing of the virtues and graces. Falsehood is detected by its quickening the vices that degrade and destroy. "By their fruits shall ye know them."
Virtues are linked together so that the promoting of one gives strength to the others. All vices are also so linked that the stimulating of one quickens other vices.
Virtues and vices are opposite, so that the encouraging of a vice or fault discourages the opposing virtue. When you discourage a virtue, you encourage a vice.
The old-fashioned virtues which our fathers prized, and which they regarded essential elements of worthy manhood, were industry, and honesty, and self-reliance, and brotherly sympathy, and the devout recognition of God's divine sovereignty.