Power of Character:
HOW YOU MAY ASSERT IT.
Although it is perfectly true that we may so exalt our importance as individuals as to feed self-conceit; although as a rule men think they have more talents than they really possess, it is nevertheless certain that there is not one man in ten who makes the most of himself for the purpose for which he was created. The great waste of life is wasted or perverted power. What noble youths come out of schools and colleges; how few afterwards make their lives noble. With what opportunities do many enter upon business and professions, and afterwards sink into the grave with scarcely a trace to indicate that they ever lived. There have been hundreds who could have rivalled the patriotism of Hampden, or the humanity of Howard, or the eloquence of Chatham, and who have left behind them no one memorial of their existence. It is recorded that a fellow-student once said to Paley: “You are a great fool to waste your best years in the dissipations of a university; you have talents for something better.” To multitudes of gifted young men has the like thing been said, but said in vain. Paley took the hint, which was roughly given. And now “there is no name in the English church that stands higher than his, and no name in the vast circles of English literature that has a more permanent fame.”
The great things of this world have been accomplished by individuals. Vast social reformations have originated in individual souls. Truths that now sway the world were first proclaimed by individual lips. Great thoughts, that now are the axioms of humanity, proceeded from the centre of individual hearts. No warlike host delivered the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, but one man—Moses. No senate of statesmen raised Israel to a pitch of greatness that proclaimed a theocratic nation to the world, but one man—David. No school of divines gave to England the Bible in the mother tongue, but one man—Wyckliffe. No learned society discovered America, but one man—Columbus. No association of science revealed the clue to interpret the laws of the universe, but one man—Galileo. No parliament saved English liberties, but one man—Pym. No assembly of theologians wrote the book, which nest to the Bible has had the most potent influence on the English language and on English hearts, but one man—John Bunyan. No confederate nations rescued Scotland from her distracted councils, from her political and ecclesiastical enemies, but one man—Knox. No chambers of commerce taught Europe to abolish the restrictions of trade, but one man—Richard Cobden. Doubtless these men found their coadjutors; but all through the ages God has put immense honor upon individuals.
Young man, do not let others fashion what your life shall be. Thomas Carlyle says somewhere that he would like to stop the stream of people in the Strand, and ask every man his history. But, “No,” says the sage, “I will not stop them. If I did, I should find they were like a flock of sheep following in the track of one another.” Alas, men begin to lose their individuality of conviction the moment they step into the world. Here is a young man beginning life’s business. He feels, as he starts, an impulse to be pure and noble. He is surrounded by clerks in an office. A fortnight passes, and one evening, when he is hurrying home after office hours, he hears a fast young man whisper at the desk, “Poor fellow, he’s off to be pinned to his mother’s knee.” Now, what would be the right thing for that youth to do? To say at once, “Yes, and God forbid I should ever forget what I owe to my mother.” Let him say this, and the insulter would be shamed, if shame were not dead. He would respect the self-assertion of his fellow-clerk. Does the new-comer say this? No; his ears turn red; his face is suffused with a blush; and in a night or two the poor weak one dares some trick of folly to show his independence, and to prove that home influences do not bind him. Thus, alas!—how shall I say it sorrowfully enough?—thus he makes a sacrifice of his individuality on the altar that a profligate clerk has built up for him; and then, step by step, he weaves around himself the bonds of pleasure, till, amid the dark storm of shipwrecked character, blasted reputation, wrung hearts at home, worn-out health, and miserable self-reproaches, he sinks to his unhonored grave, leaving only a memory of disgrace to those who have loved him.
I have known many a young man who has seen the right path as plain as noonday. God has mercifully flashed clear conviction of duty upon him. No mental mistake has hindered him. His judgment has been convinced; his feelings have been moved; he has felt sure that it would be better for him, for this life and for the nest, to take a decided position on the side of God and righteousness. And what has hindered him? What has led to waste and self-remorse? Has he been persuaded by the wise? Has he been reasoned out of his convictions by the influential? No; he has been moved by the jeer of a dandy or the sneer of the coquette; he has quenched his conviction before the mocking taunt of some empty-brained street lounger; has lowered his own high tone of morals lest he should seem singular in the little circle of worldly society surrounding him. Do you say, “Can a man set himself against society?” If society quenches the true in you, if it binds you, if it robs you of moral manhood, if it makes you its slave, there can remain no question to you as to what is your duty. Scorn to degrade yourself by yielding up your individuality to suit the whim of, it may be, the worthless and vulgar.
You are stepping into life, where you will find thousands who became vicious because they never formed the resolve to live nobly. Such men are the dead leaves that fall upon the stream and flow, not by any vital power or aim in themselves, but by the eddying current around them. There is many a sot who is imbruted, because he never determined that he would not be a drunkard. There is many a useless one who has become a cipher, because he never resolved to give to his life a meaning. There is many a filthy blasphemer who is profane, because he never resolved that the foul oath should not soil his lips. There is many a defiled, polluted, and diseased one, because he never resolved that he would not be the companion of a whore. This is the sorrowfulest of all things—men ruined, sinking into sin, vulgarity, uselessness, vileness, not because they intended to be bad, but because they had not the courage to resolve to be good.
It is yet more deeply to be lamented that the young men who are thus ruined are mostly the open, the generous, and the frank. A cold nature that no one cares for, that is not wanted in the drinking-room, or smoking-room, or billiard-room, passes into manhood without hurt; but good-natured and gleeful young men have a weak side whereby they become a prey to the dissipated. They are companionable and sympathetic, therefore miscreants suck them by temptation.