DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 DURtlAM, N. C. 
 
 Rec’d. 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/character01carm 
 
■y 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 n 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE MAN 
 
 By 
 
 EDWARD WARD CARMACK 
 
 Nashville, Tenn. 
 
 McQUIDDY PRINTING COMPANY 
 1909 
 
Copyright, 1909 
 McQuiddy Printing Company 
 Nashville, Tennessee 
 
/ 
 
 /70 
 
 C 
 
 ) 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 F all the men who have figured 
 H in the public life of Tennessee, 
 
 V no one, in my judgment, has 
 
 been more versatile than the late Sen- 
 ator Edward W. Carmack. Possessing 
 the higher kind of talent that is fitly 
 entitled to be called genius, he adorned 
 and dignified every position that he 
 held. In the editorial chair, on the 
 hustings and the platform, and on the 
 floor of the Senate, he never failed to 
 command a respectful hearing. It will 
 be a long, long time before we shall see 
 his like again. As the years go by, 
 men will still be telling to their chil- 
 dren and to one another the story of 
 s 
 
 550447 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 his great and useful life. The sincere 
 thanks of his thousands of friends are 
 due to the publishers for bringing out 
 in permanent form his wonderful lec- 
 ture on “Character.” From beginning 
 to end it moves in a high region of 
 thought, and many of the passages that 
 it contains are supremely eloquent. I 
 trust that it may have a wide circula- 
 tion, especially among the young men of 
 the land; for ,it cannot fail to do good 
 wherever it goes. As I write these 
 lines, my heart grows tender at the 
 memory of my . dead friend, who never 
 espoused a cause in which he did not 
 believe and never met an opponent of 
 whom he was afraid. E. E. Hoss. 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., November 10, 1909. 
 
 4 
 
0 
 
 CHAPvACTER 
 
 OR 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE MAN 
 
 T no time should a man speak 
 with more caution or under a 
 graver sense of responsibility 
 than when ' he speaks to the young. 
 Your success and happiness will depend 
 on the ideals, the conceptions of life 
 and duty, which you hear with you into 
 the world; and an honorahfe and useful 
 career may be marred by a single false 
 precept lodged in the mind. 
 
 It is in childhood and youth that 
 character is formed. The minds of the 
 
 young are plastic, and are readily 
 5 
 
 2 6 4 4 "'i 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 molded by the hand of circumstance 
 into a vessel of honor or a vessel of 
 dishonor. The old man’s character is as 
 iron which needs the forge and hammer 
 to chana:e its form. 
 
 You remember the story of Absalom’s 
 rebellion. You remember how, as King 
 David’s captains went forth to battle, 
 he gave them charge to deal gently 
 with the young man Absalom. You re- 
 member how King David sat in the 
 gates waiting for the tidings of the bat- 
 tle upon which depended his life and 
 his throne. A messenger comes, pros- 
 trates himself at the king’s feet, and 
 announces the joyful tidings: ‘‘All is 
 well.” But there came from the aged 
 king no exclamation of joy, no words of 
 thanksgiving, no song of praise — only 
 
 6 
 
CHAEACTER 
 
 the anxious question: “Is the young 
 man Absalom safe?” A second messen- 
 ger comes and confirms the report — 
 the enemies of the king; are scattered, 
 his kingdom is established forever. But 
 it is not the king anxious for his 
 throne, but the father anxious for his 
 erring child, who sits in the gate. 
 Again from the trembling lips the anx- 
 ious question: “Is the young man Ab- 
 salom safe?” It was a father’s ques- 
 tion, but it should have been asked 
 years before. If David’s love for Absa- 
 lom had been as wise and watchful as 
 it was fond and foolish, he would not 
 have waited nntil he had lifted his 
 hand in wicked and impious rebellion 
 before giving charge concerning his wel- 
 fare; he would not have waited until he 
 
 7 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 had died the death of a traitor before 
 asking the question: “Is the young man 
 Absalom safe?” He would have noted 
 the first wayward steps, the first indi- 
 cation of a turbulent and reckless 
 spirit, the beginnings of those evil as- 
 sociations that corrupted his nature, and 
 would have won him hack to filial duty 
 and a righteous life. Long before his 
 doting father had become anxious for 
 his safety, Absalom had gone the way 
 of death and ruin. It was not the 
 spear of Joab, but the blindness of Da- 
 vid, that wrought the death of the 
 young man Absalom. 
 
 ^ Youth is the raw material of man- 
 hood. The old man is simply what he 
 began to he in his youth. Manhood 
 can only mature and age can but har- 
 
 8 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 vest the seed that were sown in the 
 springtime of life. It is in youth that 
 the work must he done and the influ- 
 ences brought to bear that are to mold 
 the character and shape the destiny of 
 the man. 
 
 I shall deal with you as practical 
 men who themselves must deal with a 
 very practical world. You would proba- 
 bly prefer an address ahoundinar in wit 
 and rhetoric; hut one of the flrst things 
 you need to learn is that you cannot 
 always get what you want, and you 
 may as well learn it now and from me. 
 “Life is real, life is earnest;” and ear- 
 nest words of truth and soberness are 
 what you need to hear. You may think 
 that when you have quit the school- 
 room you have quit school. In reality 
 
 9 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 your school days have .iust begun. 
 Though you go forth from one of the 
 gi’eat universities of the land, you have 
 hut passed through a preparatory school 
 and are about to enter as a freshman 
 that great university from which you 
 will he graduated at the grave. You 
 have hut exchanged kind and patient 
 instructors for one whose tasks are 
 heavy, whose rule is harsh, who will 
 show but little indulgence for unlearned 
 lesson or the broken rule. The world 
 is now your school, experience your 
 teacher, and life your lesson. But if 
 in this school sloth and wickedness are 
 scourged with rod of iron, diligence and 
 virtue are rewarded with happiness and 
 honor. 
 
 What you have learned at school is 
 
 10 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 trifling indeed compared with what you 
 have yet to learn, and much that you 
 have acquired here with much toil 
 will fade from you with the great- 
 est ease. But the taste for study, the 
 habit of mental application, the intel- 
 lectual discipline you have here received, 
 will remain with you, I trust, forever; 
 and, indeed, this is the most important 
 part of your education. It is a good 
 thing for a man that as a hoy he 
 learned to play ball, climb trees, and 
 turn handsprings, though as a man he 
 has ceased to practice these useful ac- 
 complishments. And so, even though 
 you should fall into my own lamenta- 
 ble condition, and not know a triangle 
 from a parallelogram, or whether 
 
 “homo” is a noun of the third declen- 
 11 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 sion or a verb of the first conjugation, 
 it will still be a good thing for you 
 that in the study of Latin and of ge- 
 ometry you have trained, strengthened, 
 and developed your mental sinews and 
 that you have learned how to learn. 
 
 The education you have received at 
 school is hut a tool, an implement, and 
 you have yet to acquire skill in the use 
 of it. I once heard a story of an old 
 darky whom his master employed to 
 skin a calf. As it was Christmas and 
 a holiday, he thought it but right to 
 pay him for it; and so when the task 
 was done, he asked him how much he 
 owed for the job. “A dollar,” replied 
 Sambo. The old master, a little shocked 
 by the exorbitant price, said: “Sam, I 
 don’t think your time was worth more 
 
 12 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 than fifty cents.” “I know dat, mars- 
 ter,” replied the old darky. “I only 
 charges fifty cents for de time; de ud- 
 der fifty cents was for de know hoiv.'” 
 So, young gentlemen, when you get out 
 into the world, you will find that the 
 important thing about knowledge is not 
 simply to know, hut to know how. The 
 learned man knows; a practical man 
 knows how; and the man with hut lit- 
 tle knowledge, hut who knows how to 
 apply that knowledge to the affairs of 
 life, is an overmatch for the man who 
 knows everything, hut who knows how 
 to do nothing. The knowing that is 
 not translated into doing is a tree that 
 hears foliage, hut no fruit. A black- 
 smith who can shoe a horse well is bet- 
 ter educated than the man who can 
 13 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 read Greek, but cannot make a living 
 for himself or lend a helping hand to 
 his neighbor. 
 
 I have said that you have just en- 
 tered the great University of Life. 
 This work of acquiring knowledge and 
 of learning how to apply it will go on 
 as long as you live; and while life is 
 brief, think how vast a sum of knowl- 
 edge a man might acquire in the du- 
 ration of an average lifetime, if he 
 would only learn one thing every day, 
 if , he would only make one daily addi- 
 tion to the sum total of his knowledge. 
 It would seem that no day could be so 
 full of cares, incidents, and pleasures 
 that an alert and inquiring mind could 
 not learn one thing. So, young gentle- 
 men, whatever may be your occupations 
 
 14 
 
CHAEACTER 
 
 or distractions, make it an infallible 
 rule of life and let no day pass over 
 your bead without levying upon it some 
 tribute, without learning from it some 
 lesson. It will astonish you to find 
 how much you can learn by habit of 
 attentive observation. 
 
 I shall not talk with you to-day 
 about the training of your intellectual 
 faculties or the acquisition of knowl- 
 edge. Not all knowledge is to be found 
 in- books. “Wisdom crieth in the 
 streets.” I would rather impress upon 
 you that the strongest and most disci- 
 plined mind cannot of itself bring you 
 honor or happiness, cannot make you a 
 good and useful citizen, or entitle you 
 to the respect of your fellow-man. The 
 great thing is character; and the great- 
 
 15 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 est men, whose names are honored and 
 revered by all mankind, were great, not 
 because they were mighty in intellect, 
 but because they were grand in soul. 
 England has produced greater intellects 
 than Alfred, but she has never pro- 
 duced a greater man. She has never 
 produced one who labored with loftier, 
 purer, more unselfish zeal for the wel- 
 fare of his country. America has pro- 
 duced abler men, perhaps, than Wash- 
 ington, but she has never produced a 
 more devoted and self-sacrificing pa- 
 triot. Not long since a distinguished 
 German author wrote of our own Rob- 
 ert E. Lee, that great as he was as 
 a commander; he was incomparably 
 greater as a man. And this is the kind 
 of greatness I would have you learn to 
 
 16 
 
CHAEACTEE 
 
 admire, and it is from such great and 
 shining examples that I would have 
 you light the lamp that is to guide 
 your feet in the dark ways of life. Let 
 me heg you, young gentlemen, not to 
 he satisfied to achieve a mere reputa- 
 tion without achieving the character to 
 sustain it. The mere love of reputa- 
 tion, of self-advertisement, and desire to 
 have one’s name “stand rubric on the 
 wall,’’ is one of the deadliest forms of 
 vanity that ever cursed the children of 
 men. The boy who fired the Ephesian 
 Dome, the demagogue who fires with 
 madness the passions of the people and 
 gives to destruction the slow creations 
 of wisdom and of years, the conqueror 
 who thunders his name from the can- 
 non’s mouth and writes it in the blood 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 of the world— these are but great mani- 
 festations of that little vanity which 
 never yet brought real happiness to any 
 man and has brought woes unnumbered 
 to mankind. And this vain little pas- 
 sion is the plague of neighborhoods 
 as well as the curse of nations. How 
 often we see in everyday life men who 
 are eager to be thought what they 
 make not the slightest effort to be! Un- 
 derstand me. I do not undervalue rep- 
 utation for its own sake. There never 
 was a good man who was indifferent to 
 the opinions of other good men. What 
 men think of you on the street is by 
 no means to be despised; but the main 
 thing, so far as your own peace and 
 happiness is concerned, is- what you 
 honestly think of yourself, in bed. You 
 
 18 
 
OHAEACTER 
 
 may derive a hollow and transient pleas- 
 ure from the praises of your deluded 
 fellow-men; but when you have retired 
 to the solitude of your chamber and 
 blown out the candle, you will see in 
 the darkness the hypocrite who was in- 
 visible in the light. Then you will try 
 to kick your conscience out of bed, and 
 you will roll over on the other side to 
 get away from yourself; but, in spite of 
 everything you can do, you will look 
 down into the depths of that whited 
 sepulcher and shrink and wither in your 
 self-contempt. Trust me, young gentle- 
 men; there is one man whose honest 
 good opinion is worth more to your 
 peace of mind than all the world be- 
 side. That man is yourself. 
 
 19 
 
 -X 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 “ One self-approving hcrur whole years outweighs 
 Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas, 
 
 And more true joy Marcellus exil’d feels 
 Than Caesar with a Senate at his heels.” 
 
 So, while striving by all honorable 
 means to win and to retain the good 
 opinion of all good men, remember, 
 after all, that a man’s reputation is 
 only what men think him to he; his 
 character, what God knows him to he. 
 And remember that you cannot long 
 pass a counterfeit character for the gen- 
 uine coin on this shrewd old world; 
 and remember also that if you have the 
 character, you cannot long miss the rep- 
 utation. A genuine coin may sometimes 
 be mistaken for the counterfeit until it 
 is tested; but whenever a counterfeit is 
 even suspected, its currency is gone for- 
 
 20 
 
CHAKACTER 
 
 ever. You test the genuineness of a 
 coin by ringing it down upon some bard 
 substance. Sooner or later, young gen- 
 tlemen, tbe metal of your character will 
 be thrown down upon tbe bard stone of 
 adversity, and then all tbe world will 
 know whether or not you are the gen- 
 uine coin. 
 
 Let me impress upon you that no 
 man is so sure to lose tbe respect of 
 all good people as tbe man who has a 
 morbid craving for popularity or a mor- 
 bid dread of unpopularity. Saul dis- 
 obeyed God because he feared tbe peo- 
 ple, and be lived to bear in bitterness 
 of soul tbe people acclaim another as 
 greater than be. He lived to bear that 
 applause which was tbe very breath of 
 bis nostrils bestowed upon a man who 
 
 21 
 
CHAKACTEB 
 
 feared God more than he feared the 
 people. You cannot always tell what 
 public opinion is; you never can tell 
 what it is going to he. The wiser plan, 
 as well as the most honest plan, there- 
 fore, is carefully and conscientiously to 
 form an opinion of your own, and then 
 have the manhood to stand by it, even 
 though you stand solitary and alone. 
 
 I do not mean by this that you 
 should he opinionated. Don’t he too 
 confident that every opinion that you 
 have hastily formed is so absolutely 
 and unquestionably correct that you can 
 afford to close your mind to all further 
 evidence upon the subject. Benjamin 
 Franklin once said that as he grew 
 older, he came to doubt more and more 
 his own infallibility and to listen with 
 
 22 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 greater respect to the opinions of other 
 men. As you grow older, yon will find 
 that many of your so-called opinions 
 were hut accidental impressions or prej- 
 udices, which larger knowledge and 
 wider experience would require you to 
 correct. It would be better for you in 
 the earlier years of your life to be re- 
 ceptive and reflective rather than dispu- 
 tatious. Polonius’ advice to Laertes 
 should he laid to heart by every young 
 man, “Take each man’s censure, hut re- 
 serve thy judgment” — that is, thy opin- 
 ion. Keep an open mind always for 
 further knowledge; hut let your search 
 for truih he fearless and sincere, and 
 never for the sake of popularity or for 
 the sake of any temporary advantage 
 
 23 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 impose upon yonr mind an opinion 
 which it cannot honestly hold. 
 
 Never fear to he on the side of good 
 morals and honest government. Let me 
 tell yon, yonng gentlemen, that the 
 power wielded by the vicions elements 
 of society is dne only to the dread of 
 that power. They owe their strength 
 and their protection to the cowardice 
 that fears to assail them. That men 
 who aspire to hear the respect of their 
 fellow-men shonld consent even by si- 
 lence that vice and crime or ignorance 
 and folly shall wield political power, 
 that they shall make or administer the 
 laws in any commnnity, is a disgrace to 
 manhood and to citizenship. Yonng 
 gentlemen, this world needs men. Yonr 
 conntry, yonr commnnity, yonr State, 
 
 24 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 need men who will stand erect in the 
 pride of their own integrity and oppose 
 their own honor to all the powers of 
 evil. 
 
 “ Be bold, be just, and when your country’s laws 
 Call you to witness in a dubious cause. 
 Though Faleris plant his bull before your eye. 
 And, frowning, dictate to your lips the lie. 
 Think it a crime no tears can e’er efface 
 To purchase safety with compliance base. 
 
 At honor’s cost a feverish span extend 
 And sacrifice for life life’s only end.” 
 
 I have sought to impress upon you 
 the importance of character, because too 
 much stress is often laid, relatively 
 speaking, on the mere acquisition of 
 knowledge and the improvement of the 
 intellectual power. We are prone to 
 make an ideal of mere intellectuality 
 and to worship it as a god. We are 
 
 25 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 in the habit of saying that ignorance is 
 the mother of vice, though all history 
 and everyday experience teach us that 
 mere culture of the intellect is not cul- 
 ture of the heart, and that often mere 
 difference in degrees of culture simply 
 mark the difference between the vulgar 
 and the accomplished scoundrel, between 
 a Pagin and a Verres, between the thief 
 vdio pilfers from a hatrack and the 
 thief who plunders a province. 
 
 We know that nations have risen to 
 the noblest heights of intellectual great- 
 ness while stooping to the lowest depths 
 of moral decay. What was Greece in 
 the time of Aristotle and Demosthenes, 
 or Rome in the time of Cicero and Vir- 
 gil? We know that Bacon was one of 
 the wisest and greatest, yet meanest, of 
 
 26 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 mankind. What a commentary it is 
 upon the dignity of human intellect 
 when we see the great author of “No- 
 vum Organum” crawling at the feet of 
 an upstart favorite and bartering his 
 country’s liberties to win a fatuous 
 smile from a crowned baboon! Great 
 philosopher, profound jurist, fawning 
 courtier, and bribe-taking judge! Did 
 ever human intellect soar to grander 
 height or human character stoop to 
 meaner depths? 
 
 Even the light of Solomon’s wisdom, 
 though it was the direct gift of Al- 
 mighty God, though it shone down upon 
 him direct from the throne of heaven, 
 could not keep his feet from the paths 
 of sin and shame. The intellect of an 
 archangel could not save Satan from 
 
 27 
 
CHAEACTER 
 
 hell; and your intellect alone, young 
 gentlemen, will not save you, even 
 though you be as wise as Solomon or 
 as smart as the devil. 
 
 "What is the lesson taught by that 
 great master of human nature in the 
 tragedy of Macbeth? No man could 
 have realized more vividly or have por- 
 trayed with more pitiless fidelity the 
 baseness and brutality of Duncan’s mur- 
 der than did Macbeth himself while the 
 purpose was yet forming in his mind. 
 His king, his kinsman, his guest, and 
 the gentle virtues that plead like an- 
 gels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep 
 damnation of the deed — he saw and 
 felt and understood it all. Yea, more; 
 he foresaw that his own peace of mind 
 
 would perish with the murdered Dun- 
 2S 
 
CHAEACTER 
 
 can; that the golden opinions won by 
 loyal valor, the love, honor, obedience, 
 troops of friends, would vanish forever 
 and would be succeeded by vain splen- 
 dor and hollow pomp, an enforced 
 mouth-honor and hidden hate, in his 
 own breast a gnawing conscience, a 
 dismal world weariness, a loathing, a 
 disgust for life. He saw and felt and 
 understood all this; but he dallied with 
 temptation, he gave audience to evil 
 promptings, he trifled with his immor- 
 tal soul, and went with open eyes to 
 foreseen destruction. How different the 
 conduct of the brave and simple- 
 hearted Banquo, who prayed to be de- 
 livered even from those evil suggestions 
 that came to him in his dreams! 
 
 What is the lesson*? We speak of 
 
 29 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 the “lordly intellect,” the “Godlike 
 
 reason;” and yet this “lordly intellect,” 
 this “Godlike reason,” is hut the ser- 
 vant of the feelings; it is hut the slave 
 of the desires. We sometimes say of a 
 man that he has suffered his intellect 
 to become the slave of his passions; hut 
 this is no more true of one man than it 
 is of another — it is true of all men. 
 The difference is only in the character 
 of the passion. Washington made his 
 
 intellect serve his passion for liberty; 
 Napoleon, his passion for fame; Bacon, 
 his passion for court favor; Solomon, 
 
 his passion for luxury and splendor; 
 
 the devil, his passion for rule. What- 
 ever a man’s master passion may be, 
 whether it he the accumulation of dol- 
 lars, the preservation of his country, or 
 
 30 
 
CHAEACTER 
 
 the salvation of souls, it will rule his 
 intellect with a rod of iron. Whether 
 it he low and mean or a hia:h and 
 mighty intellect, all its powers will he 
 exerted to gratify the cravings of the 
 heart. 
 
 The important education, therefore, is 
 that which disciplines the feelings, 
 which schools the desires. You may 
 say that if a man is taught to know 
 the consequences of right and wrong, 
 he will do right; hut who knew better 
 than Solomon that the way he had 
 chosen was vanity of vanities? Such is 
 the perversity of human nature that a 
 man may actually know, he may thor- 
 oughly understand, he may have proved 
 to himself by hitter experience over 
 and over again, that the way of the 
 
 31 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 transgressor is hard; yet he will con- 
 tinue to transgress. He may give his 
 mental assent to the Golden Rule, and 
 yet remain a hard and selfish man. 
 My friends, the difference between an 
 honest man and a thief is not in what 
 they know or think, but in how they 
 feel on the subject of stealing. If all 
 of this were not true, philosophy would 
 long since have taken the place of re- 
 ligion and Moses would have been the 
 Christ. 
 
 Every young man, therefore, should 
 seek to reduce to order what has been 
 aptly called the “inner anarchy of de- 
 sire.” “He that ruleth his spirit” is 
 greater than “he that taketh a city.” 
 
 In this education of the heart, every 
 man must in a large measure be his 
 
 32 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 own schoolmaster. There can he no 
 greater mistake than for a young man 
 to give his days and nights to extend- 
 ing the range of his knowledge and 
 training of the powers of his intellect, 
 while leaving his character to take care 
 of itself, to be formed without thought 
 or plan by the accidental circumstances 
 of its environment. 
 
 “But how,>” you ask, “can a man 
 form his character?” The rule is sim- 
 plicity itself, though the application be 
 difficult. A man may form his charac- 
 ter to a very great extent through the 
 sheer power of habit. An act often re- 
 peated hardens into a habit, and a 
 habit long continued petrifies into char- 
 acter. We often say of a man that he 
 is the victim of a habit, without paus- 
 
 33 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 ing to analyze and understand the deep 
 significance of the expression. ‘‘The 
 victim of a habit” — that is to say, not 
 of some innate or inborn propensity to 
 evil, but of an acquired vice — of some 
 vice which through the sheer power of 
 use over the mind has become second 
 nature to the man and a part of his 
 character. Young gentlemen, a great 
 deal of misery may he spared in this 
 world if young men would only realize 
 in the beginning how much easier it is 
 to do a bad act a second time than it 
 is to do it the first time. As a bough 
 that has once been bent will bend the 
 more easily in the same direction when 
 subjected to the same force, so the soul 
 that has once yielded to the seductions 
 of evil loses something of its power 
 
 34 
 
CHAEACTER 
 
 of resistance. On tlie other hand, 
 every successful resistance of tempta- 
 tion strengthens the man and weakens 
 the power of evil. Because of the in- 
 creased self-respect, the pride and pleas- 
 ure derived from such a victory, he 
 feels himself better equipped for the 
 combat when his enemy renews the at- 
 tack. No man has ever overcome a 
 strong temptation that he has not found 
 afterwards that his mind had become 
 more open and susceptible to good in- 
 fluences and suggestions than before. 
 We are told that when our Savior had 
 resisted the temptations of the devil, an- 
 gels came and ministered unto him; and 
 so when a young man puts temptation 
 under his feet, purer thoughts, nobler 
 resolves, and higher aspirations descend 
 
 35 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 like angels to strengthen and refresh 
 the will. 
 
 I would impress upon you that a 
 good habit may become as potent and 
 controlling as a bad habit. A man may 
 become the slave of a good habit, as 
 well as the victim of a bad habit. 
 A man may conquer a native disposi- 
 tion to evil by simply extorting from 
 himself a course of conduct contrary to 
 his inclination until custom has made it 
 habitual and agreeahle; for, as Hamlet 
 said, ‘‘use can almost change the stamp 
 of nature.” 
 
 But you must cultivate habits of 
 thought, as well as habits of action. 
 “As a man think eth in his heart, so is 
 he.” Yet there is good even in an en- 
 forced conformity to the rules of right 
 
 36 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 living, for a habit of doing will help to 
 beget a like habit of thinking. But it 
 must he something more than passively 
 refraining from evil. No man ever yet 
 overcame a habit or conquered a temp- 
 tation simply by folding his arms and 
 saying: “T will not.” He must drive 
 it from his path and out of his life. 
 He must put it not only from his hand, 
 but from his heart. ‘‘Resist the devil, 
 and he will flee from you.” But you 
 must resist him as Christian did Apoll- 
 yon — not with the shield only, but 
 with the sword. There is nothing truer 
 than that an idle brain is the devil’s 
 workshoD. To resist the obsession of 
 evil thoughts is sure sooner or later to 
 lead to the resistance of evil deeds. 
 Every young man should store his mind 
 
 37 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 from Ms conversation, Ms reading, or 
 his observations, with innocently agree- 
 able and instructive subjects of con- 
 templation to which he may turn his 
 thoughts at will in an idle or unoccu- 
 pied hour. Nature abhors a vacuum, 
 and you cannot keep vicious thoughts 
 from rushing into an empty head. You 
 must expel them or- bar their entrance 
 with good thoughts. ‘‘Be not overcome 
 of evil, but overcome evil with good.” 
 That is the only way it can be done. 
 In that precept is the true philosophy 
 of right living. You cannot overcome 
 evil by simply resisting evil; you must 
 supplant it. You may uproot all your 
 weeds with the plow or bum them with 
 fire; but if your fields lie fallow, if 
 they be not sown with good seed, the 
 
 38 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 weeds will grow again. So though you 
 may think you have extirpated every 
 bad habit from your life, if you do not 
 plant actively good habits in their 
 place, the bad habits will grow again. 
 
 While I am on this subject of habit, 
 let me say a few words on a somewhat 
 hackneyed theme. Don’t imagine that 
 1 am going to turn this into a temper- 
 ance lecture, and don’t be too much 
 disgusted with me if I insist on deal- 
 ing in matters of practical advice in- 
 stead of charming you with flowing pe- 
 riods and brilliant imagery. I had 
 rather leave a thought in your mind 
 that may be helpful in your after life 
 than to win your admiration and ap- 
 plause and do you no good. All the 
 chances are that some of you young 
 39 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 men who hear me to-day will go out 
 from here burning with high hope and 
 eager anticipation, only to end their ca- 
 reers in a drunkard’s grave. Bright 
 young men full of liveliness of spirit 
 are prone to conviviality; and in that 
 way, young gentlemen, lies danger. I 
 wish I could know that not one of you 
 would ever take me drinh. Many a 
 man, you say, drinks habitually with no 
 perceptible harm; and that is true. 
 But many another cannot drink without 
 drinking to excess; and many another 
 cannot drink without becoming a sot, a 
 vagabond, or a criminal. There are 
 these three classes of drinkers, and you 
 will never know to which class you be- 
 long until you have taken your first 
 drink. Let no one tell you that any 
 
 40 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 man of real strength can control his 
 appetite. I have known men — masterful, 
 strong-willed men — who could not. Al- 
 exander of Macedon died a victim of 
 strong drink; and if I were you, I 
 would not be too eager to join battle 
 with the conqueror of the conqueror of 
 the world. You may hear it said that 
 ‘‘strong drink lends brightness to the 
 intellect and courage to the heart;” but 
 no really sensible man or brave man 
 needs to carry his brains in a bottle 
 or buy his courage by the jug, and, so 
 far as I know, there is no case on rec- 
 ord of a fool having found wisdom at 
 the bottom of a glass of whisky or of 
 a sober coward becoming a drunken 
 hero. ‘ I give you my candid opinion, 
 young gentlemen, that there is nothing 
 
 41 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 in this world that a man cannot do 
 better without whisky than he can with 
 it, except get drunk. If you have 
 started out to do that, it will help you 
 some. Now, I beg your pardon for this 
 digression; and I will only say, in con- 
 cluding the subject, that if you follow 
 my advice there will never be an hour 
 in all your lives in which you will re- 
 gret it. If you don’t follow my advice, 
 some of you will surely regret it in 
 rags and poverty, in shame and dis- 
 honor, in sorrow and bitterness of soul. 
 
 You are going into the world, young 
 gentlemen, and you are going with 
 bright hopes and eager anticipations. I 
 don’t wish to discourage you, hut I feel 
 that I ought to warn you that the 
 world which now seems so rosy will get 
 
 42 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 very drab before you bave looked at it 
 long. Many a young man gets dis- 
 heartened early in life because the 
 world turns out to be so different from 
 what he expected, and the fame and 
 fortune which he expected to find wait- 
 ing for him with open arms at the 
 schoolhouse door seem so distant, so 
 fugitive, so elusive. It has been said 
 that ‘‘for life in general there is but 
 one decree — youth is a blunder; man- 
 hood, a struggle; age, a regret.” This 
 / 
 
 does not seem to present a very at- 
 tractive prospect, but it is better for 
 you that the gay color of your hope be 
 sobered by solemn warnings of the per- 
 ils that lie before you. Yet success is 
 within the reach of all. There may be 
 a few who are bom to misfortune, a 
 
 43 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 few who have misfortune thrust upon 
 them, but a great majority of those 
 who fail achieve their own misfortune. 
 The great secret is to begin right. You 
 are this very day at the crisis of your 
 fate. Every young man at the begin- 
 ning of his career stands at the cross 
 roads of life where the choosing of di- 
 rections is perilous. The chances are 
 that he will follow to the end the way 
 he first takes. Though he may discover 
 after choosing wrong the error of his 
 way, he must retrace his steps and be- 
 gin again when footsore and weary and 
 the day is far spent. It is difficult, 
 but it is important for you to realize 
 the awful brevity of life as compared 
 with its work and duties. You hear it 
 said that '^^nnua’ men must sow their wild 
 
 44 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 oats. I say to you that this is but a mis- 
 erable apology for wickedness and folly. 
 The world has no use for your wild 
 oats and you have no time to sow them. 
 If you begin sowing wild oats, the 
 chances are that you will never sow 
 and never reap anything else. The 
 sooner you begin to contemplate life as 
 a serious matter, the better. You have 
 absolutely no time to lose. Every pe- 
 riod of your life has its own peculiar 
 work which will be the foundation upon 
 which to build the next. You have a 
 work to do in the next ten years, 
 which, if done well, will smooth the 
 road to fortune. If not done then, if 
 you spend the next ten years in idle- 
 ness or play, you may depend upon it 
 that you will never have time to play 
 
 45 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 afterwards. The men who succeed in 
 this world are the men who utilize to 
 the utmost the energy and enthusiasm 
 of their youth. 
 
 Don’t go out into the world expect- 
 ing to find great opportunities lying in 
 wait for you. These may never come. 
 It may he that your lot is to he cast 
 in the common ' walks of life. But that 
 doesn’t mean that you are doomed to 
 failure, if you know what it is to suc- 
 ceed. You may be happy and you may 
 make others happy. You may be a 
 good and useful citizen and spread 
 abroad the blessing of a good example. 
 Go forth determined to do your duty 
 as you find it. Remember that it is in 
 the little things of life that men fail, 
 it is in the little things of life that 
 
 46 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 men succeed, it is tlie little things of 
 life that make life. Only to the few is 
 given the chance to do great and shin- 
 ing deeds, to link their fame with some 
 mighty achievement. But to every man 
 it has been given to act well his part — 
 to perform the many duties, each sim- 
 ple in itself, hut whose sum is vast, 
 whose effects are enduring. You may 
 not climb to brilliant heights of glory, 
 hut you can glorify the common way of 
 life and make the lowliest path shine 
 as with light from heaven. 
 
 Have you ever read attentively the 
 parable of the talents? “Because thou 
 hast been faithful in a very little, have 
 thou authority over ten cities.” “Be- 
 cause thou hast been faithful in a very 
 little” — do you suppose that this par- 
 
 47 
 
CHAEACTER 
 
 able teaches simply the generosity of 
 the master in bestowing a reward out 
 of proportion to the value of the serv- 
 ice or to the merit of the servant? 
 No; the story is of an austere man, of 
 one who has managed his affairs with 
 prudence, and chose his servants with 
 care, and exacted of them the full 
 measure of tlieir duty. He needed a 
 man; he had been looking about him to 
 find a man who had the capacity to 
 rule over ten cities, and, with a true 
 knowledge of human nature, he found 
 him in the servant who by his zeal, dil- 
 igence, and fidelity in small matters, had 
 proved himself equal to high duties and 
 great responsibilities. Such is the les- 
 son of the parable, and such is the les- 
 son of life. It 'is only those who do 
 
 48 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 the little things well who ever prepare 
 themselves for the performance of great 
 things, and these only are visited by 
 great opportunities. Napoleon Bona- 
 parte was perhaps the greatest com- 
 mander of armies the world has ever 
 seen. History teds us again and again 
 how he observed some little act of a 
 common soldier — an act which an or- 
 dinary commander would have passed 
 with little notice; but this great demo- 
 cratic despot, with his great insight 
 into human character, looked upon that 
 little act of the common soldier and 
 said: “Here is a man who is fit to be 
 a Marshal of France.” And thus is 
 true greatness of soul revealed in the 
 most commonplace incidents of life. 
 My friends, the clear head, the brave 
 
 49 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 heart, the pure and upright character, 
 are needed in the affairs of the neigh- 
 borhood as in the affairs of the nation. 
 But whether you walk the mountain 
 ranges of human greatness or whether 
 your habitation he in the lowly valleys 
 below, the duties of life will call for 
 the very best that is in your mind, 
 heart, and soul; 
 
 You will fail or succeed in life 
 through your relations with your fel- 
 low-men. Don’t expect too much of hu- 
 man nature. All the world is not 
 young, all the world is not just out of 
 school, and many you will meet who 
 have been calloused or corrupted by 
 their hard contact with the facts of 
 life. But don’t become cynical or lose 
 faith in your kind. God Almighty 
 
 50 
 
CHAEACTEE 
 
 made man; lie breathed into bis nos- 
 trils tbe breath of life, and there is yet 
 something’ of the breath of God in 
 every human soul. Human nature is 
 not vile, except to the vile. To the 
 mean man this is indeed a mean world. 
 To the selfish man it turns its selfish 
 side. The faithless and inconstant man 
 finds faithless and inconstant friends. 
 The world shows itself to every man 
 just as he shows himself to the world. 
 It is a mighty mirror in which every 
 one sees his own image and calls it 
 man. 
 
 Let me impress upon you, therefore, 
 not to be too swift in forming harsh 
 judgments upon your fellow-men. As 
 you go through life, it will be your 
 fate over and over again to be misun- 
 
 51 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 derstood, to suffer from harsh misjudg- 
 ments. Let that teach you to be char- 
 itable in your judgment of others. The 
 man whose judgment leans to the side 
 of charity will be less often mistaken 
 than he who leans to the side of sever- 
 ity. Remember, too, that the world 
 shows little mercy to the man who him- 
 self is merciless in his judgment. 
 
 “With what judgment ye judge ye 
 shall he judged.” Show no tenderness 
 for human depravity, but be ever char- 
 itable to human weakness. Edgar Allan 
 Poe once said you could' call a thief an 
 honest man until he became so. This 
 is, of course, a poetic exaggeration; hut 
 it contains the germ of truth, for even 
 in the worst of men there is something 
 good which may respond to the proper 
 
 52 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 appeal — a ^ood which, recognized and 
 stimulated, may finally obtain the mas- 
 tery over the worse parts of his nature. 
 At any rate, you will he a happier man 
 for thinking well of your neighbor, and 
 your neighbor will be a better man for 
 knowing he is not utterly despised. 
 
 While thus giving your main thought 
 to the inner man, you must not neg- 
 lect the outer graces. Good manners, 
 a gentle bearing toward others, unfail- 
 ing courtesy and politeness, will do 
 much to smooth your road to fortune; 
 but remember always that^ the soul of 
 good manners is a kind heart. No man 
 can truly have the manners of a gen- 
 tleman who is not a gentleman at 
 heart. And the heart that really over- 
 
 fiows with good feeling will lend a 
 53 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 grace and gentleness which, no school 
 of culture could give, I wish you 
 would let the thought sink deep into 
 your hearts that apart from the inner 
 luxury of doing good, which, after all, 
 is the highest earthly happiness, there 
 is nothing that repays such heavy ma- 
 terial interest as the little acts and 
 words of kindness which you may scat- 
 ter about you without special effort as 
 you go along. ‘‘Cast thy bread uplon 
 the waters: for thou shalt find it after 
 many days;” and often when you have 
 only cast a crumb you will find a loaf. 
 
 Do not undervalue nor overvalue the 
 material things of life. Every young 
 man should try to accumulate enough 
 of this world’s goods to deliver him 
 from those distressing cares and anx- 
 
 54 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 ieties that wear out life, and that sense 
 of dependence on the favor of others 
 
 which impairs self-respect. But beware, 
 above all things, of that base passion 
 for money which is the root of all evil. 
 If you have set your heart upon get- 
 ting rich, if you have determined that 
 at any cost you will he rich, the 
 
 chances are that you will succeed. I 
 never knew a man whose whole soul 
 was possessed by greed for gain who 
 
 didn’t get, it. 
 
 If you are willing that every faculty 
 of your mind, that every emotion of 
 your heart, shall stoop to the low level 
 of this one base desire, if you are will- 
 ing to be rich and despised and mean, 
 you can succeed. There was once a 
 
 man walking along the highway who 
 
 55 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 found a coin lying in the dirt, and 
 ever afterwards throughout the course 
 of a long life as he walked along the 
 road he kept his eyes upon the dirt, 
 hoping to find another coin. The flow- 
 ers that bloomed by the wayside, the 
 rippling waters, the singing birds, the 
 
 pleasant meadows, the fair waving 
 
 1 
 
 trees, were all lost to him; and when 
 at last he died, a rich old man with 
 a chest full of gold, he had never seen 
 anything of this fair and beautiful 
 world except a dirty road in which to 
 pick up dirty money. 
 
 Above all things, young gentlemen, 
 put your whole soul into your work. 
 '‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, 
 do it with thy might.” Be earnest. 
 All things are possible for a man who 
 
 56 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 is in earnest. There was an old su- 
 perstition that if the hunter would dip 
 the point of his arrow in his own blood, 
 it would go unerringly to the mark. 
 If you wish your thought, your pur- 
 pose, your etforts, to succeed, let them 
 he dipped, as it were, in the very blood 
 of your heart. A man of moderate tal- 
 ents, but who is in dead earnest, is an 
 overmatch for cunning, for talent, for 
 genius itself. 
 
 If you have prepared your minds and 
 nerved your hearts to meet the world, 
 you will find work and opportunity in 
 abundance. There never was a time 
 m.ore propitious for intellectual achieve- 
 ment than now. The world has out- 
 lived the last vestige of that tyranny 
 
 over the mind which for centuries nar- 
 57 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 rowed and confined the range of intel- 
 lectual freedom. The minds of men 
 have at last overpowered their keepers. 
 Thought is no longer the bondman of 
 dogma, no longer servant of kings, no 
 longer a patient ass for the priest to 
 ride. It is a fearless knight errant, ex- 
 ploring every nook and corner of the 
 world of knowledge and lifting its keen 
 lance against the most cherished faiths 
 and traditions of the past. There is 
 no longer a tree of knowledge whose 
 fruit we are forbidden to eat, no longer 
 a sacred ground whose precincts we are 
 forbidden to enter. There are those 
 who tremble at the licentious freedom 
 of modern inquiry; and we may in- 
 deed deplore that lack of reverence for 
 old faiths and traditions which is the 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 great anchor of popular government. 
 But we may pardon something to the 
 spirit of liberty and need never fear 
 for cause of truth. The licentiousness 
 of modem thought is like a stream 
 which, having burst the artificial har- 
 riers which long impeded its course, 
 pours forth a devastating tide until, 
 having wasted its flood, it sinks again 
 into its channel, and, with steady flow 
 and even current, moves onward to the 
 sea. 
 
 Finally, let me remind you that you 
 have not only a life to live, hut a soul 
 to save. Many young men seem to 
 think it evidence of intellectual freedom 
 to question the traths of the Bible or 
 the existence of a divine Providence. I 
 dispute no man’s freedom of opinion. 
 
 59 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 though why any one should he willing 
 to believe that man has no preeminence 
 above a beast I do not know. You 
 say that you cannot believe the miracle 
 of the resurrection. Let me tell you 
 the story of a greater miracle than 
 that. It is the story of a poor peasant, 
 a member of a despised and subject 
 race, himself despised, the very place 
 of his birth despised, even by his own 
 countrymen. With a few ignorant fol- 
 lowers he went forth to teach. There 
 was nothing in his gospel attractive to 
 the carnal man. So far as this world 
 was concerned, poverty and self-sacri- 
 fice, scorn and contumely, persecution, 
 strife, and death, were all that he of- 
 fered to his followers. He never wrote 
 a line except some forgotten words 
 
 60 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 which he traced with his finger upon 
 the sand. He scattered his precepts 
 abroad and left them to memories of 
 men. In a little while he died a fel- 
 on’s death, and all the world about him 
 forgot that he had ever lived. Yet 
 somehow his words lived on. Philoso- 
 phy, with all its wisdom; priestcraft, 
 with all its terrors; kings wielding the 
 iron power of all the world, united to 
 resist and to destroy the strange, mys- 
 terious power which this dead peasant 
 had left behind him in the world. 
 But over armies, over empires, over 
 dying dynasties and crumbling thrones, 
 through rivers of blood and seas of fire, 
 that power swept on and on until it 
 had made conquest of the earth, until 
 every king on every throne hows in ad- 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 oration to the dead peasant of Gialilee, 
 and the very instmment of his felon’s 
 death has become the symbol of salva- 
 tion to all mankind. Do you believe 
 that story? It is, to me, the story of 
 a greater miracle than that a man died 
 and arose again from the dead. Young 
 gentlemen, he not you among those 
 who scolf at religion, which is the last 
 hope of the world, whose consolation 
 you yourself will need in the time of 
 affliction and in the hour of death. 
 
 “ When ranting round in pleasure’s ring, 
 Religion may be blinded. 
 
 Or if she gie a random sting, 
 
 It may be little minded; 
 
 But when on life we’re tempest driven, 
 
 A conscience but a canker, 
 
 A correspondence fixed wi’ heaven 
 Is sure a noble anchor.” 
 
 62 
 
CHARACTER 
 
 And now, ladies, I nmst not close 
 withont a word to you. Woman is 
 happily exempt from most of the 
 grosser temptations that beset her 
 brother man, and nature has endowed 
 her with a spirit of reverence and 
 of faith which comforts and sustains 
 where the courage of man would falter 
 and his strength would fail. However 
 vain and frivolous she may seem, to 
 nearly every woman there comes with 
 wifehood and motherhood a deep sense 
 of responsibility and consecration to 
 duty. 
 
 It has been said that the world 
 knows nothing of its greatest men. It 
 surely knows nothing of its greatest 
 women. They are around and about 
 
 us, in cottage and in hovel, where the 
 63 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 lean hand of poverty breaks the ashen 
 crust, and in the stateliest homes of 
 luxury and pride. 
 
 When a man’s dreams have vanished 
 and his Lopes have died, he is apt to 
 become a hater of the world and of his 
 kind. The woman can sit amid the 
 wreck and ruin of her vanished castles 
 in the air with a heart warmed by love 
 and sustained by faith. 
 
 There are among the humblest women 
 in the humblest homes examples of a 
 diviner heroism than that of Joan of 
 Arc when she led her mail-clad war- 
 riors to battle; of heroines, all uncon- 
 scious of their heroism, who walked 
 with bleeding feet the stony paths of 
 martyrdom, unseen, unknown, and un- 
 praised of men. 
 
 64 
 
CHARACTEE 
 
 And do not imagine that you must 
 wait for marriage to find the duties 
 and responsibilities of life. Men to-day 
 are as responsive, for good or for evil, 
 to the influence of woman as when 
 knighthood was in flower. Many a man 
 has been led by woman’s wiles into the 
 jaws of death and the mouth of hell, 
 and many a man has turned from the 
 downward path of death to follow the 
 shining raiment of the pure woman he 
 loved until they passed through glory’s 
 morning gate and walked in paradise. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, it is not the 
 throned and sceptered king, it is not 
 the dark statesman with his midnight 
 lamp, it is not the warrior grimed with 
 smoke and stained with blood; it is the 
 queen of the home who under God 
 
 65 
 
CHAEACTER 
 
 rules the destinies of mankind. There 
 is the center from which radiates the 
 light that never fails. I say to you 
 that the sweetest wisdom of this world 
 is a woman’s counsel, and the purest 
 altar from which human prayer ever 
 went to heaven is a mother’s knee. 
 
 66 
 

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