HARMONY OF CHARACTER by Young Man's Counselor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1880

HARMONY OF CHARACTER.

By Young Man's Counselor

The Abbe Mennais has made this beautiful remark: that “from the sun, whence pour inexhaustible floods of light and life, down to the spring that drop by drop exudes from the rock, all is ordered for a given end, to which all contribute in an infinite variety of ways, that are the more admired the more they are contemplated. There is not an action, a movement, in the universe, that does not successively contribute to the growth of a tuft of moss.”

In this harmony of nature—a harmony so complete and so necessary, that the failure of any one operation in the universe would neutralize the action of all the rest, and denude the earth of its beauty and adornment,—we may learn a profitable lesson in relation to the influence of character upon success. I wish to say with emphasis, that as in the operations of nature, so in the conflicts of life, the effect of great success is produced by the harmonious combination of each and every valuable quality. The absence of one qualification may hinder the productiveness of all the rest; the excess of another may undo all that the proper action of the rest had accomplished. For example, let a young man be industrious, versatile, energetic, intelligent, and yet lack integrity, what becomes of his prosperity? He may acquire wealth by dishonest means, but he must live without the confidence of good men, and die “as the fool dieth.” Or, suppose him to have integrity, intelligence, industry, economy, and to be defective in energy; he will sink in spite of all his high qualifications, beneath the obstacles which lie in every man’s path to eminence. Or, again, let him have an excess of energy, he will be rash and fall into irretrievable ruin; let him be excessively frugal, and he will become a miser; let him be over versatile, he will be the “rolling stone which gathers no moss;” an excessive attachment to letters will convert him into a theorist or a book-worm. Thus, it is apparent, that, to insure success, a young man must diligently attain and prudently cultivate all those particular excellences, which, when possessed in combination, make a failure next to impossible.

What reader of Holy Scripture has not felt a most tender regard for that interesting youth, who, in all the eagerness of self-confidence, stood complacently before the great Teacher, and asked:—

“Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

With what elation of soul did that young self-deceiver listen to the reply of the great heart-searcher: “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments!”

Exulting in his fancied triumph, the young man replied: “All these have I kept from my youth up! What lack I yet?”

By one stroke—a stroke severely kind—the Redeemer prostrated all his hopes: “YET LACKEST THOU ONE THING!” And then he gave him a practical test, which at once unfolded his true state to his startled mind, and convinced him that, however externally spotless he might be, his heart was supremely selfish. He lacked that self-devotion to the glory of God which is the essence of all true religion—a lack that neutralized all his excellences, and was fatal to his confidence in the Divine favor.

Young man, you may, in like manner, fail of true greatness through one fatal deficiency, and be ranked with the men so fitly described by the great English bard:—

“Men Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo) Shall in the general censure take corruption From that particular fault.”

Lord Byron’s history furnishes a most painful example of the ruin resulting from the want of symmetry in character. To use the splendid diction of Macaulay, “He was born to what all men covet and admire. But in every one of those eminent advantages which he possessed over others there was mingled something of misery and debasement. He was sprung from a house, ancient indeed, and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies. The young peer had great intellectual powers; yet there was an unsound part in his mind. He had naturally a generous and tender heart; but his temper was wayward and irritable. He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the street mimicked. He was distinguished by the strength and by the weakness of his intellect; affectionate, yet perverse,—a poor lord, and a handsome cripple.”

What was the result of these opposite combinations?—of this lack of moral symmetry? The first noticeable efforts of his muse, being directed by his perverse temper, brought him a harvest of contempt and hatred. Stung to the quick, he exerted his noble genius, and produced a composition which raised him to the pinnacle of fame; and “all this world, and all the glory of it, were at once offered to him.” Like a spoiled child, he now yielded to the violence of his passions, and the bitterness of his temper. For this, society cast him out of its pale. He fled to Italy; and there, by turns, cultivated his genius, and gratified his passions. He lost his health, his hair became gray, his food ceased to nourish him. The Grecian struggle for independence roused for a time his nobler sentiments. He dragged his diseased body to Missolonghi; and there, at the age of thirty-six, this “most celebrated English-man of the nineteenth century closed his brilliant and miserable career.”

Who will deny that Lord Byron’s life was a splendid failure? Why was it so? Not for lack of high qualities of men, but through excess of low and degraded passions. Had this unhappy man subdued his evil qualities, and sedulously cultivated what was high and noble in his nature, his name would have passed down to posterity as a model of all excellency and beauty. Neglecting this, he stands among the images of the past like some grim ghost on the great highway of life, scaring the advancing traveler from the ways of self-neglect and self-indulgence.

To resist temptations, to be prepared for all emergencies, to rise to real eminence, to answer life’s great end, you must avoid the example before you. You must cultivate all the conditions of success, and especially those in which you find yourself most deficient. See to it that there are neither excesses nor defects in your character, but a harmonious blending, a delightful symmetry, formed of fitting proportions of every high quality.

—Young Man's Counselor.