Candor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 7, 1868

CANDOR.—There is nothing sheds so fine a light upon the human mind as candor. It was called whiteness by the ancients to denote its purity; and it has always won the esteem due to its most admirable virtues. The man whose opinions make the deepest impressions upon his fellow-men, whose friendship is instinctively sought when all others have proved faithless, is not the man of brilliant parts, flattering tongue, or splendid genius, but he whose lucid candor and ingenuous truth transmit the heart’s real feeling pure and without retraction. There are other qualities which are more showy, and other traits that have a higher place in the world’s code of honor, but none wear better, or gather less tarnish by use, or claim deeper homage in that silent reverence which mind pays to virtue.