The Habit of High-Mindedness

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 30, 1911

The Habit of High-Mindedness

EACH mind has an altitude of its own. Some move on low levels. The thoughts which come to them are low thoughts, sometimes evil, sometimes vain, sometimes merely trifling. Such minds seek what they like. Serious conversation and books are unattractive to them. They go where they can find what is to their liking, where stories are told and language spoken which involve no tax upon thought, and which feed the tastes of a low-leveled life. As between the library and the grill-room, the solid book and the empty story, the talk of men about real questions of life and the chaff and gossip of the scandal-spreader and fool-jester, they choose the lower down. There are many other levels below and above this. The highest is the level of the men who try to bring all their thoughts and tastes into conformity with the best, who by always choosing the upper and better have sought to acquire the habit of a high mind, to which evil thoughts do not naturally come, and by which they are rejected when they do come. Such men hope some day to come to the height of character set forth in Daniel's “Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland:” —

“He that of such a height has built his mind, And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same. What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and wealds of man survey.”

— Great Thoughts.