Strong Characters

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 13, 1877

Strong Characters.

STRENGTH of character consists of two things—power of will and power of self-restraint. It requires two things therefore for its existence—strong feelings and strong command over them. Now it is here we make a great mistake; we mistake strong feelings for strong character. A man who bears all before him, before whose frown domestics tremble, and whose bursts of fury make the children of the household quake—because he has his will obeyed, and his own will in all things, we call him a strong man. The truth is, that is the weak man; it is his passions that are strong; he that is mastered by them is weak. You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he subdues, not by the power of those which subdue him. And hence composure is very often the highest result of strength. Did we never see a man receive a flagrant insult, and only grow a little pale, and then reply quietly? That man is spiritually strong. Or did we never see a man in anguish stand as if carved out of solid rock, mastering himself? or one bearing a hopeless daily trial remain silent, and never tell the world what cankered his home peace? That is strength.—F. W. Robertson.