HONESTY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 26, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 26.

A Plain Talk to Young Men and Women.

YOUNG man, I want to ask you a very personal question, Are you honest? It may seem blunt and very impolite, but I assure you I have only the best intentions. Nor do I mean to stop with the answer that you pay what you owe in money. I want to go far beyond this matter of meeting your just financial obligations. Most people are honest, I think, so far as dollars and cents are concerned; the inability to pay hinders many. But there is an honesty that means more to your soul and to your Christian character than these mere dollar debts. Excuse me, but I mean to ask if you are a living lie. Do you make an effort to appear in a pleasing, gratifying manner to the world at the expense of your better nature?

Do you say to the public, “Behold me! I am thus and so,” when in your own heart you know that you are not? Young man, does your immaculate linen and neat dress add an ache to father's tired back, or furrow deeper the lines in the old mother's face? Have you always a jovial, good word for your companions and never a kind word for the folks at home? Do you mouth a lot of stereotyped phrases at prayer and class-meeting, while your heart is silent and condemns you as a consummate rascal, waiting an opportunity? Will you on the morrow take unjustly from a fellow because, forsooth, it is a “business transaction” and “legal”? Are you “posing for effect,” seeking to exalt your puny self; claiming superiority, when abject abasement would be Christly? I say, Are you honest?

Young lady, pardon my seeming rudeness, but I should like to inquire if you are honest. Do you chatter gaily at some club about the Madonnas and St. Cecilias of the old masters, when you actually know nothing about them? And is your mother at home washing and ironing your clothing while you are so engaged? Do you read from the latest society novel at the “Literary,” and take part in violent explosions of rare oratory (?) as to the author's probable “motif”? Did your last “gown” cost twenty-five dollars, more or less, while mother continues to do with the old “fuster” that her father gave her when you were a child? Yes, I know mother don't go out much, and no wonder. God bless her poor tired heart, she would like to go more often, I dare say. Is your time spent in practical idleness and foppery, while helpless creatures deep in a great world of misery, are crying out for willing hands to help them up? At the “Union” do you pray for work to do, when the boundless field white for the harvest, stretches away as far as the eye can see?

Do you bless them that curse you, and, unmindful of the annoying slander hurled against you, yet seek the narrow, thorny way? Do you remember always, that while slander may, for a time, tarnish your reputation, it is not possible for it to touch your character?

Young friends, never forget that “reputation is what men think of us, but character is what God knows about us.” Let us not seek to make reputation. I know it is very nice to have a good reputation and even needful; but rather let us, upon a good foundation, slowly and surely, build character. And let us build it honestly. For God sees; He always sees, and it is quite useless to try to deceive Him. Then if our character be pure, it must follow that our reputation will be blameless before men. Truly, that was a wise merchant who advertised for a boy for a responsible position. One came. He was a very nice-looking fellow, mannerly and quick. To him the man said shortly,—

“Are you honest?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the boy.

“Why?” said the man, bluntly. The boy was surprised and finally answered,—

“Because honesty is the best of policy.” A very neat answer, you think, but the wise merchant simply said, “You may go.”

Another boy came, and the merchant asked, “Are you honest?”

“I am, sir,” responded the lad.

“Why are you honest?” asked the man.

“It is the best policy always to be honest,” answered the boy.

“And if it were policy to steal, I suppose you would steal,” said the merchant; and he added, “You may go.”

But another boy came; a quiet lad, whose clothes were worn, yet he was neat and cleanly—a veritable “mother's boy,” over whom many an unuttered prayer had ascended to the Father's throne. Again the stern merchant asked,—

“Are you honest?”

The mother's boy looked pained.

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

“And why are you honest, my boy?” queried the merchant again.

The boy was startled, but his answer proclaimed him a hero.

“Because it is right, sir,” he said.

The stern business man was transformed; tears came into his eyes, and his voice was strangely soft when he said,—

“’Twas a good answer, my boy. You shall have the place. Go now and tell the mother, and come again in the morning.”

Ah, young friend, that's the word, “Right!” Do right, not from a sense of expediency or policy, or from a fear of hell hereafter, but because it is right. Be honest, be true, be just; love mercy and humility; for it is right to do so.

Never get used to little wrongs; no, never! Did you not, only to-day, lift your skirt from contact with a poor, homeless child on the street, when a kind word and an hour's time might have lifted a soul from hell to purity and peace? Are you a “leaner” when there are so few “lifters”? Do you, young lady, encourage the attentions of a young man whom you know to be a libertine and an idler? Are you reading a class of literature that would ruin the intelligence of a good horse, and shock the sense of modesty in a Zulu chief?

I repeat, young friends, are you strictly, purely, innocently honest? Are you true to your God, yourself, and your fellow-man? Are you living up to the very best there is in you? Are you aiming high as heaven? Will you choose the right course, and stick to it at the cost of friends and the demolishing of some cherished idols? Will you do right tho it cuts to the bone, push ahead tho it snaps the tense, quivering heart-strings? So shall your poor, dwarfed soul wonderfully expand and beautify your present life, and make sure the peace and joy of an endless eternity.—Selected.