The Grace of Grit

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 16, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 27.

The Grace of Grit.

FORCE of character is one of the world's virtues; the market honors it, but the church knows it not. It is esteemed in the factory and the counting-room, but is not preached in the pulpit nor praised in the press, and is deprecated and discouraged in the nursery and the school-room. It is an inconvenient virtue in children; but it makes a sterling manhood. It is the power in life which translates thoughts into deeds, ideas into achievements. Imagination thinks things; grit does them. Imagination fashions its statuette of clay with ease; but life is not clay, it is marble; grit, with mallet and chisel, turns the block into the statue. Grit is the power in every profession. It makes the difference between the declaimer and the orator. The former wins our admiration, the latter compels our conviction. His rhetoric may be faulty, his logic defective, his scholarship poor, his grammar lame, and even his conclusions untenable—but he carries us with him in spite of ourselves, nor is it until we have escaped the mastery of his presence that we are able to reconsider and reverse our verdict.

It makes the difference between the politician and the statesman. The one studies the tides, and comes in and goes out with them, when his almanac does not make a mistake; the other pushes his way to his predetermined port, with the tide or against it, as chance may have it. Ebb-tide or flood-tide, he gets there all the same—in time. It makes the difference between the bookkeeper and the man of business. The one is the servant of figures, the other is their master; the one interprets events, the other makes them. It is the common trait of all the men of destiny in the world's history; Erasmus was a better scholar than Luther; Luther's grit was Luther's genius. It is grit that gives leadership. Men are like the figure naughts; put one or a dozen of them together; and they are still naught. The man of grit is a unit of value; put him at the head of the column, and the two naughts become a hundred, the five naughts a hundred thousand. The man of grit, like the blooded horse, carries his whip and spur in his own veins. At the heart of every great enterprise—industrial, philanthropic, political, missionary—you will find somewhere a man of grit; but usually in the singular, not the plural, number.

Unpraised grace though it be, yet every Bible hero had it. It required grit in Abraham to disregard the advice of wise men, the sneer of foolish ones, and the expostulations of friendly ones, and abandon his native land, the first pilgrim father, to go in search not only of a new home, but of a new religion. It required grit in Joseph to profess his religion before the court of Pharaoh, and before all his priests: "It is not in me; God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace;" and in Moses to abandon the path to promotion and put himself at the head of a despised and despicable people; and in David to disregard the sneers of his brethren, and the stolid stare of the army, and the failure of Saul's armor, and hazard the disgrace of failure more bitter than death to a sensitive soul; and in Paul to keep up the spirits of ship's company and crew, the only undespairing soul among them, during those fourteen days of tempest. Grit is a feminine virtue as well as a masculine one. A strong-minded woman is bad enough, but a weak-minded woman is worse. She who possesses this virtue rules her children; she who lacks it is their nursemaid, not their mother. Grit is translated into achievement by man, into endurance by woman. Her task is the harder of the two.

The easiest way to get any grace is to inherit it; but grit, like every other grace, can be cultivated. A robust frame is a great help to a robust nature; broad shoulders and a good digestion are means of grace. But they are only means, they are not the grace itself. Athletism is not grit. Grit is spiritual, not physical, and the man of grit always "keeps his soul on top." The epicure, the dude, and the dandy are never men of true grit. The hero may disregard his body, but he cannot be subject to it. General Gordon's favorite dinner in London was bread and milk; General Grant shared in camp the rations of the soldier. If we should advise the high liver to go and cut his throat, our readers would exclaim against our barbarism. So we will only quote a wise man who once gave that advice: "When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee; and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite." It takes something of a Spartan diet to give a Spartan courage. The man of grit always has a purpose; and generally the higher the purpose the more unflinching the grit.

An aspiring author once asked Horace Greeley for advice how to write for the newspapers. "Have something to say, and then say it," was the laconic reply. Have something to do, and then do it, might pass for a definition of grit. A good many young men of good parts lack of "doing it" because they have never really settled on anything to do. Hundreds of young men graduate from school or college. Commencement! To how many of them is the word meaningless; how many have any clear idea of what they mean to commence when they step out of school into life? The man of grit is always a man of hope. He believes in his mission, and in its ultimate success. He is therefore a man of faith; not always intelligent faith in God, perhaps only a superstitious faith in his star or his luck, or a purely terrestrial faith in laws and principles. But he always sees an end from the beginning, and blazes his way through the woods, singing, because he knows where he wants to go and expects to get there.

The grace of grit is an unpraised grace; more's the pity. It were well to teach it in our churches and develop it in our schools. Peter put it next to faith. Add to your faith virtue, said he. The modern equivalent for virtue is grit.—Christian Union.