Your ShelfYour Projects

INTEGRITY

14%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 30, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 5.

Read the full edition

INTEGRITY.

By The Christian Advocate

Moral.

THAT man is to be credited with moral integrity whose rule of life is to do nothing he believes to be sinful or vicious, and who, if overtaken in a fault, repents promptly, and makes all possible reparation; such a one will and should be trusted by those who know him.
But he who does only what pleases him or what he wishes to do, or what will be to his advantage, whether right or wrong, or who does only what he dares to do, who may tell the truth or a falsehood when it helps him, and who, when exposed in his iniquities, or disastrously entangled in his own webs, or detected by the vigilance of others, will lie, will not and should not be trusted by those who know him. Even the professed repentance of such a man is open to suspicion.
Some deny that perfect moral integrity exists. By such a statement they condemn themselves, for if they possess it, it exists; if they have it not they are simply bolstering themselves up as being no worse than others. Tho this idea is erroneous, most good men who rigidly inspect their conduct sometimes find occasion for self-condemnation and repentance.

Intellectual.

That man is to be credited with intellectual integrity whose reasoning faculties naturally come into action whenever any subject arises in his own mind or is presented for consideration, or who uses the scales of judgment to determine the essential quality of things, the fitness of things, the truth of any proposition, or the morality of any single act or line of conduct. But to possess perfect intellectual integrity one must not merely perceive and estimate, he must act according to his judgment. Leaving out moral questions, a man who reasons and concludes and acts against his own judgment or ignores it, can not be held to have a well-balanced mind. In writing of moral integrity or of intellectual integrity we are not dealing with what are popularly called moral sanity or insanity, or mental sanity or insanity, but with the average normal mind and conscienceand the variations they are capable of without furnishing ground to suspect disease.—The Christian Advocate.