Part 64 (1/2)
About the vilest thing on earth is a hu whose character is so tainted with impurity that he leaves the slioes
There never was a more beautiful and pathetic prayer than that of the poor soiled, broken-hearted Psalmist in his hour of shame, ”Create in me a clean heart” ”Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart” There are thousands of ht hands to-day to be free from the stain, the poison, of ireatness without purity Vice honeycoth as well as destroys the ain some man of note topples with a crash to sudden ruin Yet the cause of the moral collapse is not sudden There has been a slow under on probably for years; then, in an hour when honor, truth, or honesty is brought to a crucial test, the weakened character gives way and there is an appalling commercial or social crash which often finds an echo in the revolver shot of the suicide
Tennyson shows the effect of Launcelot's guilty love for Guinevere, in the great knight's conscious loss of power His wrongful passion indirectly brought about the death of fair Elaine He hio down before the shadow of his spear
Like a scarlet blot his sin stains all his greatness, and he muses on it remorsefully:
”For what aht for it and have it
Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it pain; Non a part ofreat?”
Later when the knights of the Round Table joined in the search for the Holy Grail, that lost sacred vessel,
”The cup, the cup itself from which our Lord Drank at the last sad supper with his own,”
Launcelot was overtaken by his sin and failed ignominiously Only Galahad the Pure was perlory, a fearful splendor of watching eyes and guarding shapes
No one is quite the sauilty of contact with i has gone out of his life His own good opinion of himself has suffered deterioration, and he can never face his life-task with quite the saain Somehow he feels that the world will know of his soul's debauch and judge hi which will mar a life more quickly than the consciousness of a soul-stain The loss of self-respect, the loss of character, is irreparable
We are beginning to find that there is an intiht and life and his good health, good thinking, and good work_, a very close connection between theso exhausts vitality and vitiates the quality of work and ideals, so takes the edge off of one's aht and life It seeht all the faculties and to demoralize the whole man, so that his efficiency is very much lessened He does not speak with the same authority The air of the conqueror disappears from his manner He does not think so clearly; he does not act with so great certainty, and his self-faith is lost, because confidence is based upon self-respect, and he can no longer respect his which he would not respect in another
The fact that his impure acts are done secretly hly respect himself when he does that which deentleman, no hts everything it touches
It is not enough to be thought pure and clean and sound One must actually _be_ pure and clean and sound morally, or his self-respect is underrity of thought, integrity of conduct_ _It reat power, because he can not thoroughly believe in himself when conscious that he is rotten in any part of his nature I in awithin him robs him of power
Apart fros affect one's success in life by sapping the energies, weakening the nature, lowering one's standards, blurring one's ideals, discouraging one's a one's vitality and power
In the last analysis of success, the th of one's vitality, for, without a stock of health equal to great ereatest a that will sap the life-forces so quickly as dissipation and i truer than that ”To be carnally ht is carnal, the body must correspond,else will destroy the very foundations of vitality quicker than ience The ideals ht and the aht means that the ed by brain ash from a dissipated life, froht comes from pure blood, and pure blood froreat deal besides freedom from sensual taint It means saneness, purity, and quality
It has been characteristic of great leaders, reatness has stood the acid test of tiht
”I have such a rich story that I want to tell you,” said an officer, who one evening ca mood ”There are no ladies present, are there?”
General Grant, lifting his eyes fro the officer squarely in the eye, said slowly and deliberately:
”No, but there are gentlereat trait of Grant's character,” said George W Childs, ”was his purity I never heard hiht, or make an indelicate allusion in any way or shape There is nothing I ever heard him say that could not be repeated in the presence of woht up for an appointment, and it was shown that he was an ireat the pressure brought to bear”