A Summation: Qualities of Character

These qualities of character⎯faith, courage, kindness, sincerity, loyalty⎯all seem in a sense to add up to a simple word⎯a word which doesn’t include them all, but without which all else would be of little use⎯and what they add up to is a kind of guilelessness, which is simply plain and simple honesty. The Psalmist said it in this sentence: “Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.”

Now, for a summation, we turn to some sentences from three sources, the first consisting of some wise and ancient words from Marcus Antoninus, from back some eighteen centuries: “Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face.”

Two others are cited from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: “In all things preserve integrity; and the consciousness of thine own uprightness will alleviate the toil of business, soften the hardness of ill-success and disappointments, and give thee an humble confidence before God, when the ingratitude of man, or the iniquity of the times may rob thee of other reward.”

Now from the third source: “Give us a character on which we can thoroughly depend, which we know to be based on principle and on the fear of God, and it is wonderful how many [other] brilliant and popular and splendid qualities we can safely and gladly dispense with.”

Simply, this all adds up to being honest with ourselves, honest with others, honest with the Lord God, and honest in an endeavor to keep His commandments. Peace and confidence and love and loyalty lie in this direction; unhappiness and sorrow in any other. Despite all sophistries and cynicism this is simply so.

No person has the right to harm another (or himself, for that matter), or to take unjustly from another, to take the virtue of another, to impair the faith of another. And anyone who isn’t honest is simply punishing himself; for there isn’t any way to peace, or to happiness, or any real progress, or any lasting and satisfactory relationship in life without an absolute honesty⎯an honesty that is akin to a kind of guilelessness that knows no duplicity or deception, that know no crafty cunning.

This in summary from a significant source: “The foundation of leadership is personal character, . . . Personal character . . . is in fact the prime determinant in . . . success or failure. . .”