The Building of Character
“Souls are built as temples are, — Here a carving rich and quaint,
There the image of a saint;
Here a deep-hued pane to tell
Sacred truth or miracle.
Every little helps the much;
Every careful, careless touch
Adds a charm or leaves a scar.”
THE building of character is the most important business of life. It matters little what works a man may leave in the world; his real success is measured by what he has wrought along the years in his own being.
True character must be built after divine patterns. Every man’s life is a plan of God.
There is a divine purpose concerning it which it should realize. In the Scriptures we find the patterns for all the parts of the character, not only for its great and prominent elements, but also for its most minute features, — the delicate lines and shadings of its ornamentation. The commandments, the beatitudes, all Christ’s precepts, the ethical teachings of the apostles, all show us the patterns after which we are to fashion our character.
It is a great thing for us to have a lofty thought of life, and ever to seek to reach it. Said Michael Angelo: “Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavor to create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whosoever strives for it, strives for something that is godlike.” The seeking it self makes us nobler, holier, purer, stronger. We grow ever toward that for which we long. Many searches are unrewarded. Men seek for gold, and do not find it. They strive after honor, and it eludes them. They try to attain happiness, but the vision ever recedes as they press toward it. The quest for true nobleness is one that is rewarded. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled,” is our Lord’s own word. Longing for spiritual good shall never be in vain.
“The thing we long for, that we are
„ For one transcendent moment;”
and unceasing longing, with earnest reaching after the good, little by little lifts the life into the permanent realization of that which is thus persistently sought.
There are certain things essential in all building. Every structure requires a good foundation. Without this it never can rise into real strength and grandeur. The most beautiful building reared on sand is insecure and must fall. There is only one foundation for Christian character. We must build on the rock; that is, we must have, as the basis of our character, great, eternal principles.
One of these principles is truth. Ruskin tells us that in a famous Italian cathedral there are a number of colossal figures high up among the heavy timbers that support the roof. From the pavement, these statues have the appearance of great beauty. Curious to examine them, Ruskin says he climbed one day to the roof, and stood close beside them. Bitter was his disappointment to find that only the parts of the figures which could be seen from the pavement were carefully finished. The hidden side was rough and undressed.
It is not enough to make our lives true only so far as men can see them. We have but scorn for men who profess truth, and then in their secret life reveal falsehood, deception, insincerity. There must be truth through and through in the really noble and worthy building. A little flaw, made by a bubble of air in the casting, has been the cause of the breaking of the great beam years afterward, and the falling of the immense bridge whose weight rested upon it. Truth must be in the character, — absolute truth. The least falsehood mars the beauty of the life.
Another of these essential principles is purity. “Whatsoever things are pure,” says the apostle in the same breath with whatsoever things are true, and just, and honorable. It is a canon of art, that an artist who lives badly never can paint a good picture; nor can a man who lives badly ever build up a really beautiful character. Only he who has a pure heart can see God, to know what life’s ideal is. Only he whose hands are clean can build after the perfect pattern. One who works with stained fingers leaves spots of marring and blemish on whatever he touches. Purity is an essential fundamental principle in the perfect character.
Love is another quality which must be wrought into this foundation. Love is the reverse of selfishness. It is the holding of all the life as Christ’s, to be used to bless others. “So long as I have been here,” said President Lincoln, after his second election, “I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man’s bosom.” That is one phase of love, — never needlessly to give pain or do hurt to a fellow-being. The other part is the positive, — to live to do the greatest good to every other being whenever opportunity offers.
“Do any hearts beat faster,
Do any faces brighten,
To hear your footsteps on the stair,
To meet you, greet you, anywhere?
Are you so like your Master,
Dark shadows to enlighten?
Are any happier to-day
Through words they have heard you say?
Life were not worth the living
If no one were the better
For having met you on the way,
And known the sunshine of your stay.”
Truth, purity, love, — these are examples of the immutable principles which must be built into the foundation of the temple of character. We never can have a noble structure without a strong and secure foundation.
On the foundation thus laid the character must be built. No magnificent building ever grew up by miracle. Stone by stone it rose, each block laid in its place by toil and effort. “You cannot dream yourself into a character,” says a writer; “you must hammer and forge yourself one.” Even with the best foundation there must be faithful, patient building unto the end.
Then each one must build his own character. No one can do it for him. No one but yourself can make your life beautiful. No one can be true, pure, honorable, and loving for you. A mother’s prayers and teachings cannot give you strength of soul and grandeur of spirit. We are taught to edify one another, and we do, indeed, help to build up each other’s life-temple. Consciously or unconsciously, we are continually leaving touches on the souls of others, — touches of beauty or of marring. In every book we read the author lays some thing new on the wall of our life. Every hour’s companionship with another gives either a touch of beauty, or a stain to our spirit. Every song that is sung in our ear enters into our heart and becomes part of our being. Even the natural scenery amid which we dwell leaves its impression upon us. Thus others, thus all things about us, do indeed have their place as builders of our character.
But we are ourselves the real builders.
Others may lift the blocks into place, but we must lay them on the wall. Our own hands give the touches of beauty or of blemish, whatever hands of others hold the brushes or mix the colors for us. If the building is marred or unsightly when it is finished, we cannot say it was some other one’s fault. Others may have sinned, and the inheritance of the sin is yours. Others may have sorely wronged you, and the hurt yet stays in your life. You never can be the same in this world that you might have been but for the wounding. You are not responsible for these marrings of your character which were wrought by others’ hands. Still you are the builder, - you and God.
“We are builders, and each one
Should cut and carve as best he can;
Every life is but a stone,
Every one shall hew his own,
Make or mar, shall every man.”
Even the broken fragments of what seems a ruin you can take, and with them, through
God’s grace, you can make a noble fabric. It is strange how many of earth’s most beautiful lives have grown up out of what seemed defeat and failure. Indeed, God seems to love to build spiritual loveliness out of the castaway fragments of lives, even out of sin’s debris. In a great cathedral there is said to be a window, made by an apprentice out of the bits of stained glass that were thrown away as refuse and worthless waste when the other windows were made, and this is the most beautiful window of all. You can build a noble character for yourself, in spite of all the hurts and injuries done to you, wittingly or unwittingly, by others, with the fragments of the broken hopes and joys and the lost opportunities that lie strewn about your feet. No others by their worst work of hurt or marring can prevent your building a beautiful character for yourself.
When the ancient temple of Solomon was reared, the whole world was sought through, and its most costly and beautiful things were gathered and put into the sacred house. We should search everywhere for whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure, to build into our life. All that we can learn from books, from music, from art, from friends; all that we can gather from the Bible and receive from the hand of Christ himself, we should take and build into our character to make it worthy. But in order to discover the things that are lovely we must have the loveliness in our own soul. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,” says one, “we must carry it in our own heart, or, go where we may, we shall find it not.” Only a pure, true, loving heart can discover the things that are true, pure, and lov ing to build in the character. We must have Christ in us, and then we shall find Christly things everywhere, and gather them into our own life.
There are some people who, in the discouragement of defeat and failure, feel that it is then too late for them to make their character beautiful. They have lost their last opportunity, it seems to them. But this is never true in this world in which Christ died. A poet tells of walking in his garden and seeing a birds’ nest lying on the ground. The storm had swept through the tree and ruined the nest. While he mused sadly over the wreck of the birds’ home, he looked up, and there he saw them building a new one amid the branches. The birds teach us immortals a lesson. Though all seems lost, let us not sit down and weep in despair, but let us arise and begin to build again. No one can undo a wrong past. No one can repair the ruins of years that are gone. We cannot live our life over again. But, at our Father’s feet, we can begin anew as little children, and make all our life new.
‘« Oh, to go back across the years long vanished,
To have the words unsaid, the deeds undone, The errors cancelled, the deep shadows banished,
In the glad sense of a new world begun: To be a little child, whose page of story
Is yet undimmed, unblotted by a stain, And in the sunrise of primeval glory
To know that life has had its start again!
I may go back across the years long vanished;
I may resume my childhood, Lord, in thee, When in the shadow of thy cross are banished
All other shadows that encompass me; And o’er the road that now is dark and dreary,
This soul, made buoyant by the strength of rest, Shall walk untired, shall run and not be weary,
To bear the blessing that has made it blest.”