American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1864-05-11

y SuSSSSoluh n Ahah MA aOhiSNS SiSo
reputation, and yet his life ethe saddest
of failures. Reputation that has no bas
is in moral character is ephemeral. Char
acter is as lasting as life. Reputation i:
the child of circumstance. 1t may be
made in day and in a day destroyed
1t is affected by the popular breeze.
1t is not in our own keeping. Charac-
ter, however, is not born in an hour. II
is thing Of growth and culture. We
build it up. 1t is in no wise affected by
the favoring or opposing windsof circum-
stances. And when once firmly estab'
lished, it is as enduring as the eeternal hills.
to achieve character, therefore, well-pro-
portioned, completed, perfect, is to achieve
success
A man may be great without being
good and popular without having much
merit of any kind Many whom the world
are accustomed to call great have no bet
ter title to that distinction than the fallen
spirits-great in talents and great in wick
edness and crime. To be popular, to be
celebrated, to be famous is in itself no ev-
idence of success. The unprincipled
demagogue is popular with his party
The bold ppate-captain is popular with his
piratical crew. The low buffoGn is po1u.
lar with the rabble that shout their huz.
7ahs over his profane squibs and jests.--
But in &ii this, popularity or reputation
indicates nothing so much as an utter
worthlessness of character. To call this
success in life is to degrade our moral ma
ture and insult the God that made U.s.
But good character is priceless posses
sion, though it give us no name. 1t is a
good thing to go into eternity with. Tho
it bring us no revenue of praise from hu-
man lips this side the grave, it may give
us the gladness and JOY of praise beyond
it, and from Him whose very smileis hea-
ven.
III; And this leads me to say, thirdly,
that apparent failure is often true success.
Success is not so much matter of out
ward conditions, as many are led to sup
pose. We are deceived by appearance.
Inhexibe adherence to principle may cost
a man his wealth, his position, his very
! life, yet the world neverafter all when the
record is at last madcup, writes such men
fnj2,TeS To go to the grave with intelli-
gence, virtue, egrity-with checrfulness
Of mind, contentment under the allot-
ments of Providence, and faith in God,
though poor and neglected, though mis-
understood and misrepresented and ma
ligned, though laughed and jeered at be-
cause your purposes have seemingly come
to naught, and failed of accomplishment,
is to be successful. The future shall hon
or the seed of such life, and God will
make the fruitage glorious He always
has. Look at Bunyan. Look at John
Huss. Look at Paul, once the pride Of Il
nation, ending his life there on the block
IF an executioner. Look at Jesus, whU
had selaimed to be equal with God, and
had boldly declared his purpose to estab
lish a kingdom, and had openly avowed
his power over death, dying there uponan
! ignominious cross between two thieves
Oh, if ever there was apparent failure in
this world, it was on Calvary, where he
who had claimed to save others seemed as
if he could not save himself. 1t did GER
tainly appear to human view as if his
cause was lost. And yet that very death,
that seemingly fatal end of all the hopes
that had been centered in Jesus of Naz-
areth was the grandest triumph this world
ever witnessed. And in all the universe
of God there will be no other crowned
with 50 complete and perfect success, as
he whose life ended amid such hoverwhelm-
ing evidence of apparent failure and loss
there on the middle cross of Golgotha.
The most unfavoring and unpropitious
outward circumstances may therefore be
consistent with the truest and highest sue
cess. To possess intelligence and virtue,
to have an iufexibly moral character and
to secure the best and truest happiness
both of this life and of that which is to
come-this is success this is to be like
Paul, "to so run not as uncertainty, and
to so fight not as one that beateth the air. "
And this rules out of course, ''all low and
vicious pleasures; all grasping after great
wealth; all greediness after worldly hon
or; all dishonesty and falseness in the
business and intercourse of life; all in a
word that is forbidden by conscience and
the word of God as wrong in principle OF
in act, and derogatory to the true dignity
and destiny of man, as a social, moral, ac-
countable and Immortal subject of the di.
vine government"