The Norfolk Virginian. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 186?-189?, 1896-06-07

We must trust people and keep alive
| business confidence. The public con-
science feels more keenly than ever
the lapse of any man into fraudulent
| scheming.
1t ought TO be felt as true that there
is no virtue in the world of affairs SO
| real as Is implied in the word integrity,
| a word which means Wilderness, the
sum of character. 1t Is q quality which
| needs no defense. That an honest, true
| man is here or there is all the argument
the public needs. We are told that the
people OF the Quaker City used to ask
where DR.. Franklin stood on any new
question of the day, and they went as
he went
Lord Broug'hman. 1t is said, carried
Parliament more by what he did not
say than by what he did say. When u
man Is found TO be solid and sure. he
has no need to explain: but for thus
having to explain politicians cannot be
trusted.
AT Il meeting OF any kind, caucus or
conference, people watch the hand OF
the best man. A bad cause has nothing
50 much to fear as great name. Char
acter is the best argument. Genuine
virtue always holds the best key to
truth. and an honest face is security to
the seeker of counsel. 1t Is for this rea-
son that we select for judges plain hon
orablc men Instead of smart lawyers.
Now. in the survey of morals, rewards
and puni5hments are sure as the rising
and the setting sun. Simplicity Is bet
ter than trickery, and in some sure way
wrong doing will find you out. Geometry
is no more exactlng than morals.
You remember Aesop's woodman
moaning for his axe lei slip from his
hand into the river Mercury. overhear-
ing, made prompt dive, bringing up first
golden and then ii silver axe. which the
honest man refused "a not his; from n
third plunge the god came up with the
axe of lion, which was rightly claimed.
and the woodman was fifty rewarded
| by Mercury, who made him the happy
owner of all the axes; whereupon a base
liar went to the river and cast In his
axe and then began to cry. Mercury
came and heard his artful story, and,
leaDinE into the flood rose with an axe
of gold. which the man claimed as his,
but the god Instantly sank In the flood
and was seen no more, the trickster los
ing even the axe that was his.
Men do not ask to-day n mans church
| connection or his religious creed; but
is he an honest man? Can he he trust
ed? Is he man of his word? And any
man ought to know that ones sins will
in the end find him out. Providence
looks out for Justice and for the rogues,
too. Right doing Is the sure wisdom
and the only prudence: for. as one has
Said:. The wrong doer will have to
settle his accounts with the universe :"
1t doesn't pay for Il man to go through
this world, as Shakespeare says. think
ing each bush an officer" The only
wisdom is to act ION the square" to
hew to the line of rectitude. to hold I'm
the breast an honest heart; such a spirit
Is majestic and alone manly.
There is an ancient legend of an
Egyptian king who began a great tenn
ple and finished 1t with the exception of
a piece OF gold needed for the arch.
Search was instituted in vain for the
ornament, until the builder one day,
seeing little child pass by with a gold
ring upon it's finger, snatched 1t away
| from her and inserted II In the all but
completed arch. But In the moment of
his exultant joy the entire structure be-
gan to totter and fell to the ground n
mass of ruins.
This legend gives us an impressive
Illustration OF the fact that wrong do
ing carries with II its own fatal penalty
and that in the building OF character.
in the education and development of that
sacred temple, the human soul meant
for the habitation of the great God. no
| wood. hay or stubble must enter into
It's structure. but be built upon the solid
rock or the divinest principles of Split
ual as well as and because of practical
ethics. In this way, friends we shall
build. create and develop a beautiful
world within US, the heaven of which
seers. sages and poets dream and sing,
a beautiful world, holy temple, where
in we shall meet and know God and be
like him.
Copyright, 1896. by the Newspaper Ser
| mon Associationo