The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1898-09-01
Your Best, is Yourself
virginian and Pil5t.

virginian and Pil5t
Theasei is money there is position
there is power; there is honor there
is pleasure; and all these may be law
fully, honestly and justly yours, under
certain conditions. But the conditions
are indispensable. Without them none
OF them is yours either lawfully, hon.
testify, or justly. On the contrary, to
| take any, or all of them, is to transgress
law, honesty and justice and incur dis
grace-disgrace that you know, even if
you succeed in the additional false pre-
tences that temporarily screen you
from public disgrace, and bestow public
honor upon you.
The conditions are hard, difficult and
of doubtful accomplishment. Their
evasion and the wrongful appropriation
OF the goodly things rightly dependent
on their performance are easy and
tempting. What will you do? You
have entered on life with high aspira-
tions your ambition Is strong and ac-
tive-daring; but your ambition is
honorable, and your aspirations are in
fused and tempered by high principles.
Your own soul and your perceptions,
oral and literary; your own sense of
honor your moral, religious and intel
lectual being; all unite with the still.
small voice OF conscience to exhort you
to keep the ways of truth and right at
all times, in all things; you hate
wrong, in word and deed, and you de-
spise meanness and baseness with in
efable scorn and loathing; and you
are proud OF yourself, as you recognize
your qualities, and feel keenly that
outside of yourself there is nothing
worth having that is not acquired in
the most exalted development of the
qualities, capacities, feelings and ener.
gies that make you what you are.
But there is the temptation. It con-
fronts every man at some point of life,
and most frequently at an early stage
OF his career,-althouh it may be that
he is not the excellent person we con-
cede you to be, but only so in degree.
Who resist and overcome this tempt
alton? Alas we are all too apt to
follow the example of Adam and
Eve, and fall headlong from our first
estate! How will it be with you Con-
slider (what is infallibly true) that you
have already discovered and agreed
that you yourself are tho most valua-
BILE possession you can own in this
world, that it is the only possession
you can carry with you through all
worlds, that none but yourself can de-
prive you of it, and that you alone can
Idepreciate its worth, or add to its value
In this life, or the life to come. This
is what you know it is what every in
telligent man knows, independently Of
divine revelation; and 1t is a knowl-
edge fortified and illuminated by all
inspiration, all nature, all reason and
all experience.
Is that sufficient defence against
the temptation that assalls you? 1t
ought to be, one would think, but for.
so many sad examples to the contrary.
To yield is clear loss and no gain but
our circumstances-our externals, our
temporal necessities, and all the in
cidental and accidental exigencies Of
the world outside of us,-all these, tri-
vial as they may be in reality, throng
around and upon us, vex, worry and
sting us until in our passionate i'm
patience we fling ourselves away for a
consideration which vanlshes at the
very moment of our folly. And there
is the secret of human weakness we
lack patience, and we cannot wait: We
must change. In this mood, our high
est virtues become most aggravating
al
be bu. the sports of liberty. For the
, moment, we are insane, and would
, play the mad Malay, running-a-mucx
It is all over, like flash of lightning
, in the collied night" but the remedi
!. less and lncalculable evil is done. The
, man is a wreck, and ruin forever! i
, is the final catastrophe.
, Young man, remember and heed
J. IF YOU are worth preserving (and NJ
r man can have anything more valuable
to himself than his own being), !earl
to rate things justly, to avoid tempta
:, tione, to loathe wrong and falsehocd
and to wait patiently for the perfec
:. flower and full fruition of the best tha
= is in you.-your highest praise in
: self-approvlng conscience.
y Chronic DiarrhOea Cured.