The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-02-21
The Good Fortune of Integrity.


The mouth of a righteous man is a
well of life.-Proverbs, X, 2.
Without water life cannot be. Take
water from the earth and the fevers
Of death burn their fires.
Where deserts blight, q well Of
water is a possession beyond price.
TO the Hebrew of the Psalms and
Proverbs, therefore, who knew the
heat and the distress Of scorching
sands, who knew water as the syno-
nym of life, no more powerful Ian
guage could be used to set forth the
value Of righteousness than the brief
sentence which says The mouth OF
a righteous man is a we'll Of life" He
speaks the truth always, and his word
is like water from cool wells. 1t re-
freshes. 1t vitalizes.
Man builds IND thing that is not
builded in truth. The hands Of his
daily toll move in truth. This is the
reality from ore to engine, from quarry
to house, from forest to furniture. In
dealing with things he is dealing with
truth. II he,deals truthfully, the uni
verse conspires to bless; him with
achievement. If un%truthfully, CRAWL
tation; iron, wood, !: water, fire, the
truth Of things. presses the bitter cup
of failure to his lips. In mans rela-
ton with his fellow mar great civili-
z%ations, as great worlds, can only be
built upon righteousness, upon every
mans speaking truth with his neigh
Dor. ,
Every great State is builded in truth
and goes to ruin in fslsehOod, in dis
loyalty to it's moral ideals. Notwith-
standing appearances to the contrary,
this is the fact which the universe in
its every atom sanctiies. Through the
mists OF the apparent look with clear
eyes into the reality. Build your
career on the integrity of the universe,
mastered in friendly wise by the in
tegrity of yourself. Then are you
building so wisely that every atom Of
the universe works with you, willing
your success, Beauty is its own ex-
cuse for being" Righteousness is its
own justification. Truth is It's own
bliss.
Whether the eyes of men see or not,
the joy in which God loves and lives
enters into the heart of the righteous.
Within the soul of the righteous is life.
In that life is the abundant good fol-
tune with which righteousness re-
wards it's own. When He expresses
that Righteousness it is like the hills
expressing themselves in streams
which run among the valleys, giving
life to bird and beast, to grass and
tree, making farms possible and the
human life free of the fevers Of death.
There is nothing so fine as a righte-
GUS man. No beauty can equal the
beauty of holiness. 1t has a loneliness
more gracious thaQ flowers. It has q
charm beyond the enchantment of
birds. 1t has a grandeur outdoing
mountain and sea. Not sunsets are so
splendid, nor suns, nor stars, nor
dawns; not music, nor Shakespeare;
not canvases. not ~cathedrals; not any
thing built by man. The chief pas
SIGN of the scsll should be the passion
for holiness; for in its beauty all other
achievement has worth, and in the
soul of the. acbierer the eternity At
God is awake.
Things pass. A brief while and the
places of earth will know US FL more
forever. Even while here things can
not satisfy. They disappoint. They
enslave. The greatest good fortune
any one can achieve is integrity Of
heart. The divinest welfare is that
conscious rectitude the peace Of which
never forsakes a man through all years
and all worlds. The imperishable
riches of God are his good fortune
whose mouth is a well spring of life
John Milton Scott. New York City, in
the Sunday Herald.