Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-04-16
CERTAINTY OF SUCCESS.
II Comes From Honestly Following
Ones Honest Convictions.

It Comes From Honestly Following
Ones Honest Convictions.
You cannot get character any other
way than by winning 1t.
Character Is the one most important
thing to acquire, and the one thing
each person must get for himself.
No substitute can procure for you
the capital prize in the game of life.
Your parents cannot give you char
acter. You cannot give it to your chill
dren. 1t is every man for himself, and
every tub on its own bottom.
We can help one another, here and
there, but not nearly so much as is
generally supposed. Moral agencies
and immoral are both overrated. Char
acter, at last, is up to me-"
Heredity is ovefvalued. A man is 80
much more than horse or a steer that
human eugenics Is very imperfect
science. One may inherit characteris-
tics, but not character.
You may derive red hair or blue eyes
from your father, but your character
is precisely what you make it.
And for the winning of character all
men are born with an equal chance.
1t Is only in the lesser matters Of life
that one child has at birth a better
start than another. For instance, one
baby can begin life with more money,
better parents and sounder health than
another But the other, who Is at all
disadvantage, is quite likely to out
strip the favored one in growing a
great life.
To understand this we must keep In
mind that having money and position
and learning and responsibility do not
necessarily mean being a great man.
The element of chance plays great
part in what Is loosely termed success;
but in the attainment Of real success
there is no chance. All is law and GER
tainty.
What deal of whining and self-pity
it would save us If we could see that!
Right now, If you care to begin, you
can win the very best thing life has to
offer, character, strength and beauty
of SOUL
Self-mastery, loyalty to truth, obe-
dience to conscience, the absolute trust
in goodness, the utter giving up Of
ones self to follow ones noblest con-
victions, these things make character,
and bring real success, not maybe, but
just as certain as two and two make
four.
The only reason any mortal man
does not believe this Is because he has
never tried it.
Most of us lead cheap, frayed lives of
shameful compromise with our convic-
tions. We have the lowest and most
cowardly form of infidelity, to-wit:
that the Right will not always work.
We can't use goodness, but just a 8
per cent solution Of goodness; not alb
solute honesty, but that nasty adulter-
alton called commercial honesty; Je-
sus we think to be all well enough on
Sundays; but he didn't quite under
stand our modern ek-day conditions.
The trouble is, we are blinded by the
apparent success of Getting On, be-
coming Rich, and getting Elected. All
Of which a man may get, and usually
does, at the price Of his real ruin.
It's only when we brush away these
touseled frauds, and get the right no
tions of what life means, that We per-
ceive that the laws of life's success are
pure and true and dependable, that ma
ture has no favorites, that souls are in
reality a pure democracy, and that
there is no justice after all in the heart
of destiny.
My conditions, my temperament, my
family, my abilities, my weaknesses, all
were given me as the elements out of
which 1 am to form that supreme
thing, character.
And one set Of equipments Is as
good as another, always provided you
are not aiming to Get On, but to be-
come great, strong and contented.
Let us prate less of. believing in God
and act more as If we believed in
Gods laws. There are many who wor-
ship Jesus with a little superstitious
corner of their minds, but with all the
rest of their being go in precisely for
that kind of life, aims and ideals that
Jesus conference.-the. Frank Crane in
Atlanta Journal