Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1914-07-21
CHARACTER IN THE MAKING
Forces that Go to Do and Undo at the
Foundation.

Character may be both made and
unmade. The best things may lose
their power. Strings that once trem-
bled with music may lose their sensi-
tive response. Organ keys lose their
thunder and the gun that blazed on
the firing line finds its way to the
scrap heap. In the province of char
acter the principle of subtraction
works with the same logic as that of
addition. While the making Of man.
hood involves a process, the unmak-
ing may be accomplished suddenly. A
bolt Of lightning shivers a tree which
was hundreds of years in growing. A
sledge hammer blow can undo what
Angelo worked upon for years. The
knife of an English fury may slash
away the value of a masterpiece.
Character is a work of art which may
be ruined by stroke. The conse-
quences, however, remain. They are
caught up by the natural law of i'm
mortality and can no more be brought
back than can a spoken word or
spent bullet. Character is not only
cause, but effect. By the unmaking
of man is meant, then, the undoing
Of those moral sources which create
character influences. 1t is the unmak
ing, the destruction of the propelling
power of life. 1t is tampering with
Tho Of tho shin
Men are undone by one besetting
sin. Jealousy poisoned Othello, and
changed the sweetness of a disposi-
ton into the gall of bitterness. Am
bition ruined Macbeth and greed
clouded the life Of Shylock. One fly
spoils the ointment. One flaw in a
steel rail wrecks the train when the
engine finds it with its hammering
wheels. One sin will undo a man by
destroying the sources of his strength.
Men are unmade, too, by others.
What power we have over others
lives! Everybody holds another's des-
tiny in his hands. We are all kings
and queens ruling kingdoms made Of
far-reaching destinies. Fortunate is
it that the consequences of life are
beyond the reach of the despoler.
The eagle lays it's eggs in the far
away eyrie, beyond the reach of the
iconoclast, and in the Divine scheme
of nature the eternal results Of char
acter are laid up where moth and rust
do not corrupt and where thieves do
not break through and steal.
New experiences may unmake men
and untwist the strands of the strong
rope of character. A new experience
whether of joy or sorrow, of pain or
pleas "e, demands Il special moral re-
inforC >.Ient. Temptation is not al
ways a solicitation to commit sin, but
sometimes it is an invitation to do the
foolish thing. When the devil wanted
our Lord to leap from the pinnacle of
the Temple, he asked him to do a fool
iSh. useless act which would have
made him less than the highest. a
new experience is a moral test. Some
men are untitled for sudden and ex-
traordinary changes in thought or en-
vironment. A polar bear may be eX-
pected to behave in an unsual manner
in the tropics. The bird in the cage
for the first time will not sing Many
Il man meets his fate in a crisis When
Peter would stay on the Mount of
TRANSPORTATION where he was having
Il good time, he was less a man than
when he threw off his fishers coat
and jumped into the sea hoping to
walk upon the waters man who
has been living a normal, peaceful,
easy life when suddenly thrown into a
den of lions or a furnace Of fire may
he expected to do and say some un-
usual things. Some go to pieces un-
der strain just as bridge breaks un-
der too much weight.
Men are undone and morally un-
made by the gradual and unseen
forces which undermine the life Not
more does the sea wear away the
rocks along the shore than does n
continuous impression of sin weaken