Speaker 1: Sincerity. Human society is held together by its sincerity. A
universal falseness would beget a universal mistrust, which would bring
about a universal separation, if not destruction. Life is made sane, wholesome,
and happy by our deep rooted belief in one another.
If we did not trust men, we could not transact
business with them, could not even associate with them. Shakespeare's
timun shows us the wretch condition of a man who,
through his own folly, has lost all faith in the
sincerity of human nature. He cuts himself off from the
company of all men and finally commits suicide. Emerson has
said something to the effect that if the trust system
were withdrawn from commerce, society would fall to pieces, that
system being an indication of the universal confidence men place
in each other. Business, commonly supposed by the shortsighted and
foolish to be all fraud and deception, is based on
great trust, a trust that men will meet and fulfill
their obligations. Payment is not asked until the goods are delivered,
and the fact of the continuance of this system for
ages proves that most men do pay their debts and
have no wish to avoid such payment. Back of all
its shortcomings. Human society rests on a strong basis of truth.
Its fundamental note is sincerity. Its great leaders are all
men of superative sincerity, and their names and achievements are
not allowed to perish, a proof that the virtue of
sincerity is admired by all the race. It is easy
for the insincere to imagine that everyone is like themselves,
and to speak of the rottenness of society. Though how
could a rotten thing endure aig after age? For is
not everything yellow to the jaundiced eye. People who cannot
see anything good in the constitution of human society should
overhaul themselves. Their trouble is near home. They call good evil.
They have dwelt cynically and peevishly on evil until they
cannot see good, and everything in everybody appears evil. Society
is rotten from top to bottom. I heard a man
say recently, and he asked me if I did not
think so. I replied that I should be sorry to
think so. That while society has many blemishes, it was
sound at the core, and contained within itself the seeds
of perfection. Society, indeed, is so sound that the man
who is playing a part for the accomplishment of entirely
selfish ends, cannot long prosper, and cannot fill any place
as an influence. He is soon unmasked, and the fact
that such a man can, for a brief period batten
on human credulity speaks well for the trustfulness of men,
if it reveals their lack of wisdom. An accomplished actor
on the stage is admired, but the designing actor on
the stage of life brings himself down to ignomy and contempt.
In striving to appear what he is not, he becomes
as one having no individuality, no character, and he is
deprived of all influence, all power, all success. A man
of profound sincerity is a great moral force, and there
is no force, not even the highest intellectual force, that
can compare with it. Men are powerful in influence according
to the soundness and perfection of their sincerity. Morality and
sincerity are so closely bound up together that where sincerity
is lacking, morality as a power lacking also, for insincerity
undermines all the other virtues, so that they crumble away
and become of no account. Even a little insincerity robs
a character of all its nobility and makes it common
and contemptible falseness is so despicable of vice, and no
man of moral weight can afford to dally with petty compliments,
or play the fool with trivial and howsoever light in
order to please. And he is no longer strong and admirable,
but has become a shallow weakling, whose mind has no
deep well of power from which men can draw, and
no satisfying richness to stir them in a worshipful regard.
Even they who are for the moment flattered with the
pained lie or pleased with the deafly woven deception, will
not escape those permanent, undercurrent influences which move the heart
and shape the judgment to fixed and final issues. While
these design delusions create but momentary ripples on the surface
of the mind. I am very pleased with his attentions,
said a woman of an acquaintance, but I would not
marry him. Why not? She was asked, he doesn't ring true?
Was the reply? Ring true? A term full of meaning.
It has reference to the coin, which, when tested by
its ring amidst a sound which reveals the sterling metal
throughout without the admixture of any base material, it comes
up to the standard, and will pass anywhere and everywhere
for its full value. So it is with men, their
words and actions emit their own peculiar influence. There is
in them in an audible sound which all other men
inwardly hear and instinctively detect. They know the false ring
from the true, yet know not how they know. As
the outer ear can make the most delicate distinctions and sounds,
so the inner ear can make equally subtle distinctions between souls.
None are ultimately deceived but the deceiver. It is the
blind folly of the insincere, that while flattering themselves upon
their successful simulations, they are deceiving none but themselves. Their
actions are laid bare before all hearts. There is at
the heart of man a tribunal whose judgments do not miscarry.
If the senses faultlessly detect, shall not the soul infallibly know.
This inner infallibility is shown in the collective judgment of
the race. This judgment is perfect, so perfect in literature, art, science, invention, religion.
In every department of knowledge, it divides the good from
the bad, the worthy from the unworthy, the true from
the false, zealously guarding and preserving the former. And allowing
the latter to perish. The works, words, and deeds of
great men are the heirlooms of the race, and the
race is not careless of their value. A thousand men
write a book, and only one is a work of
original genius. Yet the race singles out that one elevates
and preserves it, while it consigns the nine hundred and
ninety nine copyists to oblivion. Ten thousand men utter a
sentence under a similar circumstance, and only one is a
sentence of divine wisdom. Yet the race singles out that
saying for the guidance of posterity, while the other sentences
are heard no more. It is true that the race
slays its prophets, but even that slaying becomes a test
which reveals the true ring, and men detect its turreens.
The slain one has come up to the standard, and
the deed of his slaying is preserved as furnish wishing
infallible proof of his greatness. As the counterfeit coin is
detected and cast back into the melting pot, while the
sterling coin circulates among all men and is valued for
its worth, So the counterfeit word, deed, or character is
perceived and is left to fall back into nothingness from
which it emerged. A thing unreal, powerless and dead. Spurious
things have no value, whether they be bric a brac
or men. We are ashamed of imitations that try to
pass for the genuine article. Falseness is cheap. The masquerader
becomes a byword. He is less than a man. He
is a shadow, a spook, a mere mask. Trueness is valuable.
The sound hearted man becomes an exemplar. He is more
than a man, He is a reality, a force, a
molding principle. By falseiness, all is lost, even individuality dissolves.
For falseness is nonentity nothingness. By trueness, everything is gained.
For trueness is fixed, permanent, and real. It is important
that we be real, that we harbor no wish to
be other than what we are, that we stimulate no virtue,
assume no excellency, adopt no disguise. The hypocrite thinks he
can hoodwink the world and the eternal law of the world.
There is but one person that he hoodwinks, and that
is himself. And for that the law of the world
inflicts its righteous penalty. There is an old theory that
the excessively wicked are annihilated. I think to be a
pretender is to come as near to annihilation as a
man can get. For there is a sense in which
a man is gone, and in his place there is
but a mirage of shams of annihilation, which so many
dread he has descended into. And to think that such
a man can prosper is to think that shadows can
do the work of entities and displace a real man.
If any man thinks he can build up a successful
career on pretenses and appearances, let him pause before sinking
into the abyss of shadows. For in insincerity there is
no solid ground, no substance, no reality. There is nothing
on which he can stand, and no material with which
to build. But there are loneliness, poverty, shame, confusion, fears, suspicions, weeping, groaning,
and lamentations. For if there is one hell, lower, darker,
and fouler than all the others, it is the hell
of insincerity. Four beautiful traits adorn the mind of the
sincere man, and are one simplicity, two attractiveness, three penetration,
four power. Simplicity is naturalness. It is a simple being
without vake or foreign adornment. Why are all things in
nature so beautiful? Because they are natural? We see them
as they are. No task they might wish to appear,
for in sooth they have no wish to appear. Otherwise,
there is no hypocrisy in the world of nature. Outside
of human nature. The flower, which is so beautiful in
all eyes, would lose its beauty in all eyes? Would
nature look upon reality, and its beauty and perfection gladden
and amaze us. We cannot find anywhere of flaw, and
are conscious of our incapacity to improve upon anything, even
to the most insignificant. Everything has its own particular perfection,
and shines in the beauty of unconscious simplicity. Of the
modern social cries, it is back to nature. It is
generally understood to mean a cottage in the country and
a piece of land to cultivate. It will be of
little use to go into the country if we take
our shams with us, and any even near which we
may cling to can well be washed off just where
we are. It is good that they who feel burdened
with the conventions of society should fly to the country
and court the quiet of nature. But it will fail
if it by anything but a means to that inward
redemption which will restore us to the simple and the true.
But though humanity has wandered from the natural simplicity of
the animal world, it is moving toward a higher, divine simplicity.
Men of great genius are such because of their spontaneous simplicity.
They do not foreign They are lesser mind's study, style
and effect. They wish to cut a striking figure on
the stage of the world, and by that unholy wish
they are doomed to mediocrity. Set a man to me recently,
I would give twenty years of my life to be
able to write in immortal hymn. With such an ambition,
a man cannot write a him he wants to pose.
He is thinking of himself, of his own glory. Before
a man can write in immortal hymn or create in
immortal work, he must give not twenty years of his
life to ambition, but to do anything great, he must sing, paint,
write out of ten thousand bitter experiences, ten thousand failures,
ten thousand conquests, and ten thousand joys. He must know gasphemy.
He must work with blood and tears, restraining his intel
and moral powers and returning to simplicity, a man becomes
great be forfeits nothing real. Only the shams are cast aside,
revealing the standard gold of character. Where there is sincerity,
there will always be simplicity, a simplicity of the kind
that we see in nature, the beautiful simplicity of truth.
Attractiveness is the direct outcome of simplicity. This is seen
in the attractiveness of all natural objects to which we
have referred, but in human nature it is manifested as
personal influence. Of recent years, certain pseudomistics have been advertising
to sell the secret of personal magnetism for so many dollars,
by which they purport to show vain people how they
can make themselves attractive to others by certain occult means.
As though attractiveness can be bought and sold and put
on an off like powder and aint, nor are people
who are anxious to be thought attractive likely to become so,
for their vanity is a barrier to it. The very
desire to be thought attractive is in itself a deception,
and it leads to the practice of numerous deceptions. It infers, too,
that such people are conscious of lacking the genuine attractions
and graces of character, and are on the lookout for
a substitute. But there is no substitute for beauty of
mind and strength of character. Attractiveness, like genius, is lost
by being coveted and possessed by those who are too
solid and sincere of character to desire it. There is
nothing in human nature, nor talent, nor intellect, nor affection,
nor beauty of features that can compare an attractive power
with the soundness of mind and the wholeness of heart,
which we call sincerity. There is a perennial charm about
a sincere man or woman, and they can draw about
themselves the best specimens of human nature. There can be
no personal charm apart from sincerity. Infatuation there may be,
and is, but this is a kind of disease, and
is vastly different from the indissoluble bond by which sincere
people are attached. Infatuation ends in painful disillusion. But as
there is nothing hidden between sincere souls and they stand
upon that solid ground of reality, there is no illusion
to be displayed. Leaders among men attract by the power
of their sincerity, and even if a man's intellect may
be great, he can never be a permanent leader and
guide of men unless he be sincere. For a time
he may sail jauntily upon the stream of popularity and
believe himself secure. But it is only that he may
shortly fall the lower and popular odium. He cannot long
deceive the people with his painted front. They will soon
look behind and find of what spurious stuff he has made.
He is like a woman with a painted face. She
thinks she is admired for her complexion, but all know
it is paint and despise her for it. She has
one admirer, herself, And the hell of limitation to which
the insincere commit themselves is the hell of self admiration.
Sincere people do not think of themselves, of their talent,
their genius, their virtue, or their beauty. Because they are
so unconscious of themselves, they attract all and win their confidence, affection,
and esteem. Penetration belongs to the sincere. All shams are
unveiled in their presence, All stimulators are transparent to the
searching eye of the sincere man. With one clear glance,
he sees through all their flimsy pretenses. He who is
rid his heart of all falseness, and entertains only that
which is true. Has gained the power to distinguish the
false from the true in others, he is not deceived,
who is not self deceived, As men looking around on
objects of nature infallibly distinguish them as snake, bird, horse, tree, rose,
and so on. So the sincere man distinguishes the variety
of characters. He perceives in a movement, a look, a word,
an act, the nature of the man, and acts accordingly.
He is on his guard without being suspicious. He has
prepared for the pretender, without being mistrustful. He acts from
positive knowledge and not from negative suspicion. Men are open
to him, and he reads their contents. His penetrative judgment
pierces to the center of actions. His direct and unequivotable
conduct strengthens in others the good and shames the bad.
And he is a staff of strength to those who
have not yet attained to his soundness of heart and head.
Power goes with penetration, and understanding of the nature of
actions is accompanied with the power to meet and deal
with all actions in the right and best way. Knowledge
is always power, but knowledge of the nature of actions
is superative power, and he who possesses it becomes a
presence to all hearts and modifies their actions for good.
Long after his bodily presence has passed away, he is
still a molding force in the world, and is a
spiritual reality, working subtly in the minds of men and
shaping them towards sublime ends. At first, his power is
local and limited, but the circle of righteousness which he
has set moving, continues to extend and extend further till
it embraces the whole world, and all men are influenced
by it. The sincere man stamps his character upon all
that he does, and also upon all people with whom
he comes in contact. He speaks a word in season,
and some one is impressed. The influence is communicated to
another and another, and presently, some despairing soul ten thousand
miles away hears it and is restored. Such a power
is prosperity in itself, and its worth is not to
be valued in coin. Money cannot purchase the priceless jewels
of character, but labor and right doing can. And he
who makes himself sincere, who acquires a robust soundness through
his entire being, will become a man of singular success
and rare power. Such is the strong pillar of sincerity.
Its supporting power is so great that, once it is
completely erected, the Temple of Prosperity is secure. Its walls
will not crumble, its rafters will not decay, its roof
will not fall in. It will stand while the man lives,
and when he has passed away, it will continue to
afford a shelter and a home for others, through many generations.