Speaker 1: Deeds, character, and destiny. There is and always has been,
a widespread belief in fate or destiny, that is, in
an eternal and inscrutable power which apportions definite ends to
both individuals and nations. This belief has arisen from long
observation of the facts of life. Men are conscious that
there are certain occurrences which they cannot control and are
powerless to avert. Birth and death, for instance, are inevitable,
and many of the incidents of life appear equally inevitable.
Men strain every nerve for the attainment of certain ends,
and gradually they become conscious of a power which seems
to be not of themselves, which frustrates their puny efforts
and laughs as it were, at their fruitless striving and struggle.
As men advance in life, they learn to submit it
more or less to this overruling power, which they do
not understand, perceiving only its effects in themselves in the
world around them, and they call it by various names
such as God, Providence, fate, destiny, et cetera. Men of contemplation,
such as poets and philosophers, step aside as it were,
to watch the movements of this mysterious power, as it
seems to elevate its favorites on the one hand and
strike down its victims on the other, without reference to
merit or demerit. The greatest poets, especially the dramatic poets,
represent this power in their works as they have observed
it in nature. The Greek and Roman dramatists usually depict
their heroes as having foreknowledge of their fate and taking
means to escape it, but by so doing they blindly
involve themselves in a series of consequences which bring about
the doom they are trying to avert. Shakespeare's characters, on
the other hand, are represented as in nature with no foreknowledge,
except in the form of presentiment, of their particular destiny. Thus,
according to the poets, whether the man knows his fate
or not, he cannot avert it, and every conscious or
unconscious act of his is a step towards it. O
Markiam's moving Finger is a vivid expression of this idea
of fate. The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.
Nor all thy piety, nor wit shall lure it back
to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash
out a word of it. Thus men in all nations
and times have experienced in their lives the action of
this invincible power or law, and in our nation today
this experience has been crystallized in the terse proverb man proposes,
God disposes. But contradictory as it may appear, there is
an equally widespread belief in man's responsibility as a free agent.
All moral teaching is an affirmation of man's freedom to
choose his course and mold his destiny, and man's patient
and untiring efforts in achieving his ends are declarations of
consciousness of freedom and power. This dual experience of fate
on the one hand and freedom on the other, has
given rise to the interminable controversy between the believers in
fatalism and the upholders of free will, a controversy which
was recently revived under the term determinism versus free will.
Between apparently conflicting extremes, there is always a middle way
of balance, justice, or compensation, which, while it includes both extremes,
cannot be said to be either one or the other,
and brings both into harmony. And this middle way is
the point of contact between two extremes. Truth cannot be
a partisan but by its nature, is the reconciler of extremes.
And so in the matter which we are considering, there
is a golden mean which brings fate and free will
into close relationship. Wherein, indeed, it is seen that these
two indisputable facts in human life. For such they are,
are but two aspects of one's central law, one unifying
and all embracing principle, namely, the law of causation in
its moral aspect. Moral causation necessitates both fate and free will,
both individual responsibilityity and individual predestination. For the law of
causes must also be the law of effects, and cause
and effect must always be equal. The train of causation,
both in matter and mind, must be eternally balanced, therefore
eternally just, eternally perfect. Thus every effect may be said
to be a thing preordained, but the predetermining power is
a cause, and not the fiat of an arbitrary will.
Man finds himself involved in the train of causation. His
life is made up of causes and effects. It is
both a sowing and a reaping. Each act of his
is a cause which must be balanced by its effects.
He chooses the cause. This is free will, he cannot choose,
alter or avert the effect. This is fate. Thus free
will stands for the power to initiate causes, and destiny
is involvement and effects. It is therefore true that man
is predestined to certain ends, But he himself has, though
he knows it, not issued the mandate, that good or
evil thing from which there is no escape, he has,
by his own deeds brought about. It may here be
urged that man is not responsible for his deeds, that
these are the effects of his character, and that he
is not responsible for the character, good or bad, which
was given him at his birth. If character was given
him at birth, this would be true, and there would
then be no moral law and no need for moral teaching.
But characters are not given ready made. They are evolved.
They are indeed effects, the products of the moral law itself,
that is, the of deeds. Character result of an accumulation
of deeds which have piled up, so to speak, by
the individual during his life. Man is the doer of
his own deeds. As such, he is the maker of
his own character. And as the doer of his deeds
and the maker of his character, he is the molder
and shaper of his destiny. He has the power to
modify and alter his deeds, and every time he acts,
he modifies his character. And with the modification of his character,
for good or evil, he is predetermining for himself new destinies,
destinies disastrous or beneficent in accordance with the nature of
his deeds. Character is destiny itself as a fixed combination
of deeds. It bears within itself the results of those deeds.
These results lie hidden as moral seeds in the dark
recess of the character, awaiting their season of germination, growth,
and fruitage. Those things which befall a man are the
reflections of himself. That destiny which pursued him, which he
was powerless to escape by effort or avert by prayer,
was the relentless ghoul of his own wrong deeds, demanding
and enforcing restitution. Those blessings and curses which come to
him unbidden are the reverberating echoes of the sounds which
he himself sent forth. It is this knowledge of the
perfect law working through and above all things, of the
perfect justice, operating in and adjusting all human affairs, that
enables the good man to love his enemies and to
rise above all hatred, resentment, and complaining, for he knows
that only his own can come to him, and that
though he be surrounded by persecutors, his enemies are but
the blind instruments of a faultless retribution. And so he
blames them not but calmly receives his accounts and patiently
pays his moral debts. But this is not all. He
does not merely pay his debts. He takes care not
to contract any further debts. He watches himself and makes
his deeds faultless. While paying off evil accounts, he is
laying up good accounts. By putting an end to his
own sin. He is bringing evil and suffering to an end.
And now let us consider how the law operates in
particular instances in the outworking of destiny through deeds and character.
First we will look at this present life, for the
present is a synthesis of the entire past. The net
result of all that a man has ever thought and
done is contained within him. It is no noticeable that
sometimes the good man fails and the unscrupulous man prospers,
a fact which seems to put all moral maxims as
to the good results of righteousness out of account. And
because of this, many people deny the operation of any
just law in human life, and even declare that it
is chiefly the unjust that prosper. Nevertheless, the moral law
exists and is not altered or subverted by shallow conclusions.
It should be remembered that man is a changing, evolving being.
The good man was not always good. The bad man
was not always bad. Even in this life. There was
a time, in a large number of instances, when the
man who is now just was unjust, when he who
is now kind was cruel, when he who is now
pure was impure. Conversely, there was a time in this life,
in a number of instances, when he who is now
unjust was just, When he who is now cruel was kind,
when he who is now impure was pure. Thus, the
good man, who is overtaken with calamity to day is
reaping the result of his former evil sewing. Later he
will reap the happy result of his present good sowing.
While the bad man is now reaping the result of
his former good sowing. Later he will reap the result
of his present sowing. Of bad. Characteristics are fixed habits
of mind, the results of deeds. An act repeated a
large number of times, becomes unconscious or automatic, that is,
it seems to repeat itself without any effort on the
part of the doer, so that it seems to him
almost impossible not to do it. And then it has
become a mental characteristic. Here is a poor man out
of work. He is honest and is not a shirker.
He wants work and cannot get it. He tries hard
and continues to fail. Where is the justice in his lot?
There was a time in this man's condition when he
had plenty of work. He felt burdened with it. He
shirked it and longed for ease. He thought, how delightful
it would be to have nothing to do. He did
not appreciate the blessedness of his lot. His desire for
ease is now gratified. But the fruit for which he longed,
and which he thought would taste so sweet, has turned
to ashes in his mouth. The condition which he aimed for, namely,
to have nothing to do, he has reached. And there
he is compelled to remain till his lesson is thoroughly learned.
And he is surely learning that habitual ease is degrading,
that to have nothing to do is a condition of wretchedness,
and that work is a noble and black thing. His
former desires and deeds have brought him where he is,
and now his present desire for work, his ceaseless searching
and asking for it, will just as surely bring about
its own beneficent result. No longer desiring idleness, his present
condition will, as an effect, the cause of which is
no longer propagated, soon pass away, and he will obtain employment.
And if his whole mind is now set on work,
and he desires it above all else, then when it comes,
he will be overwhelmed with it. It will flow into
him from all sides, and he will prosper in his industry. Then,
if he does not understand the law of cause and
effect in human life, he will wonder why work comes
to him apparently unsought, while others who seek it strenuously
fail to obtain it. Nothing comes unbidden. Where the shadow
is there also is the substance. That which comes to
the individual is the product of his own deeds. As
cheerful industry leads to greater industry and increasing prosperity, and
labor shirked or undertaken discontentedly leads to a lesser degree
of labor and decreasing prosperity. So with all the very
conditions of life as we see them, they are the
destinies wrought by the thoughts and deeds of each particular individual.
So also with the vast variety of characters, they are
the ripening and ripened fruit of the sowing of deeds.
As the individual reaps what he sows, so the nation,
being a community of individuals, reaps also what it sows.
Nations become great when their leaders are just men. They
fall and fade when their just men pass away. Those
who are in power set an example, good or bad
for the entire nation. Great will be the peace and
prosperity of a nation when there shall arise within it
a line of statesmen, who, having first established themselves in
a lofty integrity of character, shall direct the energies of
the nation toward the culture of virtue and development of character,
knowing that only through personal industry, integrity, and nobility can
national prosperity proceed. Still, above all is the Great Law,
calmly and with infallible justice, meeting out to morals their
fleeting destinies, tears stained or smiling the fabric of their hands.
Life is a great school for the development of character,
and all, through strife and struggle, vice and virtue, success
and failure, are slowly but surely learning the lessons of wisdom.