REVERE CHARACTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6201, 1 October 1881, Page 3

REVERE CHARACTER.

There is love and love. There is counterfeit love so degradingly absorbed in self as to sec nothing, appreciatively, save its own small field of action and of interest; and there is true love, born of a set purpose to rise higher and higher in the scale of being for others' sake ; and such love, preferiug truth's rugged path to expediency's beaten tracks, must go out alone, absolutely alone, into the highways and hedges of life, so to fathom its sacred mysteries and appropriate their lessons, as presently to embody its purest ideal excellence in a character of rare strength, whose very repose is the outcome of any inward agony of humiliation that goes deeper than tears. And heroic character, growing strong by reason of its many blunders corrected, is possible to that true love alone which sees clearly thai- truth of the royal stamp, speaking now in sunshine, now in storm, is too divinely good to beg its way among men in the all but universal "pardon me," "by your leave" Sc., of the pulpit spirit of to-day, so flattering to the vanity and conceit of counterfeit love ; and alas for truth's supremacy, very unlike the quiet confidence of the merchant who believes that tlie goods ho oilers are unequable on change. Who does not see and feel that all truth is robbed of its native force, is rendered comparitively powerless, that comes with the customary "pardon me," &c. Hence it is, perhaps, more the fault of the teacher than of the taught that men are what they are. Gentleness itself, as was the Man of Sorrows to the penitent, vanity and conceit met with no deference from Him. Would He utter smooth things to-day, think you, knowing what human life is after IS centuries of professed Christainity ? No, for ever no ; His love for truth and right would forbid it. Asking much of His disciplcs, He teaches them to do everything but cringe. His unvarnished truth must grate on the conventional ear ; there is no help for it. That it does so crate as its highest praise, notwithstanding all that may be said to the contrary. It was 110 "pardon me," &c., that fired men of old to go forth with their lives in their hand to do and dare for right's sake. Revere character, study its behests, and you will see that there arc everywhere men, even now, who could remove mountains of iniquity if they would but defy the polite, conventional devil, and let truth ring out with its old, its honest, its soul-inspiring ring. Spring, beautiful spring, is here, and the trees of the, field are joyous, singing the budding blossoming chorus. Shall man strike no choral harmony therewith. Shall 1,.e alone be dumb ? Nay, nay, he shall yet rise from his ashes ; lie shall live again to learn in this world that a good conscience is heaven ; a bad conscience is hell. Love, i.e., character, shall yet triumph over its counterfeit— good shall yet conquer evil. E.