SINCERITY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 425, 17 November 1930, Page 2

SINCERITY.

People often specify of sincerity as if it Were an easy thing. IVe confuse the east; with the simple. Sincerity is gloriously simple, but it is one of the most difficult things, perhaps the most difficult thing, in life. IVe all fynow some measure of it, all of us, at any rate, who live in any sense vitally and generously. There are self-deceivers and pretenders who come dangerously near to a complete lacfy of sincerity. Put in them character is so nearly destroyed that, except in the body, they can scarcely be said to be breathing. They need new life. This is what sincerity always is—life. Every time we achieve, slowly and painfully it may be, a little more of it we are conscious of expansion, of wider, truer, deeper thoughts, of an invigoration of the spirit which is as truly felt as fresh air is fell when it enters a stuffy room. This is one of the loveliest of all the experiences that are possible for us, but few of us fynow such happiness often. We are so fond of the little rooms in which we live and in which We keep up the pretences about ourselves that make us spuriously acceptable in our own eyes. The beginning of sincerity is to face in yourself the thing that you would not like in anyone else. You look at it. Not morbidly (morbidity usually drags you away from it down perilous paths), but frankly and with courage. Then you remove it. 1 his may take all your life to do. But you yourself, your whole self, and not the inferior quality that alarms you, will be dictator. As soon as you even begin to dislodge the intruder you will know how much space it has been taking up, you will be able to breathe deeper, having more air. If sincerity with oneself is so hard, how much harder is complete sincerity between two persons! Yet when we have once stopped hiding from ourselves, We are conscious of the wish for truth in all our relationships. Truth, not mere verbal frankness, thoug h this is sometimes a tonic; the truth that sets us free from self-consciousness and apprehensions, and that i s perpetually opening up wider opportunities and a wider life.