Character is the flower of manhood; it is the perfect...

Character is the flower of manhood; it is the perfect conformity of the will of man to the will of God, the coincidence in human experience of Principle and practice. Character alone is undying. Individuals, nations, worlds even, attain the summit of earthly grandeur only to be remanded to dust, leaving behind them shadows merely of their erstwhile greatness; but the ideals for which they stood, fought, bled, and if need be died,—these perish not; instead, they gather brightness with the centuries. So the end of all human institutions—that which conflict, government, exploration, discovery, invention, education, enterprise, and intercourse of men and nations combine to form and deliver—the sum-total, in short, of the "worth while" in human achievement—is character. And until character is delivered faultless, wars and rumors of wars, famine and pestilence, sin and sickness, want and woe,—in fact, all that signifies and typifies human ignorance and imperfection, with its compensating round of experiences, will continue; for continue they must, until by the operation of the eternal law of right and wrong, of action and reaction, of cause and effect, their force is forever spent,—the great pendulum of the universe, to the ever-accelerating oscillations of which breathless humanity struggles always harder to keep pace, comes at last to rest—its mission fulfilled. Then indeed will "on earth peace, good will toward men" be an accomplished fact, and it will be the only fact of existence, for in all creation naught will remain to interrupt the ceaseless joy of man, and undimmed Mind will rule all in perfect harmony. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,"—thus spake the sublimest character in history, he who defined the mark for time and eternity, in whom manhood blossomed at its brightest bloom.—Harry Franklin Porter.