Life and Conduct | Page 4

we are renewed in
the inward man, old things pass away, and all things become new. In
the life of St. Paul we have a striking instance how coming to Christ
effects a change in character. He became a different man from what he
was; he received a new inward life; a transfiguring change passed over
the entire character; the life he lived in the flesh became a life of faith
in the Son of God; and his experience has been the experience of many.
The source of the highest and noblest character is Christ. (2) Christ is
also the standard of a noble character; the true ideal of manhood is
found in Him: "the stature of the fulness of Christ." Take the following
illustration: "In Holland we travel with Dutch money, in France with
French money, in Germany with German money. The standard of the
coinage varies with every state we go into. In Britain there is one
standard of coinage; we may get some corrupted money or some light
coin, but the standard of coinage is the same. The standard for the
Christian is the same throughout the years and in all places: the one
perpetual standard of the life of Christ." The best men are those who
come the nearest to it. Those who come nearest to it are those who will
do best in the practical conduct of life.
CHAPTER II.
SUCCESS IN LIFE.
We often hear the word success used. The great wish that most have in
beginning life is that they may be successful. One man constantly asks
another the question regarding a third, How has he succeeded?

What is success in life? It may perhaps be defined in this way: It is to
obtain the greatest amount of happiness possible to us in this world.
There are two things to be borne in mind in estimating what success is:
I. Lives which according to some are successful must in the highest
sense be pronounced failures.--The idea of many is that success
consists in the gaining of a livelihood, or competency, or wealth; but a
man may gain these things who yet cannot be said to have succeeded. If
he gets wealth at the expense of health, or if he gets it by means of
trickery and dishonest practices, he can hardly be said to have
succeeded. He does not get real happiness with it. If a man gains the
whole world and loses his own soul, he cannot be said to have
succeeded. True success in life is when a fair share of the world's good
does not cost either physical or intellectual or moral well-being.
II. Lives which according to some are failures must in the highest sense
be pronounced successful.--The life of our blessed Lord, from one
point of view, was a failure. It was passed in poverty, it closed in
darkness. We see Him crowned with thorns, buffeted, spit upon; yet
never was Christ so successful as when He hung upon the cross. He had
finished the work given Him to do. He "saw of the travail of His soul
and was satisfied."
Milton completed his Paradise Lost and a bookseller only gave him
fifteen pounds for it, yet he cannot be said to have failed.
Speak, History, who are life's victors? unroll thy long annals and say,
Are they those whom the world calls victors, who won the success of
the day, The martyrs or Nero? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylae's
tryst Or the Persians or Xerxes? His judges or Socrates? Pilate or
Christ?
What may seem defeat to some may be in the truest sense success.
There are certain things which directly tend to success in life:
The first is Industry.--There can be no success without working hard

for it. There is no getting on without labor. We live in times of great
competition, and if a man does not work, and work hard, he is soon
jostled aside and falls into the rear. It is true now as in the days of
Solomon that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich."
(a) There are some who think they can dispense with hard work
because they possess great natural talents and ability--that cleverness or
genius can be a substitute for diligence. Here the old fable of the hare
and the tortoise applies. They both started to run a race. The hare,
trusting to her natural gift of fleetness, turned aside and took a sleep;
the tortoise plodded on and won the prize. Constant and well-sustained
labor carries one through, where cleverness apart from this fails.
History tells us that the greatest genius is most diligent in the
cultivation of its powers. The cleverest men have been of great industry
and unflinching perseverance. No truly eminent man was ever other