Life and Conduct

Life and Conduct, by J. Cameron Lees

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Title: Life and Conduct
Author: J. Cameron Lees

Release Date: July 11, 2007 [eBook #22050]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LIFE AND CONDUCT
by
J. CAMERON LEES, D.D., LL.D.,
Edinburgh.

Toronto: William Briggs, Wesley Buildings. Montreal: C. W. Coates. Halifax: S. F. Huestis. 1896.
Entered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the Department of Agriculture.

INTRODUCTION.
This book has been selected from the "Guild Series" for young people, published in Scotland, and reprinted in Canada by permission.
The wise counsels and practical suggestions with which this book abounds make it eminently suitable for the Epworth League Reading Course. We commend it to all young people who are desirous to form their character on the Christian model and to carry religious principle into the practical affairs of common life.
Some of the chapters will furnish material for interesting programmes in the Literary Department.

PREFACE.
This hand-book has been written at the request of the Christian Life and Work Committee of the Church of Scotland as one of a series of volumes which it is at present issuing for the use of Young Men's Guilds and Bible Classes.
The object of the writer has been to show how the principles of religion may be applied to the conduct of young men, and in the practice of everyday life. In doing this he has endeavored to keep steadily in view the fact that the book is designed chiefly as a manual of instruction, and can only present the outlines of a somewhat wide subject. His language has been necessarily simple, and he has been often obliged to put his statements in an abbreviated form.
Most of the contents of this book have been drawn from a long and somewhat varied experience of life; but the author has also availed himself of the writings of others who have written books for the special benefit of young men. He has appended a list of works which he has consulted, and has endeavored to acknowledge his indebtedness for any help in the way of argument or illustration that they have afforded him.
It will be a great gratification to him to learn that the book has been in any way useful to the young men, of whose position, duties, and temptations he has thought much when writing it; and he sends it forth with the earnest prayer that the Spirit of God may bless his endeavors to be of service to those whose interests he, in common with his brethren in the ministry, regards as of paramount importance.
EDINBURGH, 28th June, 1892.

CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. CHARACTER II. SUCCESS IN LIFE III. PERSONAL INFLUENCE IV. FRIENDS V. MONEY VI. TIME VII. COURAGE VIII. HEALTH IX. EARNESTNESS X. MANNERS XI. TEMPER XII. RECREATION XIII. BOOKS XIV. FAMILY LIFE XV. CHURCH XVI. CITIZENSHIP
APPENDIX LIST OF WORKS

LIFE AND CONDUCT.
CHAPTER I.
CHARACTER.
Everything in the practical conduct of life depends upon character.
What is character? What do we mean by it? As when we say such a man is a bad character, or a good character, or when we use the words, "I don't like the character of that man."
By character we mean what a man really is, at the back of all his actions and his reputation and the opinion the world has of him, in the very depth of his being, in the sight of God, "to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid."
It is said of Burns, the poet, that walking along the streets of Edinburgh with a fashionable acquaintance, he saw a poorly-dressed peasant, whom he rushed up to and greeted as a familiar friend. His companion expressed his surprise that he could lower himself by speaking to one in so rustic a garb. "Fool!" said the poet, with flashing eye; "it was not the dress, the peasant's bonnet and hodden gray, I spoke to, but the man within--the man who beneath that bonnet has a head, and beneath that hodden gray a heart, better than a thousand such as yours." What the poet termed the "man within," what the Scripture calls the "hidden man of the heart," is character--the thing a man really is. Now, there are five things to be remembered about character.
I. Character is a growth.--As the man without grows, so the man within grows also--grows day by day either in beauty or in deformity. We are becoming, as the days and years pass on,