A reputation for honorable dealing has a high business value: honor pays in the commercial sense, if a man will trust in it, in the long run, if not immediately. When the farmer "tops off" his barrels of apples or potatoes, or his boxes of berries; when the grocer sells oleomargarine for butter; when the tailor palms off an ill-made suit of clothes upon a near-sighted person; when the manufacturer sells shoddy for woollens, they are short-sighted. Steady custom cannot be kept by such tricks. A reputation for honorable dealing is of more value than all that can be made by occasional imposition. But honor pays in a much higher sense. One of the surest foundations of morality is a just self-respect. A man who has lost his self-respect cannot be trusted: he cannot trust himself. Dishonorable practice saps this foundation: it introduces a kind of dry rot into the moral life. When some unusual strain of tempta. tion to do gross wrong comes upon a man who has been guilty of dishonorable conduct, perhaps known only to himself, he will probably go down, as the great Tay bridge went down in the night, because of some flaw, carrying with it hundreds of lives. The justly anxious passenger on an ocean steamer, in a severe storm, asked the captain if the vessel could live through the tempest. "If any ship can, this one can," replied the captain; "I know her builder, and I know that she was built on honor." That is a good word for all: Build Life on Honor! When we are children at home we cannot begin too soon to make our word the exact counterpart of fact so far as we know it, and our promise to do anything the assurance of honest performance. If we break any precious piece of glass or furniture about the house, let us not break the truth too let us fear that damage more than any punishment that can come upon us. In the school we can build life on honor, by refusing to prompt, or to be prompted by, another scholar; we can scorn to use " ponies," we can take our examinations fairly, without the trick of scribbling the answers beforehand on our cuffs or elsewhere; when we have done wrong, we can take our punishment manfully, without trying to sneak out of it and letting some innocent person be suspected or even disciplined for it. When we leave school and take up the active business of life, we can build on honorable work, done carefully and faithfully. Let no one need to watch us or inspect our performance to see if we have been shortening the quantity or "scamping" the quality of our work. We agree to work certain hours, on understood conditions; honor bids us fill these hours with patient work, having a single eye to the interest of our employer; it bids us live up to every condition of our self-chosen task. If we ourselves become employers, building life on honor means doing justice to our men, paying wages promptly and fully, and recognizing and rewarding merit. It means dealing justly in every trade, giving fair measure and just weight and due quality. If our chosen business has a certain dishonorable practice in it, it is our duty to try and "reform it altogether" if we can; no one knows how much he can do to improve the morality of his trade or business or profession until he has, very earnestly, tried. Honor forbids cheating an individual. It forbids cheating a corporation as well; if the "corporation has no soul," this is not a sufficient reason why you should not have a conscience! Pay your fare, then, if you take your ride in the horsecar, or the steam-car; the corporation has fulfilled its part of the contract in transporting you; fulfil your part by paying for the ride. It is dishonorable to take advantage of the mistake or oversight of those with. whom you have dealings; in making change, or exchange, the honorable man takes and keeps only what belongs to him. The honorable lawyer seeks, first of all, to have justice done, not to pervert it in the interest of a guilty client, that the innocent may suffer. The honorable physician prepares himself for his difficult profession. by long study, and despises the bogus diploma. The honorable clergyman respects the dignities of his profession, and in all his dealings follows the strictest code of personal morals. The honorable statesman makes only pledges that he intends to keep, and builds "platforms " on which he means to stand. Building life on honor is building it like a good master-builder, on honest day-labor, not on a contract out of which we seek to profit as much as possible. In the end it is always better to be, than to pretend to be. We are to respect the law; we are to respect public opinion; but, most of all, we are to respect our careful consciences. 66 Where you feel your honor grip, let that aye be your border," beyond which you will not go. NOTES. MAGNANIMITY is the end to be sought in all discourse of honor. The mind great in virtue, if not in talent, is strong, healthy, and serene; but parvanimity implies weakness, disease, and distress. "This is a manly world we live in. Our reverence is good for nothing, if it does not begin with self-respect." (O. W. Holmes.) "The wisest man could ask no more of fate (Lowell.) Some have complained that in the human world disease is catching while health is not. This is a mistake; health is at least as contagious as disease. But in the moral sphere the truth is obvious that honor calls out honor, the best way to advance in morality being to take the forward step yourself, relying on the innate disposition of men to do as they are done by. See De Quincey's story of A Noble Revenge. "Be noble! and the nobleness that lies The honorable persons in a community are the saving remnant, and they are never satisfied until public opinion inclines in favor of the just way which they advocate and practice. Moral progress usually begins with the exceptionally conscientious individual. He first persuades a few; in time the few become many, and the public opinion, which governs all modern states, soon expresses itself in law, if it is deemed expedient. The "law of honor," criticised by Porter (Elements of Moral Science), is the technical code prevailing in a certain class or profession; to this his objections are well founded. But the law of honor here set forth is limited by no artificial or class distinctions. Wordsworth's lines describe it: "Say, what is honor? 'T is the finest sense CHAPTER XI. PERSONAL HABITS. THE greater part of morality has reference directly to our relations with other persons. But a large portion of our duty concerns things that we are to do for ourselves, as no one else can do them so well for us, and that affect others only indirectly. I. Each of us has to care for his own person. Cleanliness of body and neatness in dress are matters of individual ethics, which we have to learn to attend to as early as we can in life. Such habits as frequent bathing and cleaning the teeth are parts of that physical virtue in which every human being should be diligent. Bodily health is so important in every way, in its bearings on our own happiness and the welfare of others, that we should make it no small part of the right life to conform all our physical habits to the rules of health. Some say that it is "a sin to be sick;" certainly, very much of the illness and disease in the world is avoidable. If this were prevented, as it might be, then a great addition would result to the comfort and prosperity of mankind. Among the foremost of the laws of health is Temperance, or moderation in eating and drinking. Eating to excess, not for the sake of satisfying the natural desire but for the mere pleasure of gratifying an appetite artificially stimulated, is a great evil. Gluttony, beside causing immediate distress, brings on many diseases; it unfits one for mental occupation, and it makes one careless of the welfare of others; it puts the animal above the intellectual part of us, where it should not |