honesty is an active vital force in one's life, and not merely abstaining from doing wrong.

Roosevelt himself is a good example of rugged honesty. He may have weak points in his character, he may make mistakes, but not even his worst enemies accuse him of being dishonest. Honesty means to Roosevelt an active vital force, and not mere passivity.

There is a tremendous difference between a man who stands in his community as rugged, aggressive, invincible in his integrity, a man who is positively honest, and a man who merely refrains from doing what his neighbors would consider wrong.

There is a great deal more courage and grit in rugged honesty than what we might call mere honesty.

Every man should strive to be not only honest in others' eyes but scrupulously honest also in his own secret, inner knowledge.

There may be a great difference between reputation for honesty and an honest character. "Character lives in a man, reputation outside of him." A man's character is what he is; his reputation is what the public thinks him to be.

Every man ought to feel there is something in him that bribery can not touch, that influence can not buy; something that is not for sale; something he would not sacrifice nor tamper with at any price; something he would give his life for if necessary. The power of the right of truth to protect from

worry and anxiety is beyond the ability of words to describe. The straightforward, clean, transparent man has nothing to fear, for he has done nothing of which to be ashamed. He has tried to do right in everything, to be just and fair, and to give everybody a square deal. Why should he fear?

If he is grounded in the principle of honesty, nothing can harm him.

There are some men who are honest enough under ordinary conditions; they work conscientiously for others and pay their bills; do as they agree to do, and no ordinary temptation will tempt them from the right. But let a very unusual opportunity come to them, an opportunity which seems to be perfectly "safe," a chance to make a good thing for themselves by using their official position or influence to close a contract or some deal which might not be the best thing for those who enter into it, and they will strain their honesty for a little graft.

A great many men are not large enough to look down on the dollar. The dollar is the larger, and they look up to it. The dollar tempts them. Somehow the power locked up in it, what it stands for in the popular mind, warps and twists vast multitudes of men out of their orbit.

Did you ever notice that when men who are supposed to be very strong go to pieces, it usually can be traced back to trifling temptations, to little things, to some little breach of trust in some apparently trivial matter? Prominent men who go

wrong do not usually begin by a colossal fraud. It is the apparently trifling dishonesty that makes people lose their confidence in them. "Just one little lie to help me out of this difficulty," a man says to himself. "I won't count this. Just one little embezzlement; no one will know it, and I can return the money before it will be needed."

Metals, and all solids, have what is called a melting point. At a certain degree of heat they tend to liquefy. We test men's honesty by the different degrees of temptation they withstand. Some people are very honest in the absence of any special temptation. They are indifferently honest, but their honesty melts at a certain temperature of the temptation.

There is a certain kind of dishonesty which does not seem so very wrong to many people, and this is brought about by a curious psychological law that the constant doing of a thing, the constant repetition of a wrong, gradually robs it of its enormity and makes it seem more and more legiti

mate.

We are all more or less guilty of violating the strict law of integrity. We excuse certain acts on the ground that "they are not so very wrong. How many of us are constantly indulging in what are known as "white lies," that is, what we call less harmful deceptions!

Some one has said that society could not exist without these diplomatic deceptions. If everybody

told the truth, they say, everybody would be offended with everybody else. Nobody could bear to be told the exact blunt truth about himself.

"Truth never excludes tact, which, after all, enables us to be artistic in our search for truth. Tact and truth can keep house together without insincerity.

"One can love truth and yet obtrude it where it is unwelcome. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. One can harbor truth without launching it out on every stormy sea. There never was an American who more perfectly personified truth in his character than Lincoln. Nor has there ever been an American who exercised more tact in the presentation of the truth to those about him."

The human mind is constructed for truth telling. This is its normal condition, and under the exercise of true living and true thinking the character becomes strong and robust.

Wholeness, completeness, come into he l fe from tr

th, f om s nce ity. Sincerity is made up of two words—sine and cere, sine, without, and cere, wax. Without wax. And it means absolutely pure, transparent.

There is something in the mind which thrives upon sincerity and which protests against all that is false, against all sham. Nothing ever quite satisfies this longing but absolute truth. No modification, no deception satisfies this inward hunger. The mind thrives and expands when expressing truth,

but becomes sickly and weak when forced to express whatever is false.

Living a lie, turning life into a deceptive machine, is not only demoralizing, but it is always a confession of weakness. The strong, balanced mind does not have to resort to a subterfuge. It can afford to be transparent, open, because it is conscious of strength and does not need to hide anything.

There is a tremendous power in transparency of character.

During the Civil War in America, when General Lee was consulting one of his officers as to a certain movement of his army, a simple farmer's boy overheard the General remark that he had decided to march upon Gettysburg instead of Harrisburg. The quick-witted boy at once telegraphed this fact to Governor Curtin. "I would give my right hand," said the Governor, "to know if this boy tells the truth." A corporal replied, "Governor, I know that boy. It is impossible for him to lie. There is not a drop of false blood in his veins." In fifteen minutes the Union troops were marching toward Gettysburg. The world knows the result.

If we study carefully the histories of the prominent men who experience a drop in the public regard, we find that there was something lacking in their early training, that they were not grounded in moral principles, that they were not trained to