Strong Men | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1875

Strong Men.

Strength of character consists of two things—power of will, and power of self-restraint. It requires two things, therefore, for its existence—strong feelings and strong command over them. We all very often mistake strong feeling for strong character. A man who bears all before him, under whose wild bursts of fury the children of the household quake, because he has his own way in all things, we call him a strong man. The truth is, that he is a weak man; it is his passions that are strong; he, mastered by them, is weak. You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feeling he subdues, and by the power of those that subdue him. And hence composure is often the highest result of strength. Did we ever see a man receive a flagrant injury and then reply calmly? That is a man morally strong. Or did we ever see a man in anguish stand as if carved out of solid rock, mastering himself? Or one bearing a hopeless daily trial remain silent, and never tell the world what cankered his home peace? That is strength. He who, with strong passions, remains chaste; he who, indignation within him, can be provoked and yet restrain himself and forgive, those are strong men, the moral heroes.—Sel.