If Henry Drummond was wise in calling an abstract quality, Love, the Greatest Thing in the World – then Love in the concrete, embodied in Character, is the Grandest Thing in the World. Drummond himself, in his life-story, is far grander than anything he ever wrote, for his was “the life of a radiant personality.”
“You met him,” says Dr. George Adam Smith, his biographer, “a graceful, well-dressed gentleman, tall and lithe, with a swing in his walk and a brightness in his face, who seemed to carry no cares, and to know neither presumption nor timidity. You spoke, and found him keen for any of a hundred interests. He fished, he shot, he skated, as few can; he played cricket; he would go any distance to see a fire or a football match. He had a new story or a new puzzle or a new joke every time he met you. Was it on the street? He drew you to watch two messenger-boys meet, grin, knock each other’s hat off, lay down their baskets, and enjoy a friendly chaffer at marbles. Was it on the train? He read you a fresh tale of his favorite—Bret Harte. Was it a rainy afternoon in a country house? He described a new game, and in five minutes everybody was in the thick of it. If it was a children’s party, they clamored for his sleight-of-hand.” Drummond as a boy was manly, and as a man he carried a boy’s heart in his breast.
“The Prince,” he was called by the young men who knew him. “He had a genius for friendship,” says Professor Grose. He so won the affection of workingmen that one said, after Drummond died, that he almost felt as if he must pray to him—to invoke his influence for good, from out the heavenly realms.
“His influence,” says Ian Maclaren, who first knew Drummond as a boy on the cricket field, “more than that of any other man I met, was mesmeric—which means that, while other men affect their fellows by speech and example, he seized one directly by his living personality. Quite sensible and unromantic people grew uneasy in his presence, and roused themselves to resistance,--as one might do who recognized a magician, and feared his spell. Men were at once arrested, interested, fascinated by the very sight of the man, and could not take their eyes off him. It was as if the prince of one’s imagination had dropped in among common folk.”
He was the youth who sprang to the aid of Moody and Sankey in the Scottish stronghold, who caught hold of young men and persuaded them in untechnical phrase to do what their praying mothers on earth and God Most High would have them do; the quiet, restrained evangelist, not twenty-three, about whom all men gathered as their leader when the American evangelists left Scotland. A stalwart theologian, too, was he, who detected the natural laws that were at work in the spiritual world—a thinker simple, clear, presenting truth in the concrete. He, too, was the explorer plunging into the wilds of Africa, without giving a thought to a bookmaker’s fame; and while a quarter of a million people were reading his books, he was crowding along the work of the hour at the world’s end in America or Australia.
How eagerly men sought him, clung to him, an followed him as he followed the Master!
Do we ask – What is Character? Is it not that sum of qualities which distinguishes one person from another? Do we say that Drummond’s versatility was his distinguishing characteristic? It was, rather, his unique combination of high qualities; and no man can acquire a far-reaching influence without a fair mental balance, with great strength upon many sides.
If it is no part of my intent, in this booklet, to catalogue those mental and moral traits of most value to mankind, yet it is my intent to name certain deep-rooted dispositions, which are essential in the mental make-up of those who set before themselves a high ideal in seeking for the Grandest Thing in the World.
True worth is in being, not seeming,--
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good, not in the dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There’s nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.
Alice Cary
A gentleman’s first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation, and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies; one may say, simply, “fineness of nature.” -Ruskin
There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. . . By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even to ourselves. –Stevenson
On the steps of a public building in Florence an old, disabled soldier sat playing a violin. By his side stood a faithful dog holding in his mouth a veteran’s hat, into which, now and then, a passer-by would drop a coin. A gentleman, in passing, paused, and asked for the violin; first tuning it, he then began to play.
The sight of a well-dressed man, playing a violin in such a place, with such associations, attracted the passers-by, and they stopped. The music was so charming that they stood enchanted. The number of contributions largely increased. The hat became so heavy that the dog began to growl. It was emptied, and soon filled again. The company grew until a great congregation was gathered. The performer played one of the national airs, handed the violin back to its owner, and quickly retired.
One of the company present said: “This is Amard Bucher, the world-renowned violinist. He did this for charity; let us follow his example.” And immediately the hat was passed for a collection for the old man. Mr. Bucher did not give a penny, but he flooded the old man’s day with sunshine.
So, too, it was related that when Michael Angelo was at the height of his fame, when monarchs and popes were paying fabulous prices for his works, a little boy met him on the street, with an old pencil and a piece of dirty brown paper, and asked him for a picture. The great artist sat on the curbstone and drew a picture for his little admirer.
A like charming story is told of Jenny Lind, the great Swedish singer, which shows her noble nature. Once when walking with a friend she saw an old woman tottering into the door of an almshouse. Her pity was at once excited, and she entered the door, ostensibly to rest for a moment, but really to give something to the poor woman. To her surprise, the old woman began at once to talk of Jenny Lind, saying,--
“I have lived a long time in the world, and desire nothing before I die but to hear Jenny Lind.”
“Would it make you happy?” inquired Jenny.
“Ay, that it would; but such folks as I can’t go to the playhouse, and so I shall never hear her.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” said Jenny. “Sit down, my friend, and listen.”
She then sang, with genuine glee, one of her best songs. The old woman was wild with delight and wonder, when she added,--
“Now you have heard Jenny Lind.”