1933 Cedrus Yearbook

ual thieves, and habitually bad in other respects, and all their neighbors knew it, and they knew that their neighbors knew it, and yet those men have been reclaimed. The ideal impulse somehow arose in their hearts, and somehow it was reinforced sufficiently to break the tyranny of all the old habits. Good character must look for its source to Life, that timeless eternal Life, which we call God. When we have read the most useful psychology and philo- sophy of character building—which of course is a very wise thingto do—we come back, with a feeling of great satisfaction, to the simple but profound re- ligious position that the good which springs up within us is the movement of the Divine Spirit, the uprising of the life of God. And if we seize upon that, and give ourselves to it, power will come, and more power, enough to conquer, and enough even to be more than conquerers. When a man sets himself to acquire character by an act of will, when his dominating motive tran- scends any mere individual interest or advantage, when the acquirement of spiritual quality is supreme in his mind, his life fills up from the eternal sources as a well fills up from the springs. It is true to say that in one sense the well is only so many feet deep, but in another sense it is as deep as the world; however much you draw water from it, it constantly refills, because, in the last analysis, it is in communication with all the moisture of the world. The well may be in your bAck garden, but the Atlantic Ocean,the Pacific Ocean,and every ocean there is, helps to keep it full. The sun draws water from the ocean, and the clouds bring it back to earth, to feed the springs that fill the well. The soul of a man is something like that. It is in com- munication with infinite resources of spiritual power; it is upon these resources that it draws in the making of character. To have learned from experi- ence is the finest guaranty of moral victory. When good character is built, man himself is the builder; but through him another Builder, without Whom there can never be true success, is operating. —Rev. R. W. Ustick, Pastor of First United Presbyterian Church of Springfield, Ohio. Alumnus of Cedarville College.