A Man of Character...

“Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.” said Emerson.

Character is, at its root, what a man is. It is beneath the “who” – that is simply a symptom of the “what”. It underlies the “how” and “why” for the same reason.

A man of character sees the world as he sees himself, and true virtuous character guides a man to see himself in the bare light of truth.

He will no more abhor the flaws he sees than he will adore the strengths.

In his honesty, a man of character will understand that he, as all things in nature, is a composite character – a melding of strength and weakness, wisdom and folly, disinterest and passion, patience and temper, tolerance and prejudice, and on and on.

A man of true and virtuous character seeks to understand his purpose, to know his place and to do his duty, regardless of the outcome.

A man of character is not swayed or discouraged – he does not lose heart in the face of adversity or setbacks. I believe that William Shakespeare masterfully portrayed this in his dramatization of the Battle of Agincourt. In 1415 Henry V, king of England, led a small expeditionary force into France to reclaim English territory. As they sought to retreat to England via Calais, they were opposed by a vastly superior French force. The French outnumbered the English by more than 4 to 1 – and by some counts the numbers were 36,000 French to 6,000 English with English knights outnumbered 10 to 1. The English were also suffering greatly with fatigue and disease.

As the English surveyed the battlefield-to-be on the morning of 25 October 1415, the king’s cousin, Westmoreland, is portrayed to have said wistfully, “O that we now had here but one ten thousand of those men in England that do no work to-day!”

Not an entirely irrational desire, under the circumstances.

Henry was not only a leader; he was a realist. He knew that wishing for more men would do nothing but focus the mind of his army on their desperate situation. Instead, he declared his personal belief, exposing his moral compass to his army. Honor, at all costs. Here is what Shakespeare envisioned Henry’s bold and resoundingly final reply to have been.

“What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

“God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.

“By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.

“No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!

“Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

“This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

“He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

“Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.

“This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”

But virtue goes beyond outward courage, and character lies deeper than marrow. A man of character indeed seeks to find his virtue, his divine purpose, the end for which he was designed.

When he does, he defines a course to achieve it. Nothing will dissuade him in his relentless pursuit. And at the same time, he will not forget the injunction of the Savior, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” A man of character seeks to have a Godly love for his fellow creatures.

The weak, the infirm, the simple, children, women, elders are not objects of contempt, nor are they objects of his condescension. The man of character views these with compassion. He treats these with kindness. He does not mock or take advantage. He does not ignore or avoid. He embraces them as his life path crosses theirs. He revels in the richness of their perspective and experience. All mankind are his “friends”.

As “Dear Abby” is said to have advised, “The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.”

The much-maligned Sarah Palin once said that, “we should pray that our soldiers are on God’s task” in the wars we are fighting in the Middle East. I think she is right; after all, whose task should they be on instead? In fact, I think that we should not only pray as she said, but even more, we should pray that we are on God’s task in our actions of every day. A man of character knows that he is on “God’s task”.

The man of character has done more than lived a life of self-denial. Hermits, ascetics, mystics all live that way, yet what do they contribute to the world? An absence of evil is not the same as an abundance of goodness. The man of character has simultaneously put off his natural tendencies and desires, while nurturing the divine seed that is in him. He has replaced lust with love and pride with contentment in every dimension of his life.

As the man of character goes through the world, all people who meet him are lifted to a higher plane – one from which they will go on, never being the same again. He sees the world as good because he plants the seeds of good in it.