What is your personal code of honor? Just what do you consider dishonorable
or disgraceful in personal conduct? It seems to me that we had all grown rather
careless in holding ourselves to any code of honor and just a little ashamed of
admitting that we had such a standard. At best, our rules of life were becoming
a little flexible, and we had rather a contemptuous memory of the knights of
King Arthur's round table, who fought so often for their honor and still at
times forgot it so completely, while we pitied the Pilgrim Fathers for
their stern inflexibility in what they considered the right way of life.
Jonathan Edwards
(1703-1758)
American Theologian and Minister
Author of the classic sermon
"Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God"
Just now, while such mighty forces of right and wrong are contending in
the world, we are overhauling our mental processes a little and finding out
some curious things about ourselves. We can all think of examples of different
ideas to what is dishonorable. There are persons who strictly fulfill their given
word. To them, it would be a disgrace not to do as they agree, not to keep a
promise, while others give a promise easily and break their word with even greater ease.
Some persons have a high regard for the truth and would feel themselves disgraced
if they told a lie, while others prefer a lie even though the truth were easier.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh (left) a man with impeccable credential as
a public servant in the court system for many years, and who has been selected by
President Trump as his next nominee for the Supreme Court, has been
falsely accused of sexual misconduct by a woman named Christine Blasey-Ford,
( right) a California psychology professor and shill for the abortion industry.
Ford is at the center of a vicious, politically-motivated witch hunt against Judge Kavanaugh,
launched by the Democrat opposition and other outside influences who are determine
to keep the murder of innocent unborn children and the profiting from the sales of the body
parts of aborted babies for scientific and medical research legally sanctioned in America.
There are persons who have no scruples to prevent them from eavesdropping,
reading letters not intended for them, or any manner of prying into other
persons' private affairs, and to others the doing of such things is in a manner horrifying.
There are scandalmongers who are so eager to find and scatter to the four winds a bit
of unsavory gossip that they are actually guilty in their own souls of the slips of
virtue that they imagine in others, and contrasting with these, are people so
pure minded that they would think themselves disgraced if they
entertained in their thoughts such idle gossip.
I know a woman whose standard of honor demands only "The greatest good
to the greatest number, including myself." The difficulty with this is that a
finite mind can scarcely know what is good for other persons or even one's self.
Another woman's code of honor is to be fair, to always give the
"square deal" to the other person, and this is very difficult to do
because the judgment is so likely to be partial.
There is a peculiar thing about people who hold all these different ideas
of what they will allow themselves to do. We seldom wish to live up to the
high standard to which we hold the other fellow. The person who will not keep
his word becomes angry if a promise to him is broken.
Those who have no regard for the truth in what they say expect that
others will be truthful when talking to them. People who pry into affairs
which are none of their business consider the same actions disgraceful in others,
and gossips think that they should be exempt from the treatment they give to other people.
I never knew it to fail, and it is very amusing at times to listen to the condemnation
of others' actions by one who is even more guilty of the same thing.
It does one good to adhere strictly to a rule of conduct if that rule is what it
should be. Just the exercise of the will in refusing to follow the desires which do not
conform to the standard set is strengthening to the character, while the determination
to do the thing demanded by that standard, and the doing of it, however difficult,
is an exercise for the strengthening of the willpower, which is far better
than anything recommended for that purpose by books.
If you doubt that it pays in cash and other material advantages to have a
high code of honor and live up to it, just notice the plight of the German government.
At the beginning of the war, they threw away their honor, broke their pledged word,
and proclaimed to the world that their written agreements were mere scraps of paper.
Now when they ask for a conference to discuss a "peace by agreement" the allies
in reply, in effect, "but an agreement with you would in no sense be binding
upon you. We cannot trust again to your word of honor since your signed
pledge is a mere "scrap of paper" and your verbal promises even less."
William Allen Rogers
(1918)
It is plain, then, that nations are judged by their standards of honor and
treated accordingly and it is the same with individuals. We judge them by
their code of honor, and the way they live up to it.
It is impossible to hold two standards, one for others-for what is dishonorable
in them would be the same for us, and that seems, in the end, to be the only sure test,
embracing and covering all the rest, the highest code of honor yet voiced:
"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them!"
"Our Code of Honor"
(October 1918)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Prolific American writer
Author of the "Little House" Books.
Essay taken from the book,
"Little House In The Ozarks"
A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler
The Rediscovered Writings
Edited by Stephen W. Hines
Guidepost Edition
(1991)
a public servant in the court system for many years, and who has been selected by
President Trump as his next nominee for the Supreme Court, has been
falsely accused of sexual misconduct by a woman named Christine Blasey-Ford,
( right) a California psychology professor and shill for the abortion industry.
Ford is at the center of a vicious, politically-motivated witch hunt against Judge Kavanaugh,
launched by the Democrat opposition and other outside influences who are determine
to keep the murder of innocent unborn children and the profiting from the sales of the body
parts of aborted babies for scientific and medical research legally sanctioned in America.
There are persons who have no scruples to prevent them from eavesdropping,
reading letters not intended for them, or any manner of prying into other
persons' private affairs, and to others the doing of such things is in a manner horrifying.
There are scandalmongers who are so eager to find and scatter to the four winds a bit
of unsavory gossip that they are actually guilty in their own souls of the slips of
virtue that they imagine in others, and contrasting with these, are people so
pure minded that they would think themselves disgraced if they
entertained in their thoughts such idle gossip.
I know a woman whose standard of honor demands only "The greatest good
to the greatest number, including myself." The difficulty with this is that a
finite mind can scarcely know what is good for other persons or even one's self.
Another woman's code of honor is to be fair, to always give the
"square deal" to the other person, and this is very difficult to do
because the judgment is so likely to be partial.
There is a peculiar thing about people who hold all these different ideas
of what they will allow themselves to do. We seldom wish to live up to the
high standard to which we hold the other fellow. The person who will not keep
his word becomes angry if a promise to him is broken.
Those who have no regard for the truth in what they say expect that
others will be truthful when talking to them. People who pry into affairs
which are none of their business consider the same actions disgraceful in others,
and gossips think that they should be exempt from the treatment they give to other people.
I never knew it to fail, and it is very amusing at times to listen to the condemnation
of others' actions by one who is even more guilty of the same thing.
It does one good to adhere strictly to a rule of conduct if that rule is what it
should be. Just the exercise of the will in refusing to follow the desires which do not
conform to the standard set is strengthening to the character, while the determination
to do the thing demanded by that standard, and the doing of it, however difficult,
is an exercise for the strengthening of the willpower, which is far better
than anything recommended for that purpose by books.
If you doubt that it pays in cash and other material advantages to have a
high code of honor and live up to it, just notice the plight of the German government.
At the beginning of the war, they threw away their honor, broke their pledged word,
and proclaimed to the world that their written agreements were mere scraps of paper.
Now when they ask for a conference to discuss a "peace by agreement" the allies
in reply, in effect, "but an agreement with you would in no sense be binding
upon you. We cannot trust again to your word of honor since your signed
pledge is a mere "scrap of paper" and your verbal promises even less."
(1918)
It is plain, then, that nations are judged by their standards of honor and
treated accordingly and it is the same with individuals. We judge them by
their code of honor, and the way they live up to it.
It is impossible to hold two standards, one for others-for what is dishonorable
in them would be the same for us, and that seems, in the end, to be the only sure test,
embracing and covering all the rest, the highest code of honor yet voiced:
"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them!"
"Our Code of Honor"
(October 1918)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Prolific American writer
Author of the "Little House" Books.
Essay taken from the book,
"Little House In The Ozarks"
A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler
The Rediscovered Writings
Edited by Stephen W. Hines
Guidepost Edition
(1991)
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