The Value of a Good Reputation : Part 1

Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness
by John Mather Austin

"Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come." - 1 Tim. vi. 19.

In this language St. Paul asserts a principle which should commend itself to the mature consideration of every youthful mind. If the young would have their career honorable and prosperous - if they would enjoy the respect and confidence of community; if they would have the evening of their days calm, serene, and peaceful - they must prepare for it early in life. They must lay "a good foundation against the time to come" - a foundation which will be capable of sustaining the edifice they would erect. The building cannot be reared in strength and beauty, without it rests on a secure "corner-stone." The harvest cannot be gathered unless the seed is first cast into the ground. A wise Providence has so ordered it that success, prosperity, and happiness through life, and a respected and "green old age," are to be enjoyed only by careful preparation, prudent forecast, and assiduous culture, in the earlier periods of our existence.

"True wisdom, early sought and gained,
In age will give thee rest;
then improve the morn of life,
To make its evening blest."

The youthful live much in the future. They are fond of gazing into its unknown depths, and of endeavoring to trace the outline, at least, of the fortunes that await them. With ardent hope, with eager expectation, they anticipate the approach of coming years - confident they will bring to them naught but unalloyed felicity. But they should allow their anticipations of the future to be controlled by a well-balanced judgment, and moderated by the experience of those who have gone before them.

In looking to the future, there is one important inquiry which the young should put to their own hearts: - What do I most desire to become in mature life? What position am I anxious to occupy in society? What is the estimation in which I wish to be held by those within the circle of my acquaintance?

The answer to these inquiries, from the great mass of young people, can well be anticipated. There are none among them who desire to be disrespected and shunned by the wise and good - who are anxious to be covered with disgrace and infamy - who seek to be outcasts and vagabonds in the world. The thought that they were doomed to such a condition, would fill them with alarm. Every discreet youth will exclaim - "Nothing would gratify me more than to be honored and respected, as I advance in years; to move in good society; to have people seek my company, rather than shun it; to be looked up to as an example for others to imitate, and to enjoy the confidence of all around me."

Is not his the desire of the young of this large audience? Surely there can be none here so blind to the future, so lost to their own good, as to prefer a life of infamy and its ever-accompanying wretchedness, to respectability, prosperity, and true enjoyment? But how are these to be obtained? Respectability, prosperity, the good opinion of community, do not come simply at our bidding. We cannot reach forth our hands and take them, as we pluck the ripe fruit from the bending branch. Neither will wishing or hoping for them shower their blessings upon us. If we would obtain and enjoy them, we must labor for them - EARN them. They are only secured as the well-merited reward of a pure and useful life!

The first thing to be aimed at by the young, should be the establishment of a GOOD CHARACTER: In all their plans, anticipations, and prospects for future years, this should form the grand starting-point! - the chief corner-stone! It should be the foundation of every hope and thought of prosperity and happiness in days to come. It is the only basis on which such a hope can mature to full fruition. A good character, established in the season of youth, becomes a rich and productive moral soil to its possessor. Planted therein, the "Tree of Life" will spring forth in a vigorous growth. Its roots will strike deep and strong, in such a soil, and draw thence the utmost vigor and fruitfulness. Its trunk will grow up in majestic proportions - its wide-spreading branches will be clothed with a green luxuriant foliage, "goodly to look upon" - the most beautiful of blossoms will in due time, blush on every twig - and at length each limb and bough shall bend beneath the rich, golden fruit, ready to drop into the hand. Beneath its grateful shade you can find rest and repose, when the heat and burden of life come upon you. And of its delicious fruit, you can pluck and eat, and obtain refreshment and strength, when the soul becomes wearied with labor and care, or the weight of years. Would you behold such a tree? Remember it grows alone on the soil of a good reputation!! Labor to prepare such a soil.

Believe not, ye youthful, that God has made the path of virtue and religion hard and thorny. Believe not he has overhung it with dark clouds, and made it barren of fruit and beauty. Believe not that rugged rocks, and briers, and brambles, choke the way, and lacerate the limbs of those who would walk therein! No! he has made it a smooth and peaceful path - an easy and pleasant way. - "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."

The young who overlook these considerations - who lay their plans, and cherish their expectations, in reference to their future career, without any regard to the importance of a good character - who, in marking out their course, lose sight of the necessity of laboring to establish a worthy reputation to commence with - who, in building their hopes of success and happiness, are not convinced that "a good name" is the only foundation on which such hopes can legitimately rest - have commenced wrong. They have made a radical and lamentable MISTAKE at the outset. A mistake, which, unless speedily corrected, will prove most disastrous in all its influences, and be keenly felt and deplored throughout life.

Derby, Miller, and Company, 1851