Near by the Temple of Success based on the three pillars of Health, Industry, and Judgment, stands another temple. Behind the curtains of its doors is concealed the secret of happiness. Temperaments will interpret it differently. Various experiences will produce variations of the blessing. A man may make a failure in his affairs and yet remain happy. The spiritual and inner life is a thing apart from material success. Even a man who, like Robert Louis Stevenson, suffers from chronic ill-health can still be happy.
But we must leave out these exceptions and deal with the normal man, who lives by and for his practical work, and who desires and enjoys both success and health. For the man who has attained success and health there are three great rules: "To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly." These are the three pillars of the Temple of Happiness.
Justice, which is another word for honesty in practice and in intention, is perhaps the easiest of the virtues for the successful man of affairs to acquire.
The idea that nearly all successful men are unscrupulous is very frequently accepted. To the man who knows, the doctrine is simply foolish. The contrary view that success probably implies a moral defect springs from judging a man by the opinions of his rivals, enemies, or neighbours. The real judges of a man's character are his colleagues. No man can be happy if he suffers from a perpetual doubt of his own justice.
The second quality, Mercy, has been regarded as something in contrast or conflict with justice. Mercy resembles the prerogative of the judge to temper the law to suit individual cases. A man wants to be certain of his own just inclination before he can dare to handle mercy.
But there is certainly one form of humility which all successful men ought to be able to practise. They can avoid a fatal tendency to look down on and despise the younger men who are planting their feet in their own footsteps. The established arrogance which refuses credit or opportunity to rising talent is unpardonable. A man who gives way to what is really simply a form of jealousy cannot hope to be happy, for jealousy is above all others the passion which tears the heart.
The great stumbling block which prevents success embracing humility is the difficulty of distinguishing between the humble mind and the cowardly one. When does humility merge into moral cowardice and courage into arrogance? Some men in history have had this problem solved for them. Stonewall Jackson is a type of the man of supreme courage and action and judgment who was yet supremely humble—but he owed his bodily and mental qualities to nature and his humility to the intensity of his Presbyterian faith. Few men are so fortunately compounded.
Still, if the moral judgment is worth anything, a man should be able to practise courage without arrogance and to walk humbly without fear.
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