A Man of Real Integrity
H. W. Beecher. Numbers 14:24 But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully… But to the young — to those who are beginning life — I would fain speak. I would fain inspire them with a higher conception of the safety and of the indispensableness of high moral qualities. Let not those that seem to be succeeding in life tempt you from the simple moralities of your father's house, which you learned at your mother's knee. I tell you there is no honour in this world like the honour of honest men. There is no honour like that of men whom you cannot tempt to swerve or bend. The dearest and the scarcest thing in the market to-day is a man who is thoroughgoing and clear-headed, who has right intentions, who chooses clean measures for clean ends, and who is unbribable. Why, such a man as that does not want a statue in Central Park: he is his own monument. We have enough men who are honest as the world goes; that is, who are honest as long as they see it to be their interest to be so, and who will never be dishonest except where dishonesty is profitable. We have men who will bend like a Damascus blade, clear round, hoop-like, and spring back on communion day, straight as a sword; but men who can go out into life and stand alone; men who can say, "The kingdom of my thoughts is greater than any other kingdom"; men who say, "I cannot sleep, nor eat, nor live with a dishonest man, and if I were that man I could not live"; men who believe in the kingdom of God — men of that kind are above all price in every vocation and everywhere; and I wish I could inspire the young with the sense that I have of the value of moral elements and with my faith therein; and higher than all others, and the very breastplate of the preparation for life, is a keen and abiding sense of real integrity. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it. WEB: but my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him will I bring into the land into which he went; and his seed shall possess it.