Personality – The Lloyd C Douglas Page

Personality III: Sliding

A page from the sermon “Personality (Third Phase),” preached by Lloyd C Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on 2/1/1920. In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

This is an excerpt from the sermon, “Personality (Third Phase),” preached by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on February 1, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

“There is also that tendency in middle life to slide. After the senses have become jaded, after the bloom has been rubbed off the ideals and anticipation holds out fewer dazzling fingers, then comes the menace of what an old-time bard called ‘the destruction that wasteth at noonday.’

“There was Saul. I would not weary you with a long story. Just a few broad charcoal strokes will suffice; a mere silhouette of him.

“His nation wanted a king. Saul was a brawny youth, handsome as any Terrean ever was. Head and shoulders over any other young man of his generation. And when the old judge, who had it all to say who should be appointed king, spied this super-youth, he called his long quest ended, invited him to an interview, told him to go home and wind up his affairs, and prepare to wear his nation’s crown.

“And Saul was completely overpowered by the high distinction that had come upon him, right out of the blue. He was afraid he wasn’t quite up to the part. Indeed, he hid himself among the freight of the caravan, half-inclined to ‘beat it,’ as we say, and evade the terrific responsibility. But persuaded at length that it was his duty to obey the call to kingship, he acceded to the throne, robed himself in the vestiture of royalty, and looked — and for a time acted — every inch a king.

“The years passed. Saul concentrated more and more upon the interests of his court as against the larger interests of his kingdom. More and more he took on the role of an autocrat, aristocrat — less and less the attitude of service to his nation. Little by little he came to regard with jealous hatred every strong personality in his court. Even the shepherd lad, brought in to play for him upon the harp, excited Saul’s envy until he was filled with murderous rage. Until, bye and bye, it was said of him, in curious words which are spoken in a tone of bleak finality, his spirit left him. And then the chronicler observes, ‘But Saul wist not that his soul had departed from him.’

“It was gone, but Saul didn’t know it. He didn’t miss it. He still had his crown; his scepter; his ermine — or whatever was the equivalent of ermine in Saul’s regal establishment; but his soul was gone.

“Where? How? When? Nobody could say.

“He had just aped the tawdry pomp of his heathen contemporaries a little too long. He had just allowed his own interests to outweigh his vested responsibilities a little too far. He had allowed his soul to come out of him gradually, until there was nothing left of it — even if he wist not that it had departed from him.

“If you have never read this majestic poem which recites the details of Saul’s tragedy and the Nemesis that overtook him, do not much longer deny yourself that experience. I do not mean to narrate any more of it. Just to stamp this one sentence down hard upon your consciousness: ‘And Saul wist not that his soul had departed from him.’

“How many a man who, as a youth, was visited by splendid dreams of a future made bright by loyal friendships, worthy achievements, and the reasonable rewards of fair deeds, has drifted and drifted on toward the twilight of age — morose, dissatisfied; both hands full of gold, perhaps; barns filled with corn, perhaps; ready to eat, drink, and be merry — and when his soul is required, he finds that he hasn’t a soul. It has departed, though he may not have observed its flight.

“And since we have been standing for a moment before an old-world portrait, let us tarry in this closing moment before another. The great emancipator of this same nation has been up on a hillcrest to commune with God concerning his responsiblity as a leader. The whole nation has been waiting in the valley for his return. And when he came down and rejoined them, it was said of him that his face was illumined. And the historian adds, ‘And Moses wist not that his face shone.’

“He was reflecting the glory that was his by virtue of his spiritual contact with his Father, but he didn’t know that his face shone. If he had known it and had thought about it and had prided himself on this distinction, perhaps the strange light would have departed from his eyes. But he was unaware of it, simply because he was too much wrapped up in the love he bore his people, and his sense of high obligation to serve them.

“I think we shall find it true that most men and women who are able to exercise great power over their fellows wist not that their faces are illumined. And just because they do not know it — being too much engrossed with the duties thrust upon them to love, to serve, to lift, to heal, to redeem — their faces shine.”

Personality III: Cynicism

by Ronald R Johnson

The following is an excerpt from the sermon, “Personality (Third Phase),” preached by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on February 1, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.):

“I turn now to the final phase of our subject with much reluctance. Until now we have been talking of the most pleasant possibilities of the theme. Now we must briefly take stock of those conditions by which personality becomes impaired, if not altogether lost.

“What are these conditions?

“Perhaps we had better concentrate upon the most common cause of this tragedy: the withering blight of unwholesome influences during the plastic period of adolescence.

“I am glad that I do not know exactly how many keen-eyed, splendid youths have come to this place of high privilege where we live [the University of Michigan]… resolved to make the very most of their lives, who have failed either to realize their own bright dreams or to justify the investment made in them — all because they early fell easy victims to influences which they had neither the will, wit, nor wisdom to combat. And these influences were human influences, generated by persons whose outlook upon life was wholly opportunistic, selfish, sordid, petty, reprehensible.

“In this dull, gray atmosphere of doubt, distrust, and excessive sophistication which hovers over so many quarters where students congregate, our ambitious youth struggles for a little time to hold on to a group of ideals which seem less and less worth holding, every day, until he himself turns scoffer — and then he is done. He goes out, at length, to make his way, but it is a lonesome way, and his friendships must ever be sought among his own kind — the kind that feels as he feels about life. They are in the world for what they can get, like birds of prey. They will as promptly and effectively invade his rights as any, and he knows it. He mentally puts up his guard to defend himself against a whole race for which he bears no love — a race that will do him hurt unless he practices eternal vigilance.

“I have seen them come to college through these many years past, full of eager enthusiasm, ingenuous, lovable, arms outstretched to the world, ready to greet it with open palms. I have seen many of them go, furtive, suspicious, eyes heavy-lidded with the growing weight of distrust, incipient lines of cynicism penciling the corners of the mouth — so plainly that he who runs may read their message.” [This is a reference to Habakkuk 2:2.]

“Coming in with open palms; going out with clenched fists, to meet and overcome the world. And meanwhile the personality has escaped. Nobody can say exactly where it has gone or precisely when it took its leave — but it is gone.

“The man himself may hardly be aware of his loss, but his personality is gone. Whether he may find it possible, in later life, to retrieve it is a question I should not like to try to answer, because I do not know. All I know about it is that there isn’t room enough inside any human skin for a cultivated cynicism and a forceful personality — and cynicism is a thoroughly disintegrating mental obsession. Once it takes full possession and begins to color one’s thoughts about life, I fear the results are almost invariably dismal in the extreme.”

Personality III: Other People

by Ronald R Johnson

This is from the sermon, “Personality (Third Phase),” preached by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on February 1, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.):

“Now, as sons of God, we automatically constitute a human brotherhood. I do not intend to review that argument, already treated at some length, except to remind you that we found it to be true that no man can properly express his personality until he recognizes this principle as an immutable law of his life. Until he has built this principle into his thinking, he is an Ishmaelite among strangers. His hand is against every man’s hand. His personal interests are always taking priority over every other man’s interests.

“In this connection, I stated that there are no practiced tricks of manner or gesture or posture or appeal or approach to a stranger that will correctly imitate the attitude of a man who, without artifice but in deep sincerity, follows the inclination of his own heart and greets all men as his brothers.

“I was greatly impressed to notice, in yesterday’s Literary Digest, the following, under the department given to ‘Business Efficiency.’ A well known banker was quoted as saying:

“‘When I entered the banking business a good many years ago, I had a number of copy-book ideas about how I should meet people. Always give a firm, strong grip in shaking hands, look the other man in the eye when you talk to him, let him know that you are glad to see him, etc. These were some of my ideas. They didn’t last long, though. Old Mr. Block, president of the institution, called me over to his desk one day in his abrupt manner. ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘you are a promising chap in this bank…. [But] I don’t like the way you meet people. And I don’t think they like it, either. You act as though you were doing it by rule. Act naturally. Don’t be affected. If you are sincerely interested in the other fellow, he’ll know it even if you growl. Take that for what it’s worth.’ So [continues this banker] I believe that ‘man-to-man’ sincerity is the best method of dealing with all persons. This is all there is to it. It’s so simple, it’s hard to believe.”

Douglas continues:

“Now, my reason for quoting this man’s opinion is twofold. I’m glad to hear him say that success in human relations is all based upon sincerity. But it is even more to the point to hear him saying that it is so simple it is almost unbelievable. This is the principle that the Master-man was always insisting upon.

“Religion was everywhere encrusted with old crystallized rites and ceremonies which had quite lost their meaning for all but a very few people. Some said that the temple was God’s headquarters and that there He must be found, if at all. Others were equally sure that He was to be discovered in the sacred groves.

“But, said Jesus, God is a Spirit. And the direct course to Him was a simple recognition of His Fatherhood, our sonship, and the sure consciousness of this indissoluble bond. Indeed, the Nazarene came to believe that only in the ingenuous attitude of childhood could this fact be properly comprehended. ‘Except ye become as little children,’ said He, ‘ye shall not enter into His spiritual kingdom.’

“Equally simple were human relationships. The other man is my brother. If he wrongs me, he is still my brother. If he asks forgiveness, I must forgive him. If not, he is still my brother. When I hate him, I cannot love God, who is his Father as well as mine. Said the Galilean Teacher, if I damn my brother in unmeasured terms, I have done both him and myself and our common Father a grave injustice for which I deserve to be brought to book. But it is much worse that I should call my brother a fool, which reflects upon the dignity of his life and the value of his personality.

“If I would discipline myself to a proper understanding of all men, I must place myself in such a simple-hearted attitude toward them that if I am asked to walk a mile, I shall express willingness to walk two miles. If I am asked for my coat, I shall be willing to part also with my jacket. I may not have to do that in actual practice, but that must be my attitude. And when I have schooled my mind to look upon all men in this way, my own personality has its chance to find expression.

Personality III: Getting Past the Fear of God

by Ronald R Johnson

This excerpt is from the sermon, “Personality (Third Phase),” preached by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on February 1, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.):

“…we are rapidly tending toward a much more satisfactory and reasonable attitude toward God. Men began their thinking of Him by contemplating Him in fear. He was always angry, and they were always afraid. They, then, emphasized their awe of Him and gave themselves over to the invention of poor little superlatives concerning His greatness, thinking that He might be flattered by their praise into favoring them. Their only process of making Him great was to debase themselves, on the ground that the smaller they were, the greater He became.

“Then they began speaking of their love for Him; but it was rather difficult to associate the love-idea with the old fear-concept. Even today, when we fancy ourselves quite freed from most of the crude old terrors once indigenous to theological considerations, we still speak of Him with much reserve, and in hushed voices, usually adopting a tone employed solely for this purpose. And many an admonitory ‘Tut, tut!’ is directed toward small children by their parents when, out of their simple-hearted acceptance of the parental instructions that God is indeed their Father, they venture to play with Him a bit, or invite His interest in their small concerns.

“No, we think, that will not do. God is far too great to be spoken of in the same terms with our work or our play, or to be merry with us, though we do not find it at all incongruous to solicit His attendance upon our dismay, or a witness to our tears. We seem to have a notion that there is something inevitably sad about God.

“Of course, our better judgment tells us, when we stop to think about this matter calmly, that God is apparently much interested in the things we consider small, judging by the growing importance of the infinitesimally little things which only lately have come into being for us by the aid of the high-powered microscopes. And of course He must be interested in the forces and facts of life which make us merry and happy, else He would not have endowed us with the capacity for appreciating them and turning them to account.

“But it is hard to overcome race-memory of a God-concept — age-old — based on fear.

“Now, if this God-consciousness is ever to aid us in the discovery of ‘personality,’ we must leave off the old groveling relationship and stand erect, head up, confident and unafraid, when we contemplate Him; thus

[Douglas indents the following and puts it in quotes:]

“‘If He thought my life valuable enough to endow me with divine aspirations and longings that I cannot myself understand, the best that I can do by way of showing my appreciation is to act up to the part, and be His son, insofar as my capacities and my faith permit.’

“I do not flatter the artist by telling him that his best picture is a hopeless daub. Nor do I honor God by protesting that I, one of His human creatures, am a worthless worm of the dust. It is only as I glory in my heritage and express devout thanks for the supernal, that I find [Him] within me, that I realize what His Fatherhood means to the discovery of my own personality.”

Now, we can argue that Douglas didn’t fully appreciate the complexities of the idea of “fearing” God — and I don’t think he did fully appreciate them — but we mustn’t let that prevent us from grasping the very important point he is trying to make: that the idea of “fearing” God was never meant to prevent us from having a closer relationship with Him. That’s what Douglas is trying to convey. I’ll tell you more about his sermon in my next post.

Personality III: Making Sense of the Human Soul

by Ronald R Johnson

The title page from the sermon “Personality (Third Phase),” preached by Lloyd C Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on 2/1/1920. In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

The following excerpt is from the sermon, “Personality (Third Phase),” preached by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on February 1, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.):

“In coming to what I shall call, purely for accommodation’s sake, the ‘Third Phase’ of this theme which we have been discussing lately, I am conscious that we have only scratched the surface of it. And probably the largest contribution I shall have made to this subject is to have proved, by the feebleness and sketchiness of my treatment of it, how tremendously large and important the matter really is. But if I shall have done little more than excite fresh interest in this vital fact which bears so significantly upon all the practical problems of human experience, the time we have given to it will have been well spent.

“Very briefly, we have adduced the following facts concerning ‘Personality.’

“However he may have come by it, every normal man is possessed of a distinct personality unlike any other. It is his by right of birth. It makes no difference when or where he is born, or of whom — he is unique in that there is but one of his kind, and he is that one.

“When, therefore, he speaks of his ambition to develop his personality, he means that he desires to discover his personality. In no sense is his personality to be likened to a machine which may be assembled or remodeled in the interest of increased efficiency or impaired to the point of uselessness by faulty manipulation. But it is rather to be considered as an organism which grows exactly as a seed grows into a plant, with possibilities for flowering and bearing fruit — but only one particular kind of flower, and one distinctive manner of fruit. Or, lacking suitable care and proper nourishment, eventually going the way of all starved and neglected organisms.

“Again, we noted some of the interesting facts relative to this uniqueness of the individual soul: its infinite longings, its unaccountable aspirations, and its grave concern about its destiny, all pointing to an origin quite above nature and to an inner urge inexplicable on natural grounds.

“It is not at all difficult for biology to explain the human brain as the inevitable product of the increasing demands which the evolving man-type has put upon the nervous system, culminating in a highly complicated nerve-ganglion housed in the skull. It is no less difficult to explain the heart as the natural product of a system of circulation requiring just such a power plant as this cardiac marvel.

“Moreover, when biology sits down beside sociology to discuss the development of human relationships on natural grounds, it is able to make some very plausible deductions about the achievement of such instincts as parental solicitude — maternal sacrifice, paternal courage, etc. — as merely demonstrating the law of race preservation (a principle also attested by certain beasts of the field and birds of the air). Biology may go further and endeavor to show that all chivalry, and the most beautiful and idealistic examples of romance, which bear fruit not only in classic story, art, and masterpiece of music but [also] in the everyday experience of mortals, are proofs only of such sex-attraction as is inexorably demanded by nature, seeking to insure the perpetuity of the human race.

“But, after all these theories have been spun out, ad infinitum, and checked up scientifically and agreed to by everybody, there still remains quite a sizable area of human character and conduct which refuses to be explained on any naturalistic hypothesis.

“How, for instance, certain social groups, at tremendous cost to themselves in privation, loneliness, and loss of everything humanly desirable, including the infraction of the age-old law of self-preservation, have suffered for an ideal whose realization involved no terrestrial rewards and promised no material gains whatsoever. How the very greatest of human leaders were men who not only forgot self, utterly, in pursuit of their ideal but thereby won universal approbation and immortality in the regard of their posterity, proving that humanity in the mass, however much it may lack the capacity for breaking little laws of nature, in order that it may obey the larger laws of the spirit nevertheless recognizes real greatness to be greatness of mind and soul.

“The only possible explanation of this curious fact resides in the ancient belief of men that the human soul contains a spark of the Divine Life. And since the soul is not a machine but an organism, it serves our thinking to speak of the Almighty God as our Father and of ourselves as the spiritual reproductions of his Master-mind. Now, this fact dignifies human life and exalts human personality.

“In this connection, it ought to be said that we are rapidly tending toward a much more satisfactory and reasonable attitude toward God…”

[More about that in my next post.]

Personality II: Handicaps

by Ronald R Johnson

A page from the sermon “Personality (Second Phase),” preached by Lloyd C Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on 1/25/1920. In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

This is from Week 2 of a three-week series on “Personality” by Lloyd C Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, preached on January 25, 1920. (This is from Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

Regarding the expression of one’s personality:

“Some of you are aware of certain physical defects which militate against the satisfactory expression of your personality. And they are defects, too, which will seriously handicap you. It need not be so, but it is so, because you have thus decreed it, and that is a matter in which you have it all to say. The chances are that what you consider to be a serious defect is but a feature of that personality which you have not yet discovered, and that, instead of being a worrisome liability which you have not yet discovered, it is a distinct asset. Or it might be an asset if you willed it so.

“A many may lose an arm, but that doesn’t necessarily make a cripple of him unless he thinks so. Whenever he stops thinking of himself as a cripple, he stops being a cripple. I know of a case of a young man who arrived at a consciousness of his own personality and his value to himself and the world only by way of losing a leg. He goes about supporting his body on a crutch, but his mind isn’t on crutches, as some of you who heard him recently at the Des Moines Student Convention would be willing to testify.

“I know another man who wasn’t anybody until he had fed all the fingers of his left hand into a planing-mill where he worked as a mechanic. He did not become a cripple. He became one of the most influential lawyers in this country.

“Here is a young man who fears he may never be able to express his personality because he is only five feet three in height. Napoleon was five feet two.

“Here is a person who is conscious of being extremely unbeautiful of countenance. He is ugly. So was Lincoln. This homely and discouraged brother can worry about his appearance if he wants to, and thus have good cause for worry. Or he can make his homeliness an asset, until not for anything in the world would he permit a change of face. He will come to feel about it as Montaigne did when he ordered the artist who was preparing to do his portrait to paint him with all his warts. He knew that a wartless Montaigne wouldn’t be Montaigne at all. The warts were part of his personality.

“Here is a man who stammers. He thinks he is doomed. So he is, if he thinks that. Some of the most delightfully attractive people who have ever graced human society have stuttered their way through life, not only unimpaired by this apparent defect but actually making their peculiarity a part of the personality which became beloved.

“One could go on, multiplying illustrations by the hour of people who turned their obstacles into stepping stones. And I suppose it would be even more voluminous if one were to amass the literature to be had concerning those who have permitted their apparent defects to eat, like a cancer, into their very souls, making them diffident, morose, self-conscious, and ineffective — not to speak of their unthinkable wretchedness. One man believes that, if he were taller, he might command attention; another would be gayer; another would be wittier; another would weigh fifty pounds more. Why, if mere avoir dupois is his standard of success, he wouldn’t succeed if he weighed a ton. Verily, the life is more than meat.

“So, we have to get back again to the principle that if one is to express his personality, he must express his personality, just as it has been bequeathed to him, rejoicing that he is exactly as he is, for it is the sum total of him that makes him an individual.

“Get that fixed in your mind. Stop wishing you were somebody else. Stop trying to act like somebody else. Be yourself.

“The girl who tampers with her eyebrows in the hope that she may look a little more like all the other girls who have tampered with their eyebrows has quite a large distance to go before she discovers her personality. Obviously, she doesn’t want a personality, since she is so bent upon destroying what little there is.

“Be yourself. You’re really so much nicer that way.”

Personality II: Fatherhood and Brotherhood

by Ronald R Johnson

Title page of the sermon, “Personality (Second Phase),” preached by Lloyd C Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on 1/25/1920. In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

It is Week 2 of a three-week series on “Personality” by Lloyd C Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor. It is January 25, 1920. (This is from Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

“Here is a man,” says Douglas, “anxious to make a place for himself in the estimation of society; eager to find that one task which he may perform better than any other task; hopeful of leaving an impress of his influence upon his generation — what is it, in his case, but a simple matter of salesmanship?

“And the article for sale? Himself. That is really all he has to market: himself. And before he goes out to create a demand for himself, he must first sell himself to himself. It will be extremely difficult for him to make anyone else believe that he is worthy of regard unless he himself thinks so. It will be next to impossible for him to express his personality in his contacts with other people until he has become conscious of the value and importance of his personality.

“Now, last Sunday (as you may recall) we spent most of our time investigating the reasons one may properly hold for believing in the worth of oneself. We began our thinking by predicating of ourselves divine sonship. I do not intend to review that argument at this time but only to add a few sentences to it. Whoever is conscious of the fact that he is, in a very real sense, a spiritual reproduction of the Infinite and directly accountable to the Infinite for the use he makes of his personality has that in his life which guarantees him power in the exact proportion to his faith in this fact. If he is but dimly, vaguely, fleetingly conscious of this fact (as, for example, in such moments as the present one, when the idea is forced upon his attention), then he receives a dim, vague, fleeting stimulus to realize this personal power which accrues through an occasional recognition of his supreme inheritance.

“If, however, every morning of his life, upon waking, it is a settled habit of his to fix his first conscious thought upon the hope that he may, through the day, walk worthily of the vocation whereunto he is called, by right of high birth, keenly sensible of his trusteeship of a personality for which he is to be held strictly to account; if, at night, his last conscious thought before he sleeps (the thought which he stows away in his subconsciousness to dominate its operations during the hours when active consciousness retires from the field in favor of the deeper, permanent self), if that thought is a mental recognition of the bond between his spirit and the Divine Giver and Keeper of his spirit, then this fact of his supreme importance as a child of God gradually becomes automatic in its effect and controls his life without his willing it so to do.

“In his case, the power of this spiritual contact is no longer a mere sporadic life, such as the heart may sense in a moment of high inspiration, when temporarily exposed to the dazzlingly bright possibilities of a God-led personality, but constitutes a steady pull, good for all weathers and in all climates, and guaranteed to keep him poised in the midst of all tests, discouragements, and temporary losses.

“It was an easy and logical step, in our argument, to pass from the fact of our divine sonship to the correlated fact of our human brotherhood. The universal brotherhood of all men, everywhere. Now, ‘universal’ is a very large word, but when we use it here, we must take it as it stands: all-inclusive. If all men are not my brothers, then God is not the Father of any of us. If God is your Father and mine, ehtn He is also the Father of everybody — our fellows and our foes, our countrymen and foreigners — everybody, white, red, yellow, brown and black, clean or dirty, cultured or crude, educated or benighted.

“Of course, we talk glibly about our belief in the brotherhood of man, but when we consider it in its practical outworkings, it is an idea entirely too big for any man to absorb or accept in a moment. It requires patient cultivation if one is to build it into one’s thinking so that the effect of it will be manifest in one’s personality. It implies that no matter how unattractive another person may be to me, he has, within him, that which sets him apart from all other men: a personality which I am bound to respect if I respect my own.

“This, I insist, is a hard saying. It means that when I see a dense crowd of men, untrained of mind and uncouth of manner, pouring out through the open gates of a great factory at noon, leaden of eye and dull of feature, I must recognize in them my spiritual brothers, each one of whom, though perhaps only very dimly conscious of the fact, possesses a personality like unto which there is not, in all the world, another. There isn’t a square inch of skin on his body that has a duplicate in the universe. He, too, was made for a distinctive purpose. If conditions make it difficult for him to realize that end, that fact has nothing to do with my appreciation of the dignity of his personality.

“Now, I am reiterating all this with as much insistence as I can because the development of personality hangs upon it, and because there is little use going into details until we have mastered this rudiment. I cannot properly express my own personality until I am ready to concede that every other man also possesses a personality which is as much entitled to respect as my own.

“Once that fact is firmly fixed in your mind, your contacts with all other people are so satisfactory to them, so flattering to them (if you will permit that phrase) that you instantly win their confidence and respect. Whoever he may be, he knows, by the manner in which I take his hand and meet his eyes with mine, he knows exactly what his status is, in my estimation. And there is no practiced trick of manner, no artificial energy of hand-clasp, no pumped-up enthusiasm of salutary smile, that will deceive him as to my thought of him.”

All of this was really just a recapitulation of what Douglas had said the previous week. In my next post, I’ll tell you where he took the subject from here.

Personality I: Are You a ‘Traveling Menagerie’?

by Ronald R Johnson

A page from the sermon, “Personality (First Phase),” preached by Lloyd C Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on 1/18/1920. In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.

The following is from the first of a three-part series on “Personality,” by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, on January 18, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.):

“Now… let us sum up what we have been considering this morning as the first phase of this vitally important subject.

“No man needs hope for success in any human endeavor unless he possesses and expresses ‘personality.’ His first step is to become conscious of his personality. His awareness of the high dignity of his own person as an individual (not merely a legal citizen and a voter) but an individual, exactly like unto whom there is not, never has been, and never will be another; a child of God, stamped with an image divine — all this makes him confident of his capacities and eager to achieve his rightful destiny. Thus he becomes conscious of his personality. Then, character-growth begins.

“As he proceeds from strength to strength in this consciousness of his high and holy station as the trustee and custodian of this particular soul — like unto which there is not another soul in the whole universe — he finds in himself a growing interest in life’s real and permanent values and an increasing distaste [for] and distrust of the sordid, the petty, the inconsequential, and the mean. He becomes fine-fibered! His horizon recedes. His eyes are lit with clearer vision. His ears are sensitized to myriad voices in nature, of whose existence he had previously been unaware. He finds strange magic in words formerly without meaning, such as the natural eye hath not seen, and the natural ear hath not heard; the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him; for He reveals them to us only by His Spirit.

“Again: with this Godward relationship established, he becomes a citizen of the world — all men his brothers; and in that fraternal attitude, he begins to express his newfound personality. This is no vague theory. This is a law of life, certified to and attested by the careers of all eminent men whose names are familiar to the pens and brushes and chisels of those who grant earthly immortality to the great.”

[Anticipating next week’s sermon:]

“As to the practical processes by which personality may most effectively be expressed, this must be reserved for further treatment in the succeeding addresses of this series.

“Those processes deal with the general principles of ‘personality-expression’ as demonstrated in the lives of useful and celebrated people. I hope you may decide to follow on through with this subject…”

But “without these primary considerations [that he has spoken about today], no man can best express his personality. He can imitate, yes. He can imitate more or less successfully the most gracious and pleasing characteristics observed in other people. He can plagiarize their personalities; ape their manners; repeat their bon mots; retail their ideas for whatever they will fetch; and feed on the crumbs that fall from their neighbors’ tables. But, until a man finds himself, he is a mere counterfeit of some other person whom he admires, or a composite of a group of personalities whose lives he envies. And, all the time, if he should set out upon a tour of self-discovery, he would find within his own life that one individual personally before whom the gates of opportunity might be flung open wide, all along the way.

“Many a man — if entirely honest — when asked who he is, would be obliged to reply:

“‘Well, sir, my name is Jones — John Jones. But I am really just a kind of human mosaic in which various and sundry fragments of other characters have been rather neatly pieced together.

“‘I have tried pretty well to affect a big, deep voice like that of my friend James Robinson. Of course, occasionally in moments of excitement I forget and pipe out a few tones in an untrained voice that probably belongs to the self I might have been, but ordinarily I speak like Robinson. I laugh like William Brown, or as nearly like that as possible. My little tricks of gesture, facial expression, posture, etc., I have just gathered up a bit at a time, from goodness-knows-where. I should hate to have to account for the original sources of them all. Aside from these scraps of what appears to be my personality, the rest of me has just been blown together by the breeze.'” [Douglas carries this even farther, having the person admit that he picked up the saying, “What do you know about that?” somewhere along the way and now says it in response to almost anything, varying it sometimes as “I’ll say it is!” or “I’ll say they do!” or “I’ll say it wasn’t!” or, if all else fails, “I’ll say!”]

Douglas concludes: “Now, you can be a traveling menagerie like that if you wish, lugging about with you little pieces of other personalities, but you need never hope to be anything but an echo…. Or you can, by resolute search, find yourself, and when you have found yourself and have learned to express yourself, you may have whatever you wish, for all things are yours.”

Personality I: A Firm Handshake is No Substitute for This

by Ronald R Johnson

“I think it can be shown that the discovery of personality is just a matter of realizing one’s proper relationships.”

[This is from the first of a three-part series on “Personality,” by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, on January 18, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)]

“Who and what am I? An animal that has been trained by ages of culture and restraint to observe certain social usages imposed upon me by contemporaneous society? An animal that has learned to eat with a fork and sit on a chair — and refrain from snatching food out of others’ hands?

“Well, if I am that, I had better buy the book on ‘personality’ [see the previous post] and learn a few more tricks of pose, gesture, stride, and the proper way to ask for a raise. But once I become convinced that I am considerably more than a trained animal — nothing else or less than a child of God, stamped with an image divine — then a new field of conquest and opportunity opens which has no barriers or limits except such as I raise myself.”

Paraphrasing I John 3:2, Douglas continues: “Sons of God — and while it doth not yet appear what we shall be, we know that when He shall have become clearly manifest to us, we shall be like Him. Now, a man who believes that, with all his heart, simply cannot think of himself in terms of deprecation.

“I am conscious that you are saying, ‘Oh yes, theoretically that is all very well; but isn’t it a practical fact that some of the most attractive and effective ‘personalities’ in the world are possessed by persons who give but very little attention to their divine sonship?’ I freely admit this, if one is obliged to judge by outward seeming. Some very potent and pleasing ‘personalities’ are in the custody of certain men who, from all appearances, have no religious interests, tagged and labeled as such. But, if you will take the trouble to investigate, you will find, deeply imbedded in the early training of such characters, that which exalted the importance of a man to himself.

“Moreover, he judges of this matter superficially who refuses to predicate God-consciousness of a man merely because that man boasts no oral creed and has never subscribed to theological postulates. The point I am trying to make is: that no man can discover and develop his personality until he has first become convinced of the value and importance of his personality. He only sets out in search of it after he has determined that it is worth the quest.

“Therefore, I believe that this simple faith in God’s Divine Paternity of the human soul is the most stimulating thought that can be relied upon to motivate and energize the life of the individual.

“Now, the second step in the discovery and development of ‘personality’ is similar to the first, in that it, also, is a matter of relationships. This second step, indeed, is corollary to the first.

“So soon as a man decides that God is his Father, his relations with other men are automatically established on a basis of brotherhood. All men are his brothers. They are dissimilar as to minor points but possessed of a host of common interests and mutual ties.

“Just for example: one of the most coveted graces of character, in which ‘personality’ may be said to speak for itself strikingly, is an easy affability toward a stranger. Who does not envy the man who, in the first instant of meeting, is able to present himself with such cordiality that he at once inspires respect, confidence, and admiration?

“What is the secret of this? Well, your man greets the stranger as a brother, not with his guard up, bristling with suspicion and a ‘show-me’ air, but as if they two had a very great deal in common. And the stranger may remark to himself, ‘What a delightful personality that man possesses!’

“Why, to be sure he has. He didn’t have to consult a book on personality, either, under the chapter, ‘How to Greet a Stranger.’ For, having accepted the principle of universal brotherhood, he needed only to follow the natural inclinations of his heart in order to present himself attractively and with a cordiality that inspired respect and confidence.

“So long as he is subconsciously defending his own interests, mentally distrustful of the other, he cannot express ‘personality’ at all. And the book will not aid him while he persists in a self-centered state of mind.

“Let me cite a few cases in point. Much has been said about the hand-clasp and how it expresses ‘personality’ — and it does. A man extends you a limp, clammy, flabby, flaccid hand, and you shake it as much or as little as you think the case justifies, and put it down, saying to yourself, ‘He has no personality.’

“But suppose he really wants to achieve personality. How is he to be advised? Shall he be taught how to shake hands? Will that solve his problem? Let him be taught, then. Suppose the next time he meets you, he grips your fingers and pumps away like a congressman home on furlough. Do you say to yourself, ‘Ah, he has personality’? Not at all. Indeed, you are rather shocked at the incongruous. He is nobody in every respect except that he is able to give a fair imitation of a man of ‘personality’ when he shakes hands. He has been treated, by somebody, for a symptom. His disease rages on, unabated.

“What, after all, is his trouble? Well, he is living a centripetal life; other men are not his brothers; he is a thing apart, unrelated and unobligated. He has walled himself in, possibly not by a fixed resolution to do so, but he is walled in! He meets you. He puts out his hand for you to shake. He thinks he is conferring a favor upon you by letting you shake it. He isn’t especially interested. He knows that when you have shaken it all you care to, you will quit and then he can have it back. He notes your smile of salutation and observes that you are glad to meet him. He, too, is glad — not glad to meet you but glad that your meeting him has given you such obvious pleasure.

“Every conscious thought and subconscious inclination of his revolves around himself, describing a very little orbit because he is a very little man. Now, you can teach him how to shake hands, if you care to spend the time — just as you can teach a dog to shake hands — but you haven’t corrected his real difficulty. He has no ‘personality’; that is to say, he expresses no ‘personality’ until he discovers the relation he sustains to other people, by virtue of their all having a Father in common; or, lacking belief in a common Father, nevertheless resolves that he is closely related to all the rest of humankind.

“Take another case. Here is a man who is concerned only with his own line of work; makes wheelbarrows, we will say. Talks of nothing else. Doesn’t know anything else. Mention some other matter of human interest and the only effect it has on his imagination is to remind him of something connected with the production of wheelbarrows. Get him out of his wheelbarrow and he is helpless.

“What is to be advised in his case? Think you that it will solve this man’s problem to go to him in a spirit of undoubted candor and command him, in the name of society, to let up about his wheelbarrows? Oh, no; that will only deprive him of the power of speech.

“He is just spinning around himself, that is all. He can’t be anybody until he quits that; and the only thing that will stop his ingrowing ego is a brand-new appraisal of his fraternal relations to other men. He must become a brother or remain a clod. For him there is no middle ground.”

Personality I: Gimmicks

by Ronald R Johnson

“Even the average man pricks up his ears when you hint that you can hand him some patent for improving his personality. He thinks it may make him a better salesman; a more successful politician; a more adept and resourceful pleader of whatever causes are uppermost in his mind.”

This is from the first of a three-part series on “Personality,” by Lloyd C. Douglas at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor, on January 18, 1920. (In Sermons [5], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)

“The word [personality] is in very common use. It ricochets from lip to lip, and almost any child of twelve will attempt to define it for you. Full-page advertisements in the magazines are frequently tooled around the finger of a determined man, pointing his finger directly in your face and shouting, ‘I will teach you how to have personality!’

“And, desirous of a personality, you may send for his book, which can be had for a dollar and a half, and the book tells you how to begin, as follows, to wit:

“‘Stand up straight! Don’t sprawl like a jellyfish!

“‘Look ’em in the eye!

“‘Brace your neck firmly against the back of your collar — and be sure that your collar is clean. Take your hands out of your pockets!

“‘Now then, if you are ready, say: I can! I will!

“‘Say it a little louder this time: I WILL. I WILL. I WILL!'”

[Douglas continues…]

“Now, all of this is very good exercise, and doubtless has the merit of correcting some slouchy habits, which fully justifies the price of the book; and it possibly stimulates circulation, though not nearly so much as dumbbells, of a cold winter morning, by an open window. But personality? No! You don’t invent a personality, or earn a personality by hard labor, or manufacture one over a pattern furnished by somebody else. You discover a Personality; and when you discover it, you discover that it is yours and that there is not another like it in the whole world! There may be better ones, but not another like it. And the process of achieving it, therefore, is not by a system of calisthenics or self-hypnosis, but by a quiet, serious, patient self-search.

“A man may howl, ‘I must! I can! I will!’ until he is hoarse and hysterical, but the only effect it produces is to put him through his usual motions with a little more than his usual impetuosity (an added quality not invariably valuable; it depends).

“‘Walk right into your employer’s office,’ says the book, on page 162. ‘Look him squarely in the eye and tell him you’re worth more money!’ Well, maybe you are, but not because you did that!

“No; all these patent tricks for developing ‘personality’ merely offer a temporary prescription for self-delusion. One can galvanize the leg of a dead frog and make him kick a few times in a manner exceedingly lifelike, but the frog will never develop into a swimmer. What he requires is power on the inside. The battery will not help him very much, or for very long.

“A man may decide: ‘Henceforward I propose to be successful — to possess a forceful personality — to surmount my difficulties and laugh at obstacles!’ But he soon finds that his little dose of strychnine loses its stimulating effect. He has begun at the wrong end of the proposition. He is just trying to act as he might act if he really had personality.

“What he needs to do is to go deeply into the problem of his own life and discover what tenable reasons he may hold for a belief that his is a distinctive character.”

I’ll continue this in my next post.