This article was originally published in The Philalethes, July 1946, Volume 1, Number 3.
BEING A MAN!
By Sidney E. Harris, MPS

The Greek had an ideal and it was the man perfect in body, mind, and soul. He was a friend, not a recluse; did not sit on a pedestal and talk down to the people.
Luke 7:s4: "The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a
winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!" He had a perfect mental poise and was unafraid. Luke 8 records that Jesus slept in a boat and it was about to sink. The disciples woke Him; they were in great terror. Jesus rebuked the waves and there was great calm, and He said unto them: "Where is your faith?" And they, being afraid, said one to another: "What manner of man is this, for He commandeth the wind and waves and they obey Him."

A Samaritan village refused to receive Him; the disciples, like some of our politicians of today wanted
to have destruction rain upon them. But Jesus said (Luke 9:55): "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives but to save them."
The fundamentalists of His day, the Scribes and Pharisees, sought to destroy Him. So He entered into
the home of Zachaeus, the taxgatherer, and said (Luke 19): "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

When the rulers brought Jesus to cynical Pilate, he said: "I find no fault in Him."
Being a man does not mean being a bully. It does not mean being objectionable by indulging in habits that make other people uncomfortable. One time Horace Greely met a drunken congressman who said he was a self-made man. Greely replied: "That relieves God of a great deal of responsibility."

We read that God created man in His own image and likeness. This refers to God's intellectual and moral nature, and also to His conception of what man should be. Sin came as the result of man's free choice. We cannot say moral choice, for as yet he had no experience of sin.
Theodore Parker, seeking to express the idea that every individual has his limitations, says "No man is as great as mankind."

The movies picture a great man as one whose life is filled with glamor; but this is most certainly untrue to life. Goethe says: "One cannot always be a hero; but one can always be a man."
Being a man is something that is supremely difficult. A true man has the strength, the vigor, the self-reliance of the male; the gentleness, the true refinement, and the sympathy and compassion of the female. Bailey says: "Let each one of us think himself an act of God, his mind a thought, his life a breath of God."

A true man is manly and self-reliant without bluster; temperate in all things without being offensive; calm without being cold and indifferent. He is courteous and cultured; endowed with a proper appreciation of the niceties and refinements of conduct, and yet always able to accommodate himself to the limitations of others. He is one who, nevertheless, never loses sight of the inner meaning of personal purity, integrity, truth, justice, and brotherly love. He lives his life as in the sight of God and always has a deep and abiding consciousness of eternity.

Kipling, in his poem "If," gives a very fine definition of the true man. One thing that needs to be constantly emphasized, and that is the true man's unconquerable spirit. "If you cannot meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors
just the same."

Being a man means having a body that is the embodiment of health; that is clean and vigorous. I am not forgetting that there are people who are handicapped; but even those can make the best of what they have.

Being a man means standing up and facing the world fearless and unafraid; it means doing our duty under all circumstances, regardless of consequences. It means accepting fully all the implications of the word "Brotherhood."