Men of Honor

“…he is an honourable man.” No higher tribute can be paid a man than this. To be told by a person of character, who knows you best, that you’re the most honorable man they ever met; well, that’s the apex of life for any man.

I’ve observed in the general population of younger men today, this accolade seems to mean little or nothing. I personally bend over backward for this present younger generation, always remembering how it was in my early years of manhood. But one of the things set in stone in my moral makeup, which I refuse to expunge, is the fact that a man should be a man of honor. This statement may be from the old school, but we who graduated from that school, graduated with honor!

The word honor itself comes from the Latin. Some of its meanings are: integrity, trustworthy, ethical, morally principled, respectable, good. David’s mighty men, whom he gathered around him, were honourable men. Some were more than the others, “He was more honourable than the thirty, but he attained not to the first three.” I would liked to have been among the three.

The movie Rob Roy is a historical adventure, set in the Scottish Highlands in the 1700s. In one scene, his son asks him what honor meant, and his reply is a classic: “Honor is what no man can give you, nor can he take it away. Honor is a gift a man gives to himself.”

I do not know what men call themselves that are without honor; but I, for one, would never refer to them as “a man.”