Text of the meditation
Sterling integrity tells wherever it is, and stamps its hallmark on all transactions. To be complete and strong, integrity must embrace the whole person, and extend to all the details of their life; and it must be so thorough and permanent as to withstand all temptations to swerve into compromise.
To fail in one point is to fail in all, and to admit, under stress, a compromise with falsehood, however necessary and insignificant it may appear, is to throw down the shield of integrity, and to stand exposed to the onslaughts of evil. The person who works as carefully and conscientiously when their employer is away as when their eye is on them will not long remain in an inferior position.
Such integrity in duty, in performing the details of their work, will quickly lead them into the fertile regions of prosperity. The person of integrity is in line with the fixed law of things. They are like a strong tree whose roots are fed by perennial springs, and which no tempest can lay low.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.
