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diff --git a/old/51469-0.txt b/old/51469-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 75d6df8..0000000 --- a/old/51469-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2907 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Self-Control Its Kingship and Majesty, by -William George Jordan - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Self-Control Its Kingship and Majesty - -Author: William George Jordan - -Release Date: March 16, 2016 [EBook #51469] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELF-CONTROL ITS KINGSHIP *** - - - - -Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed -Proofreaders Canada team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) - - - - - - SELF-CONTROL - ITS KINGSHIP - AND MAJESTY - - - by - - WILLIAM - GEORGE - JORDAN - - - FLEMING H. - REVELL - COMPANY - - CHICAGO LONDON - TORONTO NEW YORK EDINBURGH - - - - - Republished from the _Saturday Evening Post_ through - the courtesy of the Curtis Publishing Company, - - Copyright, 1898 and 1899, by - CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY - - - Copyright, 1899 and 1905, by - FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY - - - New York: 158 Fifth Avenue - Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. - London: 21 Paternoster Square - Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street - - * * * * * - - CONTENTS - - PAGE - - _I._ _The Kingship of Self-Control_ 7 - - _II._ _The Crimes of the Tongue_ 18 - - _III._ _The Red Tape of Duty_ 28 - - _IV._ _The Supreme Charity of the World_ 38 - - _V._ _Worry, the Great American Disease_ 49 - - _VI._ _The Greatness of Simplicity_ 60 - - _VII._ _Living life Over Again_ 71 - - _VIII._ _Syndicating our Sorrows_ 82 - - _IX._ _The Revelations of Reserve Power_ 93 - - _X._ _The Majesty of Calmness_ 104 - - _XI._ _Hurry, the Scourge of America_ 113 - - _XII._ _The Power of Personal Influence_ 124 - - _XIII._ _The Dignity of Self-Reliance_ 135 - - _XIV._ _Failure as a Success _ 147 - - _XV._ _Doing Our Best at All Times_ 161 - - _XVI._ _The Royal Road to Happiness_ 178 - - * * * * * - - _Self-Control_ - - - - - I - - The Kingship _of_ Self-Control - - -Man has two creators,—his God and himself. His first creator -furnishes him the raw material of his life and the laws in conformity -with which he can make that life what he will. His second -creator,—himself,—has marvellous powers he rarely realizes. It is what -a man makes of himself that counts. - -When a man fails in life he usually says, “I am as God made me.” When he -succeeds he proudly proclaims himself a “self-made man.” Man is placed -into this world not as a finality,—but as a possibility. Man’s greatest -enemy is,—himself. Man in his weakness is the creature of -circumstances; man in his strength is the creator of circumstances. -Whether he be victim or victor depends largely on himself. - -Man is never truly great merely for what he _is_, but ever for what he -may become. Until man be truly filled with the knowledge of the majesty -of his possibility, until there come to him the glow of realization of -his privilege to live the life committed to him, as an individual life -for which he is individually responsible, he is merely groping through -the years. - -To see his life as he might make it, man must go up alone into the -mountains of spiritual thought as Christ went alone into the Garden, -leaving the world to get strength to live in the world. He must there -breathe the fresh, pure air of recognition of his divine importance as -an individual, and with mind purified and tingling with new strength he -must approach the problems of his daily living. - -Man needs less of the “I am a feeble worm of the dust” idea in his -theology, and more of the conception “I am a great human soul with -marvellous possibilities” as a vital element in his daily working -religion. With this broadening, stimulating view of life, he sees how he -may attain his kingship through self-control. And the self-control that -is seen in the most spectacular instances in history, and in the -simplest phases of daily life, is precisely the same in kind and in -quality, differing only in degree. This control man can attain, if he -only will; it is but a matter of paying the price. - -The power of self-control is one of the great qualities that -differentiates man from the lower animals. He is the only animal capable -of a moral struggle or a moral conquest. - -Every step in the progress of the world has been a new “control.” It has -been escaping from the tyranny of a fact, to the understanding and -mastery of that fact. For ages man looked in terror at the lightning -flash; to-day he has begun to understand it as electricity, a force he -has mastered and made his slave. The million phases of electrical -invention are but manifestations of our control over a great force. But -the greatest of all “control” is self-control. - -At each moment of man’s life he is either a King or a slave. As he -surrenders to a wrong appetite, to any human weakness; as he falls -prostrate in hopeless subjection to any condition, to any environment, -to any failure, he is a slave. As he day by day crushes out human -weakness, masters opposing elements within him, and day by day -re-creates a new self from the sin and folly of his past,—then he is a -King. He is a King ruling with wisdom over himself. Alexander conquered -the whole world except,—Alexander. Emperor of the earth, he was the -servile slave of his own passions. - -We look with envy upon the possessions of others and wish they were our -own. Sometimes we feel this in a vague, dreamy way with no thought of -real attainment, as when we wish we had Queen Victoria’s crown, or -Emperor William’s self-satisfaction. Sometimes, however, we grow bitter, -storm at the wrong distribution of the good things of life, and then -relapse into a hopeless fatalistic acceptance of our condition. - -We envy the success of others, when we should emulate the process by -which that success came. We see the splendid physical development of -Sandow, yet we forget that as a babe and child he was so weak there was -little hope that his life might be spared. - -We may sometimes envy the power and spiritual strength of a Paul, -without realizing the weak Saul of Tarsus from which he was transformed -through his self-control. - -We shut our eyes to the thousands of instances of the world’s -successes,—mental, moral, physical, financial or spiritual,—wherein -the great final success came from a beginning far weaker and poorer than -our own. - -Any man may attain self-control if he only will. He must not expect to -gain it save by long continued payment of price, in small progressive -expenditures of energy. Nature is a thorough believer in the installment -plan in her relations with the individual. No man is so poor that he -cannot _begin_ to pay for what he wants, and every small, individual -payment that he makes, Nature stores and accumulates for him as a -reserve fund in his hour of need. - -The patience man expends in bearing the little trials of his daily life -Nature stores for him as a wondrous reserve in a crisis of life. With -Nature, the mental, the physical or the moral energy he expends daily in -right-doing is all stored for him and transmuted into strength. Nature -never accepts a cash payment in full for anything,—this would be an -injustice to the poor and to the weak. - -It is only the progressive installment plan Nature recognizes. No man -can make a habit in a moment or break it in a moment. It is a matter of -development, of growth. But at any moment man may _begin_ to make or -begin to break any habit. This view of the growth of character should be -a mighty stimulus to the man who sincerely desires and determines to -live nearer to the limit of his possibilities. - -Self-control may be developed in precisely the same manner as we tone up -a weak muscle,—by little exercises day by day. Let us each day do, as -mere exercises of discipline in moral gymnastics, a few acts that are -disagreeable to us, the doing of which will help us in instant action in -our hour of need. The exercises may be very simple—dropping for a time -an intensely interesting book at the most thrilling page of the story; -jumping out of bed at the first moment of waking; walking home when one -is perfectly able to do so, but when the temptation is to take a car; -talking to some disagreeable person and trying to make the conversation -pleasant. These daily exercises in moral discipline will have a wondrous -tonic effect on man’s whole moral nature. - -The individual can attain self-control in great things only through -self-control in little things. He must study himself to discover what is -the weak point in his armor, what is the element within him that ever -keeps him from his fullest success. This is the characteristic upon -which he should begin his exercise in self-control. Is it selfishness, -vanity, cowardice, morbidness, temper, laziness, worry, mind-wandering, -lack of purpose?—whatever form human weakness assumes in the masquerade -of life he must discover. He must then live each day as if his whole -existence were telescoped down to the single day before him. With no -useless regret for the past, no useless worry for the future, he should -live that day as if it were his only day,—the only day left for him to -assert all that is best in him, the only day left for him to conquer all -that is worst in him. He should master the weak element within him at -each slight manifestation from moment to moment. Each moment then must -be a victory for it or for him. Will he be King, or will he be -slave?—the answer rests with him. - - - - - II - - The Crimes _of the_ Tongue - - -The second most deadly instrument of destruction is the dynamite -gun,—the first is the human tongue. The gun merely kills bodies; the -tongue kills reputations and, ofttimes, ruins characters. Each gun works -alone; each loaded tongue has a hundred accomplices. The havoc of the -gun is visible at once. The full evil of the tongue lives through all -the years; even the eye of Omniscience might grow tired in tracing it to -its finality. - -The crimes of the tongue are words of unkindness, of anger, of malice, -of envy, of bitterness, of harsh criticism, gossip, lying and scandal. -Theft and murder are awful crimes, yet in any single year the aggregate -sorrow, pain and suffering they cause in a nation is microscopic when -compared with the sorrows that come from the crimes of the tongue. Place -in one of the scale-pans of Justice the evils resulting from the acts of -criminals, and in the other the grief and tears and suffering resulting -from the crimes of respectability, and you will start back in amazement -as you see the scale you thought the heavier shoot high in air. - -At the hands of thief or murderer few of us suffer, even indirectly. But -from the careless tongue of friend, the cruel tongue of enemy, who is -free? No human being can live a life so true, so fair, so pure as to be -beyond the reach of malice, or immune from the poisonous emanations of -envy. The insidious attacks against one’s reputation, the loathsome -innuendoes, slurs, half-lies, by which jealous mediocrity seeks to ruin -its superiors, are like those insect parasites that kill the heart and -life of a mighty oak. So cowardly is the method, so stealthy the -shooting of the poisoned thorns, so insignificant the separate acts in -their seeming, that one is not on guard against them. It is easier to -dodge an elephant than a microbe. - -In London they have recently formed an Anti-Scandal League. The members -promise to combat in every way in their power “the prevalent custom of -talking scandal, the terrible and unending consequences of which are not -generally estimated.” - -Scandal is one of the crimes of the tongue, but it is only one. Every -individual who breathes a word of scandal is an active stockholder in a -society for the spread of moral contagion. He is instantly punished by -Nature by having his mental eyes dimmed to sweetness and purity, and his -mind deadened to the sunlight and glow of charity. There is developed a -wondrous, ingenious perversion of mental vision, by which every act of -others is explained and interpreted from the lowest possible motives. -They become like certain carrion flies, that pass lightly over acres of -rose-gardens, to feast on a piece of putrid meat. They have developed a -keen scent for the foul matter upon which they feed. - -There are pillows wet by sobs; there are noble hearts broken in the -silence whence comes no cry of protest; there are gentle, sensitive -natures seared and warped; there are old-time friends separated and -walking their lonely ways with hope dead and memory but a pang; there -are cruel misunderstandings that make all life look dark,—these are but -a few of the sorrows that come from the crimes of the tongue. - -A man may lead a life of honesty and purity, battling bravely for all he -holds dearest, so firm and sure of the rightness of his life that he -never thinks for an instant of the diabolic ingenuity that makes evil -and evil report where naught but good really exists. A few words lightly -spoken by the tongue of slander, a significant expression of the eyes, a -cruel shrug of the shoulders, with a pursing of the lips,—and then, -friendly hands grow cold, the accustomed smile is displaced by a sneer, -and one stands alone and aloof with a dazed feeling of wonder at the -vague, intangible something that has caused it all. - -For this craze for scandal, sensational newspapers of to-day are largely -responsible. Each newspaper is not one tongue, but a thousand or a -million tongues, telling the same foul story to as many pairs of -listening ears. The vultures of sensationalism scent the carcass of -immorality afar off. From the uttermost parts of the earth they collect -the sin, disgrace and folly of humanity, and show them bare to the -world. They do not even require _facts_, for morbid memories and fertile -imaginations make even the worst of the world’s happenings seem tame -when compared with their monstrosities of invention. These stories, and -the discussions they excite, develop in readers a cheap, shrewd power of -distortion of the acts of all around them. - -If a rich man give a donation to some charity, they say: “He is doing it -to get his name talked about,—to help his business.” If he give it -anonymously, they say, “Oh, it’s some millionaire who is clever enough -to know that refraining from giving his name will pique curiosity; he -will see that the public is informed later.” If he do not give to -charity, they say: “Oh, he’s stingy with his money, of course, like the -rest of the millionaires.” To the vile tongue of gossip and slander, -Virtue is ever deemed but a mask, noble ideals but a pretense, -generosity a bribe. - -The man who stands above his fellows must expect to be the target for -the envious arrows of their inferiority. It is part of the price he must -pay for his advance. One of the most detestable characters in all -literature is Iago. - -Envious of the promotion of Cassio above his head, he hated Othello. His -was one of those low natures that become absorbed in sustaining his -dignity, talking of “preserving his honor,”—forgetting it has so long -been dead that even embalming could not preserve it. Day by day Iago -dropped his poison; day by day did subtle resentment and studied -vengeance distill the poison of distrust and suspicion into more -powerfully insidious doses. With a mind wonderfully concentrated by the -blackness of his purpose, he wove a network of circumstantial evidence -around the pure-hearted Desdemona, and then murdered her vicariously, by -the hand of Othello. Her very simplicity, confidence, innocence and -artlessness made Desdemona the easier mark for the diabolic tactics of -Iago. - -Iago still lives in the hearts of thousands, who have all his despicable -meanness without his cleverness. The constant dropping of their lying -words of malice and envy have in too many instances at last worn away -the noble reputations of their superiors. - -To sustain ourselves in our own hasty judgments we sometimes say, as we -listen, and accept without investigation, the words of these modern -Iagos: “Well, where there is so much smoke, there must be _some_ fire.” -Yes, but the fire may be only the fire of malice, the incendiary firing -of the reputation of another by the lighted torch of envy, thrown into -the innocent facts of a life of superiority. - - - - - III - - The Red Tape _of_ Duty - - -Duty is the most overlauded word in the whole vocabulary of life. Duty -is the cold, bare anatomy of righteousness. Duty looks at life as a debt -to be paid; love sees life as a debt to be collected. Duty is ever -paying assessments; love is constantly counting its premiums. - -Duty is forced, like a pump; love is spontaneous, like a fountain. Duty -is prescribed and formal; it is part of the red tape of life. It means -running on moral rails. It is good enough as a beginning; it is poor as -a finality. - -The boy who “stood on the burning deck,” and who committed suicide on a -technical point of obedience, has been held up to the school children of -this century as a model of faithfulness to duty. The boy was the victim -of a blind adherence to the red tape of duty. He was placing the whole -responsibility for his acts on someone outside himself. He was -helplessly waiting for instruction in the hour of emergency when he -should have acted for himself. His act was an empty sacrifice. It was a -useless throwing away of a human life. It did no good to the father, to -the boy, to the ship, or to the nation. - -The captain who goes down with his sinking vessel, when he has done -everything in his power to save others and when he can save his own life -without dishonor, is the victim of a false sense of duty. He is cruelly -forgetful of the loved ones on shore that he is sacrificing. His death -means a spectacular exit from life, the cowardly fear of an -investigating committee, or a brave man’s loyal, yet misguided, sense of -duty. A human life, with its wondrous possibilities, is too sacred an -individual trust to be thus lightly thrown into eternity. - -They tell us of the “sublime nobleness” of the Roman soldier at Pompeii, -whose skeleton was found centuries afterward, imbedded in the once -molten lava which swept down upon the doomed city. He was still standing -at one of the gates, at his post of duty, still grasping a sword in his -crumbling fingers. His was a morbid faithfulness to a discipline from -which a great convulsion of Nature had released him. An automaton would -have stood there just as long, just as boldly, just as uselessly. - -The man who gives one hour of his life to loving, consecrated service to -humanity is doing higher, better, truer work in the world than an army -of Roman sentinels paying useless tribute to the red tape of duty. There -is in this interpretation of duty no sympathy with the man who deserts -his post when needed; it is but a protest against losing the essence, -the realness of true duty in worshipping the mere form. - -Analyze, if you will, any of the great historic instances of loyalty to -duty, and whenever they ring true you will find the presence of the real -element that made the act almost divine. It was duty,—plus love. It was -no mere sense of duty that made Grace Darling risk her life in the awful -storm of sixty years ago, when she set out in the darkness of night, on -a raging sea, to rescue the survivors of the wreck of “The Forfarshire.” -It was the sense of duty, warmed and vivified by a love of humanity, it -was heroic courage of a heart filled with divine pity and sympathy. - -Duty is a hard, mechanical process for making men do things that love -would make easy. It is a poor understudy to love. It is not a high -enough motive with which to inspire humanity. Duty is the body to which -love is the soul. Love, in the divine alchemy of life, transmutes all -duties into privileges, all responsibilities into joys. - -The workman who drops his tools at the stroke of twelve, as suddenly as -if he had been struck by lightning, may be doing his duty,—but he is -doing nothing more. No man has made a great success of his life or a fit -preparation for immortality by doing merely his duty. He must do -that,—and more. If he puts love into his work, the “more” will be easy. - -The nurse may watch faithfully at the bedside of a sick child as a duty. -But to the mother’s heart the care of the little one, in the battle -against death, is never a duty; the golden mantle of love thrown over -every act makes the word “duty” have a jarring sound as if it were the -voice of desecration. - -When a child turns out badly in later years, the parent may say, “Well, -I always did my duty by him.” Then it is no wonder the boy turned out -wrong. “Doing his duty by his son” too often implies merely food, -lodging, clothes and education supplied by the father. Why, a public -institution would give that! What the boy needed most was deep draughts -of love; he needed to live in an atmosphere of sweet sympathy, counsel -and trust. The parent should ever be an unfailing refuge, a constant -resource and inspiration, not a mere larder, or hotel, or wardrobe, or -school that furnishes these necessities free. The empty boast of mere -parental duty is one of the dangers of modern society. - -Christianity stands forth as the one religion based on love, not duty. -Christianity sweeps all duties into one word,—love. Love is the one -great duty enjoined by the Christian religion. What duty creeps to -laboriously, love reaches in a moment on the wings of a dove. Duty is -not lost, condemned or destroyed in Christianity; it is dignified, -purified and exalted and all its rough ways are made smooth by love. - -The supreme instance of generosity in the world’s history is not the -giving of millions by someone of great name; it is the giving of a mite -by a widow whose name does not appear. Behind the widow’s mite was no -sense of duty; it was the full, free and perfect gift of a heart filled -with love. In the Bible “duty” is mentioned but five times; “love,” -hundreds. - -In the conquest of any weakness in our mental or moral make-up; in the -attainment of any strength; in our highest and truest relation to -ourselves and to the world, let us ever make “love” our watchword, not -mere “duty.” - -If we desire to live a life of truth and honesty, to make our word as -strong as our bond, let us not expect to keep ourselves along the narrow -line of truth under the constant lash of the whip of duty. Let us begin -to love the truth, to fill our mind and life with the strong white light -of sincerity and sterling honesty. Let us love the truth so strongly -that there will develop within us, without our conscious effort, an -ever-present horror of a lie. - -If we desire to do good in the world, let us begin to love humanity, to -realize more truly the great dominant note that sounds in every mortal, -despite all the discords of life, the great natural bond of unity that -makes all men brothers. Then jealousy, malice, envy, unkind words and -cruel misjudging will be eclipsed and lost in the sunshine of love. - -The greatest triumph of the nineteenth century is not its marvellous -progress in invention; its strides in education; its conquests of the -dark regions of the world; the spread of a higher mental tone throughout -the earth; the wondrous increase in material comfort and wealth,—the -greatest triumph of the century is not any nor all of these; it is the -sweet atmosphere of Peace that is covering the nations, it is the -growing closer and closer of the peoples of the earth. Peace is but the -breath, the perfume, the life of love. Love is the wondrous angel of -life that rolls away all the stones of sorrow and suffering from the -pathway of duty. - - - - - IV - - The Supreme Charity _of the_ World - - -True charity is not typified by an almsbox. The benevolence of a check -book does not meet all the wants of humanity. Giving food, clothing and -money to the poor is only the beginning, the kindergarten class, of real -charity. Charity has higher, purer forms of manifestation. Charity is -but an instinctive reaching out for justice in life. Charity seeks to -smooth down the rough places of living, to bridge the chasms of human -sin and folly, to feed the heart-hungry, to give strength to the -struggling, to be tender with human weakness, and greatest of all, it -means—obeying the Divine injunction: “Judge not.” - -The true symbol of the greatest charity is the scales of judgment held -on high, suspended from the hand of Justice. So perfectly are they -poised that they are never at rest; they dare not stop for a moment to -pronounce final judgment; each second adds its grain of evidence to -either side of the balance. With this ideal before him, man, conscious -of his own weakness and frailty, dare not arrogate to himself the Divine -prerogative of pronouncing severe or final judgment on any individual. -He will seek to train mind and heart to greater keenness, purity, and -delicacy in watching the trembling movement of the balance in which he -weighs the characters and reputations of those around him. - -It is a great pity in life that all the greatest words are most -degraded. We hear people say: “I do so love to study character, in the -cars and on the street.” They are not studying character; they are -merely observing characteristics. The study of character is not a puzzle -that a man may work out over night. Character is most subtle, elusive, -changing and contradictory—a strange mingling of habits, hopes, -tendencies, ideals, motives, weaknesses, traditions and -memories—manifest in a thousand different phases. - -There is but one quality necessary for the perfect understanding of -character, one quality that, if man have it, he may _dare to -judge_—that is, omniscience. Most people study character as a -proofreader pores over a great poem: his ears are dulled to the majesty -and music of the lines, his eyes are darkened to the magic imagination -of the genius of the author; that proofreader is busy watching for an -inverted comma, a mis-spacing, or a wrong-font letter. He has an eye -trained for the imperfections, the weaknesses. Men who pride themselves -on being shrewd in discovering the weak points, the vanity, dishonesty, -immorality, intrigue and pettiness of others, think they understand -character. They know only part of character—they know only the depths -to which some men may sink; they know not the heights to which some men -may rise. An optimist is a man who has succeeded in associating with -humanity for some time without becoming a cynic. - -We never see the target a man aims at in life; we see only the target he -hits. We judge from results, and we imagine an infinity of motives that -we say must have been in his mind. No man since the creation has been -able to live a life so pure and noble as to exempt him from the -misjudgment of those around him. It is impossible to get aught but a -distorted image from a convex or a concave mirror. - -If misfortune comes to someone, people are prone to say, “It is a -judgment upon him.” How do they know? Have they been eavesdropping at -the door of Paradise? When sorrow and failure come to us, we regard them -as misdirected packages that should be delivered elsewhere. We do too -much watching of our neighbor’s garden, too little weeding in our own. - -Bottles have been picked up at sea thousands of miles from the point -where they have been cast into the waters. They have been the sport of -wind and weather; carried along by ocean currents, they have reached a -destination undreamed of. Our flippant, careless words of judgment of -the character of someone, words lightly and perhaps innocently spoken, -may be carried by unknown currents and bring sorrow, misery and shame to -the innocent. A cruel smile, a shrug of the shoulders or a cleverly -eloquent silence may ruin in a moment the reputation a man or woman has -been building for years. It is as a single motion of the hand may -destroy the delicate geometry of a spider’s web, spun from its own body -and life, though all the united efforts of the universe could not put it -back as it was. - -We do not need to judge nearly so much as we think we do. This is the -age of snap judgments. The habit is greatly intensified by the -sensational press. Twenty-four hours after a great murder there is -difficulty in getting enough men who have not already formulated a -judgment, to try the case. These men, in most instances, have read and -accepted the garbled, highly colored newspaper account; they have to -their own satisfaction discovered the murderer, practically tried him -and—sentenced him. We hear readers state their decisions with all the -force and absoluteness of one who has had the whole Book of Life made -luminant and spread out before him. If there be one place in life where -the attitude of the agnostic is beautiful, it is in this matter of -judging others. It is the courage to say: “I don’t know. I am waiting -further evidence. I must hear both sides of the question. Till then I -suspend all judgment.” It is this suspended judgment that is the supreme -form of charity. - -It is strange that in life we recognize the right of every criminal to -have a fair, open trial, yet we condemn unheard the dear friends around -us on mere circumstantial evidence. We rely on the mere evidence of our -senses, trust it implicitly, and permit it to sweep away like a mighty -tide the faith that has been ours for years. We see all life grow dark, -hope sink before our eyes, and the golden treasures of memory turn to -cruel thoughts of loss to sting us with maddening pain. Our hasty -judgment, that a few moments of explanation would remove, has estranged -the friend of our life. If we be thus unjust to those we hold dear, what -must be the cruel injustice of our judgment of others? - -We know nothing of the trials, sorrows and temptations of those around -us, of pillows wet with sobs, of the life-tragedy that may be hidden -behind a smile, of the secret cares, struggles and worries that shorten -life and leave their mark in hair prematurely whitened, and in character -changed and almost re-created in a few days. - -We say sometimes to one who seems calm and smiling: “You ought to be -supremely happy; you have everything that heart could wish.” It may be -that at that very moment the person is passing alone through some agony -of sorrow, where the teeth seem almost to bite into the lips in the -attempt to keep feelings under control, when life seems a living death -from which there is no relief. Then these light, flippant phrases jar -upon us, and we seem as isolated and separated from the rest of humanity -as if we were living on another planet. - -Let us not dare to add to the burden of another the pain of our -judgment. If we would guard our lips from expressing, we must control -our mind, we must stop this continual sitting in judgment on the acts of -others, even in private. Let us by daily exercises in self-control learn -to turn off the process of judging—as we would turn off the gas. Let us -eliminate pride, passion, personal feeling, prejudice and pettiness from -our mind, and higher, purer emotions will rush in, as air seeks to fill -a vacuum. Charity is not a formula; it is an atmosphere. Let us -cultivate charity in judging; let us seek to draw out latent good in -others rather than to discover hidden evil. It requires the eye of -charity to see the undeveloped butterfly in the caterpillar. Let us, if -we would rise to the full glory of our privilege, to the dignity of true -living, make for our watchword the injunction of the supreme charity of -the world—“Judge not.” - - - - - V - - Worry, _the_ Great American Disease - - -Worry is the most popular form of suicide. Worry impairs appetite, -disturbs sleep, makes respiration irregular, spoils digestion, irritates -disposition, warps character, weakens mind, stimulates disease, and saps -bodily health. It is the real cause of death in thousands of instances -where some other disease is named in the death certificate. Worry is -mental poison; work is mental food. - -When a child’s absorption in his studies keeps him from sleeping, or -when he tosses and turns from side to side, muttering the multiplication -table or spelling words aloud, when sleep does come, then that child -shows he is worrying. It is one of Nature’s danger-signals raised to -warn parents, and in mercy the parent should take a firm stand. The -burden of that child’s daily tasks should be lightened, the tension of -its concentration should be lessened, the hours of its slavery to -education should be cut short. - -When a man or woman works over in dreams the problems of the day, when -the sleeping hours are spent in turning the kaleidoscope of the day’s -activities, then there is either overwork or worry, and most likely it -is the worry that comes from overwork. The Creator never intended a -healthy mind to dream of the day’s duties. Either dreamless sleep or -dreams of the past should be the order of the night. - -When the spectre of one grief, one fear, one sorrow, obtrudes itself -between the eye and the printed page; when the inner voice of this -irritating memory, or fear, looms up so loud as to deaden outside -voices, there is danger to the individual. When all day, every hour, -every moment, there is the dull, insistent, numb pain of something that -makes itself felt through, above and below all our other thinking, we -must know that we are worrying. Then there is but one thing to do,—we -must stop that worry; we must kill it. - -The wise men of this wondrous century have made great discoveries in -their interviews with Nature. They have discovered that everything that -has been created has its uses. They will teach you not to assassinate -flies with paper coated with sweetened glue, for “the flies are Nature’s -scavengers.” They will tell you just what are the special duties and -responsibilities of each of the microscopic microbes with telescopic -names. In their wildest moods of scientific enthusiasm they may venture -to persuade you into believing that even the _mosquito_ serves some real -purpose in Nature, but no man that has ever lived can truthfully say a -good word about worry. - -Worry is forethought gone to seed. Worry is discounting possible future -sorrows so that the individual may have present misery. Worry is the -father of insomnia. Worry is the traitor in our camp that dampens our -powder, weakens our aim. Under the guise of helping us to bear the -present, and to be ready for the future, worry multiplies enemies within -our own mind to sap our strength. - -Worry is the dominance of the mind by a single vague, restless, -unsatisfied, fearing and fearful idea. The mental energy and force that -should be concentrated on the successive duties of the day is constantly -and surreptitiously abstracted and absorbed by this one fixed idea. The -full rich strength of the _unconscious_ working of the mind, that which -produces our best success, that represents our finest activity, is -tapped, led away and wasted on worry. - -Worry must not be confused with anxiety, though both words agree in -meaning, originally, a “choking,” or a “strangling,” referring, of -course, to the throttling effect upon individual activity. Anxiety faces -large issues of life seriously, calmly, with dignity. Anxiety always -suggests hopeful possibility; it is active in being ready, and devising -measures to meet the outcome. - -Worry is not one large individual sorrow; it is a colony of petty, -vague, insignificant, restless imps of fear, that become important only -from their combination, their constancy, their iteration. - -When Death comes, when the one we love has passed from us, and the -silence and the loneness and the emptiness of all things make us stare -dry-eyed into the future, we give ourselves up, for a time, to the agony -of isolation. This is not a petty worry we must kill ere it kills us. -This is the awful majesty of sorrow that mercifully benumbs us, though -it may later become, in the mysterious working of omnipotence, a -rebaptism and a regeneration. It is the worry _habit_, the constant -magnifying of petty sorrows to eclipse the sun of happiness, against -which I here make protest. - -To cure worry, the individual must be his own physician; he must give -the case heroic treatment. He must realize, with every fibre of his -being, the utter, absolute uselessness of worry. He must not think this -is commonplace,—a bit of mere theory; it is a reality that he must -translate for himself from mere words to a real, living fact. He must -fully understand that if it were possible for him to spend a whole -series of eternities in worry, it would not change the fact one jot or -tittle. It is a time for action, not worry, because worry paralyzes -thought and action, too. If you set down a column of figures in -addition, no amount of worry can change the sum total of those figures. -That result is wrapped up in the inevitability of mathematics. The -result can be made different only by changing the figures as they are -set down, one by one, in that column. - -The one time that a man cannot afford to worry is when he _does_ worry. -Then he is facing, or imagines he is, a critical turn in affairs. This -is the time when he needs one hundred per cent. of his mental energy to -make his plans quickly, to see what is his wisest decision, to keep a -clear eye on the sky and on his course, and a firm hand on the helm -until he has weathered the storm in safety. - -There are two reasons why man should not worry, either one of which must -operate in every instance. First, because he _cannot_ prevent the -results he fears. Second, because he _can_ prevent them. If he be -powerless to avert the blow, he needs perfect mental concentration to -meet it bravely, to lighten its force, to get what salvage he can from -the wreck, to sustain his strength at this time when he must plan a new -future. If he _can_ prevent the evil he fears, then he has no need to -worry, for he would by so doing be dissipating energy in his very hour -of need. - -If man do, day by day, ever the best he can by the light he has, he has -no need to fear, no need to regret, no need to worry. No agony of worry -would do aught to help him. Neither mortal nor angel can do more than -his best. - -If we look back upon our past life we will see how, in the marvellous -working of events, the cities of our greatest happiness and of our -fullest success have been built along the rivers of our deepest sorrows, -our most abject failures. We then realize that our present happiness or -success would have been impossible had it not been for some terrible -affliction or loss in the past,—some wondrous potent force in the -evolution of our character or our fortune. This should be a wondrous -stimulus to us in bearing the trials and sorrows of life. - -To cure one’s self of worry is not an easy task; it is not to be removed -in two or three applications of the quack medicine of any cheap -philosophy, but it requires only clear, simple commonsense applied to -the business of life. Man has no right to waste his own energies, to -weaken his own powers and influence, for he has inalienable duties to -himself, to his family, to society, and to the world. - - - - - VI - - The Greatness _of_ Simplicity - - -Simplicity is the elimination of the non-essential in all things. It -reduces life to its minimum of real needs; raises it to its maximum of -powers. Simplicity means the survival,—not of the fittest, but of the -best. In morals it kills the weeds of vice and weakness so that the -flowers of virtue and strength may have room to grow. Simplicity cuts -off waste and intensifies concentration. It converts flickering torches -into searchlights. - -All great truths are simple. The essence of Christianity could be given -in a few words; a lifetime would be but continued seeking to make those -words real and living in thoughts and acts. The true Christian’s -individual belief is always simpler than his church creed, and upon -these vital, foundation elements he builds his life. Higher criticism -never rises to the heights of his simplicity. He does not care whether -the whale swallowed Jonah or Jonah swallowed the whale. Hair-splitting -interpretation of words and phrases is an intellectual dissipation he -has no time for. He cares naught for the anatomy of religion; he has its -soul. His simple faith he lives,—in thought and word and act, day by -day. Like the lark he lives nearest the ground; like the lark he soars -highest toward heaven. - -The minister whose sermons are made up merely of flowers of rhetoric, -sprigs of quotation, sweet fancy, and perfumed commonplaces, -is—consciously or unconsciously—posing in the pulpit. His literary -charlotte-russes, sweet froth on a spongy, pulpy base, never helped a -human soul,—they give neither strength nor inspiration. If the mind and -heart of the preacher were really thrilled with the greatness and -simplicity of religion, he would, week by week, apply the ringing truths -of his faith to the vital problems of daily living. The test of a -strong, simple sermon is results,—not the Sunday praise of his -auditors, but their bettered lives during the week. People who pray on -their knees on Sunday and prey on their neighbors on Monday, need -simplicity in their faith. - -No character can be simple unless it is based on truth—unless it is -lived in harmony with one’s own conscience and ideals. Simplicity is the -pure white light of a life lived from within. It is destroyed by any -attempt to live in harmony with public opinion. Public opinion is a -conscience owned by a syndicate,—where the individual is merely a -stockholder. But the individual has a conscience of which he is sole -proprietor. Adjusting his life to his own ideals is the royal road to -simplicity. Affectation is the confession of inferiority; it is an -unnecessary proclamation that one is not living the life he pretends to -live. - -Simplicity is restful contempt for the non-essentials of life. It is -restless hunger for the non-essentials that is the secret of most of the -discontent of the world. It is constant striving to outshine others that -kills simplicity and happiness. - -Nature, in all her revelations, seeks to teach man the greatness of -simplicity. Health is but the living of a physical life in harmony with -a few simple, clearly defined laws. Simple food, simple exercise, simple -precautions will work wonders. But man grows tired of the simple things, -he yields to subtle temptations in eating and drinking, listens to his -palate instead of to Nature,—and he suffers. He is then led into -intimate acquaintance with dyspepsia, and he sits like a child at his -own bounteous table, forced to limit his eating to simple food that he -scorned. - -There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in -escaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple -duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows -smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm -for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is -greatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom. - -Simplicity is the characteristic that is most difficult to simulate. The -signature that is most difficult to imitate is the one that is most -simple, most individual and most free from flourishes. The bank note -that is the most difficult to counterfeit successfully is the one that -contains the fewest lines and has the least intricate detail. So simple -is it that any departure from the normal is instantly apparent. So is it -also in mind and in morals. - -Simplicity in act is the outward expression of simplicity in thought. -Men who carry on their shoulders the fate of a nation are quiet, modest, -unassuming. They are often made gentle, calm and simple by the -discipline of their responsibility. They have no room in their minds for -the pettiness of personal vanity. It is ever the drum-major who grows -pompous when he thinks that the whole world is watching him as he -marches at the head of the procession. The great general, bowed with the -honors of many campaigns, is simple and unaffected as a child. - -The college graduate assumes the airs of one to whom is committed the -wisdom of the ages, while the great man of science, the Columbus of some -great continent of investigation, is simple and humble. - -The longest Latin derivatives seem necessary to express the thoughts of -young writers. The world’s great masters in literature can move mankind -to tears, give light and life to thousands in darkness and doubt, or -scourge a nation for its folly,—by words so simple as to be -commonplace. But transfigured by the divinity of genius, there seems -almost a miracle in words. - -Life grows wondrously beautiful when we look at it as simple, when we -can brush aside the trivial cares and sorrows and worries and failures -and say: “They don’t count. They are not the real things of life; they -are but interruptions. There is something within me, my individuality, -that makes all these gnats of trouble seem too trifling for me to permit -them to have any dominion over me.” Simplicity is a mental soil where -artifice, lying, deceit, treachery and selfish, low ambition,—cannot -grow. - -The man whose character is simple looks truth and honesty so straight in -the face that he has no consciousness of intrigue and corruption around -him. He is deaf to the hints and whispers of wrongs that a suspicious -nature would suspect even before they existed. He scorns to meet -intrigue with intrigue, to hold power by bribery, to pay weak tribute to -an inferior that has a temporary inning. To true simplicity, to perceive -a truth is to begin to live it, to see a duty is to begin to do it. -Nothing great can ever enter into the consciousness of a man of -simplicity and remain but a theory. Simplicity in a character is like -the needle of a compass,—it knows only one point, its North, its ideal. - -Let us seek to cultivate this simplicity in all things in our life. The -first step toward simplicity is “simplifying.” The beginning of mental -or moral progress or reform is always renunciation or sacrifice. It is -rejection, surrender or destruction of separate phases of habit or life -that have kept us from higher things. Reform your diet and you simplify -it; make your speech truer and higher and you simplify it; reform your -morals and you begin to cut off your immorals. The secret of all true -greatness is simplicity. Make simplicity the keynote of your life and -you will be great, no matter though your life be humble and your -influence seem but little. Simple habits, simple manners, simple needs, -simple words, simple faiths,—all are the pure manifestations of a mind -and heart of simplicity. - -Simplicity is never to be associated with weakness and ignorance. It -means reducing tons of ore to nuggets of gold. It means the light of -fullest knowledge; it means that the individual has seen the folly and -the nothingness of those things that make up the sum of the life of -others. He has lived _down_ what others are blindly seeking to live _up_ -to. Simplicity is the sun of a self-centred and pure life,—the secret -of any specific greatness in the life of the individual. - - - - - VII - - Living Life Over Again - - -During a terrific storm a few years ago a ship was driven far out of -her course, and, helpless and disabled, was carried into a strange bay. -The water supply gave out, and the crew suffered the agony of thirst, -yet dared not drink of the salt water in which their vessel floated. In -the last extremity they lowered a bucket over the ship’s side, and in -desperation quaffed the beverage they thought was sea-water. But to -their joy and amazement the water was fresh, cool and life-giving. They -were in a fresh-water arm of the sea, and they did not know it. They had -simply to reach down and accept the new life and strength for which they -prayed. - -Man, to-day, heart-weary with the sorrow, sin and failure of his past -life, feels that he could live a better life if he could only have -another chance, if he could only live life over again, if he could only -start afresh with his present knowledge and experience. He looks back -with regretful memory to the golden days of youth and sadly mourns his -wasted chances. He then turns hopefully to the thought of a life to -come. But, helpless, he stands between the two ends of life, yet -thirsting for the chance to live a new life, according to his bettered -condition for living it. In his blindness and unknowing, he does not -realize, like the storm-driven sailors, that the new life is all around -him; he has but to reach out and take it. Every day is a new life, every -sunrise but a new birth for himself and the world, every morning the -beginning of a new existence for him, a new, great chance to put to new -and higher uses the results of his past living. - -The man who looks back upon his past life and says, “I have nothing to -regret,” has lived in vain. The life without regret is the life without -gain. Regret is but the light of fuller wisdom, from our past, -illumining our future. It means that we are wiser to-day than we were -yesterday. This new wisdom means new responsibility, new privileges; it -is a new chance for a better life. But if regret remain merely “regret,” -it is useless; it must become the revelation of new possibilities, and -the inspiration and source of strength to realize them. Even omnipotence -could not change the past, but each man, to a degree far beyond his -knowing, holds his future in his own hands. - -If man were sincere in his longing to live life over he would get more -help from his failures. If he realize his wasted golden hours of -opportunity, let him not waste other hours in useless regret, but seek -to forget his folly and to keep before him only the lessons of it. His -past extravagance of time should lead him to minify his loss by -marvellous economy of present moments. If his whole life be darkened by -the memory of a cruel wrong he has done another, if direct amends be -impossible to the injured one, passed from life, let him make the world -the legatee to receive his expressions of restitution. Let his regret -and sorrow be manifest in words of kindness and sympathy, and acts of -sweetness and love given to all with whom he comes in contact. If he -regrets a war he has made against one individual, let him place the -entire world on his pension list. If a man make a certain mistake once, -the only way he can properly express his recognition of it is not to -make a similar mistake later. Josh Billings once said: “A man who is -bitten twice by the same dog is better adapted to that business than any -other.” - -There are many people in this world who want to live life over because -they take such pride in their past. They resemble the beggars in the -street who tell you they “have seen better days.” It is not what man -_was_ that shows character; it is what he progressively _is_. Trying to -obtain a present record on a dead past is like some present-day -mediocrity that tries to live on its ancestry. We look for the fruit in -the branches of the family tree, not in the roots. Showing how a family -degenerated from a noble ancestor of generations ago to its present -representative is not a boast;—it is an unnecessary confession. Let man -think less of his own ancestors and more of those he is preparing for -his posterity; less of his past virtue, and more of his future. - -When man pleads for a chance to live life over, there is always an -implied plea of inexperience, of a lack of knowledge. This is unworthy, -even of a coward. We know the laws of health, yet we ignore them or defy -them every day. We know what is the proper food for us, individually, to -eat, yet we gratify our appetites and trust to our cleverness to square -the account with Nature somehow. We know that success is a matter of -simple, clearly defined laws, of the development of mental essentials, -of tireless energy and concentration, of constant payment of price,—we -know all this, and yet we do not live up to our knowledge. We constantly -eclipse ourselves by ourselves, and then we blame Fate. - -Parents often counsel their children against certain things, and do them -themselves, in the foolish hope that the children will believe their -ears in preference to their eyes. Years of careful teaching of a child -to be honest and truthful may be nullified in an instant by a parent’s -lying to a conductor about a child’s age to save a nickel. That may be a -very expensive street-car ride for the child,—and for the parent. It -may be part of the spirit of the age to believe that it is no sin to -cheat a corporation or a trust, but it is unwise to give the child so -striking an example at an age when it cannot detect the sophistry. - -Man’s only plea for a chance to live life again is that he has gained in -wisdom and experience. If he be really in earnest, then he can live life -over, he can live life anew, he can live the new life that comes to him -day by day. Let him leave to the past, to the aggregated thousands of -yesterdays, all their mistakes, sin, sorrow, misery and folly, and start -afresh. Let him close the books of his old life, let him strike a -balance, and start anew, crediting himself with all the wisdom he has -gained from his past failure and weakness, and charging himself with the -new duties and responsibilities that come from the possession of his new -capital of wisdom. Let him criticise others less and himself more,—and -start out bravely in this new life he is to live. - -What the world needs is more day-to-day living; starting in the morning -with fresh, clear ideals for that day, and seeking to live that day, and -each successive hour and moment of that day, as if it were all time and -all eternity. This has in it no element of disregard for the future, for -each day is set in harmony with that future. It is like the sea-captain -heading his vessel toward his port of destination, and day by day -keeping her steaming toward it. This view of living kills morbid regret -of the past, and morbid worry about the future. Most people want large, -guaranteed slices of life; they would not be satisfied with manna fresh -every day, as was given to the children of Israel; they want grain -elevators filled with daily bread. - -Life is worth living if it be lived in a way that is worth living. Man -does not own his life,—to do with as he will. He has merely a -life-interest in it. He must finally surrender it,—with an accounting. -At each New Year tide it is common to make new resolutions, but in the -true life of the individual each day is the beginning of a New Year if -he will only make it so. A mere date on the calendar of eternity is no -more a divider of time than a particular grain of sand divides the -desert. - -Let us not make heroic resolutions so far beyond our strength that the -resolution becomes a dead memory within a week; but let us promise -ourselves that each day will be the new beginning of a newer, better and -truer life for ourselves, for those around us, and for the world. - - - - - VIII - - Syndicating Our Sorrows - - -The most selfish man in the world is the one who is most -unselfish,—with his sorrows. He does not leave a single misery of his -untold to you, or unsuffered by you,—he gives you all of them. The -world becomes to him a syndicate formed to take stock in his private -cares, worries and trials. His mistake is in forming a syndicate; he -should organize a trust and control it all himself, then he could keep -everyone from getting any of his misery. - -Life is a great, serious problem for the individual. All our greatest -joys and our deepest sorrows come to us,—alone. We must go into our -Gethsemane,—alone. We must battle against the mighty weakness within -us,—alone. We must live our own life,—alone. We must die,—alone. We -must accept the full responsibility of our life,—alone. If each one of -us has this mighty problem of life to solve for himself, if each of us -has his own cares, responsibilities, failures, doubts, fears, -bereavements, we surely are playing a coward’s part when we syndicate -our sorrows to others. - -We should seek to make life brighter for others; we should seek to -hearten them in their trials by the example of our courage in bearing -our sorrows. We should seek to forget our failures, and remember only -the new wisdom they gave us; we should live down our griefs by counting -the joys and privileges still left to us; put behind us our worries and -regrets, and face each new day of life as bravely as we can. But we have -no right to retail our sorrow and unhappiness through the community. - -Autobiography constitutes a large part of the conversation of some -people. It is not really conversation,—it is an uninterrupted -monologue. These people study their individual lives with a microscope, -and then they throw an enlarged view of their miseries on a screen and -lecture on them, as a stereopticon man discourses on the microbes in a -drop of water. They tell you that “they did not sleep a wink all night; -they heard the clock strike every quarter of an hour.” Now, there is no -real cause for thus boasting of insomnia. It requires no peculiar -talent,—even though it does come only to wide-awake people. - -If you ask such a man how he is feeling, he will trace the whole -genealogy of his present condition down from the time he had the grippe -four years ago. You hoped for a word; he gives you a treatise. You asked -for a sentence; he delivers an encyclopedia. His motto is: “Every man -his own Boswell.” He is syndicating his sorrows. - -The woman who makes her trials with her children, her troubles with her -servants, her difficulties with her family, the subjects of conversation -with her callers is syndicating her sorrows. If she has a dear little -innocent child who recites “Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,” is it not -wiser for the mother to bear it calmly and discreetly and in silence, -than to syndicate this sorrow? - -The business man who lets his dyspepsia get into his disposition, and -who makes everyone around him suffer because he himself is ill, is -syndicating ill-health. We have no right to make others the victims of -our moods. If illness makes us cross and irritable, makes us unjust to -faithful workers who cannot protest, let us quarantine ourselves so that -we do not spread the contagion. Let us force ourselves to speak slowly, -to keep anger away from the eyes, to prevent temper showing in the -voice. If we feel that we _must_ have dyspepsia, let us keep it out of -our head, let us keep it from getting north of the neck. - -Most people sympathize too much with themselves. They take themselves as -a single sentence isolated from the great text of life. They study -themselves too much as separated from the rest of humanity, instead of -being vitally connected with their fellow-men. There are some people who -surrender to sorrow as others give way to dissipation. There is a vain -pride of sorrow as well as of beauty. Most individuals have a strange -glow of vanity in looking back upon their past and feeling that few -others in life have suffered such trials, hardships and disappointments -as have come to them. - -When Death comes into the little circle of loved ones who make up our -world, all life becomes dark to us. We seem to have no reason for -existing, no object, no incentive, no hope. The love that made struggle -and effort bearable for us,—is gone. We stare, dry-eyed, into the -future, and see no future; we want none. Life has become to us a -past,—with no future. It is but a memory, without a hope. - -Then in the divine mystery of Nature’s processes, under the tender, -soothing touch of Time, as days melt into weeks, we begin to open our -eyes gently to the world around us, and the noise and tumult of life -jars less and less upon us. We have become emotionally convalescent. As -the days go on, in our deep love, in the fullness of our loyalty, we -protest often, with tears in our eyes, against our gradual return to the -spirit and atmosphere of the days of the past. We feel in a subtle way a -new pain, as if we were disloyal to the dear one, as if we were -faithless to our love. Nature sweetly turns aside our protesting hands, -and says to us, “There is no disloyalty in permitting the wounds to -lessen their pain, to heal gradually, if Time foreordain that they can -heal.” There are some natures, all-absorbed in a mighty love, wherein no -healing is possible,—but these are rare souls in life. - -Bitter though our anguish be, we have no right to syndicate our sorrow. -We have no right to cast a gloom over happy natures by our heavy weight -of crape, by serving the term prescribed by Society for wearing the -livery of mourning,—as if real grief thought of a uniform. We have no -right to syndicate our grief by using notepaper with a heavy black -border as wide as a hatband, thus parading our personal sorrow to others -in their happiest moments. - -If life has not gone well with us, if fortune has left us disconsolate, -if love has grown cold, and we sit alone by the embers; if life has -become to us a valley of desolation, through which weary limbs must drag -an unwilling body till the end shall come,—let us not radiate such an -atmosphere to those round us; let us not take strangers through the -catacombs of our life, and show the bones of our dead past; let us not -pass our cup of sorrow to others, but, if we must drink it, let us take -it as Socrates did his poison hemlock,—grandly, heroically and -uncomplainingly. - -If your life has led you to doubt the existence of honor in man and -virtue in woman; if you feel that religion is a pretense, that -spirituality is a sham, that life is a failure, and death the entrance -to nothingness; if you have absorbed all the poison philosophy of the -world’s pessimists, and committed the folly of believing it,—don’t -syndicate it. - -If your fellow-man be clinging to one frail spar, the last remnant of a -noble, shipwrecked faith in God and humanity, let him keep it. Do not -loosen his fingers from his hope, and tell him it is a delusion. How do -you know? Who told you it was so? - -If these high-tide moments of life sweep your faith in Omnipotence into -nothingness, if the friend in whom you have put all faith in humanity -and humanity’s God betray you, do not eagerly accept the teachings of -those modern freethinkers who syndicate their infidelity at so much per -reserved seat. Seek to recover your lost faith by listening to the -million voices that speak of infinite wisdom, infinite love, that -manifest themselves in nature and humanity, and then build up as rapidly -as you can a new faith, a faith in something higher, better and truer -than you have known before. - -You may have _one_ in the world to whom you may dare show with the -fullness of absolute confidence and perfect faith any thought, any hope, -any sorrow,—but you dare not trust them to the world. Do not show the -world through your Bluebeard chamber; keep your trials and sorrows as -close to you as you can till you have mastered them. Don’t weaken others -by thus—syndicating your miseries. - - - - - IX - - The Revelations _of_ Reserve Power - - -Every individual is a marvel of unknown and unrealized possibilities. -Nine-tenths of an iceberg is always below water. Nine-tenths of the -possibilities of good and evil of the individual is ever hidden from his -sight. - -Burns’ prayer,—that we might “see oursels as ithers see us,”—was weak. -The answer could minister only to man’s vanity,—it would show him only -what others think him to be, not what he is. We should pray to see -ourselves as we _are_. But no man could face the radiant revelation of -the latent powers and forces within him, underlying the weak, narrow -life he is living. He would fall blinded and prostrate as did Moses -before the burning bush. Man is not a mechanical music-box wound up by -the Creator and set to play a fixed number of prescribed tunes. He is a -human harp, with infinite possibilities of unawakened music. - -The untold revelations of Nature are in her Reserve Power. Reserve Power -is Nature’s method of meeting emergencies. Nature is wise and economic. -Nature saves energy and effort, and gives only what is absolutely -necessary for life and development under any given condition, and when -new needs arise Nature always meets them by her Reserve Power. - -In animal life Nature reveals this in a million phases. Animals placed -in the darkness of the Mammoth Cave gradually have the sense of sight -weakened and the senses of smell, touch and hearing intensified. Nature -watches over all animals, making their color harmonize with the general -tone of their surroundings to protect them from their enemies. Those -arctic animals which in the summer inhabit regions free from snow, turn -white when winter comes. In the desert, the lion, the camel and all the -desert antelopes have more or less the color of the sand and rocks among -which they live. In tropical forests parrots are usually green; -turacous, barbets and bee-eaters have a preponderance of green in their -plumage. The colors change as the habits of the animals change from -generation to generation. Nature, by her Reserve Power, always meets the -new needs of animals with new strength,—new harmony with new -conditions. - -About forty-five years ago three pairs of enterprising rabbits were -introduced into Australia. To-day, the increase of these six immigrants -may be counted by millions. They became a pest to the country. Fortunes -have been spent to exterminate them. Wire fences many feet high and -thousands of miles long have been built to keep out the invaders. The -rabbits had to fight awful odds to live, but they have now outwitted -man. They have developed a new nail,—a long nail by which they can -retain their hold on the fence while climbing. With this same nail they -can burrow six or eight inches under the netting, and thus enter the -fields that mean food and life to them. They are now laughing at man. -Reserve Power has vitalized for these rabbits latent possibilities -because they did not tamely accept their condition, but in their -struggle to live learned _how_ to live. - -In plant life, Nature is constantly revealing Reserve Power. The -possibilities of almost infinite color are present in _every_ green -plant, even in roots and stems. Proper conditions only are needed to -reveal them. By obeying Nature’s laws man could make leaves as -beautifully colored as flowers. The _wild_ rose has only a single -corolla; but, when cultivated in rich soil, the numerous yellow stamens -change into the brilliant red leaves of the full-grown cabbage-rose. -This is but one of Nature’s miracles of Reserve Power. Once the banana -was a tropical lily; the peach was at one time a bitter almond. To tell -the full story of Reserve Power in Nature would mean to write the -history of the universe, in a thousand volumes. - -Nature is a great believer in “double engines.” Man is equipped with -nearly every organ in duplicate—eyes, ears, lungs, arms and legs, so -that if one be weakened, its mate, through Reserve Power, is stimulated -to do enough for both. Even where the organ itself is not duplicated, as -in the nose, there is a division of parts so there is constant reserve. -Nature, for still further protection, has for every part of the body an -understudy in training, to be ready in a crisis,—as the sense of touch -for the blind. - -Birds when frightened ruffle their feathers; a dog that has been in the -water shakes its coat so that each hair stands out of itself; the -startled hedgehog projects every quill. These actions are produced by -“skin muscles” that are rudimentary in man, and over which in ordinary -conditions he has no control. But in a moment of terrible fear Reserve -Power quickens their action in a second, and the hair on his head -“stands on end” in the intensity of his fright. - -Nature, that thus watches so tenderly over the physical needs of man, is -equally provident in storing for him a mental and a moral Reserve Power. -Man may fail in a dozen different lines of activity and then succeed -brilliantly in a phase wherein he was unconscious of any ability. We -must never rest content with what we _are_, and say: “There is no use -for me to try. I can never be great. I am not even clever now.” But the -law of Reserve Power stands by us as a fairy godmother and says: “There -is one charm by which you can transmute the dull dross of your present -condition into the pure gold of strength and power,—that charm is ever -doing your best, ever daring more, and the full measure of your final -attainment can never be told in advance. Rely upon me to help you with -new revelations of strength in new emergencies. Never be cast down -because your power seems so trifling, your progress so slow. The world’s -greatest and best men were failures in some line, failures many times -before failure was crowned with success.” - -There is in the mythology of the Norsemen a belief that the strength of -an enemy we kill enters into us. This is true in character. As we -conquer a passion, a thought, a feeling, a desire; as we rise superior -to some impulse, the strength of that victory, trifling though it may -be, is stored by Nature as a Reserve Power to come to us in the hour of -our need. - -Were we to place before almost any individual the full chart of his -future,—his trials, sorrows, failures, afflictions, loss, sickness and -loneliness,—and ask him if he could bear it, he would say: “No! I could -not bear all that and live.” But he _can_ and he _does_. The hopes upon -the realization of which he has staked all his future turn to air as he -nears them; friends whom he has trusted betray him; the world grows cold -to him; the child whose smile is the light of his life dishonors his -name; death takes from him the wife of his heart. Reserve Power has been -watching over him and ever giving him new strength,—even while he -sleeps. - -If we be conscious of any weakness, and desire to conquer it, we can -force ourselves into positions where we _must_ act in a way to -strengthen ourselves through that weakness, cut off our retreat, burn -our bridges behind us, and fight like Spartans till the victory be ours. - -Reserve Power is like the manna given to the children of Israel in the -wilderness,—only enough was given them to keep them for one day. Each -successive day had its new supply of strength. There is in the leaning -tower of Pisa a spiral stairway so steep in its ascent that only one -step at a time is revealed to us. But as each step is taken the next is -made visible, and thus, step by step, to the very highest. So in the -Divine economy of the universe, Reserve Power is a gradual and constant -revelation of strength within us to meet each new need. And no matter -what be our line of life, what our need, we should feel that we have -within us infinite, untried strength and possibility, and that, if we -believe and do our best, the Angel of Reserve Power will walk by our -side, and will even divide the waters of the Red Sea of our sorrows and -trials so we may walk through in safety. - - - - - X - - The Majesty _of_ Calmness - - -Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a -great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral -atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. -Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious -power,—ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis. - -The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,—petrifaction is not -calmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one -lives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the -man who is calm. - -The Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment, -hopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly indifferent -to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship, drifting on the -ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known port to which he is -sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all nature is shown in his -existence of constant surrender. It is not,—calmness. - -The man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart. -His hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, hidden -reefs,—he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calm and -serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he needs a -clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do each day -the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch nor -falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his -course for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true -channel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. _When_ he will -reach it, _how_ he will reach it matters not to him. He rests in -calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to be -overthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head,—in calmness. -To no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality. God -commits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days to use -to the best of his knowledge. - -Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the -depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the -surface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred -feet,—below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great -crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is -the crown of self-control. - -When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon -you, and you chafe under the friction,—be calm. Stop, rest for a -moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these -irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing -your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study the -disturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will-power of your -nature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one, -melt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow of -calmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of an -inflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation of -the supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some great hour -of your life, when you stand face to face with some awful trial, when -the structure of your ambition and life-work crumbles in a moment, you -will be brave. You can then fold your arms calmly, look out undismayed -and undaunted upon the ashes of your hope, upon the wreck of what you -have faithfully built, and with brave heart and unfaltering voice you -may say: “So let it be,—I will build again.” - -When the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority, -tempts you for just a moment to retaliate, when for an instant you -forget yourself so far as to hunger for revenge,—be calm. When the grey -heron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run to escape; it -remains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly, facing the -enemy unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle makes its -attack, the boasted king of birds is often impaled and run through on -the quiet, lance-like bill of the heron. The means that man takes to -kill another’s character becomes suicide of his own. - -No man in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being -injured in return,—someway, somehow, sometime. The only weapon of -offence that Nature seems to recognize is the boomerang. Nature keeps -her books admirably; she puts down every item, she closes all accounts -finally, but she does not always balance them at the end of the month. -To the man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot -reach it,—even by stooping. When injured, he does not retaliate; he -wraps around him the royal robes of Calmness, and he goes quietly on his -way. - -When the hand of Death touches the one we hold dearest, paralyzes our -energy, and eclipses the sun of our life, the calmness that has been -accumulating in long years becomes in a moment our refuge, our reserve -strength. - -The most subtle of all temptations is the _seeming_ success of the -wicked. It requires moral courage to see, without flinching, material -prosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to see politicians rise into -prominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see virtue -in rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and -knowledge at a discount. To the man who is really calm these puzzles of -life do not appeal. He is living his life as best he can; he is not -worrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be left to -Omniscience to solve. - -When man has developed the spirit of Calmness until it becomes so -absolutely part of him that his very presence radiates it, he has made -great progress in life. Calmness cannot be acquired of itself and by -itself; it must come as the culmination of a series of virtues. What the -world needs and what individuals need is a higher standard of living, a -great realizing sense of the privilege and dignity of life, a higher and -nobler conception of individuality. - -With this great sense of calmness permeating an individual, man becomes -able to retire more into himself, away from the noise, the confusion and -strife of the world, which come to his ears only as faint, far-off -rumblings, or as the tumult of the life of a city heard only as a -buzzing hum by the man in a balloon. - -The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, -for he is intensely interested in all that concerns the welfare of -humanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire -_from_ the world to get strength to live _in_ the world. He realizes -that the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his self-control -is,—the majesty of calmness. - - - - - XI - - Hurry, _the_ Scourge _of_ America - - -The first sermon in the world was preached at the Creation. It was a -Divine protest against Hurry. It was a Divine object lesson of perfect -law, perfect plan, perfect order, perfect method. Six days of work -carefully planned, scheduled and completed were followed by,—rest. -Whether we accept the story as literal or as figurative, as the account -of successive days or of ages comprising millions of years, matters -little if we but learn the lesson. - -Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. Every phase of her -working shows plan, calmness, reliability, and the absence of hurry. -Hurry always implies lack of definite method, confusion, impatience of -slow growth. The Tower of Babel, the world’s first sky-scraper, was a -failure because of hurry. The workers mistook their arrogant ambition -for inspiration. They had too many builders,—and no architect. They -thought to make up the lack of a head by a superfluity of hands. This is -a characteristic of Hurry. It seeks ever to make energy a substitute for -a clearly defined plan,—the result is ever as hopeless as trying to -transform a hobbyhorse into a real steed by brisk riding. - -Hurry is a counterfeit of haste. Haste has an ideal, a distinct aim to -be realized by the quickest, direct methods. Haste has a single compass -upon which it relies for direction and in harmony with which its course -is determined. Hurry says: “I must move faster. I will get three -compasses; I will have them different; I will be guided by all of them. -One of them will probably be right.” Hurry never realizes that slow, -careful foundation work is the quickest in the end. - -Hurry has ruined more Americans than has any other word in the -vocabulary of life. It is the scourge of America; and is both a cause -and a result of our high-pressure civilization. Hurry adroitly assumes -so many masquerades of disguise that its identity is not always -recognized. - -Hurry always pays the highest price for everything, and, usually the -goods are not delivered. In the race for wealth men often sacrifice -time, energy, health, home, happiness and honor,—everything that money -cannot buy, the very things that money can never bring back. Hurry is a -phantom of paradoxes. Business men, in their desire to provide for the -future happiness of their family, often sacrifice the present happiness -of wife and children on the altar of Hurry. They forget that their place -in the home should be something greater than being merely “the man that -pays the bills;” they expect consideration and thoughtfulness that they -are not giving. - -We hear too much of a wife’s duties to a husband and too little of the -other side of the question. “The wife,” they tell us, “should meet her -husband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and be -ever sweetness and sunshine.” Why this continual swinging of the censer -of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to look up -with timid glance at the face of her husband, to “size up his mood?” Has -not her day, too, been one of care, and responsibility, and -watchfulness? Has not mother-love been working over perplexing problems -and worries of home and of the training of the children that wifely love -may make her seek to solve in secret? Is man, then, the weaker sex that -he must be pampered and treated as tenderly as a boil trying to keep -from contact with the world? - -In their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of a life, -men often throw honor, truth, and generosity to the winds. Politicians -dare to stand by and see a city poisoned with foul water until, they -“see where they come in” on a waterworks appropriation. If it be -necessary to poison an army,—that, too, is but an incident in the hurry -for wealth. - -This is the Age of the Hothouse. The element of natural growth is pushed -to one side and the hothouse and the force-pump are substituted. Nature -looks on tolerantly as she says: “So far you may go, but no farther, my -foolish children.” - -The educational system of to-day is a monumental institution dedicated -to Hurry. The children are forced to go through a series of studies that -sweep the circle of all human wisdom. They are given everything that the -ambitious ignorance of the age can force into their minds; they are -taught everything but the essentials,—how to use their senses and how -to think. Their minds become congested by a great mass of undigested -facts, and still the cruel, barbarous forcing goes on. You watch it -until it seems you cannot stand it a moment longer, and you -instinctively put out your hand and say: “Stop! This modern slaughter of -the Innocents must _not_ go on!” Education smiles suavely, waves her -hand complacently toward her thousands of knowledge-prisons over the -country, and says: “Who are you that dares speak a word against our -sacred school system?” Education is in a hurry. Because she fails in -fifteen years to do what half the time should accomplish by better -methods, she should not be too boastful. Incompetence is not always a -reason for pride. And they hurry the children into a hundred text-books, -then into ill-health, then into the colleges, then into a diploma, then -into life,—with a dazed mind, untrained and unfitted for the real -duties of living. - -Hurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. The old-time -courtesy went out when the new-time hurry came in. Hurry is the father -of dyspepsia. In the rush of our national life, the bolting of food has -become a national vice. The words “Quick Lunches” might properly be -placed on thousands of headstones in our cemeteries. Man forgets that he -is the only animal that dines; the others merely feed. Why does he -abrogate his right to dine and go to the end of the line with the mere -feeders? His self-respecting stomach rebels, and expresses its -indignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a -little bottle of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another -victim to this craze for speed. Hurry means the breakdown of the nerves. -It is the royal road to nervous prostration. - -Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the -newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its -growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full -power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few -weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are -sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, or -of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow growth -if it must be slow, and know the results _must_ come, as you would -accept the long, lonely hours of the night,—with absolute assurance -that the heavy-leaded moments _must_ bring the morning. - -Let us as individuals banish the word “Hurry” from our lives. Let us -care for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as the -price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness, poise, -sweetness,—doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we can; -living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the -malice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, -fretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under -opposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence -and trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to -its ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing toward their -realization. - -Let us see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating phases, -let us see that it ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and let us -determine that, day by day, we will seek more and more to substitute for -it the calmness and repose of a true life, nobly lived. - - - - - XII - - The Power _of_ Personal Influence - - -The only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the -one he thinks of least,—his personal influence. Man’s conscious -influence, when he is on dress-parade, when he is posing to impress -those around him,—is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the -silent, subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and -acts, the trifles he never considers,—is tremendous. Every moment of -life he is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man -has an atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and -unconsciously is this influence working, that man may forget that it -exists. - -All the forces of Nature,—heat, light, electricity and -gravitation,—are silent and invisible. We never _see_ them; we only -know that they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature -the wonders of the “seen” are dwarfed into insignificance when compared -with the majesty and glory of the “unseen.” - -The great sun itself does not supply enough heat and light to sustain -animal and vegetable life on the earth. We are dependent for nearly half -of our light and heat upon the stars, and the greater part of this -supply of life-giving energy comes from _invisible_ stars, millions of -miles from the earth. In a thousand ways Nature constantly seeks to lead -men to a keener and deeper realization of the power and wonder of the -invisible. - -Into the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good -or for evil,—the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. -This is simply the constant radiation of what a man really _is_, not -what he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating -sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, -or any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant -radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the -recipient of radiations. - -There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer -and optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a -new and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who focus in an -instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against life. -Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You lose your -bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is disturbed and -unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the magnetic needle -of a ship is deflected when it passes near great mountains of iron ore. - -There are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,—cold, -reserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you -involuntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who left -the door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most depressing -influence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated -chilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are -like the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and -undismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their presence brings warmth -and life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous, stimulating breath of -spring. - -There are men who are like malarious swamps,—poisonous, depressing and -weakening by their very presence. They make heavy, oppressive and gloomy -the atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of the children’s play is -stilled, the ripples of laughter are frozen by their presence. They go -through life as if each day were a new big funeral, and they were always -chief mourners. There are other men who seem like the ocean; they are -constantly bracing, stimulating, giving new draughts of tonic life and -strength by their very presence. - -There are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is -radiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your -welfare,—when they need you. They put on a “property” smile so -suddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be -connected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their -voice has a simulated cordiality that long training may have made almost -natural. But they never play their part absolutely true, the mask _will_ -slip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach their eyes the look -of sterling honesty; they may deceive some people, but they cannot -deceive all. There is a subtle power of revelation which makes us say: -“Well, I cannot explain how it is, but I know that man is not honest.” - -Man cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, -this constantly weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade -the responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can -_select_ the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can -cultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, -loyalty, nobility,—make them vitally active in his character,—and by -these qualities he will constantly affect the world. - -Discouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they -can, in the thought that they are doing so little good in the world. -Trifles unnoted by us may be links in the chain of some great purpose. -In 1797, William Godwin wrote The Inquirer, a collection of -revolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced Thomas -Malthus to write his Essay on Population, published in 1798. Malthus’ -book suggested to Charles Darwin a point of view upon which he devoted -many years of his life, resulting, in 1859, in the publication of The -Origin of Species,—the most influential book of the nineteenth century, -a book that has revolutionized all science. These were but three links -of influence extending over sixty years. - -It might be possible to trace this genealogy of influence back from -Godwin, through generation and generation, to the word or act of some -shepherd in early Britain, watching his flock upon the hills, living his -quiet life, and dying with the thought that he had done nothing to help -the world. - -Men and women have duties to others,—and duties to themselves. In -justice to ourselves we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that -keeps us from living our best. If the fault be in us, we should master -it. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious -vapor, kills our best impulses, we should remove from that -influence,—if we can _possibly_ move without forsaking duties. If it be -wrong to move, then we should take strong doses of moral quinine to -counteract the malaria of influence. It is not what those around us _do_ -for us that counts,—it is what they _are_ to us. We carry our -houseplants from one window to another to give them the proper heat, -light, air and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of -ourselves? - -To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice what -we believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first -convert the iron into another magnet before it can attract it. It is -useless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children when she -herself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be truthful and -who hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little social -unpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth. The -parent’s words say “don’t lie,” the influence of the parent’s life says -“do lie.” - -No man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of -influence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general -course of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without -influence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the -delicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our -influence filter through human love and sympathy. We should not be -merely an influence,—we should be an inspiration. By our very presence -we should be a tower of strength to the hungering human souls around us. - - - - - XIII - - The Dignity _of_ Self-Reliance - - -Self-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking -recipe,—without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the -individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel -in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself. - -The man who is self-reliant says ever: “No one can realize my -possibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but -myself.” He works out his own salvation,—financially, socially, -mentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that -man must solve for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no -vicarious service. Nature never recognizes a proxy vote. She has nothing -to do with middlemen,—she deals only with the individual. Nature is -constantly seeking to show man that he is his own best friend, or his -own worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on which he will be to -himself. - -All the athletic exercises in the world are of no value to the -individual unless he compel those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him, -in strength and muscle, the power for which he, himself, pays in time -and effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his valet to a -gymnasium. - -The medicine-chests of the world are powerless, in all the united -efforts, to help the individual until he reach out and take for himself -what is needed for his individual weakness. - -All the religions of the world are but speculations in morals, mere -theories of salvation, until the individual realize that he must save -himself by relying on the law of truth, as he sees it, and living his -life in harmony with it, as fully as he can. But religion is not a -Pullman car, with soft-cushioned seats, where he has but to pay for his -ticket,—and someone else does all the rest. In religion, as in all -other great things, he is ever thrown back on his self-reliance. He -should accept all helps, but,—he must live his own life. He should not -feel that he is a mere passenger; he is the engineer, and the train is -his life. We must rely on ourselves, live our own lives, or we merely -drift through existence,—losing all that is best, all that is greatest, -all that is divine. - -All that others can do for us is to give us opportunity. We must ever be -prepared for the opportunity when it comes, and to go after it and find -it when it does not come, or that opportunity is to us,—nothing life is -but a succession of opportunities. They are for good or evil,—as we -make them. - -Many of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if -they could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the baser -metals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are individuals with -rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment who fail utterly -in life because they lack the one element,—self-reliance. This would -unite all their energies, and focus them into strength and power. - -The man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all -he does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure, -because he is waiting for someone to advise him or because he dare not -act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his -conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is “not -appreciated,” “not recognized,” he is “kept down.” He feels that in some -subtle way “society is conspiring against him.” He grows almost vain as -he thinks that no one has had such poverty, such sorrow, such -affliction, such failure as have come to him. - -The man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the -weakness within him that keeps him from the attainment of what he holds -dearest; he seeks within himself the power to battle against all outside -influences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history, in every -phase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight against the -odds of sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no more than -passing through a tunnel is to a traveller,—he knows he must emerge -again into the sunlight. - -The nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the -one that contains within its boundaries all that its people need. If, -with its ports all blockaded it has not within itself the necessities of -life and the elements of its continual progress then,—it is weak, held -by the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must surrender. -Its independence is in proportion to its self-reliance, to its power to -sustain itself from within. What is true of nations is true of -individuals. The history of nations is but the biography of individuals -magnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the screen of the -past. History is the biography of a nation; biography is the history of -an individual. So it must be that the individual who is most strong in -any trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his inherent strength, -who needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to uphold him. He must -ever be self-reliant. - -The wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do -the real work of the nation, proved the nation’s downfall. The constant -dependence on the captives of war to do the thousand details of life for -them, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual. Then, -through weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for idle, -luxurious ease that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters, became,—a -nation of men more effeminate than women. As we depend on others to do -those things we should do ourselves, our self-reliance weakens and our -powers and our control of them becomes continuously less. - -Man to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all -things, he must be self-reliant in the one in which he would be great. -This self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of conceit. It is daring -to stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do -not crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true -self-reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a -battle you must fight for yourself,—you must be your own soldier. You -cannot buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be -placed on the retired list. The retired list of life is,—death. The -world is busy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed -to you. There is but one great password to success,—self-reliance. - -If you would learn to converse, put yourself into positions where you -_must_ speak. If you would conquer your morbidness, mingle with the -bright people around you, no matter how difficult it may be. If you -desire the power that someone else possesses, do not envy his strength, -and dissipate your energy by weakly wishing his force were yours. -Emulate the process by which it became his, depend on your -self-reliance, pay the price for it, and equal power may be yours. The -individual must look upon himself as an investment of untold -possibilities if rightly developed,—a mine whose resources can never be -known but by going down into it and bringing out what is hidden. - -Man can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass -himself. We try too much to surpass others. If we seek ever to surpass -ourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of progress, that gives a -harmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts. Daniel Morrell, at -one time President of the Cambria Rail Works, that employed 7,000 men -and made a rail famed throughout the world, was asked the secret of the -great success of the works. “We have no secret,” he said, “but this,—we -always try to beat our last batch of rails.” Competition is good, but it -has its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth to mere -appearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true -competition is the competition of the individual with himself,—his -present seeking to excel his past. This means real growth from within. -Self-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let the -individual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he -can almost create his life as he will. Let him never fall down in -despair at dangers and sorrows at a distance; they may be harmless, like -Bunyan’s stone lions, when he nears them. - -The man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of someone -else’s greatness; he thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts -for himself. In throwing the individual thus back upon himself it is not -shutting his eyes to the stimulus and light and new life that come with -the warm pressure of the hand, the kindly word and sincere expressions -of true friendship. But true friendship is rare; its great value is in a -crisis,—like a lifeboat. Many a boasted friend has proved a leaking, -worthless “lifeboat” when the storm of adversity might make him useful. -In these great crises of life, man is strong only as he is strong from -within, and the more he depends on himself the stronger will he become, -and the more able will he be to help others in the hour of their need. -His very life will be a constant help and a strength to others, as he -becomes to them a living lesson of the dignity of self-reliance. - - - - - XIV - - Failure _as a_ Success - - -It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take -up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the future, -and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may seem -hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It may -contain in its débris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, or -the revelation of new and higher possibilities. - -Some years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, by -a new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great logs -together by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a raft. When -the novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured, a terrible -storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands snapped like -icicles and the angry water scattered the logs far and wide. The chief -of the Hydrographic Department at Washington heard of the failure of the -experiment, and at once sent word to shipmasters the world over, urging -them to watch carefully for these logs which he described; and to note -the precise location of each in latitude and longitude and the time the -observation was made. Hundreds of captains, sailing over the waters of -the earth, noted the logs, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean, -in the South Seas—for into all waters did these venturesome ones -travel. Hundreds of reports were made, covering a period of weeks and -months. These observations were then carefully collated, systematized -and tabulated, and discoveries were made as to the course of ocean -currents that otherwise would have been impossible. The loss of the -Joggins raft was not a real failure, for it led to one of the great -discoveries in modern marine geography and navigation. - -In our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a patronizing tone -of the follies of the alchemists of old. But their failure to transmute -the baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of chemistry. They did -not succeed in what they attempted, but they brought into vogue the -natural processes of sublimation, filtration, distillation, and -crystallization; they invented the alembic, the retort, the sand-bag, -the water-bath and other valuable instruments. To them is due the -discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and phosphorus, the cupellation -of gold and silver, the determining of the properties of saltpetre and -its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of the distillation of essential -oils. This was the success of failure, a wondrous process of Nature for -the highest growth,—a mighty lesson of comfort, strength, and -encouragement if man would only realize and accept it. - -Many of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success than we ever -hoped for in our wildest dreams. Life is a successive unfolding of -success from failure. In discovering America Columbus failed absolutely. -His ingenious reasoning and experiment led him to believe that by -sailing westward he would reach India. Every redman in America carries -in his name “Indian,” the perpetuation of the memory of the failure of -Columbus. The Genoese navigator did not reach India; the cargo of -“souvenirs” he took back to Spain to show to Ferdinand and Isabella as -proofs of his success, really attested his failure. But the discovery of -America was a greater success than was any finding of a “back-door” to -India. - -When David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a -medical course, he was ready to enter the missionary field. For over -three years he had studied tirelessly, with all energies concentrated on -one aim,—to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was ready -to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to consecrate -himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word came from -China that the “opium war” would make it folly to attempt to enter the -country. Disappointment and failure did not long daunt him; he offered -himself as missionary to Africa,—and he was accepted. His glorious -failure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and truth. His -study proved an ideal preparation for his labors as physician, explorer, -teacher and evangel in the wilds of Africa. - -Business reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad -shoulders and the still broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a -burden of responsibility that forced him to write. The failure spurred -him to almost superhuman effort. The masterpieces of Scotch historic -fiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his -fellow-men are a glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure. - -When Millet, the painter of the “Angelus” worked on his almost divine -canvas, in which the very air seems pulsing with the regenerating -essence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was -antidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put -on in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a -railway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas,—meant -strength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art -failure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with marvellous -intensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare spiritual -unity, this purging of all the dross of triviality, as he passed through -the furnace of poverty, trial, and sorrow, gave eloquence to his brush -and enabled him to paint as never before,—as no prosperity would have -made possible. - -Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that -swings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not -be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental -inspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life. -Life is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it. - -Whether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for -little when it is past. There is but one question for him to answer, to -face boldly and honestly as an individual alone with his conscience and -his destiny: - -“How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that trial or -deprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then,—poverty has been -riches, failure has been a success. If wealth has come to me and has -made me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, uncharitable, cynical, closing -from me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher -development, of possible good to my fellow-man, making me the mere -custodian of a money-bag, then,—wealth has lied to me, it has been -failure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark, -treacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself.” All things become -for us then what we take from them. - -Failure is one of God’s educators. It is experience leading man to -higher things; it is the revelation of a way, a path hitherto unknown to -us. The best men in the world, those who have made the greatest real -successes look back with serene happiness on their failures. The turning -of the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously illuminated and -satisfying perspective. - -Many a man is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once -struggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. Failure -is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in a few -instances of his life can say, “Those failures were the best things in -the world that could have happened to me,” should he not face new -failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous ministry -of Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new -stepping-stones? - -Our highest hopes are often destroyed to prepare us for better things. -The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the -passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or destruction -of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It is at night, -in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants grow best, that -they most increase in size. May this not be one of Nature’s gentle -showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the darkness of -failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let us fear only -the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving the results to -the guardianship of the Infinite. - -If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, -anyone who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment, -that success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the -revelation. As we trace each one back, step by step, through the -genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course -of our joy and success from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us -most happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused us -sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth have -had their source and their trickling increase into volume among the -dark, gloomy recesses of our failure. - -There is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and -sincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometimes seem to be -wasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of “how” to walk; the -secret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible -successes. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in -continuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics of -failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and commentators -may lay at his door. - -High ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they -need not dishearten us; they should prove sources of new strength. The -rocky way may prove safer than the slippery path of smoothness. Birds -cannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress in -calm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts. - -The alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly -transmutes the baser metals of failure into the later pure gold of -higher success, if the mind of the worker be kept true, constant, and -untiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies -fate to its worst while he does his best. - - - - - XV - - Doing Our Best _at_ All Times - - -Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some -day, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization -that he can make it simple,—never quite simple, but always simpler. -There are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the -wise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental question -of the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever sounded. There -are wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to pierce the -silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back,—only a repetition -of their unanswered cries. - -To us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that -darkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort: - -“If there really be a God, if eternal justice really rule the world,” we -say, “why should life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others -feast; why does virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs -in the sunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest -effort, while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is -greeted with the world’s applause? How is it that the loving father of -one family is taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another -is spared? Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and -suffering in the world—why, indeed, should there be any?” - -Neither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer -that is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is -ever, even after the best explanations, a residuum of the unexplained. -We must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough -to say, “I will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will -not permit them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with -vagueness and uncertainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he demands -from the infinite the full solution of all His mysteries. I will found -my life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental truth: ‘This -glorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena pulsing ever -in harmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that Creator must be -omniscient and omnipotent. But that Creator Himself cannot, in justice, -demand of any creature more than the best that that individual can -give.’ I will do each day, in every moment, the best I can by the light -I have; I will ever seek more light, more perfect illumination of truth, -and ever live as best I can in harmony with the truth as I see it. If -failure come I will meet it bravely; if my pathway then lie in the -shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall have the restful peace -and the calm strength of one who has done his best, who can look back -upon the past with no pang of regret, and who has heroic courage in -facing the results, whatever they be, knowing that he could not make -them different.” - -Upon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure -of religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should -add to his equipment for living every shred of strength and inspiration, -moral, mental, or spiritual that is in his power to secure. - -This simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for -none; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the -individual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard. - -A mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to -a man as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in -mid-ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher -living will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and -appropriate it for himself, until he make it practical in his daily -life, until that seed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand -flowers of thought and word and act. - -If a man honestly seek to live his best at all times, that determination -is visible in every moment of his living, and no trifle in his life can -be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. The sun -illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as impartially -as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of water in the -ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; every drop is -subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united infinity of -billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men call the Sea. No -matter how humble the calling of the individual, how uninteresting and -dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. He should dignify -what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he should vitalize what -little he has of power or energy or ability or opportunity, in order to -prepare himself to be equal to higher privileges when they come. This -will never lead man to that weak content that is satisfied with whatever -falls to his lot. It will rather fill his mind with that divine -discontent that cheerfully accepts the best—merely as a temporary -substitute for something better. - -The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen, -active, wide-awake, and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in -trifles; his standard is not “What will the world say?” but “Is it -worthy of me?” - -Edwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would -never permit himself to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his hours -of privacy. In this simple thing, he ever lived his best. On the stage -every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who were -conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking in -public to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and -motions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless -in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anæmic -commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of -interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will -never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars. -Living at one’s best is constant preparation for instant use. It can -never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish. -Education, in its highest sense, is _conscious_ training of mind or body -to act _unconsciously_. It is conscious formation of mental habits, not -mere acquisition of information. - -One of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself, -is in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are -lucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the -untiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the -sublime patience that is the secret of some men’s success. Their “luck” -was that they had prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity -when it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own -opportunity came and departed un-noted, it could not waken him from his -dreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows -discouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages his -arms and chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a -perfunctory way, or he passes through life, just ever “sampling” lines -of activity. - -The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is but -an episode in a true man’s life—never the whole story. It is never easy -to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast courage to -master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help him on his -way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he has. He -never knows the long series of vanquished failures that give solidity to -someone else’s success; he does not realize the price that some rich -man, the innocent football of political malcontents and demagogues, has -heroically paid for wealth and position. - -The man who has a pessimist’s doubt of all things; who demands a -certified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be -recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth -while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real -progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a -strong tonic of reasons for action. - -One of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the -surrender to the oncoming of years. Man’s self-confidence dims and dies -in the fear of age. “This new thought,” he says of some suggestion -tending to higher development, “is good; it is what we need. I am glad -to have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some -such help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man -advanced in years.” - -This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell -of lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late -to recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort, -closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not exist -for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price in -time and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the -assessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that -matters not to that mighty self-confidence that _will_ not grow old -while knowledge can keep it young. - -Socrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play -on instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek, -and the same age saw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy, -his first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus’ greatest -work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales -was the work of the poet’s declining years. Ronsard, the father of -French poetry, whose sonnets even translation cannot destroy, did not -develop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty. Benjamin Franklin at this -age had just taken his really first steps of importance in philosophic -pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, translated Josephus in his -eightieth year. Winckelmann, one of the most famous writers on classic -antiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and lived in obscurity and -ignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the English philosopher, -published his version of the Odyssey in his eighty-seventh year, and his -Iliad one year later. Chevreul, the great French scientist, whose -untiring labors in the realm of color have so enriched the world, was -busy, keen and active when Death called him, at the age of 103. - -These men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll -of the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and -heartening to every individual whose courage and confidence is weak. The -path of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of life, -is never shut from the individual—until he closes it himself. Let man -feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living factor in -his life and there are no limits to his progress. He has but to live his -best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter what results -come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what might have -been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener of -self-confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy, for -that which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the -individual’s faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself -for the future to the perfection of his possibilities. - -Nature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and -worn and weary with the struggle, “Do in the best way you can the trifle -that is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit of -preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the light of -knowledge from all the past to aid you.” Do this and you have done your -best. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever to you. - -No worry, no struggle, no suffering, no agony of despair can alter it. -It is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years of -eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, weakness -and sin, its wasted opportunities as light, in confidence and hope, upon -the future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to make each -trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back to; each -trifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the future. -The present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the past has -gone back, with all its messages, all its history, all its records to -the God who loaned you the golden moments to use in obedience to His -law. - - - - - XVI - - The Royal Road _to_ Happiness - - -“During my whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness.” -So said Prince Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth -century. Eighty-three years of wealth, fame, honors, power, influence, -prosperity and triumph,—years when he held an empire in his -fingers,—but not one day of happiness! - -Happiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil, -live under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within; -it is the revelation of the depths of the inner life as light and heat -proclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists not of -having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm -glow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have -happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of -his own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with high -ideals. For what a man _has_, he may be dependent on others; what he -_is_, rests with him alone. What he _ob_tains in life is but -acquisition; what he _at_tains, is growth. Happiness is the soul’s joy -in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, continuous -happiness in life, is impossible for the human. It would mean the -consummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a perfectly -fulfilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may coexist with -trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the heart rising -superior to all conditions. - -Happiness has a number of under-studies,—gratification, satisfaction, -content and pleasure,—clever imitators that simulate its appearance -rather than emulate its method. Gratification is a harmony between our -desires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it is the thankful -acceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one -receives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element in -happiness, but, in itself,—it is not happiness. - -Satisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It -exists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved. -But every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in -advance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding -stimulates new appetites—then the desires and possessions are no longer -identical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new activities, the -equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reënters. Man might possess -everything tangible in the world and yet not be happy, for happiness is -the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or the body. -Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all advance, -the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the progressive -revelation of new possibilities. - -Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair; -it is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without -striving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual swallow -vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content enables -one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists only in -memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens the -activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and -growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best -efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the -world more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of -progress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a -station, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a -step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man -should be content with what he _has_, but never with what he _is_. - -But content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is -temporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a -symphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests; happiness, -never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none can be found -in the cup of happiness. - -Man is the only animal that can be really happy. To the rest of the -creation belong only weak imitations of the understudies. Happiness -represents a peaceful attunement of a life with a standard of living. It -can never be made by the individual, by himself, for himself. It is one -of the incidental by-products of an unselfish life. No man can make his -own happiness the one object of his life and attain it, any more than he -can jump on the far end of his shadow. If you would hit the bull’s-eye -of happiness on the target of life, aim above it. Place other things -higher than your own happiness and it will surely come to you. You can -buy pleasure, you can acquire content, you can become satisfied,—but -Nature never put real happiness on the bargain-counter. It is the -undetachable accompaniment of true living. It is calm and peaceful; it -never lives in an atmosphere of worry or of hopeless struggle. - -The basis of happiness is the love of something outside self. Search -every instance of happiness in the world, and you will find, when all -the incidental features are eliminated, there is always the constant, -unchangeable element of love,—love of parent for child; love of man and -woman for each other; love of humanity in some form, or a great life -work into which the individual throws all his energies. - -Happiness is the voice of optimism, of faith, of simple, steadfast love. -No cynic or pessimist can be really happy. A cynic is a man who is -morally near-sighted,—and brags about it. He sees the evil in his own -heart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye eclipse -the sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long for -death,—for life cannot bring him happiness, death might. The keynote of -Bismarck’s lack of happiness was his profound distrust of human nature. - -There is a royal road to happiness; it lies in Consecration, -Concentration, Conquest and Conscience. - -Consecration is dedicating the individual life to the service of others, -to some noble mission, to realizing some unselfish ideal. Life is not -something to be lived _through_; it is something to be lived _up_ to. It -is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many decades on earth. -Consecration places the object of life above the mere acquisition of -money, as a finality. The man who is unselfish, kind, loving, tender, -helpful, ready to lighten the burden of those around him, to hearten the -struggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in remembering others, is -on the right road to happiness. Consecration is ever active, bold and -aggressive, fearing naught but possible disloyalty to high ideals. - -Concentration makes the individual life simpler and deeper. It cuts away -the shams and pretences of modern living and limits life to its truest -essentials. Worry, fear, useless regret—all the great wastes that sap -mental, moral or physical energy—must be sacrificed, or the individual -needlessly destroys half the possibilities of living. A great purpose in -life, something that unifies the strands and threads of each day’s -thinking, something that takes the sting from the petty trials, sorrows, -sufferings and blunders of life, is a great aid to Concentration. -Soldiers in battle may forget their wounds, or even be unconscious of -them, in the inspiration of battling for what they believe is right. -Concentration dignifies an humble life; it makes a great life,—sublime. -In morals it is a short-cut to simplicity. It leads to right for right’s -sake, without thought of policy or of reward. It brings calm and rest to -the individual,—a serenity that is but the sunlight of happiness. - -Conquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to -opposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from -resisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life. -Sometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems -that justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for -nothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster; when hope grows dim -and flickers, then is the time when you must tower in the great sublime -faith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of -doubt and despair, you must master yourself to master the world around -you. This is Conquest; this is what counts. Even a log can float with -the current; it takes a man to fight sturdily against an opposing tide -that would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the -petty intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life -assail you, rise above them. Be like a lighthouse that illumines and -beautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm that threaten it, -that seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest. -When the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your -heart’s desire, by sacrifice of honor or principle, comes to you and it -does not affect you long enough even to seem a temptation, you have been -the victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the royal road -to Happiness. - -Conscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads -ever to Happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his -conscience and get its approval, without using force or specious logic, -then he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual must -be careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or -deadened by the wrongdoing and consequent deafness of its owner. The man -who is honestly seeking to live his life in Consecration, Concentration -and Conquest, living from day to day as best he can, by the light he -has, may rely implicitly on his Conscience. He can shut his ears to -“what the world says” and find in the approval of his own conscience the -highest earthly tribune—the voice of the Infinite communing with the -Individual. - -Unhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True -happiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of pain -softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in the -wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and sympathy -with others. - -If the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to -make life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for -others, he would find a wondrous revelation of what Happiness really is. -The greatest of the world’s heroes could not by any series of acts of -heroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life in -seeking, from day to day, to make others happy. - -Each day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed -enthusiasm. “Just for To-day” might be the daily motto of thousands of -societies through the country, composed of members bound together to -make the world better through constant simple acts of kindness, constant -deeds of sweetness and love. And Happiness would come to them, in its -highest and best form, not because they would seek to _absorb_ it, -but—because they seek to _radiate_ it. - - _Printed in the United States of America_ - - - - - * * * * * - - William George Jordan’s - - T A L K S - - - _The Trusteeship of Life_ - 12mo, cloth, net, $1.25 - - - _Little Problems of Married Life_ - Decorated in Two Colors - 12mo, cloth, net, $1.25 - - - _The Crown of Individuality_ - Decorated in Two Colors - 12mo, cloth, net, $1.25 - - - _Self-Control_ - Its Kingship and Majesty - Decorated in Two Colors - 12mo, cloth, net, $1.25 - - * * * * * - - _COMRADE SERIES_ - - _The Power of Purpose_ - 12mo, Decorated Boards, net 60c. - - - _The Kingship of Self-Control_ - 12mo, Decorated Boards, net 60c. - - - _The Majesty of Calmness_ - 12mo, Decorated Boards, net 60c. - - * * * * * - -_Transcriber’s Notes:_ - -Hyphenation, and spellings have been retained as in the original. -Punctuation has been corrected without note. 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