{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_32438/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_32438","id":"gutenberg_32438","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32438","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Conduct of life","Courage"],"text":"E-text prepared by Emmy, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project Gutenberg\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF COURAGE\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_THE SUNRISE INSPIRATIONAL BOOKS_\n\n\n      THE FIRST VOLUME\n\n      THE BOOK OF COURAGE\n\n      By JOHN T. FARIS\n\n      Volumes on other subjects in preparation for this series\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n_OTHER BOOKS_\n\n      By JOHN T. FARIS\n\n      SEEING PENNSYLVANIA\n\n      Frontispiece in color, 113 illustrations and 2 maps\n\n      THE ROMANCE OF OLD\n      PHILADELPHIA\n\n      Frontispiece in color and 101 illustrations\n\n      OLD ROADS OUT OF\n      PHILADELPHIA\n\n      117 illustrations and a map\n\n[Illustration]\n\n      By JOHN T. FARIS\n      and THEODOOR DEBOOY\n\n      THE VIRGIN ISLANDS\n      OUR NEW POSSESSIONS AND THE\n      BRITISH ISLANDS\n\n      97 illustrations and five maps\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF COURAGE\n\nby\n\nJOHN T. FARIS\n\nAuthor of\n\"The Victory Life,\" \"Making Good,\" \"Old Roads Out of\nPhiladelphia,\" \"Seeing Pennsylvania,\" Etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nPhiladelphia & London\nJ. B. Lippincott Company\n1920\n\nCopyright, 1920, by J. B. Lippincott Company\n\nPrinted by J. B. Lippincott Company\nAt the Washington Square Press\nPhiladelphia, U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n_FOREWORD_\n\n\nA TEACHER has told of the greatest moment of discouragement that ever\ncame to her. At cost of great labor she had fitted up a room for the use\nof children, placing pictures on the walls, plants in the windows,\ngoldfish on the table, and a canary in a cage. But the night before the\nday when she planned to welcome the children to the room there was a\ncold snap, and the janitor let the fire go out. In the morning she\nlooked on broken radiators, frozen goldfish, drooping plants, and what\nshe feared was a dead bird. In her despair she was about to decide that\nshe would never make another effort to have things pleasant for the\nchildren, when the bit of fluff in the bird-cage, roused from stupor by\nthe noise made by the discouraged woman, lifted its voice in song.\n\nThat song told her that she had reached once again the point that comes\nto everyone, times without number, the point that separates the life of\nconquest from the life of defeat, the life of cowardice from the life of\ncourage. She was at the crossroads, and she took the turning to the\nright. The bird's song marked for her the end of discouragement.\n\n\"I can sing, as well as the bird,\" she said to herself. And at once she\nbegan to make plans for her charges.\n\nEverywhere there are people who feel that the odds are against them,\nthat difficulties in the way are unsurmountable, that it is useless to\nmake further effort to conquer. The author of \"The Book of Courage\"\nknows by experience how they feel, and he longs to send to them a\nmessage of cheer and death-to-the-blues, a call to go on to the better\nthings that wait for those who face life in the spirit of the gallant\nGeneral Petain, whose watchword, \"They shall not pass!\" put courage into\nhis men and hope into the hearts of millions all over the world.\n\n\"Courage!\" is the call to these. \"Courage\" is likewise the word to those\nwho are already struggling in the conquering spirit of Sir Walter Scott\nwho, when both domestic calamity and financial misfortune came, said to\na comforter, \"The blowing off of my hat on a stormy day has given me\nmore weariness,\" who called adversity \"a tonic and a bracer.\"\n\nThe world needs courage--the high courage that shows itself in a life of\ndaily struggle and conquest, that smiles at obstacles and laughs at\ndifficulties.\n\nHow is the needed courage to be secured? What are the springs of\ncourage? What are some of the results of courage? These are questions\n\"The Book of Courage\" seeks to answer by telling of men and women who\nhave become courageous.\n\nGlorious provision has been made by the Inspirer of men for giving\ncourage to all, no matter what their difficulties or their hardships.\nAmong His provisions are home and friends, work and service, will and\nconscience, the world with all its beauty, and Himself as Companion and\nFriend.\n\nThus we are left absolutely without excuse when we are tempted to let\ndown the bars to worry and gloom and discouragement.\n\nKeep up the bars! Don't let the enemies of peace and progress pass! And\nalways,\n\n          \"Like the star,\n          That shines afar,\n          Without haste,\n            And without rest,\n          Let each man wheel, with steady sway\n          Round the tasks that rule the day,\n            And do his best.\"\n                                     J. T. F.\n\nPHILADELPHIA, 1920\n\n\n\n\n_CONTENTS_\n\n\n      CHAPTER                                  PAGE\n      1. THE COURAGE OF SELF-CONQUEST            13\n          I. RESTRAINING SELF                    15\n         II. EFFACING SELF                       18\n        III. FORGIVING INJURIES                  22\n         IV. FORGETTING WRONGS                   25\n          V. GETTING RID OF EVIL                 29\n         VI. LOOKING BEYOND MONEY                32\n\n\n      2. THE COURAGE THAT FACES OBSTACLES        41\n          I. LEARNING                            42\n         II. DEPENDING ON SELF                   47\n        III. UNCOMPLAINING                       51\n         IV. PERSISTING                          56\n          V. TOILING                             63\n         VI. CONQUERING INFIRMITY                67\n\n\n      3. THE COURAGE OF INDUSTRY                 78\n          I. BEGINNING                           79\n         II. PURPOSE FORMING                     82\n        III. USING TIME WISELY                   89\n         IV. WORKING HARDER                      94\n          V. ABUSING THE WILL TO WORK            99\n\n\n      4. THE COURAGE OF FACING CONSEQUENCES     104\n          I. VENTURING                          105\n         II. FORMING CHARACTER                  107\n        III. TRUTH TELLING                      111\n         IV. DUTY DOING                         117\n          V. FINDING HIS LIFE                   119\n\n\n      5. COURAGE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS         122\n          I. IMPARTING COURAGE                  123\n         II. CONQUERING HAPPINESS               126\n        III. MAKING LITTLE THINGS COUNT         129\n         IV. DID HE GO TOO FAR?                 132\n\n\n      6. GOLDEN RULE COURAGE                    138\n          I. LOOKING OUT FOR OTHERS             140\n         II. SUCCEEDING BY COURAGEOUS SERVICE   143\n        III. SERVICE BY SYMPATHY                146\n         IV. DOING BUSINESS FOR OTHERS          150\n          V. PRAYING AND HELPING                152\n         VI. GIVING THAT COUNTS                 155\n        VII. EXPENSIVE ECONOMY                  157\n\n\n      7. COURAGE THROUGH COMPANIONSHIP          161\n          I. COMPANIONSHIP WITH FRIENDS         162\n         II. SUCCESSFUL COMRADES                165\n        III. COMPANIONSHIP WITH THE PAST        171\n         IV. COMPANIONSHIP WITH NATURE          176\n          V. COMPANIONSHIP WITH GOD             183\n         VI. A CHAPTER OF--ACCIDENTS?           190\n\n\n      8. GOD THE SOURCE OF COURAGE              196\n          I. THAT'S FOR ME!                     197\n         II. BANING ON GOD'S PROMISES           201\n        III. PRACTICAL PRECEPTS FROM PROVERBS   205\n         IV. GETTING CLOSE TO THE BIBLE         210\n          V. THE BIBLE AND ONE MAN              213\n         VI. OUT OF THE DEPTHS                  218\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF COURAGE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER ONE\n\n_THE COURAGE OF SELF-CONQUEST_\n\n\nTHE highest courage is impossible without self-conquest. And\nself-conquest is never easy. A man may be a marvel of physical courage,\nand be a coward in matters of self-government. Failure here threatens\ndire disaster to his entire career.\n\nAlexander the Great conquered most of the world he knew, but he\npermitted his lower nature to conquer his better self, and he died a\ndisappointed, defeated man.\n\nBefore the days of Alexander there was a man named Nehemiah from whom\nthe world-conqueror might have learned a few secrets. He was a poor\nexile in the service of a foreign ruler. That ruler sent him down to\nJerusalem, the capital city of his own home land, with instructions to\ngovern the people there. Now, in those days, it was a common thing for\ngovernors of cities to plunder the people unfortunate enough to be in\ntheir charge. Thus Nehemiah would have had ample precedent to fill his\nown coffers by injustice, profiteering and worse: he had the power.\nPossibly he was tempted to do something of the sort. But he had the\ncourage to shut up tight all baser passions, and then to sit firmly on\nthe lid. In the brief record of his service he referred to some of the\nself-seeking governors, and told of their rascally deeds. Then he added\nthe significant words, \"_So did not I._\"\n\nThat was certainly courage--the courage of self-conquest.\n\nAs a young man Ulysses S. Grant was a brave soldier, but he nearly\nwrecked his life because of weak yielding to his appetite. His real\ncareer began only with self-conquest. When he found the courage to fight\nhimself--and not until then--he became ready for the marvelous life of\nhigh courage that never faltered when he was misunderstood by associates\nand maligned by enemies, that pressed steadily onward, in the face of\nbiting disease, until work was done, until honor was satisfied.\n\n\nI\n\nRESTRAINING SELF\n\nA little girl four years old came trembling to her mother and asked for\npencil and paper. Then, teeth set and eyes flashing, she pounced on the\npaper and began to make all sorts of vicious marks. Asked what she was\ndoing, she said she was writing a letter to a sister who had offended\nher by an act that had been misunderstood. \"She is not a nice girl,\" the\nlittle critic said, \"and I'm telling her so. I don't like her any more,\nand I'm saying that.\" As she wrote her hand trembled; she was carried\naway by her unpleasant emotion. After a few moments, unable to go on\nwith her self-appointed task, she flung herself, sobbing, into her\nmother's arms and for half an hour she could not control herself.\n\nThe sight was pitiful. But far more pitiful is the spectacle of one old\nenough to know better who yields to vexation and hatred, thereby not\nonly making himself disagreeable, but robbing himself of power to\nperform the duties of the hour. For there is nothing so exhausting as\nuncontrolled emotion. There is so much for each one of us to do, and\nevery ounce of strength is needed by those who would play their part in\nthe world. Then what spendthrift folly it is to waste needed power on\nemotion that is disquieting, disagreeable and disgraceful!\n\nThat lesson was never impressed more forcibly than by a French officer\nof whom a visitor from America asked, \"Did I understand that you had\nlost three sons?\" \"Yes, sir, and two brothers,\" was the proud reply.\n\"How you must hate the Boche,\" remarked a bystander. \"No, no,\" was the\ninstant reply, \"not hate; just pity, sir; pity, but not hate. Hate, you\nknow, is an excessive emotion, sir; and no one can do effective work if\nhe spends his vitality in an excess of emotion. No,\" he concluded, \"we\ncannot hate; we cannot work if we burn up ourselves inside. Pity, sir;\npity. 'They know not what they do.' That's the idea. And they don't.\"\n\nThe same lesson of self-restraint was taught by Marshal Foch in his\nwords to the soldiers of France. He urged them to keep their eyes and\nears ready and their mouths \"in the safety notch\"; and he told them they\nmust obey orders first and kick afterwards if they had been wronged. He\nsaid, \"Bear in mind that the enemy is your enemy and the enemy of\nhumanity until he is killed or captured; then he is your dear brother\nor fellow soldier beaten or ashamed, whom you should no further\nhumiliate.\" He told them that it was necessary to keep their heads clear\nand cool, to be of good cheer, to suffer in silence, to dread defeat,\nbut not wounds, to fear dishonor, but not death, and to die game.\nBecause so many of the soldiers under him heeded this wise admonition,\nthey did not waste their precious strength on useless and harmful\nemotions, but they were ever ready to go to their task, with the motto\nof their division, \"It shall be done.\"\n\nWhat a blessing it will be to the world that millions of young men were\ntrained in France to repress hurtful emotion, to exercise\nself-restraint--which may be defined as the act or process of holding\nback or hindering oneself from harmful thoughts or actions. And what a\nwonderful thing it will be if the lesson is passed on to us, so that we\nshall not be like the torrent that wastes its power by rushing and\nbrawling over the stones, all to no purpose, but like the harnessed\nstream whose energy is made to turn the wheels of factory and mill. For\nonly guarded and guided strength is useful and safe.\n\n\nII\n\nEFFACING SELF\n\n\"Every man that falls must understand beforehand that he is a dead man\nand nothing can save him. It is useless for him to cry out, and it may,\nby giving the alarm, cause the enterprise to fail.\"\n\nThis was the message to his men of the officer to whom Napoleon\ncommitted the capture of Mt. Cenis.\n\nThe historian tells us that at one point in the ascent of a precipitous\ntrack, three men fell. \"Their bodies were heard bounding from crag to\ncrag, but not a cry was heard, not a moan. The body of one hero was\nrecovered later. There was a smile on his lips.\"\n\nHow that record of the silence succeeded by a smile grips the heart, for\nit was not the false courage that plays to the grandstand, but the\ndeeper, truer courage that sinks self for the good of others, and does\nthis not merely because it is a part of the game, but with the gladness\nthat transfigures life.\n\nSuch courage does not wait for some great occasion for exhibiting\nitself; it is revealed in the midst of the humdrum routine of daily\nlife--a routine that is especially trying to those who have been\nlooking forward to some great, perhaps dramatic service.\n\nA young man of seventeen entered the navy, with his parents' consent, as\nan apprentice. When he left home he had dreams of entering at once on a\nlife of thrilling adventure where there would be numberless\nopportunities for the display of high courage. At the end of a month a\nfriend asked him how he liked life at the navy yard. \"Fine!\" was the\nreply. \"What are you doing?\" was the next query. \"They haven't given me\nanything but window washing to do yet,\" he replied, with a smile that\nwas an index of character.\n\nA newspaper writer has told of a college student nineteen years old who\nenlisted in the navy. He was sent to one of our naval stations and told\nto guard a pile of coal. As the summer passed he still guarded that coal\npile. He wrote home about it:\n\n\"You know, dad, when we were little shavers, you always rubbed it into\nus that anything that was worth doing at all was worth doing as well as\nit could be done. I've been standing over that coal pile nearly three\nmonths now, and it looks just exactly as small as it did when I first\nlanded on the job.\"\n\n\"He was relieved from the coal pile at last and promoted,\" said the\nwriter who told of him. \"At the same time the government gave him a last\nchance to return to his college work. He thought it over carefully. He\nrealized that America was going to need trained men as never before, but\nstill, he decided, the best service that he individually could give was\nthe one that he had chosen. He had a few days of leave before going on\nto his next assignment, and he hurried back to his home. He found that\nhis summer task was a matter of town history, and he had to face a good\ndeal of affectionate raillery about his coal pile. Of course he did not\nmind that. But his answer revealed his spirit:\n\n\"'You may laugh, but that coal pile was all right. I'll admit it got on\nmy nerves for a bit, but I figured it out that while I was taking care\nof that coal pile I was releasing some other fellow who knew things I\ndidn't know, and who could do things I couldn't do. I'm ready to stand\nby a coal pile till the war ends, if that's where I can help the most.'\"\n\n\"That is the spirit that will conquer because it is the spirit that\nnever can be conquered,\" was the comment made on the incident. \"There is\nno self in it--only consecration to duty; no seeking for large\nthings--only for an opportunity to serve whenever the call comes. That\nis the spirit that is growing in America to-day--and only through such\nspirit can we accomplish our great task in the life of the world.\"\n\nThe man who really desires to serve his fellows does not think of\ndeclaring that he will not do humble tasks, but he demands that the work\nhe is asked to do shall be needed.\n\nA young man who was seeking his life work made known his willingness to\nbe a shoe-black, if he could be convinced that this was the work God\nwanted him to do. An immigrant in New York City read in the morning,\n\"Lord, my heart is not haughty nor mine eyes lofty.\" Then he went out to\nsweep a store, and he swept it well. It is worthy of note that the young\nman who was willing to be a shoe-black became one of the foremost men of\nhis generation, and that the immigrant became the pastor of a leading\ncity church. But a far more important fact is that the quality of the\nservice given counted more in their minds than the character of the\nemployment.\n\nThe service of the man who would be worth while in the world must\npartake of the spirit of the successful figure on the baseball diamond\nor the football gridiron: readiness to do everything, or anything--or\nto do nothing, if he is so directed--in the interests of the team. It\nmust take a leaf from the book of General Pershing and his fellow\nofficers who, in a time of stress for the Allies, were willing and eager\nto brigade their troops with the soldiers of France and England, thus\nlosing the identity of their forces in the interest of the great cause\nfor which they stood. It must learn the lesson taught by the life of Him\nwho emptied Himself for the sake of the world--and did it with a smile.\n\n\nIII\n\nFORGIVING INJURIES\n\nA gifted writer has told the story of a workman in a Bessemer steel\nfurnace who was jealous of the foreman whom he thought had injured him.\nThe foreman was making a good record, and the workman did not want to\nsee him succeed. So he plotted his undoing--he loosened the bolts of the\ncable that controlled an important part of the machinery, and so caused\nan accident that not only interfered seriously with the day's turn, but\nput a section of the plant out of commission for the time being. As a\nresult the superintendent was discharged. When he left he vowed\nvengeance on the man whom he suspected of causing his discharge: \"I'll\nget you for this some day,\" he declared. Perhaps he would have been even\nmore emphatic if he had known the extent of his enemy's culpability.\n\nYears passed. The workman who had loosened the bolts became\nsuperintendent of the mill. He, too, tried to break a production record,\nand was in a fair way to succeed until some mysterious difficulty\ndeveloped that interfered seriously with results. And just when the new\nsuperintendent was losing sleep over his problem, the old superintendent\ncame to town.\n\n\"He's come for his revenge!\" was the thought of the new superintendent.\n\nBut the superintendent did not wait for a visit from the man he feared;\nhe sought him at once. \"He must know the extent of my meanness,\" he\ndecided. So he told his story. To his surprise the former foreman seemed\nmore interested in the account of the progress of the mill than in the\nsorry tale of past misdeeds. Learning of the mysterious difficulty that\nthreatened failure in the attempt to break the production record, the\ninjured man showed real concern. \"I can't imagine where the difficulty\nis, but I'd like to take a look around for it,\" he said. Arm in arm,\nthen, the two men, once bitter enemies, moved toward the mill. The\nsearch was successful, the difficulty was corrected, and the record was\nbroken.\n\nFine story, isn't it? What a pity it is only a story, that such things\ndon't ever happen in real life!\n\nDon't they? How about Henry Nasmyth, the English inventor of the steam\npiledriver, whose ideas were stolen by French machinists? His first\nknowledge of the piracy was when he saw a crude imitation of his\npiledriver in a factory in France. Instead of seeking damages and\nthreatening vengeance, he pointed out mistakes made in construction and\nhelped his imitators perfect the appliance they had stolen from him.\n\nYes, such things do happen in daily life. They are happening every day.\nAs we read of them or hear of them or meet people who are actors in such\na drama, we are conscious of admiration for the deed, a quickening of\nthe pulse, and the thankful thought that the world is not such a bad\nplace after all.\n\nBut are we to stop with quickened heartbeats and gratitude for the\ngreatness of heart shown by others? How about the bitterness we have\nbeen treasuring against some one who has injured us--or some one we\nthink has injured us (it is astonishing how many of the slights and\nindignities for which vengeance has been vowed are only imaginary, after\nall!) How long do we intend to persist in treasuring the grudge that has\nperhaps already caused sorrow that cannot be measured? Let's be\ncourageous enough to own ourselves in the wrong, when we are in the\nwrong, and to forgive the evil that has been kept alive by our\npersistent efforts to remember it. Let the quickened pulse-beat be ours\nnot merely because we are hearing about forgiveness, but because we\nourselves are rejoicing in friendship restored.\n\n\nIV\n\nFORGETTING WRONGS\n\nThere are people whose minds are like a lumber-room, littered with all\nsorts of odds and ends. In such a room it is impossible to count on\nlaying hands promptly on a desired article, and in such a mind confusion\ntakes the place of order. The mind had better be empty. An empty mind\npresents a fine opening for the proper kind of filling, but a confused\nmind is hopeless. How is it possible to make the memory a helpful\nservant unless nothing is allowed to find lodgment there that is not\nworth while?\n\nAn old proverb says, \"No one can keep the birds from flying about his\nhead, but one can keep them from nesting in his hair.\" That proverb\npoints the way to saving the mind from becoming a lodging place for\nlumbering thoughts and ideas; everything that is certain to hinder\ninstead of help one to be worth-while to the world must be told that\nthere is \"positively no admittance.\"\n\nAmong the things one must not afford permission to pass the bars is the\nthought that some associate may have said or done something that seemed\nlike a slight or an injury. No man can afford to injure another, but any\nman can better afford to be injured than to allow his thoughts to dwell\non the injury, to brood over it, until he is in a degree unfitted for\nhis work. Far better is it to be like a father who said to his son when\nthe latter, years after the commission of the deed, was speaking of his\nsorrow that he had grieved his father so: \"Son, you must be dreaming; I\ndon't recall the incident.\"\n\nThen one must know when to forget evil things heard of another.\nSometimes it is necessary to remember such facts, but so often the\ninsinuations made concerning other people are not worth consideration,\nbecause they are not true. Even where there is ground for them, they are\nnot proper subjects for thought and remembrance.\n\nIt is best to forget past achievements, unless they are made\nstepping-stones to greater achievements, spurs to work that could never\nbe done without them. Yet how often the temptation comes to gloat in\nthought over these things, and over the good things said of one because\nof them, while opportunities for greater things are passed by. Thus a\nschool-boy thought with delight of a word of commendation from his\nteacher when he ought to have been giving attention to the recitation of\nthe pupil next to him; the result was a reprimand that stung. A soldier\nin the trenches has no time to gaze in admiration at the medal he has\nwon by valor when at any moment there may sound the call to deeds of\nstill greater valor. No more should a civilian imperil future success by\nfailure to forget \"the things which are behind.\"\n\nThe individual who refuses to forget a kindness he has done to someone\nelse is another cumberer of the ground. A safe rule is, never forget a\nkindness received from another, but forget at once a kindness done to\nanother. It is not difficult to sympathize with the youth who, after\nbeing reminded for the twentieth time by his brother of a trip to New\nOrleans for which the brother had paid out of his savings, said, \"Yes,\nand I wish I had never taken a cent of the money!\"\n\nA thing to be forgotten always is the off-color story with which some\npeople persist in polluting the atmosphere. Unfortunately there are\nalways to be found folks like the young man of whom Donald Hankey said\n\"He talks about things that I won't even think.\" When such talk is\nheard, don't think of it. If you do, you are apt to think of it again\nand again, until, perhaps, you will be telling it to some one else. And\nno one wants to be remembered as was the business man, proposed for the\npresidency of a great concern, of whom one said, \"No, don't let's have\nhim; he has earned a reputation for telling questionable stories.\"\n\nIf a good memory is to be a good servant, it must be trained to remember\nonly the things that are helpful. And that takes courage!\n\n\nV\n\nGETTING RID OF EVIL\n\nOne of the trying disappointments of daily life comes with the discovery\nthat something on which we have been depending is no longer worthy of\nconfidence, because a foreign substance, some adulterant, has been mixed\nwith it, without our knowledge. This seemed to be the case perhaps more\nthan ever before during the recent days of war when a severe strain was\nput on the products of nearly every kind.\n\nIn many parts of the country those who were compelled to replenish their\ncoal supply during the worst weather of a severe winter complained\nbecause the anthracite then secured gave out little heat; it contained\nsuch a large proportion of culm or other waste product which, in\nordinary times, is carefully removed before shipment, that it could not\ndo its work properly.\n\nDisappointed in their anthracite, some turned to bituminous coal, only\nto find that at least fifty per cent, of a shipment received during the\ndays of stress was made up of rock and clay.\n\nExperience with the coal should have prepared one of the purchasers for\nhis disappointment in a restaurant where he had been accustomed to be\nserved with a splendid oyster stew. But he was surprised and displeased\nwhen he found that at least one-third of the milk which should have gone\ninto the stew had been displaced by water.\n\nAt home that evening the same man was told more of the activity of\ndealers who permit impurities to interfere with the comfort of those who\nlike pure products; the grocer had that day sent a package of soup beans\nwhich contained at least ten per cent. of gravel.\n\nIt is easy to appreciate the disappointment and embarrassment that come\nfrom the failure of the coal dealer, the restaurant keeper or the grocer\nto supply us with pure food and fuel. Then isn't it strange that we are\napt to pay so little attention to the adulterants in character that are\nthe cause of so much of the world's sorrow? That is to say, it seems odd\nthat we pay so little attention to the things in our own lives that\ninterfere; we are not apt to find it a difficult matter to rail at\nothers because they permit evil to mix with good in their lives. Our\nvision is so much better when we are looking at motes in others than\nwhen we are looking straight past the beams in our own make-up.\n\nThere is daily need for each one of us to ask God for grace to go on a\nhunt for the evil that adulterates his own life, making it a\ndisappointment to others and a cause of sorrow to God. Those who are\nbold enough to scrutinize themselves without flinching will be apt to\nfind not merely things that are unquestionably evil, but they will be\ndismayed to see that even much of the good in which they have been\ntaking comfort is adulterated with evil--as, for instance, the deed of\nhelpfulness performed for a friend with the unconscious thought, \"Some\nday he may be able to do something for me,\" or the gift made to a needy\ncause, accompanied by the assurance that the treasurer of the fund is\none whom we particularly wish to impress with our liberality so that\npossibly a future benefit will come from him to us.\n\nThe adulterants of evil mixed with the good in our lives must be\nremoved. And there is just one way to get rid of them--to submit\nourselves to the sifting of Him who not only knows the good from the\nevil, the wheat from the chaff, but will also show the way to retain the\nwheat and throw out the chaff.\n\nOf course one does not have to yield himself to Christ's sifting. But of\none thing we can be sure; there will be a sifting. If Christ is not\ninvited to do the work, the Devil will take up the task. But his purpose\nin sifting is always to retain the evil, and drive out all the good.\n\nGod asks for \"pure religion and undefiled.\" There is no place in his\ncalculations for adulterants. Be courageous, and get rid of them!\n\n\nVI\n\nLOOKING BEYOND MONEY\n\nMoney is a good thing, when it is properly secured and properly used.\nBut there are better things than money. Honor is better, and loving\nservice, and thoughtful consideration of others.\n\nThis was the lesson taught by the life of a man who was a shareholder in\na mining company that was about to go out of business. The shareholders\nwould sustain very heavy losses, so a friend who knew the secrets of the\ncompany determined to warn this man, whom everybody liked. The hint was\ngiven that it would be to his advantage to sell quickly. \"Why?\" asked\nMr. N. \"Well, you know, the value of the mines is greatly depreciated.\"\n\"When I bought the shares I took the risk.\" \"Yes, but now you should\ntake the opportunity of selling while you can, so as not to lose\nanything.\" \"And supposing I don't sell, what then?\" \"Then you will\nprobably lose all you have.\" \"And if I do sell, somebody else will lose\ninstead of me?\" \"Yes, I suppose so.\" \"Do you suppose Jesus Christ would\nsell out?\" \"That is hardly a fair question. I suppose he would not.\" \"I\nam a Christian,\" said Mr. N., \"and I wish to follow my Master, therefore\nI shall not sell.\" He did not, and soon after lost everything, and had\nto begin life again.\n\nThis shareholder would have appreciated Professor A. H. Buchanan, who\nwas for forty years professor of mathematics in Cumberland University,\nTennessee. After his death it was told of him that at one time he was\noffered an appointment in government service to which a $3,000 salary\nattached. His income as professor in a church college was $600 a year.\nBut he saw more chance to make his life count for Christian things in\nthe professor's place than in public service, so he declined the $3000\nand stayed by the $600. One who spoke of these facts in the professor's\nlife said, in comment:\n\n\"If he had taken the $3,000, everybody would have regarded him as an\nordinary sort of man. Now everybody who has heard of Professor\nBuchanan's exceptional devotion appreciates that he was a very\nextraordinary man. A very cheap person indeed is capable of accepting a\nbigger salary.\"\n\nAt about the time of the death of this professor of mathematics a daily\npaper mentioned a civil engineer who was transforming the appearance of\na western city, and said of him: \"Two or three times he has had chances\nto get three or four times his present salary. Each time he has said:\n'No, my work is here; I haven't finished it. The money doesn't count, so\nI shall stick here and finish my work.'\"\n\nAfter the death of a famous minister in St. Louis a story was told of\nhim that he had not allowed to be known widely during his lifetime. This\nwas the romantic tale, as related by a writer in The New York _Sun_:\n\n\"When a young man, he found to his amazement among his father's papers a\ndeed to five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three acres of land,\nlocated in what is known as West Virginia. This deed was a great\nsurprise to all who saw or heard of it. Putting this deed in his\npocket, young Palmore, the only heir to the property, made a trip to\nWest Virginia, to look over his vast estate, which was far in the\ninterior.\n\n\"Starting from the city of Charleston, West Virginia, he drove in a\nbuggy into the region where his plantation was located. He traced the\nboundaries of his property and found that hundreds of families had\nsettled on it without any right to it, but were living as if secure in\nthe possession of their separate little patches of territory. He found\nthat beneath the surface of this land there was almost limitless wealth,\nbut the multitudes who had built themselves humble homes on the surface\ndid not know of it, and had been living thus in undisturbed possession\nfor a number of years. He quietly walked about at night and looked\nthrough the windows at the parents and children living on his estate.\nGreat lawyers were ready to inaugurate legal proceedings that would have\nmade him a millionaire, and such legal proceedings would doubtless have\nbeen instituted if the heir in person had not visited the scene of his\ngreat estate. As he dreamed in the nighttime about dispossessing such a\nmultitude of people of their humble homes, he began to feel that,\ninstead of such a fortune being a blessing, an estate received at such\nan expense would be a burden.\n\n\"After earnest prayer and sleepless hours in the midst of his vast\nacres, he was seized with the conviction that each member of this\nmultitude of families living on his property needed it more than did the\nheir, and there and then he made up his mind that he would leave them in\nquiet possession of his estate.\"\n\nThe reporter who related the story said that the man had been called a\nfool, and commented, \"He was God's fool.\"\n\nThen he said that the incident he had related would have been\nunbelievable if it had not been so well attested. But why unbelievable?\nIs it because of the common idea that \"every man has his price,\" that it\nis unthinkable that a sane man would let a fortune that he could claim\nhonestly slip through his fingers?\n\nPerhaps it is true that every man has his price. However, if this snarl\nof the pessimist is to have universal application, the price must be\nunderstood to be--in many instances--not selfish gratification, but the\nopportunity for courageous service. There are men and women who can be\nwon by such an opportunity who cannot be reached by any argument of mere\nprivate advantage. Such people silence the complaints of the croaker and\ncommand the confidence of those who are struggling to help their\nfellows.\n\nLouis Agassiz, the naturalist, was such a man. \"I have no time to make\nmoney,\" was his remark when urged by a friend to turn aside from the\nimportant work of the moment to an easy, lucrative task. His reason was\nthus explained at another time: \"I have made it the rule of my life to\nabandon any intellectual pursuit the moment it becomes commercially\nvaluable.\" It was his idea that there were many who would then be\nwilling to carry on work he had begun.\n\nA contrast is presented by the famous inventor who, early in life, made\nit a rule never to give himself to any activity in which there was no\nprospect of financial gain. His first question was not, \"Does the public\nneed this invention?\" but \"Is there money in it?\" Having answered to his\nsatisfaction, he was ready to go ahead.\n\nThe world could not well have spared either of these men, for both\nrendered valuable service. But, judging from the stories of their\ncareers, there was more joy in the life of the naturalist, who,\nsatisfied to earn a living, thought most of serving his fellows, than in\nthe life of the inventor before whose eyes the dollar continually loomed\nlarge. The counting-house measure of life is not the most satisfying nor\nis it the most useful.\n\nThat was the notion of Jacob Riis, of whom a minister who was devoting\nhis life to the interest of young working men near his church once asked\nif such effort was merely thrown away, if he was pocketing himself.\n\"Pocketing yourself, are you?\" Riis replied. \"Stick to your pocket. It\nis a pretty good pocket to be in. Out of such a pocket, worked in the\nway you are working it, will come healing for the ills of the day that\nnow possess us. I would rather be in such a pocket, working for the\nLord, than in a $1,000,000 church, working for the applause of a\ncongregation.\"\n\nThose who are familiar with inside history at Washington say that the\nday after Garfield's election as President, a dispatch was sent to\nMilton Wells, a Wisconsin preacher, whose vote in the convention had\nkept Garfield's name on the list of candidates to the very last, asking\nhim if he would become governor of Arizona Territory. Mr. Wells\nanswered: \"I have a better office that I cannot leave. I am preaching\nhere for $600 per year.\"\n\nThere was once a man named Paul who might have enjoyed position and\npower, if he had wished, but he chose instead a life of courageous\nservice of which he was able once to write, without boasting:\n\n\"In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly; in stripes above\nmeasure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes\nsave one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I\nsuffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in\njourneyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils\nfrom my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city,\nin perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false\nbrethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and\nthirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.\"\n\nHow could Paul bear all these things? They were enough to break down a\ndozen strong men. Probably he sometimes felt that he could not bear the\nburden any longer, but always there came to him the assurance of Christ,\n\"My grace is sufficient for thee.\" Then he could bear anything; yet not\nhe, but Christ, who lived in him. Thus his glory was not in his own\nstrength but in his weakness, which made place in his life for the\nstrength of Christ.\n\nUntil men and women learn how to gain strength in their weakness as Paul\ndid, their lives will be unsatisfying, their days will be full of\ncomplaint. Their burdens, which seemed like mountains before learning to\ntrust Christ, will be borne as easily as if they were feathers.\n\nGod does not promise to make us all dollar millionaires if we look at\nHim for strength in our weakness, but He does promise to make us all\nmillionaires of faith and hope and courage. Paul was; we can be, too.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TWO\n\n_THE COURAGE THAT FACES OBSTACLES_\n\n\n\"YOU may expect to spend the rest of your days tied to your chair.\"\n\nTheodore Roosevelt's physician made this disconcerting announcement to\nhis patient a few weeks before his death.\n\nHow would the courageous man receive an announcement like that? How\nwould you receive it?\n\nLet the words spoken in reply by the lion-hearted Roosevelt never be\nforgotten by others who struggle with difficulties:\n\n\"All right! I can work and live that way, too!\"\n\nSurely the triumphant words justified the characterization made by\nHerman Hagedorn of this colossal worker:\n\n\"He was frail; he made himself a mountain of courage.\"\n\nAt a dinner given to celebrate the worthy achievement of a public man, a\nguest spoke of him to a companion at table.\n\n\"No wonder he has been so well. Everything is in his favor: he is young,\nhe is brilliant, he is in good health.\"\n\n\"In good health?\" was the answering comment. \"Where did you get that?\nFor years he has been in wretched health; many a night he was unable to\nsleep except he knelt on the floor by the bedside and stretched himself\nfrom his waist across the bed. But it is not strange that you did not\nknow, he has said nothing of his ailments; he is so full of courage\nhimself that he makes everyone around him courageous.\"\n\n\nI\n\nLEARNING\n\nWhen the famous Sioux Indian, Charles A. Eastman, was a boy, his father,\nwho had learned the joys of civilized life, urged his son to secure an\neducation. \"I am glad that my son is brave and strong,\" he said to him.\n\"I have come to start you on the White Man's way. I want you to grow to\nbe a good man.\"\n\nThen he urged his son, Ohiyesa, as he was called, to put on the\ncivilized clothes he had brought with him. The boy rebelled at first; he\nhad been accustomed to hate white men and everything that belonged to\nthem. But when he reflected that they had done him no harm, after all,\nhe decided to try on the curious garments.\n\nTogether father and son traveled toward the haunts of the white man. As\nthey traveled Ohiyesa listened to tales of the wonderful inventions he\nwould see. He was especially eager to look on a railroad train.\n\nBut even after he had gone with his father, he was reluctant to enter on\nhis long training, until his father suggested that he make believe he\nwas starting on a long war-path, from which there could be no honorable\nreturn until his course was completed. Entering into the spirit of the\nproposal, the Indian lad began his schooling at Flandreau Indian Agency,\nand persisted for twelve long years. After graduating from college he\ndevoted himself to his people, and in many years since has accomplished\nwonders for them, teaching them the patience he had himself learned, and\nenabling them to understand that such patience and persistence always\nbrings its reward.\n\nThe experience of Isaac Pitman, the inventor of shorthand, was\ndifferent, yet, after all, it was much the same. As a boy he had little\neducation. But soon after he went to work he made up his mind to supply\nthe lack. The record of how he did this is one of the most remarkable\ninstances of courageous patience on record.\n\nThe long office hours at his place of employment, from six in the\nmorning until six at night, made study difficult, but he showed\nconclusively that where there is a will there is a way, and that he had\nthe will. He was accustomed to leave his bed at four, that he might\nstudy two hours before the beginning of the day's work. Two hours in the\nevening also were set apart for study. Sometimes it happened that work\nat the factory was light, and the young clerk was excused for the\nmorning. Instead of taking the time for sport, it was his habit to take\na book with him into the fields or under the trees.\n\nThomas Allen Reid, in his biography of Pitman says: \"One of the books\nwhich he made his companion in morning walks into the country was\nLennie's Grammar. The conjugation of verbs, list of irregular verbs,\nadverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, and the thirty-six rules of\nsyntax, he committed to memory so that he could repeat them in order.\nThe study of the books gave him a transparent English style.\"\n\nHis father was a subscriber to the local library. \"I went regularly to\nthe library for fresh supplies of books,\" Isaac said, in 1863, \"and thus\nread most of the English classics. I think I was quite as familiar with\nAddison, and Sir Roger, and Will Honeycomb, and all the Club, as I was\nwith my own brothers and sisters ... and when reading The Spectator at\nthat early age, I wished that I might be able to do something in\nletters.\"\n\nBefore he left school he formed the habit of copying choice pieces of\npoetry and prose into a little book which he kept in his pocket. These\nbits he would commit to memory when he had leisure. A later pocket\ncompanion contained a neatly written copy of Valpey's Greek Grammar, as\nfar as the syntax, which he committed to memory. In his morning walks in\n1832 he committed to memory the first fourteen chapters of Proverbs. He\nwould not undertake a fresh chapter until he had repeated the preceding\none without hesitation.\n\nAs most of his knowledge of words was gained from books, he had\ndifficulty in pronunciation. \"His method of overcoming the deficiency\nwas ingenious,\" his biographer wrote. \"Again and again he read 'Paradise\nLost.' Careful attention to the meter enabled him to correct his faulty\npronunciation of many words. Words not found in the poem he discovered\nin the dictionary. With unusual courage he decided to read through\nWalker's Dictionary, fixing his mind on words new to him and on the\nspelling and pronunciation of familiar terms. On the pages of one of his\npocket-books he copied all words he had been in the habit of\nmispronouncing. Although there were more than two thousand of these\nwords, the plan was carried out before he was seventeen.\"\n\nThe labor of writing out so many extracts from books led him to study\nthe imperfect system of shorthand then current, and to develop the\nsystem that was to bear his name.\n\nSo many young people feel that they \"simply cannot abide\" the long\nprocess of getting an education; they give up when they are only a part\nof the way to the goal. But for most of them the day of bitter regret\nwill come when they will wish that they had been more like Eastman or\nPitman in their determination to be patient and persistent, to allow\nnothing to stand in the way of their purpose to fit themselves in the\nbest possible manner for the serious business of life.\n\n\nII\n\nDEPENDING ON SELF\n\nYoung men just starting out in life nowadays, who find the path to\nsuccess difficult, are more fortunate than some of those who struggled\nwith hard times a century or more ago, because they are determined to\nmake a self-respecting fight on their own merits. It was not always so;\nonce nothing was thought of the effort made by an impecunious young man\nto throw himself on the generosity of one who had already achieved\nsuccess. Then it was a habit of many authors to seek as a patron a man\nof influence and means who would help them live till their books were\nready for the publisher, and then help to get the books before the\npublic.\n\nFrom letters of George Crabbe, a poet of some note in his century,\nasking Edmund Burke to become his patron, something of his story may be\nknown. As a boy he was apprenticed to an apothecary; later he was\nproprietor of a small shop of his own. Business, neglected for books and\nwriting, did not prosper. With his sister, his housekeeper, he \"fasted\nwith much fortitude.\" Then he went to London, with a capital of nine\npounds, and starved some more. Months were spent in trying to enlist\ntwo patrons. At last, threatened with a prison for debt, he decided to\ntry a third patron; and this was his procedure, as he himself described\nit:\n\n\"I looked as well as I could into every character that offered itself to\nmy view, and resolved to apply where I found the most shining abilities,\nfor I had learnt to distrust the humanity of weak people in all\nstations.\"\n\nSo he wrote to Edmund Burke, telling him that he could no longer be\ncontent to live in the home of poor people, who had kept him for nearly\na year, and had lent him money for his current expenses. Describing\nhimself as \"one of those outcasts on the world, who are without a\nfriend, without employment and without bread,\" he told of his vain\nappeal to another for gold to save him from prison, added that he had\nbut one week to raise the necessary funds, and made his request.\n\n\"I appeal to you, sir, as a good, and, let me add, a great man. I have\nno other pretensions to your favor than that I am an unhappy one. It is\nnot easy to support thoughts of confinement, and I am coward enough to\ndread such an end to my suspense ... I will call upon you, sir,\nto-morrow, and if I have not the happiness to obtain credit with you I\nmust submit to my fate ... I have only to hope a speedy end to a life so\nunpromisingly begun ... I can reap some consolation in looking to the\nend of it.\"\n\nThe appeal was successful. Edmund Burke became Crabbe's patron. The poet\nwas glad to eat the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and\nsubmitted to many unpleasant slights and insinuations while he received\nthe dole of charity.\n\nThat suing thus for a patron did not always have the effect of\ndestroying an author's self-respect is shown by a letter written by Dr.\nSamuel Johnson to Lord Chesterfield. When, after years of hard labor,\nDr. Johnson's dictionary was known to be ready for publication, Lord\nChesterfield wrote for \"The World\" two flattering articles about the\nauthor, evidently thinking that the work would be dedicated to him. At\nonce Dr. Johnson wrote:\n\n\"My Lord: When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your\nlordship, I ... could not forbear to wish ... that I might obtain that\nregard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance\nso little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to\ncontinue it....\n\n\"Seven years, my lord, have passed since I waited in your outward room,\nor was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on\nmy work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and\nhave brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of\nassistance, one word of encouragement or one smile of favor. Such\ntreatment I did not expect for I never had a patron before.... The\nnotice which you have been pleased to take of my labor, had it been\nearly, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and\ncannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am\nknown, and do not want it.... I have long awakened from that dream of\nhope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, my lord,\n\n\"Your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,\n\n                                           \"Sam Johnson.\"\n\nThe lapse of a century has brought a change. Self-respecting, courageous\nyoung workers do not seek a patron to help them to fame. To-day they ask\nonly to fight their own battles, win their own victories.\n\n\nIII\n\nUNCOMPLAINING\n\nNor do courageous workers complain when little things go wrong.\n\n\"I don't know what I shall do if the mail does not come to-morrow. Think\nof being two days without a morning paper!\"\n\nThe complaint was heard when railway traffic had been tied up by\nwashouts on the railway. The inconvenience suffered by the speaker\nseemed to him very great. Though there had been no other interruption to\nthe many comforts and conveniences to which he had been accustomed, the\nsingle difficulty made him lose his temper and spoiled his day.\n\nWhen one is tempted to magnify such a small difficulty into a mountain\nit is worth while to look at things from the standpoint of a man whose\nlife far from the centers of civilization makes him so independent of\ncircumstances and surroundings that he can be cheerful even in the face\nof what seem like bitter privations.\n\nA company of travelers in the forests of Canada thought that the\nknowledge of the most recent news was necessary to happiness. They\nlearned their mistake when they reached the camp of a man from whom\nthey expected to learn news more recent than the events reported in the\npaper the day they left civilization, seven weeks before. They felt sure\nthat, as he lived on the trail, he would have seen some traveler who had\nleft the railroad since their own departure.\n\nWhen they asked him for late news from the States, he said he had some\nvery recent news, and proceeded to tell of events eight months old! \"Do\nyou call that recent?\" he was asked, in disgust.\n\n\"What's the matter with that?\" was the wondering reply. \"It only\nhappened last fall, and there ain't been nobody through here since.\" And\nhe contentedly resumed the task at which he had been engaged when\ninterrupted by the demand for \"recent\" news.\n\nOn the same journey the travelers--whose story is told in \"Trails in\nWestern Canada\"--showed that they were learning the lesson. Carelessness\nin handling a campfire caused a forest fire which threatened their food\nsupply. They saved this, but lost their only axes. After a long search\nthey found these in the embers, but the temper had been utterly ruined\nby the heat. Only a few hours before they felt that an axe was\nabsolutely necessary not only to comfort but to life itself, yet when\nthe ruined tools were found the travelers turned to their tasks without\ngiving the disaster a second thought. They knew that there is always a\nway out of difficulty. They continued their expedition without an axe,\nand found that they managed very well.\n\nThe lesson was impressed still more by the attitude of a guide who spent\na few days with them. Like many other people on vacation they allowed\nthemselves to worry about finances. But their thoughts were set on a new\ntrack by the guide, who, after telling of the success in trapping\ngrizzly bear and beaver which had enabled him to save a little money,\nsaid: \"Life is too short to worry about money. If I lose all I have\nto-morrow, I can get a couple of bear traps and by next spring I'll be\non my feet again. The mountains are always here, and I know where there\nis a bunch of bear and a colony of beaver, and I can get along out here,\nand live like a prince while those poor millionaires are lying awake at\nnights, lest someone come and steal their money.\"\n\nTwo other guides were engaged to pole the travelers' raft down the\nFraser River. Nearly every day the cold rain fell in torrents, but the\nmen were unmoved. \"All day long they would stand in their wet clothes,\ntheir hands numb and blue from the cold as they handled their dripping\npoles; yet not a comment indicating discomfort is recalled. Physical\nannoyances, which in the city would bring an ambulance, scarcely are\nmentioned by them.\"\n\nOne day one of the men was asked what they did when they were sick.\n\"Cain't say we ever are sick,\" was the reply. \"The worst thing that ever\nhappened to us, I reckon, was when Mort here had a bad tooth; but, after\na day or two, we got sick of it, and took it out.\" That was all he\nthought worth saying about it till he was pressed for an account of the\noperation. \"Oh, I looked through our dunnage bag,\" he said, \"and found\nan old railroad spike. Mort held it against the tooth and I hit the head\nwith a big rock, and knocked her out the first time.\"\n\nHis companion was unwilling to agree that this was the most trying\nexperience. He told of a day when the man who had reported the tooth\nextraction, cut his foot severely with an axe. \"Oh, that didn't bother\nus,\" the victim interrupted. \"I just slapped on some spruce gum and\nnever thought anything more about it.\" Asked how long he was laid up,\nthe surprised answer was: \"Laid up for that? We weren't laid up at all.\nCouldn't travel quite as fast for a day or two, but we didn't lose no\ntime at that, for we traveled longer to make up.\"\n\nStill another guide gave an object lesson in making light of\ndifficulties when his horse fell on him, bruising one of his knees so\nthat it swelled to an enormous size. The injured man made no complaint,\nthough his companions were full of sympathy. He knew he could reduce the\nswelling by heroic remedies.\n\nOne day when traveling was unusually difficult, the guide cheered his\nemployers by telling them of the fine camp he owned just ahead--\"a house\nlike a hotel,\" he said. And when the camp was reached he pointed proudly\nto \"a great log with a few great pieces of bark and some cedar slivers\nstretched over the top.\" In this camp the night was spent, without\nblankets and in the rain. \"But as no one seemed to consider this\nanything out of the ordinary, the travelers made no complaint.\"\n\nPerhaps a taste of the wilderness is what we need when we become\nimpatient of trifles and make ourselves miserable because everything\ndoes not go to suit us.\n\n\nIV\n\nPERSISTING\n\nFailure camps on the trail of the man who is ready to give up because\ndifficulties multiply. A representative of a large paper warehouse made\nup his mind to add to his list of customers a certain Michigan firm.\nRepeated rebuffs did not daunt him. Every sixty days he sent the firm a\nletter of invitation to buy his goods. During twenty-seven years one\nhundred and sixty-one letters were mailed without result. Then, in reply\nto the one hundred and sixty-second letter, the Michigan firm asked for\nquotations. These were given promptly, and two carloads of paper were\nsold. What if this letter writer had become discouraged before he wrote\nthis final letter?\n\n\"I thought you were planning to complete your education,\" a friend said\nto a young man whom he had not seen for some time; \"yet now you are\nclerking in a store. Perhaps, though, you are earning money for next\nyear's expenses.\"\n\n\"No, I am earning money for this year's expenses,\" was the discouraged\nreply. \"I did want an education, but I found it was too difficult to get\nwhat I sought, so I have decided to settle down.\"\n\nOf course it is easier to give up than it is to push on in the face of\ndifficulty, but the youth who pushes on is fitting himself to fill a\nman's place in the world, while the young man who is easily discouraged\nis fitting himself for nothing but disappointment. The world has no\nplace for a quitter.\n\nThere is a tonic for young people who purpose to make the most of\nthemselves in glimpses of a few college students who had the courage to\nface difficulty. One of these was an Italian boy, who was glad to beat\ncarpets, wash windows, scrub kitchen floors, mow lawns, teach grammar,\narithmetic and vocal exercises at a night school for foreigners.\nThen--as if his time was not fully occupied by these occupations--he\nmade arrangements to care for a furnace and sift the ashes, in exchange\nfor piano lessons. That student finished his preparatory course with\ncredit, taking a prize for scholarship.\n\nA seventeen-year-old boy wanted an education, but he had nine brothers\nand sisters at home, and he knew that he could look for no financial\nassistance from his parents. So he picked cotton at sixty cents a\nhundred pounds, sawed wood, cut weeds and scrubbed floors--and thus paid\nhis expenses.\n\nOne student could not spare the money to pay his railroad fare to the\nschool of his choice. But he had a pony. So he rode the pony the entire\ndistance of five hundred miles, working for his expenses along the way.\n\nA beginner in college was too full of grit to give up when bills came on\nhim more heavily than he had expected. During the school year he did\nchores, rang the bell for the change of classes, did janitor work, and\nwaited on table in restaurants. In the summer he found work on farms\nnear by.\n\n\"No task is too difficult for the man with a purpose,\" declared a worker\nwith young men, some of whom were ready to give up. \"Two things are\nnecessary if you would be successful,\" was another man's message to\nthose whom he wished to inspire to do purposeful work. \"First: know what\nyou want to do. Second: do it.\"\n\nThose who permit obstacles to stand in the way of the performance of\ntasks they know they ought to perform if they would make the most of\nthemselves, need to take to heart the message given by a mother to her\nson when he was ready to give up the unequal struggle with poverty and\nphysical infirmity. \"Thou wilt have much to bear, many hardships to\nsuffer,\" she said. \"But mark what I say, we must not mind the trouble.\nDuring the first part of the night we must prepare the bed on which to\nstretch ourselves during the latter part.\"\n\nGiving up after failure is always easier than trying again, but the men\nand women who count are those who will not be dismayed by failure. When\nJ. Marion Sims, the famous surgeon, was beginning the practice of\nmedicine, he proudly tacked an immense tin sign on the front of his\noffice. Then he lost two patients, and pride and courage both failed\nhim. \"I just took down that long tin signboard from my door,\" he wrote\nin the story of his life. \"There was an old well back of the house,\ncovered over with boards. I went to the well, took that sign with me,\ndropped it in there, and covered the old well over again. I was no\nlonger a doctor in the town.\" But fortunately he conquered\ndiscouragement, made a fresh beginning, and overcame tremendous\nobstacles. After his death a famous man said that if all his discoveries\nshould be suppressed, it would be found that his own peculiar branch of\nsurgery had gone backward at least twenty-five years.\n\nIndomitable perseverance is necessary for the business man as for the\nprofessional man; and it will just as surely bring reward to those who\nare engaged in Christian work as to those who are seeking worldly honor.\nSo when the uphill climb seems too difficult, there must be no\nfaltering. Remember--as Christina Rossetti said--\"We shall escape the\nuphill by never turning back.\"\n\nIn gathering material for a history of Charles V of Spain, a Spanish\nhistorian was painstaking in his researches. Finally he was able to tell\nthe king's whereabouts on every day of his career, except for two weeks\nin 1538.\n\nThen friends assured him that he had done his best. In all probability\nnothing of importance happened during those days. But the historian\nbelieved in being thorough to the end. So he delayed publication. For\nfifteen years he sought news of the missing fortnight. Finally, and\nreluctantly, when he was seventy-five years old, he published the book.\n\nAt length an American woman, studying in the archives of Spain, having\nlearned of the lost days, resolved to find them. Among musty documents,\nin many libraries, she toiled. Then, by a woman's intuition, she was led\nto look for documents of a sort the Spanish historian had never thought\nof. And she found where the king was on some of those days. The news was\nsent to the historian, just in time for him to make additions to his\ninaugural address to be delivered on taking his seat in the Academy of\nHistory. In this address he rejoiced to give full credit for the\ndiscovery to the American.\n\nBut the woman was not satisfied; there was still a gap to be filled. She\nmade further trials, and failed. Again intuition led her to documentary\nsources that had hardly been touched since they were filed away nearly\nthree hundred years before. She succeeded, and now that bit of history\nis complete.\n\nA well known writer for young people was also persistent in tracing a\nstory to its source. When he came to America from his native Holland he\nheard for the first time the story of the Dutch hero who stopped the\nhole in the dike, a story unknown in Holland. He resolved to prove or\ndisprove this. The record of his long search was published later. Not\nonly did he prove the existence of the boy, but he proved that the boy's\nsister was a partner in the heroic deed. Thus the helpful story has been\nsaved for future generations.\n\nThese incidents make interesting reading. But do they not do more?\nSurely it is unnecessary to urge the lesson of persistence in a task\nseriously undertaken. Often there is temptation to slight some\nworth-while task, after one has worked on it painstakingly for a time.\n\"Why pay so much attention to detail?\" is asked. \"Surely no real harm\nwill be done if I give less time to some of these things that seemed so\nimportant at the beginning!\"\n\nFortunately there are multitudes of workers who are constitutionally\nunable to slight a task. The proofreader on a paper of large circulation\nis an example. It is a part of her work to prove statements made, to\nverify facts and figures, to see that these are altogether accurate.\nOnce when there was an unusual pressure of work the editor suggested\nthat she might wish to take certain things for granted, but she showed\nher conscientious thoroughness by performing the task to the end,\naccording to the rules of the office, and in the face of weariness that\nwas almost exhaustion.\n\nIt may not be given to you to be a historian. You may not be called upon\nto prove the story of a hero. It may not be your task to read proof or\nto verify manuscripts. But each one has a definite part in the work of\nthe world and there is no one to whom the example of historian and\nproofreader is without value. All need to remember the truth in the\nassurance, \"There is nothing so hard but search will find it out.\"\n\n\nV\n\nTOILING\n\nTwo young people were passing out of a building where they had just\nlistened to a speaker of note.\n\n\"What a wonderful talk that was!\" said one who found it a heavy cross to\nmake the simplest address in public. \"I wish I had such a gift of\nspeech.\"\n\n\"It isn't a gift in his case; it is an acquirement,\" was the response.\n\"If you had known that man five years ago, you would agree with me. When\nI first knew him he could not get up in a public meeting and make the\nsimplest statement without floundering and stammering in a most pitiful\nmanner. But he had made up his mind to be a public speaker, and he put\nhimself through a severe course of discipline. To-day you see the\nresult.\"\n\nThe biography of Dr. Herrick Johnson tells of courageous conquest of\ndifficulties that seemed to block the way to success: \"Hamilton College\nhas always given great attention to public speaking and class orations.\nThe high standard was set by a remarkably gifted man, Professor\nMandeville, who instituted a system in the study of oratory and public\nspeaking which has been known ever since, with some modification, as the\n'Mandeville System.'\"\n\n\"In 1853, Dr. Anson J. Upson was in the Mandevillian chair, and had\nlifted up to still greater height the standard of public speaking, and\nhad awakened a great, inextinguishable enthusiasm for it. Not one of the\nboys who entered that year, and who were at that prize-speaking contest,\ncould fail to be seized with the public-speaking craze. It especially\nmet Herrick Johnson's taste and trend and gifts, and fired his highest\naim. Probably there was nothing he wanted so much as the prize in his\nclass at the next commencement. But unfortunately his standards and\nideals of public speaking were just then as far as possible from the\nMandevillian standard. He had acquired what was called a ministerial\ntone, and other faults fatal to any success, unless eradicated. The best\nspeakers of the upper classes were the recognized and accepted\n'drillers' of the new boys, who at once put themselves under their care\nand criticism. Every spring and fall a certain valley with a grove,\nnorth of the college, was the resort of the aspirants for success at\nthis time. The woods would ring with their 'exercises' and strenuous\ndeclamation, and I presume it is the same to-day.\n\n\"Herrick Johnson had a magnificent voice, well-nigh ruined by his sins\nagainst the right method of using it. He soon saw that it was going to\nbe essential for him to go down to the foundation of his wrong methods\nand break them all up and absolutely eradicate his 'tone.' It was no\neasy thing to do, but the young man was intensely ambitious, and so he\nworked with the greatest energy. He failed of an appointment on the\n'best four' of his Freshman class. But he worked away throughout his\nSophomore year and failed again. The upperclassmen saw his pluck, they\nrecognized his grand voice, and they worked with him during his Junior\nyear, until he had mastered the Mandevillian style, wholly eradicated\nhis 'tone,' corrected all defects, and got his appointment for one of\nthe best four speakers of the Junior year; and on the prize-speaking\nnight of that commencement, he went on the platform conscious of his\npower and swept everything before him as the Junior prize speaker. It\nset the standard for that young man. Voice, manner, address, were all\nmasterful and accounted easily for his great success as a public speaker\nthrough all his subsequent prominent and successful career in his\nprofession.\"\n\nA part of the good of \"speaking a piece\" is to try again, determined to\nretrieve failure. Success is not always a good thing for a boy or a\ngirl, any more than for a man or a woman. The discipline of failure is\nsometimes needed. To fail is not always a calamity, if the failure leads\nto the correction of the faults that lead to failure. Whether it be\nspeaking a piece or learning a lesson or facing a trying situation in\nbusiness, no matter how many times one has failed, he needs to take to\nheart the message of Macbeth:\n\n                        We fail!\n          But screw your courage to the sticking-point,\n          And we'll not fail.\n\nAlways there is a reward for those who fight against difficulties, who\npersist in their struggle even when failure follows failure. Everyday\nthe glad story of the sequel to such persistent struggles is recorded.\nThe records of commercial life, of school life, of home life are full of\nthese.\n\n\nVI\n\nCONQUERING INFIRMITY\n\nOf all obstacles that can stand in the way of courageous conquest, one\nof the most fatal, in the opinion of many, is blindness. Yet it is not\nnecessary that the loss of the eyes should be the fatal handicap it is\nalmost universally considered. It is a mistake to feel that when a\nworker has anything seriously and permanently wrong with his eyes he\ncannot be expected longer to perform tasks that are normal for one who\nhas the full use of all his five senses. In fact, when we hear that a\nman is going blind we are apt to dismiss with a sigh his chance for\ncontinuing productive labor of any sort; we feel that there is little\nleft for him but sitting resignedly in a chimney corner and listening to\nothers read to him or patiently fingering the raised letters provided\nfor the use of the blind.\n\nIn protest against this error a novelist has taken for his hero a young\nman who lost his sight. His friends pitied him, talked dolefully to him,\npromised to look after him in the days of incapacity. Of course he sank\nlower and lower in the doleful dumps. Then one came into his life who\nnever seemed to notice his blindness, who talked to him as if he could\nsee, who encouraged him to do things by taking it for granted that they\nwould be performed. Her treatment proved effective; before long the\nblind man was learning self-reliance, and was well on the road to\nachievement.\n\nThe story was true to life for, times without number, blind men and\nwomen have shown their ability to work as effectively as if they could\nsee. More than two hundred years ago a teacher in London named Richard\nLucas lost his eyesight. Many of his friends thought that he would, of\ncourse, give up all idea of being a useful man; in that day few thought\nof the possibility of one so afflicted doing anything worth much. But\nthe young man thought differently. He listened to others as they read to\nhim, and completed his studies. He became the author of a dozen volumes,\nand was among the leaders of his day. One of his greatest works was the\nbook \"An Enquiry after Happiness.\" He knew how to be happy, in spite of\nhis affliction, so he could teach others to follow him.\n\nA little earlier there lived on the farm of a poor Irishman the boy\nThomas Carolan. When he was five years old, he had smallpox, a disease\nthat was much more virulent in those days than it is to-day because the\ntreatment required was not understood. As a result the boy lost his\nsight. Soon he showed a taste for music, and he was able to take a few\nlessons, in spite of the poverty at home. As a young man he composed\nhundreds of pieces of music, and it has been said of him that he\ncontributed much towards correcting and enriching the style of national\nIrish music.\n\nAnother youthful victim of smallpox was Thomas Blacklock, the son of a\nbricklayer in Scotland. \"He can't be an artisan now,\" his friends said.\nBut it did not occur to them that he could be a professional man. His\nfather read him poetry and essays. When he was only twelve the boy began\nto write poetry in imitation of those whose verses he had heard. After\nhis father's death, when the blind boy was but nineteen, he was more\nthan ever dependent on himself. By the help of a friend he was enabled\nto go to school for a time. Then he became an author, and, later, a\nfamous preacher. Often, as he walked about, a favorite dog preceded him.\nOn one occasion he heard the hollow sound of the dog's tread on the\nboard covering a deep well, and just in time to avoid stepping on the\nboard himself. The covering was so rotten that he would surely have\nfallen into the water.\n\nAs a boy Francis Huber, of Geneva, Switzerland, was a great student. He\ninsisted on reading by the feeble light of a lamp, or by the light of\nthe moon, even when he was urged not to do so, and the result was\nblindness. A few years later he married one who rejoiced to be \"his\ncompanion, his secretary and his observer.\" He became the greatest\nauthority of his day on bees, although he knew nothing of the subject\nuntil after his misfortune. The strange thing is that all his\nconclusions were based on observation. Among other things he studied the\nfunction of the wax, the construction of their combs, the bees' senses\nand their ability to ventilate the hive by means of their wings. In\nrecognition of his work he was given membership in a number of learned\nsocieties. His name must always be connected with the history of early\nbee investigation.\n\nNot long after the close of the American Revolution James Holman, a\nBritish naval officer, lost his eyesight while in Africa. He was then\nabout twenty-five years old. Later he became one of the best known\ntravelers of his day. The world was told of his travels in lectures and\nin books, and others were also inspired to travel. \"What is the use of\ntraveling to one who cannot see?\" he was asked at one time. \"Does every\ntraveler see all he describes?\" he replied. He said that he felt sure he\nvisited, when on his travels, as many interesting places as others, and\nthat, by having the things described to him on the spot, he could form\nas correct a judgment as his own sight would have enabled him to do.\n\nIn 1779 Richmond, Virginia, gave birth to James Wilson, who lost his\nsight when he was four years old, because of smallpox. He was then on\nshipboard, and was taken to Belfast, Ireland, where he grew to manhood.\nWhen a boy he delivered newspapers to subscribers who lived as far as\nfive miles from the city. When fifteen he used part of his earnings to\nbuy books which he persuaded other boys to read to him. At twenty-one he\nentered an institution for the blind, for fuller instruction. Then he\njoined with a circle of mechanics in forming a reading society. One\nfriend promised to read to him every evening such books as he could\nprocure. The hours for reading were from nine to one every night in\nsummer and from seven to eleven every night in the winter. \"Often I\nhave traveled three or four miles, in a severe winter night, to be at my\npost in time,\" he said once. \"Perished with cold and drenched with rain,\nI have many a time sat down and listened for several hours together to\nthe writings of Plutarch, Rollins, or Clarendon.\" After seven or eight\nyears of this training, he was \"acquainted with almost every work in the\nEnglish language\" his biographer says, perhaps a little extravagantly.\nHis education he used in literary work.\n\nB. B. Bowen was a Massachusetts boy just a century ago. When a babe he\nlost his sight. In 1833 Dr. Howe--husband of Julia Ward Howe--selected\nhim as one of six blind boys on whom he was to make the first\nexperiments in the instruction of the blind. Later he wrote a book of\nwhich eighteen thousand copies were sold.\n\nAnother of the men who proved the loss of sight was not a bar to\nsuccessful work was Thomas R. Lounsbury, the Yale scholar whose studies\nin Chaucer and Shakespeare made him famous. Toward the close of his busy\nlife he was engaged in a critical study of Tennyson, preparatory to\nwriting an exhaustive book on the life of the great poet. He did not\nlive to complete the work, but he left it in such shape that a friend\nwas able to put it in the hands of the publishers.\n\nIn the Introduction to the biography this friend told of the courageous\nmanner in which Professor Lounsbury faced threatening blindness and\ncontinued his writing in spite of the danger. We are told that his eyes,\nnever very good, failed him for close and prolonged work. \"At best he\ncould depend upon them for no more than two or three hours a day.\nSometimes he could not depend upon them at all. That he might not\nsubject them to undue strain, he acquired the habit of writing in the\ndark. Night after night, using a pencil on coarse paper, he would sketch\na series of paragraphs for consideration in the morning. This was almost\ninvariably his custom in later years. Needless to say, these rough\ndrafts are difficult reading for an outsider. Though the lines could be\nkept reasonably straight, it was impossible for a man enveloped in\ndarkness to dot an _i_ or to cross a _t_. Moreover, many words were\nabbreviated, and numerous sentences were left half written out. Every\ndetail, however, was perfectly plain to the author himself. With these\ndetached slips of paper and voluminous notes before him, he composed on\na typewriter his various chapters, putting the paragraphs in logical\nsequence.\"\n\nFrancis Parkman, the historian who made the Indian wars real to\nfascinated readers, was a physical wreck on the completion of \"The\nOregon Trail,\" when he was but twenty-five years old. He could not write\neven his own name, except with his eyes closed; he was unable to fix his\nmind on a subject, except for very brief intervals, and his nervous\nsystem was so exhausted that any effort was a burden. But he would not\ngive up. During the weary days of darkness he thought out the story of\nthe conspiracy of Pontiac and decided to write it. Physicians warned him\nthat the results would be disastrous, yet he felt that nothing could do\nhim more harm than an idle, purposeless life.\n\nOne of his chief difficulties he solved in an ingenious manner. In a\nmanuscript, published after his death, his plan was described:\n\n\"He caused a wooden frame to be constructed of the size and shape of a\nsheet of letter paper. Stout wires were fixed horizontally across it,\nhalf an inch apart, movable back of thick pasteboard fitted behind\nthem. The paper for writing was placed between the pasteboard and wires,\nguided by which and using a black-lead crayon, he could write not\nillegibly with closed eyes.\"\n\nThis contrivance, with improvements, he used for about forty years of\nsemi-blindness.\n\nThe documents on which he depended for his facts were read to him,\nthough sometimes for days he could not listen, and then perhaps only for\nhalf an hour at a time. As he listened to the reading he made notes with\nclosed eyes. Then he turned over in his mind what he had heard and\nlaboriously wrote a few lines. For months he penned an average of only\nthree or four lines a day. Later he was able to work more rapidly and he\ncompleted the book in two years and a half. No publisher was found who\nwas willing to bear the expense of issuing the volume, and the young man\npaid for the plates himself.\n\nFriends thought that now he would have to give up. His eyes were still\ntroubling him, he became lame, his head felt as if great bands of iron\nwere fastened about it, and frequently he did not sleep more than an\nhour or two a night. Then came the death of his wife, on whom he had\ndepended for some years. At one time his physician warned him that he\nhad not more than six months to live. But when a friend said that he had\nnothing more to live for, he made the man understand that he was not\nready to hoist the white flag.\n\nHe lived for forty-five years after it was thought that he could never\nuse his eyes again, and during all this time he worked steadily and\npatiently, accomplishing what would have been a large task for a man who\nhad the full use of all his powers.\n\nAn Englishman was told by his physician he could never see again. For a\ntime the news weighed heavily upon him. Afterward he said: \"I remained\nsilent for a moment, thinking seriously, and then, summoning up all the\ngrit I possessed, I said, 'If God wills it, He knows best. What must be\nwill be. And,' I added, putting my hand up to a tear that trickled down\nmy face, 'God helping me, this is the last tear I shall ever shed for my\nblindness.'\" It was. He secured the degrees of doctor of philosophy and\nmaster of arts. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and\nthe Chemical Society. He made many valuable scientific discoveries and\ninventions, saved a millionaire's life, and received the largest fee\never awarded any doctor--$250,000.\n\nTo these men difficulties were a challenge to courage. They accepted the\nchallenge and proved themselves superior to circumstances. Thus their\nlives became a challenge to the millions of their countrymen who read of\ntheir triumph.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THREE\n\n_THE COURAGE OF INDUSTRY_\n\n\nANYBODY can drift, but only the man or woman of courage can breast the\ncurrent, can fight on upstream.\n\nIt is so easy to be idle or to work listlessly. Average folks drift\nheedlessly into occupations in which they have no special interest and\nfor which they have as little fitness. Most people waste their evenings\nor use them to little profit: it never occurs to them that each day they\nwaste precious hours. They give more thought to schemes to do less work\nthan to attempts to increase output.\n\nAnd so they show their weakness, their unfitness for bearing\nresponsibility, their cowardice when the world is calling for courage.\n\nWorth-while work demands the finest kind of courage, and with perfect\nfairness work gives back courage to those who put courage into it.\n\n\nI\n\nBEGINNING\n\n\"Yes, he's a right good worker, when you once get him started,\" a\ncountry newspaper editor said to a friend who was inquiring about a boy\nwho had been in the office three months. \"Watch him now; you'll see what\nI mean.\"\n\nThe boy had just brought from the express office the package of \"patent\ninsides,\" as the papers for the weekly edition of the newspaper, already\nhalf printed in the nearby city, were called. With a sigh he dragged\nthese up the stairs and laid them on the folding table. With another\nsigh he contemplated the pile and thought how much time would be\nrequired to fold the eight hundred papers. After lengthy calculation he\nstopped to read a column of jokes from the top paper in the pile. At\nleast five minutes passed before the first paper was folded. At the end\nof ten minutes he had succeeded in folding perhaps twenty-five papers.\nWhen the noon hour arrived not one third of the task was completed.\n\nWhile he ate his lunch he was thinking of the dread ordeal of the\nafternoon--six hundred more papers to be folded! Would he ever be done?\nHe was still pitying himself as he walked slowly back to the office.\nJust before reaching the doorway into which he must turn, he spied an\nacquaintance. He made his way over to the boy who had attracted him, not\nbecause he had anything to say to him, but that he might delay a little\nlonger the moment of beginning work at the folding table.\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" he asked idly of the boy, who had taken off\nhis coat and was rolling up his sleeves.\n\n\"The boss wants me to sort that lot of old iron,\" was the reply.\n\n\"What, that huge pile! It will take you a week, won't it? Just think how\nmuch of it there is!\"\n\n\"No, there isn't time to think how much of it there is,\" was the reply.\n\"And what would be the good? Not a bit of use getting discouraged at the\nvery start, and that is what would happen if I didn't pitch in hard. The\njob is going to be done before night--that is, if I'm not interrupted by\ntoo many loafers coming in to ask fool questions.\"\n\nThe boy from the printing office was about to resent this speech of the\nboy at the iron pile, but he thought better of it. \"Perhaps there is\nsomething in what he says,\" he said to himself, as he went up the\nstairs. \"Suppose I try to pitch in hard.\"\n\nSo he surprised the foreman by beginning at the pile of six hundred\npapers as if he was to be sent to a ball game when he finished. And he\nsurprised himself by finishing his task in a little more than an hour.\n\nThe lesson he learned that day stood him in good stead when later he was\ntaking his first difficult examination in a technical school. His\nneighbor stopped to look over the paper from beginning to end, and was\nheard to mutter, \"How do they expect us to get through ten questions\nlike these in an hour's time?\" The boy from the printing office had no\ntime for such an inquiry, but began work at once on the first question,\nwithout troubling himself about those that came later until he was ready\nfor them.\n\nSo it was when, his technical course completed, he was confronted by his\nfirst great railroad task, the clearing up of a wreck that looked to his\nassistants like an inextricable tangle. After one good look at it he\npitched in for all he was worth, thus inspiring the men who had felt the\ntask was impossible, and within a few hours the tracks were clear.\n\nThe ability to pitch in at once on a hard job is one characteristic of\nthe man who accomplishes tasks that make others sit up and take notice.\nJohn Shaw Billings, the famous librarian, had this ability. To a friend\nwho praised him for the performance of what others thought to be a most\ndifficult task, he said:\n\n\"I'll let you into the secret--it is nothing really difficult if you\nonly begin. Some people contemplate a task until it looks so big it\nseems impossible, but I just begin, and it gets done somehow. There\nwould be no coral islands if the first bug sat down and began to wonder\nhow the job was to be done.\"\n\n\nII\n\nPURPOSE FORMING\n\nOne of the interesting points the fascinated reader of biography comes\nto look for is the first hint of the formation of the purpose that later\ncharacterized the life of the subject. There is infinite variety, but in\nevery case there is apt to be something that takes the purposeful reader\nback to the days when his own ambition was taking shape.\n\nFor instance, there is Daniel Boone. One would not be apt to select him\nas an example of one whose life was ruled by a purpose deliberately\nformed and adhered to for many years. Yet he had his vision of what he\ndesired to accomplish when, at twenty-one years of age, he was marching\nfrom North Carolina to Pennsylvania to join Braddock's company. On the\nway he met John Finley, a hunter who had traveled through Ohio and into\nthe wild regions to the south. His tale of Kentucky fired Boone's\nimagination, and the two men planned to go there just as soon as the\ntrip to Fort Duquesne was at an end. It proved impossible to carry out\nthe plan for many years, but Boone never lost sight of his purpose, and\nultimately he carved out the Wilderness Road and opened the way for the\npioneers to seek homes in the Kentucky Wilderness.\n\nAlexander Hamilton was but twelve years old when he wrote from his home\nin St. Croix, in the West Indies, to a friend in America:\n\n\"I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk, or the like, to which my\nfortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my\ncharacter, to exalt my station. I am confident, Ned, that my youth\nexcludes me from any hope of immediate preferment, nor do I desire it,\nbut I mean to prepare the way for futurity.\"\n\nNot for a day did he lose sight of his purpose. The opportunity he\nsought came years later. He sailed for America, and began the career\nthat led to usefulness and fame.\n\nAs a boy Robert Fulton was ambitious. He had two dreams. He wished to go\nto Europe to study art, and he wished to buy a farm for his widowed\nmother. For these objects he saved every dollar he could. On his\ntwenty-first birthday he took his mother and sister to the home he had\nbought for them, and later in the same year he sailed for Europe.\n\nWhen Peter Cooper was making his way against odds in New York City he\nfelt the need of an education. But he had to work by day and there was\nno night school. Night after night he studied by the light of a tallow\ncandle. And while he studied, his life purpose was formed: some day he\nwould make it easy for apprentice boys to secure an education after\nworking hours. Many years passed before he was able to carry this\npurpose into effect. By this time the apprentice system had been\ndisplaced, but he felt that young people still needed the school he had\nin mind. In 1859, nearly fifty years after his own boyhood struggle, he\nfounded Cooper Union, in which thousands have had the opportunity \"to\nopen the volume of Nature by the light of truth--so unveiling the laws\nand methods of Deity that the young may see the beauties of creation,\nenjoy its blessings and learn to love the Being from whom cometh every\ngood and perfect gift.\"\n\nAs a boy Abraham Lincoln made up his mind \"to live like Washington.\" He\nwas twenty-two years old when, in New Orleans,--where he had taken a\nflatboat loaded with produce--he saw a slave auction and spoke the\nnever-to-be-forgotten words: \"If ever I get a chance to hit that thing,\nI'll hit it hard.\" Thirty-five years later came his chance, and he did\n\"hit that thing hard\" with the Emancipation Proclamation.\n\nAlexander Graham Bell's life ambition was to teach deaf children how to\narticulate. Funds were short. That he might have more funds he engaged\nin experiments that led to the invention of the telephone. When the\ntelephone instrument was given the attention it deserved at the\nPhiladelphia Centennial of 1876, the inventor wrote triumphantly to his\nparents: \"Now I shall have the money to promote the teaching of speech\nto deaf children.\"\n\nJames Stewart, the Scotch boy who became a famous missionary in South\nAfrica, was fifteen years old when, one day while following the plow in\nPerthshire, he began to brood over the future. \"What was it to be?\" The\nquestion flashed across his mind, \"Might I not make more of my life than\nby remaining here?\" Then he said, \"God helping me, I will be a\nmissionary.\" At another time, while hunting with a cousin, he said \"Jim,\nI shall never be satisfied till I am in Africa with a Bible in my pocket\nand a rifle on my shoulder, to supply my wants.\"\n\nJames Robertson was a school teacher in Canada when he became a\nChristian. On the Sunday he was to take his vows as a follower of\nChrist, he walked two miles to church with a friend who has told of his\nmemories of the day thus:\n\n\"As we went along the Governor's Road there was a bush, 'Light's Woods,'\non the south side of the road. Robertson suggested that we turn aside\ninto the bush, not saying for what purpose. We penetrated it a short\ndistance, when, with a rising hill on our right and on comparatively\nlevel ground, the tall maples waving their lovely heads far above us,\nand the stillness of the calm, sunny day impressing us with a sense of\nthe awful, we came to a large stone. Robertson proposed that we engage\nin prayer. We knelt down together. He prayed that he might be true to\nthe vows he was about to take, true to God and ever faithful in his\nservice.\"\n\nFrom that day the young man's purpose was inflexible. He would be a\nminister. He did not dream of conspicuous places in the church. When the\ntemptations came to seek place and position, he wrote to Miss Cowing,\nwho had promised to be his wife, \"We are no longer our own. The time for\nself is gone for us.\"\n\nWilliam Duncan likewise was tempted to seek a position of prominence.\nWhen he decided to become a missionary, his employers sought to dissuade\nhim. \"You have one of the keenest brains in England,\" one of them said.\n\"Don't you see you are making a fool of yourself?\" \"Fool or no fool, my\nmind is made up, and nothing can change it,\" was the positive reply. And\nhe set his face like a flint, and in time began the wonderful work that\nhas written his name indelibly in the history of the Indians of Western\nCanada and Alaska.\n\nWashington Gladden was a country newspaper man in Owego, New York, when\nhe united with the church, and began to make definite plans for a larger\nfuture than he had yet dreamed of. First he went to the Academy and\nthen to college, with the ministry always in view.\n\nGeorge Grenfell, who became a missionary in Africa, was thirteen years\nold when he began to think of devoting his life to work for others. The\nreading of Livingstone's first book turned his thoughts to Africa.\n\nWilliam Waddell was fifteen years old when he became a Christian. At the\ntime he was working for a ship-joiner at Clydebank, Scotland. The\nambition took possession of him to become a missionary to Africa.\nNeither lack of education nor scarcity of funds was allowed to stand in\nhis way. He kept at his work until he saw an advertisement asking for\nmen to go to the Orange Free State to assist in building a church. He\nvolunteered, and, as a layman and a mechanic, began his wonderful career\nin Africa.\n\nDavid Lloyd-George was an orphan in Wales when he determined to be a\nlawyer. So he read, under the guidance of his shoemaker uncle, and when\nhe was fourteen he was ready for the preliminary examination. For six\nyears more he continued his preparation. Before he was twenty-one he set\nout on the career that has made him the leader to whom King and people\nof England alike turned eagerly.\n\nThese men found their place and did their work, not because they sought\ngreat things for themselves, but because they lived in the spirit of the\nadvice given by a celebrated Canadian to a company of young people:\n\n\"You cannot all attain high positions: there are not enough to go\naround. You cannot all be preachers or premiers, but you can all do\nthoroughly and well what is set you to do, and so fit yourselves for\nsome higher duty, and thus by industry and fidelity and kindness you can\nfill your sphere in life and at last receive the 'Well done' of your\nLord.\"\n\n\nIII\n\nUSING TIME WISELY\n\nA remark made by an acquaintance in the street car showed such\nfamiliarity with the work and trials of the busy conductor that inquiry\nfollowed.\n\n\"Yes, I was a conductor once,\" the man said, \"but I had my eye on\nsomething else. At night I took a business course, and soon was able to\ntake a position with a railroad company.\"\n\n\"That was fine!\" was the answering comment. \"How you must have enjoyed\nresting on your oars as you reaped the fruits of extra toil.\"\n\n\"Enjoyment--yes! But rest--no!\" came the reply. \"I wasn't done. I still\nhad my evenings, and I kept on studying. The things I learned in these\nextra hours came in handy when the Superintendent asked me to become his\nsecretary.\"\n\nService in the railroad office was interrupted by enlistment in the\narmy, although the worker was well beyond the age of the draft. \"How\ncould I think of anything but service at the front?\" he said, with a\nmatter-of-fact accent. While in the service the habit of study in spare\nhours persisted; becoming familiar with the military manual he attracted\nthe attention of his officers, and was marked for added responsibility.\nAt the close of the war he resumed his work for the railroad and entered\na technical school which provides night courses for the ambitious.\n\nForty years of age, and still learning!\n\nAn employer has written of an employee who, ten years ago, was securing\nfifteen dollars per week. But he was studying, and he soon attracted the\nattention of the head of the business, who called him \"a rough diamond.\"\nHe knew that the ambitious man seemed to lack some of the vital\nelements of success. But he watched him as he took evening courses in\nbusiness psychology and salesmanship. \"This man is paid by me to-day\nfrom $12,500 to $15,000 a year,\" was the gratifying conclusion of the\nemployer's story.\n\nA great executive recently told in a magazine article of a young man in\nthe office of his employment director who attracted attention because of\nan exceptionally pleasing personal appearance. Before the director saw\nhim the executive asked him what he was studying. \"When I left school,\"\nwas the reply, made with something of a sneer, \"I promised myself I\nwould never open a book again as long as I lived, and I'm keeping my\npromise.\"\n\nThe executive was about to leave the office for a two weeks' vacation.\nFirst, however, he wrote a few words about the applicant, placed them in\na sealed envelope, and left this with the employment director, to be\nkept for him. On his return he asked about the applicant, by name. The\nanswer came, with prompt disgust:\n\n\"That fellow was the limit! Fired him two days after he was hired. Dead\nfrom the neck up!\"\n\nThen the sealed letter was produced and the message enclosed was read:\n\n\"You will hire A---- H---- on his looks. Within two weeks you will fire\nhim. He's dead from his neck.\"\n\nA writer in _Association Men_ has made a comparison between two men, and\nthe way they spent their leisure:\n\n\"Here is my friend Chris Hall--that is not his real name, but I assure\nyou he is a real person. I like Chris, and so does everybody who knows\nhim. He is honest and kind and clean, but in spite of these splendid\ncharacteristics he never makes progress. Five years ago he was promoted\nto his present position, and he draws as salary just about what he did\nthen. And there is no prospect that he will ever draw much more. Yet he\ncould make himself worth four times as much in a very short while--$200\na week instead of $50--if he would only fit himself for the job ahead.\nBut he lives entirely in the present. Perhaps the best way to describe\nhim is to give his diary for a week, a record of how he spent his time\nwhen not actually working. And, please notice that everything he did was\nperfectly legitimate and honorable; but also notice, that everything was\nfor immediate personal pleasure:\n\n          _Monday_--Rainy evening; went to bed early after\n          playing a while with the kids.\n\n          _Tuesday_--Strolled over to see Mollie's brother,\n          who is just back from France; he looks well but\n          would not talk much about the fighting; advised\n          him not to hurry about getting a job, as he\n          deserved a good long spell of rest after the hard\n          campaign.\n\n          _Wednesday_--Left office early; first big league\n          game this year; went around to the club and talked\n          it all over with the boys after supper.\n\n          _Thursday_--Office closed all day on account of\n          parade of returning troops; took Mollie and\n          children to see it; awfully tired and went to bed\n          early.\n\n          _Friday_--Sold my two Liberty Bonds which I had\n          bought on installments; Mollie needed summer\n          dresses and there were several small debts I had\n          to pay; took Mollie to the movies after supper.\n\n          _Saturday_ (afternoon)--Whole family went to\n          Seaside Park by steamer--children enjoyed it for a\n          while but soon got tired and fretful; what with\n          the heat and the crowds and the late hour of\n          getting home it really didn't pay.\n\n          _Sunday_--In bed till nearly noon; read the\n          papers; changed the soil in Mollie's potted\n          plants; afternoon, Tom and his wife and Charlie\n          Nichols and his best girl came over and all stayed\n          to supper; strolled over to Mother's and found\n          everyone there.\n\n\"Over against that let me put a few lines from the diary of Elihu\nBurritt:\n\n          _Monday_--Headache; 40 lines Cuvier's 'Theory of\n          the Earth'; 64 pages French; 11 hours forging.\n\n          _Tuesday_--60 lines Hebrew; 30 pages French; 10\n          pages Cuvier; 8 lines Syriac; 10 lines Danish; 10\n          lines Bohemian; 9 lines Polish; 15 names of\n          stars; 10 hours forging.\n\n          _Wednesday_--25 lines Hebrew; 8 lines Syriac; 11\n          hours forging.\n\n\"Who was Elihu Burritt? He was a New England blacksmith who worked on an\naverage 10 hours a day at his forge; but who studied in his spare\nmoments until he became known and honored all over the world as 'the\nlearned blacksmith.' He became great--not by forging--but by the way he\nused his afterwork hours.\"\n\n\nIV\n\nWORKING HARDER\n\n\"It was the rule of his life to study not how little he could do, but\nhow much.\"\n\nThese words were spoken of a great publisher and might have been made\nthe text of the volume issued to commemorate the centenary of the\nbusiness house founded by the man of whom they were spoken.\n\nThe young man was sixteen when his father drove him from their country\nhome to the city, and apprenticed him to a firm of printers.\n\nAs an apprentice he and another young man were frequently partners in\nworking an old-fashioned hand press. \"One applied the ink with\nhand-balls, and the other laid on sheets and did the pulling. They\nchanged work at regular intervals, one inking and the other pulling.\"\nThe biographer who gives this description of the work of the two, adds\nthat his hero was accustomed to remain at his press after the other men\nhad quit work whenever he could secure a partner to assist him.\n\nThe young man's fellow worker was often persuaded to assist him in these\nextra efforts--usually much against his will. While he often felt like\nrebelling because of his partner's ambition to do his utmost for his\nemployers, he could not restrain his admiration for the man's industry.\n\nOnce the unwilling partner said: \"Often, after a good day's work, he\nwould say to me, 'Let's break the back of another token (two hundred and\nfifty impressions)--just break its back.' I would often consent\nreluctantly but he would beguile me, or laugh at my complaints, and\nnever let me off till the token was completed, fair and square. It was a\ncustom for us in the summer to do a clear half-day's work before the\nother boys and men got their breakfast. We would meet by appointment in\nthe grey of the early morning and go down to the printing-room.\"\n\nFellow workmen made sport of the ambitious young man, not only because\nof what they felt was his excessive industry, but because of his\nhomespun clothes and heavy cow-hide boots. He seldom retorted, but once,\nwhen jests had gone further than usual, he said to a tormentor: \"When I\nam out of my time and set up for myself, and you need employment, as you\nprobably will, come to me and I will give you work.\" The man little\nthought the prophecy would be fulfilled, but forty years after, when the\nindustrious apprentice was mayor of the city and one of the world's\nleading publishers, he was reminded of the promise made to the\ntormentor, and the promised position was given to him. The workman who\nbelieved in doing more than was expected of him had won his way to fame\nand fortune, while his derider had made no progress.\n\nIn 1817 the industrious apprentice asked a brother--who in the meantime\nhad served his apprenticeship in a printing office--to go into business\nwith him. Later two other brothers were taken into the firm. All were\nbelievers in the doctrine that had led the oldest member of the firm to\nsuccess--the doctrine of doing as much instead of as little as possible.\n\nTheir readiness to work constantly enabled the four brothers, who\nstarted with little capital except their knowledge of their trade, to\nbuild up within a generation one of the world's greatest publishing\nhouses. They improved every moment. But they were never tempted to work\non Sunday; business was never so pressing that they would break into the\nday of rest, or make their men do so. In this they were only living in\naccordance with purposes formed during their days of working for others.\nIt is stated of one of the brothers, whose employer rejoiced in his\nreadiness to do hard work and plenty of it, that he was expected to work\non Sunday, in order to get ready the catalogue of an auction sale which\nwas to be held next day. \"That I will not do,\" he said, respectfully but\nfirmly: \"I cannot work on Sunday.\" He did work till midnight; then--in\nspite of the threat that he would be discharged--he laid down his\ncomposing stick on the case. On Monday morning his employer apologized\nand asked him to return to work.\n\nThirty-six years after the founding of the house, it occupied five\nfive-story buildings on one street and six on another street. Then a\ncareless plumber started a fire that--within a few hours--destroyed the\nentire property. But the energetic men who knew how to work were not\ndiscouraged at the thought of beginning again. The night after the fire\nthey met for conference. As they separated one of them remarked that the\nevening had seemed more like a time of social festivity than a\nconsultation over a great calamity.\n\nBusiness associates hastened to make offers of loans. Within forty-eight\nhours the firm was tendered more than one hundred thousand dollars.\nPublishers offered their presses, printing material and office room.\nAuthors wrote that they were ready to wait indefinitely for pay, while\nemployees not only made a like suggestion, but said they were willing to\nhave their pay reduced. While none of these offers were accepted, they\nwere greatly appreciated, for they told of the place the brothers had\nwon for themselves by untiring industry and sterling integrity.\n\nAfter the fire the house became greater than ever, so that to-day it\nstands as an example of what \"hard work coupled with high ideals\" may\naccomplish. And to every young man the thought of it gives inspiration\nto follow in the steps of the founder who \"made it the rule of his life\nto study not how little he could do, but how much.\"\n\n\nV\n\nABUSING THE WILL TO WORK\n\nThere are times when the real test of a worker's courage is not his\nreadiness to work but his will to curb the temptation to be intemperate\nin work.\n\nWhen the word \"intemperance\" is mentioned most people think at once of\nstrong drink; many people are unwilling to think of anything but strong\ndrink. As if where there is no temptation to drink there can be no\ntemptation to intemperance!\n\nPaul had a different idea. When he wrote to the Corinthians, \"Every man\nthat striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things,\" he must have\nhad in mind scores of different ways in which intemperance endangers\nsuccess.\n\nIf people were to make a list of some of the aspects of intemperance\nthat are characteristic of modern life, it is quite likely that a large\nproportion would omit one of the most serious of all--the intemperance\nof the man who lives to work, who drives himself to work, who is never\nhappy unless he is working, who makes himself and others unhappy because\nhe labors too long, and too persistently, perhaps with the result that\nhis own promising career is wrecked and the industry of others is\ninterfered with seriously.\n\nOne of the most striking illustrations of intemperance in work is\nsupplied by the life of Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield,\nMassachusetts, _Republican_, one of the famous editors of the generation\nbeginning a few years after the Civil War.\n\nMr. Bowles was but eighteen years old when he had his first warning that\nhis system could not stand the strain of the work to which a strong will\ndrove him. His mother used to set a rocking chair for him at the table\nat meal-time, because, as she said, \"Sam has so little time to rest.\"\nBut the rocking chair was empty for months, when a breakdown sent him\nSouth for a long period of recuperation.\n\nWhen he returned home he plunged into work with all his might. \"He\nworked late at night; vacations and holidays were unknown; of recreation\nand general society he had almost nothing,\" his biographer says. For\nyears his office hours began before noon and continued until one or two\nin the morning. Finally the strain became too great, and loss of sight\nwas feared. Still he forced himself to work, and the injury to his brain\nwas begun that was later to cause his death. He would take a bottle of\ncold tea to the office, that by its use he might aid his will to work\nwhen nature said, \"Stop!\" For a long time his only sleep--and it was\nsadly broken sleep--was on a lounge in the office, from two to six or\nseven in the morning. Then he would set to work again. \"By his unceasing\nmental activity he wore himself out,\" the comment was made on his\ncareer. \"For the last twenty years of his life his nerves and stomach\nwere in chronic rebellion. Heavy clouds of dyspepsia, sciatica,\nsleeplessness, exhaustion, came often and staid long.\"\n\nThe intemperate worker knew what he was doing. Once he wrote to a\nfriend, \"You can't burn the candle at both ends, and make anything by it\nin the long run; and it is the long pull that you are to rely on, and\nwhereby you are to gain glory.\" Persistent headaches, \"nature's sharp\nsignal that the engine had been overdriven,\" added to the warning. At\nlast, when he was thirty-seven, he wrote: \"My will has carried me for\nyears beyond my mental and physical power; that has been the offending\nrock. And now, beyond that desirable in keeping my temper, and forcing\nme up to proper exercise and cheerfulness through light occupation, I\nmean to call upon it not at all, if I can help it, and to do only what\ncomes freely and spontaneously from the overflow of power and life. This\nwill make me a light reader, a small worker.\"\n\nWell for him if he had kept his resolution. Still he drove himself to\nwork beyond what his body and brain could stand. Then came paralysis.\n\"Nothing is the matter with me but thirty-five years of hard work,\" he\nsaid. At the time of his death he was not fifty-one years old.\n\nHis friends could not but admire him for strength of will, for\nachievement in the face of ill health, for triumph, by sheer will-power,\nover every obstacle except the will that drove him to his death. He\naccomplished much, but how much more he might have accomplished if he\nhad been temperate in his use of the wonderful powers of mind and body\nwhich God had given him!\n\nIn connection with this glimpse of the life of one who illustrates the\ndisaster brought by the will to be intemperate, it is helpful to think\nof the life of another American man of letters whose will to be\ntemperate in his treatment of a body weak and frail prolonged life and\nusefulness.\n\nFrancis Parkman, the historian, was never a well man after his trip\nthat resulted in the writing of _The Oregon Trail_. In fact, he was a\nphysical wreck at twenty-five years of age. He could not even write his\nown name, until he first closed his eyes; he was unable to fix his mind\non a subject, except for very brief intervals, and his nervous system\nwas so exhausted that any effort was a burden. However, in spite of this\nlimitation, which became worse, if possible, instead of better, he\nmanaged to accomplish an immense amount of the finest literary work by\ndoing what he could and stopping when this was wise. His will to take\ncare of himself was given the mastery of his will to work. For\nforty-four years after the completion of _The Oregon Trail_ he labored\non, preparing history after history. He was seventy years old when he\ndied, leaving behind him achievements that would have been a tremendous\ntask for a man in perfect health.\n\nTo everyone is given the marvelous equipment of body and brain, as well\nas the will which makes possible their judicious investment or their\nprodigal waste in the struggle to make life count.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FOUR\n\n_THE COURAGE OF FACING CONSEQUENCES_\n\n\nYOUNG people sometimes play the game of \"Consequences.\" The sport\nincreases in proportion to the strangeness of the results.\n\nPerhaps the reason the game has so many attractions is the fact that\nlife is a long story of consequences.\n\nThere are people who do not like to play the game of life seriously\nbecause they say the consequences of self-denial and self-sacrifice are\ntoo uncertain; they prefer the cowardice of inaction to the courage of\npurposeful living.\n\nThe folks worth while are those who, refusing to be troubled by what may\nor may not be the consequences of their acts, still have the pluck to go\non with what they know is right. Let the results be what they may, they\npropose to be straightforward and true. This is the courage that counts.\n\nThere may be uncertainty as to the specific form the results of their\nstand may take, yet that result is sure to be pleasing and helpful.\n\n\nI\n\nVENTURING\n\nWhen Washington Irving was about to return to America from Madrid, where\nhe had been minister of the United States to the court of Spain, the\nPhiladelphia house that had been publishing his books, discouraged by\nthe decreasing sales, sent word to him that the public was not able to\nappreciate his books, and they would have to allow them to go out of\nprint. The books had been printed directly from the type, so there were\nno plates which another publisher might use to bring out further\neditions at small expense.\n\nThe author, who was then sixty-five years of age, sorrowfully accepted\nthe verdict of his publisher, and planned to take desk-room in the New\nYork office of his brother, John Treat Irving, where he hoped to make a\nliving by the practice of law.\n\nBut this was not to be. In New York was a young publisher who believed\nthat Washington Irving's works were classics, and that the American\npublic would buy them eagerly if properly approached. Friends told him\nthat he might make a mistake, but he had the courage to go ahead. So he\nwrote to the discouraged author what must have seemed to other\npublishers a daring letter; he proposed to publish new editions of all\nIrving's old books, on condition that new books, also, be given to him;\nand he promised that royalties for the first year should be at least one\nthousand dollars, for the second year two thousand dollars, and for the\nthird year three thousand dollars.\n\nWhen Irving received the letter, he kicked over the desk in front of\nhim, at the same time saying to his brother:\n\n\"There is no necessity, John, for my bothering with the law. Here is a\nfool of a publisher going to give me a thousand dollars a year for doing\nnothing.\"\n\nBut the publisher was not so foolish as he seemed. His promises were\nmore than made good. Sales were large. Other authors were attracted,\nuntil the publishing house became one of the leaders among American\npublishers.\n\nNine years later Washington Irving had an opportunity to show his\ngratitude. Just before the panic of 1857 a young man whom the generous\npublisher had taken into partnership, involved him seriously. The\ndefalcations were not discovered until the accidental death of the\npartner. Thus weakened, the firm was unable to survive the panic; its\naffairs were put in the hands of a receiver, and all accounts were\nsold. At the age of forty-two, the head of the firm bravely faced the\nnecessity of beginning life over.\n\nAt the receiver's sale Washington Irving bought the plates of all his\nbooks. A number of publishers offered him fancy terms if he would permit\nthem to bring out new editions, but he turned a deaf ear to their\nentreaties and offered the plates to their former owner, to be paid for\nin annual installments. Touched by the gratitude of his friend, the\npublisher accepted the offer.\n\nThe author never had cause to regret his action. During the years that\nelapsed before his death the results of the new venture were more\nsatisfactory than ever. The courageous action of both publisher and\nauthor had been amply vindicated by results.\n\n\nII\n\nFORMING CHARACTER\n\nThe best time to learn the courage that proves so effective in the\nstruggle of life is in youth. More than fifty years ago two boys in\nScotland were hunting rabbits. Tiring of the comparatively easy hunting\non the ground, they looked longingly at a cliff of hard clay several\nhundred feet high, in whose precipitous side were many rabbit burrows.\nThey managed to climb the cliff. At length they were making their way\nalong an almost perpendicular parapet, cutting their way with their\nknives. Then one of the boys fell, with a scream, to the bottom of the\ncliff. There was a moment of terror. This was succeeded by a grim\ndetermination to go forward, the only way of escape. Driving his knife\ndeep in the clay, he rested on this for a moment. That moment, it has\nalways since seemed to him, marked the first momentous period in his\nlife, the time when his personality first emerged into consciousness. He\nsays: \"I whispered to myself one word, 'Courage!' Then I went on with my\nwork.\" At length he reached the ground.\n\nThe lesson learned at such fearful cost told emphatically on the boy's\ncharacter. From that day he showed that there was in him the making of a\nman who would not be balked by unfavorable circumstances. He did not\nunderstand how or why, but he felt that new will-power had come to him\nwith the appeal to himself to take courage in the face of death.\n\nA few years later he went to Brazil. A Spaniard told him that moral\ndeterioration within six months was all but certain to come to every\nyoung man who began life there. But he was determined not to give way to\nbad habits. When he reached Santos, his companions urged him to give\nhimself up to all kinds of vice; they told him that it was either this\nor death, or perhaps something worse than death. They emphasized their\nwords by pointing to a young man who had determined to keep straight,\nand had been left to himself until he was demented. But the boy who had\nlearned courage on the precipice made up his mind that he must live as\nGod wished him to live, and he turned a deaf ear to all entreaties.\n\nAnother book of biography tells of a boy who delighted in playing cards\nwith his father and mother. But when he united with the Church and\nbecame President of the Christian Endeavor Society he began to wonder if\nhe was doing right. One night his father took up the cards and called\nhim to play whist.\n\n\"I don't think I'll play whist any more,\" he said quietly. \"I've been\nthinking that perhaps it wasn't right for me to play.\"\n\n\"Are you setting yourself up to judge your father and mother, young\nman?\" his father asked, sternly.\n\n\"No, I didn't say it isn't all right for you to play,\" was the reply.\n\"But you know I am President of the Christian Endeavor Society and some\nof the members don't think it is right to play. So I guess I'd better\nnot.\"\n\nHis father looked at him thoughtfully for a minute, then picked up the\ncards and threw them back into the drawer.\n\n\"Charlie,\" he said, \"I want you to understand that I think you have done\na manly thing to-night, and I honor you for your courage.\"\n\nThat was the end of whist in that house.\n\nCourage showed itself in much the same way in the life of J. Marion\nSims, the great surgeon. He used to tell how, when he was a boy at a\nSouth Carolina School, he was able to take a stand that had its effect\non his whole after-life. Many of his fellow students were sons of\nwealthy planters, and their habits were not always the best. On several\noccasions they tried to lead him into mischief. They were particularly\nanxious to make him a companion in their drinking bouts. Twice he gave\nway to their pleas, but after sorrowful experience of the results of his\nlapses, he decided to make a brave stand. So he said to his tempters:\n\n\"See here, boys, you can all drink, and I cannot. You like wine and I do\nnot. I hate it; its taste is disagreeable, its effects are dreadful,\nbecause it makes me drunk. Now, I hope you all will understand my\nposition. I don't think it is right for you to ask me to drink wine when\nI don't want it, and when it produces such a bad effect on me.\"\n\nTo say this required real courage, but the results were good, not only\nin himself, but also, fortunately, in some of his companions.\n\n\nIII\n\nTRUTH TELLING\n\nThose who, in early life, learn to be courageous in the face of\ndifficult tasks will be ready for the temptation that is apt to come to\nmost young people to compromise with what they know to be right and\ntrue, to allow an exception \"just this once!\" in the straightforward\ncourse they have marked out for themselves. And the worst of it is that\nsuch a temptation is apt to come without the slightest warning and to\npresent itself in such a light that it is easy to find an excuse for\nyielding, and to deem it quixotic and unreasonable not to yield.\n\nOnce a young teacher who later became famous at Harvard, had occasion to\ncensure a student who had given, as he believed, the wrong solution of\na problem. On thinking the matter over at home, he found that the pupil\nwas right and the teacher wrong. It was late at night and in the depth\nof winter, but he immediately started for the young man's room, at some\ndistance from his own home, and asked for the man he had wronged. The\ndelinquent, answering with some trepidation the untimely summons, found\nhimself the recipient of a frank apology.\n\n\"Why, in the name of reason, do you walk a mile in the rain for a\nperfectly unimportant thing?\" this man was asked on another occasion.\n\"Simply because I have discovered that it was a misstatement, and I\ncould not sleep comfortably till I put it right,\" was the reply.\n\nAgain the story is told of him that he borrowed a friend's horse to ride\nto a town where he expected to take the stage. He promised to leave the\nanimal at a certain stable in the town. Upon reaching the place he found\nthat the stage was several miles upon its way. This was a serious\ndisappointment. A friend urged him to ride to the next town, where he\ncould come up with the vehicle, promising himself to send after the\nborrowed horse and forward it to its owner. The temptation to accept the\noffer was great. The roads were ankle deep in mud, and the stage\nrapidly rolling on its way. The only obstacle was his promise to leave\nthe horse at the appointed place. He declined the friendly offer,\ndelivered the horse as he had promised, and, shouldering his baggage,\nset off on foot through the mud to catch the stage.\n\nAt this time he was eighteen years old, but he had learned the lesson\nthat made him remarkably efficient and dependable through life.\n\nDr. W. T. Grenfell has told of a hardy trapper in Labrador, the partner\nof a man who was easily discouraged; the arrangement was that they\nshould share equally the hardships and the rewards of the trapping\nexpeditions. Both were very poor. The stronger man was most unselfish in\nhis treatment of his associate. One winter their lives were all but lost\nduring the severity of a storm which burst on them while they were\nsetting their traps on an ice-girt island. On reaching the mainland the\ntimid man insisted on dissolving the partnership; he was unwilling to\nrepeat the risks, even for the sake of his needy family. In a few days\nthe hardy trapper revisited the traps on the mainland. To his great joy\nhe found in one trap a magnificent silver fox, whose skin was worth five\nhundred dollars--a fortune to the Labrador trapper, especially welcome\nduring that hard winter. \"How glad I am the partnership has been\ndissolved, and that the fox is all mine,\" was his first thought. But\nfirst thought was not allowed to be last thought. There was a struggle.\nAt length the decision was made that the needy man who had set the trap\nwith him should share in the prize; the argument that he had forfeited\nall right to a share was not allowed to weigh against the unselfish\narguments for division.\n\nA friend of young people has told of an incident which occurred in a\ngreat Boston department store where she sought to match some dress\ngoods. After turning away from several discourteous clerks she showed\nher sample to a salesman who gave respectful attention to her. Glancing\nat the slits cut in the side of the bit of goods, he remarked:\n\n\"That isn't one of my samples. I will ask the clerk who mailed this\nsample to wait on you.\"\n\n\"But I don't want any other clerk to wait on me,\" responded the women,\nhastily, fearing that the sample might have come originally from one of\nthe discourteous clerks first encountered; \"I want you to have this\nsale.\"\n\n\"If you had asked for goods of that quality, width and price, without\nshowing me the sample, I could have found it for you at once,\" replied\nthe clerk, with a smile, \"but now, this sale belongs to the clerk who\nsent out the sample.\"\n\n\"Then I won't give you this sample to hunt it up by,\" said the woman,\nwishing to see if she could carry her point, and she proceeded to tuck\nthe sample away in her purse.\n\n\"But I know that I have seen it, and my conscience knows it,\" was the\nclerk's comment, as he laughingly laid his hand on his heart and turned\nto look for the other salesman.\n\nThe purchaser went on to tell thus of the salesman's unerring loyalty to\nhis principles: \"In a moment he returned. The other clerk was at lunch.\nWhat a sigh of relief I gave! 'I will make out the sale and turn it over\nto him when he comes in,' he said, displaying the shining black folds of\nthe goods I desired.\"\n\nA real estate dealer in a Texas city was once tempted to be false to his\nprinciples, \"just once,\" when he felt sure a sale depended on it. His\nprospective customer was a foreigner, who wished the salesman to drink\nwith him after a trip to examine the property on Saturday and then to\npromise to make an engagement to continue the search next morning. But\nthe business man was opposed to the use of liquor, and he had never done\nbusiness on Sunday. What was he to do on this occasion? Would it hurt\nanything if he should make an exception in favor of this customer who\ncould not be expected to understand his scruples?\n\nThe temptation was acute; but it was conquered. Respectfully but firmly\nthe buyer was told why the salesman could not join him in taking a\ndrink, and why he could not go with him again until Monday morning. The\nman went away in a rage.\n\nNext morning the real estate man saw the foreigner in the hands of a\nrival. \"That sale is gone!\" he thought. When three days more passed\nwithout the return of the buyer he decided that he had paid heavily for\nbeing true to his better self.\n\nBut on Thursday evening the foreigner sought the conscientious real\nestate dealer and surprised him by saying:\n\n\"Those other fellows showed me lots of farms, but you wouldn't drink\nwith me, nor show me land on Sunday because you think it wrong. So,\nmaybe, I think you won't lie to me. I buy my farm of you.\"\n\nMany times the reward of being true to one's conscience will not come so\npromptly--except in the satisfaction the man has in knowing that he has\ndone the right thing. But the sure result is to bring him a little\nnearer to the great reward that must come to a man whose integrity has\nstood the test of years--the appreciation of those who know him and\ntheir confidence in his honor.\n\n\nIV\n\nDUTY DOING\n\nIt is not always necessary that a man should be aquainted with another\nto be able to repose implicit confidence in him. A life of fearless,\nstraightforward duty-doing will inevitably leave its record in the face.\nSometimes a frank, open countenance that cannot be misread is far better\nthan any letter of introduction.\n\n\"We are suspicious of strangers,\" a man said to one who had sought at\nhis hands a favor that called for trust; then he added, with a smile,\n\"but some faces are above suspicion,\" and proceeded, with overwhelming\ngenerosity, to grant far more than had been asked.\n\nYears ago a business man unexpectedly found himself without sufficient\nfunds to continue his journey through Europe. As this was before the\ndays of travelers' checks or the ocean cable, he was at a loss what to\ndo. In his uncertainty he went to an Italian banking house and asked\nthem to cash a large draft on his home bank. After an instant's pause\nthe request was granted. Years later the merchant again saw the\naccommodating banker, and asked why a stranger was given such a large\nsum. \"In plain truth, it was just your honest face, and nothing else,\"\nwas the reply. On another trip abroad the merchant had a similar\nexperience. During a thunderstorm he took refuge with his wife in a\ncurio shop. The English-speaking woman in charge was so cordial, and her\ngoods were so pleasing, that the visitor said he would have liked to\nmake some purchase, but his remaining funds were not more than\nsufficient for his journey home. The reply was: \"Take whatever you\nplease, sir. No one could look in your face and distrust you.\"\n\nA similar story was told by a Russian Jew who entered New York a\npenniless immigrant. After a disheartening period of working in the\nsweatshop he saw an opportunity to start in business for himself. But he\nhad no capital. At a venture he asked a business man to trust him for\nthe stock in trade. After gazing at him closely the man said, \"You have\na credit face, so I will do as you ask.\"\n\nIt is worth while to have a face that insures confidence. But let it be\nremembered that the possession of such a face is not an accident; it\nbelongs only to those who have the courage to think honestly, deal\nfairly and live truly.\n\n\nV\n\nFINDING HIS LIFE\n\nDuring the boyhood of Charles Abraham Hart, who was later the youngest\nsoldier in the War with Spain, he was on confidential terms with his\nmother. One day when they were visiting together, she asked him about\nsomething that had happened the winter before, which she was unable to\nunderstand. His father had given to him and to his brothers two dollars\neach to spend for Christmas presents. William spent the entire sum, but\nCharles bought cheap presents, and it was evident that he had kept back\na part of the amount. Other members of the family misunderstood him, but\nhis mother thought she knew him well enough to be sure he had done\nnothing selfish.\n\nThe record of the conversation between mother and son is told in the\nboy's biography:\n\n\"The presents you bought were very cheap presents,\" she said to him. \"I\ndon't think they could have cost more than seventy-five cents.\"\n\n\"They cost sixty-five cents,\" he told her.\n\n\"And your father asked what you had done with the rest of your money,\nand you said you didn't want to tell him.\"\n\n\"Yes, I remember that father thought I was stingy, too.\"\n\n\"Do you mind telling me now what you did with the money?\"\n\nThe boy did not answer for a few moments. Then he said, quietly:\n\n\"I bought a Bible for Fred Phillips. He didn't have a good Bible, and I\nthought he needed one more than you and the boys needed expensive\npresents.\"\n\n\"But why didn't you tell your father?\"\n\n\"Because Fred was ashamed not to be able to buy the Bible for himself,\nand he wouldn't take mine until I had promised that I wouldn't tell\nanybody that I had given it to him. Since Fred has moved to Boston, I\nfeel he wouldn't care if I told you. I want you to know, for I just\nheard to-day that Fred has joined the church. Isn't that good news?\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed. Perhaps your giving him the Bible helped him to do it,\ntoo. Charles, when you get to be a man, do you suppose you will always\nbe so careless of how others may misunderstand you?\"\n\n\"I am not careless of that now,\" he declared. \"The desire to be popular\nis one of the things I have to fight against all the time.\"\n\nWhat shall we choose? Comfort of service? Ease, or honorable performance\nof duty? The desire for popularity, or the purpose to be of use? Service\nis the best way to find comfort; honorable performance of duty is the\nsure road to the only ease worth while, and thoughtfulness for others is\nthe open sesame to popularity.\n\nThere is nothing new in this statement. It is only one of the thousand\nand one possible applications of the lesson taught by the great Teacher\nwhen He said, \"He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FIVE\n\n_COURAGE FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS_\n\n\nFROM Norway comes a moving tale of a lighthouse keeper. One day he went\nto the distant shore for provisions. A storm arose, and he was unable to\nreturn. The time for lighting the lamp came, and Mary, the elder child,\nsaid to her little brother, \"We must light the lamp, Willie.\" \"How can\nwe?\" was his question. But the two children climbed the long narrow\nstairs to the tower where the lamp was kept. Mary pulled up a chair and\ntried to reach the lamp in the great reflector; it was too high. Groping\ndown the stairs she ascended again with a small oil lamp in her hand. \"I\ncan hold this up,\" she said. She climbed on the chair again, but still\nthe reflector was just beyond her reach. \"Get down,\" said Willie, \"I\nknow what we can do.\" She jumped down and he stretched his little body\nacross the chair. \"Stand on me,\" he said. And she stood on the little\nfellow as he lay across the chair. She raised the lamp high, and its\nlight shone far out across the water. Holding it first with one hand,\nthen with the other, to rest her little arms, she called down to her\nbrother, \"Does it hurt you, Willie?\" \"Of course it hurts,\" he called\nback, \"but keep the light burning.\"\n\nThe boy was wise beyond his years. He would do the important thing, no\nmatter how it hurt. Here the thing of chief importance was looking out\nfor the men at sea. To put them first took real courage. But what of it?\nThat is the attitude toward life of the worker worth while; he does not\nstop to ask, \"Is this easy?\" Instead he asks, \"Is this necessary? Will\nit be helpful?\" Having answered the question he proceeds to do his best.\nIt may hurt at first, but the time will come when it will hurt so much\nto leave the service undone that the inconvenience involved in doing it\nis lost sight of.\n\n\nI\n\nIMPARTING COURAGE\n\nA young man won local fame as a bicycle long-distance rider. But\nover-fatigue, possibly coupled with neglect, caused contraction of\ncertain muscles. He was unable to stand erect. He walked with bent back,\nlike an old man. \"What useful work can he do, handicapped as he is?\"\nhis friends asked.\n\nBut he did not lose courage. He continued to smile and make cheer for\nothers. Finally he secured work in the office of the supervisor of a\nNational Forest. And he made good. Most of his activities were at the\ndesk; when he sat there his back was normal.\n\nAccording to the idea of many, it would have been enough for the\ncrippled man to look out for himself. What could he do for others? But\nhe had not been trained in such a school; the cheerfulness that enabled\nhim to be useful made it impossible for him to see another in need and\nnot plan to do something for him.\n\nThe man who needed him was at hand--a cripple, whose feet were clumsy,\nmisshapen. No one else thought that anything could be done for him but\nto speak dolefully and to assure him that he was fortunate in having\nparents and brothers who would look out for him.\n\nBut the man in the Forestry Service urged the cripple to apply for a\nsummer appointment on the rocky, windy summit of a mountain nine\nthousand feet high. There it would be his duty to keep a vigilant eye on\nthe forest stretching far away below his lofty eyrie, and to report the\nstart of a forest fire. At first he laughed at the idea; had he not\nbeen told that he could never hope to do anything useful? Yet as he\nlistened to his friend his eyes began to sparkle. Finally he dared to\nagree to make application for the position.\n\nDuring the winter months the forester spent many evenings with his\nfriend, coaching him in some of the lore of the forests, giving him\nbooks to read, and showing him what his specific duties would be, and\nhow to perform them.\n\nIn the spring the situation was secured, and when the season of forest\nfires came the young man bravely climbed the steep trail over the snow\nto his lonely cabin. An able-bodied man is able to make the climb from\nthe end of the wagon road in much less than an hour; the cripple\nrequired more than five hours to reach the top. Then he took up his\nresidence there, cooking his own food, making his observations from\nmorning until night, receiving his mother and his brothers when from\ntime to time they came to see how he was getting on and to help him in\nsome of the rougher tasks about the cabin. They thought they would need\nto speak words of cheer to a lonely, discouraged man, but they soon\nlearned their error; not only did he have cheer enough for himself, but\nhe was able to send his visitors away happier than when they came\nbecause of their contact with the man for whom life had been made over\nby the acts of a thoughtful friend, a friend whose own courage had been\nincreased by his efforts to encourage a friend.\n\n\nII\n\nCONQUERING HAPPINESS\n\nIn a volume of short stories published some years ago there is included\nthe vivid narrative of two humble citizens of an Irish village, a\nhusband and wife, upon whom hard times have come. The husband is too\nfeeble to make his living as of old at his trade as a road-mender. Their\nonly hope is a son in America, and not a word comes from him, so they\nare compelled to go to the poor house.\n\nFriends condole with them, and they are sad enough to suit the notions\nof those who feel that an awful ending is coming to their lives. One of\nthe saddest of their friends is their physician who dreads going to see\nthe unhappy old people in their new home. At last, however, he drives to\nthe entrance to the poor farm. There he has his first surprise. Instead\nof seeing the disreputable place he had been accustomed to, he notices\nthat the gate is on its hinges, the weeds by the side of the driveway\nare no longer in evidence, and an attempt has been made to give the\nhouse itself a more presentable appearance. About the doors are no\ndiscontented-looking old people, quarreling with one another. And when\nthe wife of the poor farm keeper answers his knock at the door, the\ndoctor hardly recognizes her; instead of a discouraged-looking slattern\nshe is actually neat and cheerful looking.\n\n\"You wonder what has happened here, don't you?\" the woman remarks. \"It's\nall because of those blessed old folks you are asking for. They were\ndisheartened, just at first, but soon they began to do helpful things\nfor the rest of the folks. That cheered us all up, and it's made a\ndifferent place of the farm.\"\n\nThe doctor's errand that day is to take word to the couple that their\nson from America wishes them to spend the remainder of their days with\nhim. He has expected them to be overjoyed by the news. But, after\ntalking together of the invitation, they assure him that their place is\nwhere they are. \"We be road-mending here, making ways smoother for the\nfolks that have rough traveling,\" is the explanation. \"We think we ought\nto bide at the farm.\"\n\nThus the old people took the way of conquering unhappiness made known so\nlong ago by Him who set the example of finding joy in caring for other\npeople, the way taken by a modern follower of His who wrote home from\nthe army:\n\n\"I cast my lot where I knew the road would be rough, and why should I\ncomplain? It seems to me at times that I must give way to my lower self\nand let the work slip off my back on others perhaps more tired than\nmyself. But I have a tender, kind Father in heaven who tells me that my\nway is right. I have very little to uphold me in this work away from my\nfriends. My happy moments are those which I spend with my Bible during\nmy night watches, or thinking of happy days gone by, or building me\nair-castles for days to come. I am happy, too, when I read the little\nverse written in the front of my Testament, and so thankful for the\npower to understand it:\n\n          \"So nigh is grandeur to our dust,\n             So near is God to man,\n           When duty whispers low, 'Thou must,'\n             The youth replies, 'I can.'\"\n\nYet there are those who insist that it is the duty of one whose lot is\nhard to be morose and sad; that by covering his sadness with the\ngladness of service he is making a cheat of himself! In verse a writer\nwith insight has pilloried such critics:\n\n          \"He went so blithely on his way,\n           The way men call the way of life,\n           That good folks who had stopped to pray,\n           Shaking their heads, were wont to say,\n           It was not right to be so gay\n           Upon that weary road of strife.\n\n          \"He whistled as he went, and still\n           He bore the young where streams were deep,\n           He helped the feeble up the hill,\n           He seemed to go with heart athrill,\n           Careless of deed and wild of will--\n           He whistled, that he might not weep.\"\n\n\nIII\n\nMAKING LITTLE THINGS COUNT\n\nThere are people who spend so much time looking for the large,\nspectacular opportunities for serving others, that they pass by as\nunworthy of notice the opportunities for doing what seem to be little\nkindnesses. Fortunately, however, there are people who are so taken up\nwith rendering what they call little services, that they have no time to\nworry because the big opportunities do not come their way.\n\nA magazine writer tells of one of these doers of simple kindnesses:\n\n\"I was the shabbiest girl in the office,\" she says. \"It was no one's\nfault and no one's shame that we were poor. I had intelligence enough to\nknow that. I knew, too, what a sacrifice mother had made to pay for my\ntuition at business school. Still, the knowledge of my shabby clothes\nforced itself upon me, particularly my old black skirt! Mother had\ncleaned it and pressed it and cleaned it, but it seemed bent with age,\nand all the office girls looked so fresh and pretty in their trim\nbusiness suits. I imagined all the first morning that they were pitying\nme and felt them looking at my shabbiness, and during noon hour I was so\nmiserable; but when I went back next morning, I noticed that one of the\ngirls had on nearly as old clothes as I did, and she was so nice to me\nthat I fancied she was glad I had come because of our mutual poverty.\nNot until after I earned enough money to buy some suitable, nice clothes\ndid I realize that the 'poor girl,' as I thought her, had drifted back\ninto the prettiest, most tasteful clothes worn by any of the girls. She\nhad only borne me company at a most trying time, and she knew, because\nher fellow-workers all admired her, that the little object lesson would\nkeep them from hurting my feelings. The day has come now when new\nclothes are usual, when I may even achieve an appearance that is known\nas 'stylish.' But in my office, when a girl comes in shabby, painfully\nsensitive, as I was, I 'bear her company' until the better times shall\ncome.\"\n\nFrom another observer comes the story of the simple deeds of kindness\ndone by a company of young people in Brooklyn to a young woman married\nto an elderly and uncongenial man. She showed symptoms of taking her\nlife into her own hands. She felt that the world owed her happiness, and\nshe was tempted to take it anywhere it might be found, especially in one\nundesirable direction. She was poor and outside of many ordinary social\npleasures. The word was passed along the line that Mrs. D... needed\nespecial attention and friendliness shown her. Immediately one girl,\nwhose notice was in itself a compliment, invited her to attend a concert\nwith her. Two more volunteered to see her home from Sunday school, and\ncall for her as well. Books were loaned her, calls made, and in brief, a\nrope of warm sturdy hands steadying her over the hard place in the road,\nuntil she found herself and settled down to the duty she was on the\npoint of leaving forever.\n\nThe widespread hunger for such little kindnesses was shown one day when\na New York man accosted in Central Park a poor foreigner, who could\nspeak little English. Noting that the man looked dejected, he offered\nhim his hand. Then he asked the man if he was in need. \"No, I don't need\nmoney,\" was the reply; \"I was just hungry for a handshake.\" Blessings on\nthose who are not too busy to think of the poor who are hungry for the\nlittle services they can render.\n\nIf they could know the ultimate effect of some of their deeds, these\nwould not always seem insignificant. The man who is always on the\nlookout for little chances for service is more apt to perform services\nthat are of great importance, than the man who spends his time dreaming\nof big things he will do some day.\n\n\nIV\n\nDID HE GO TOO FAR?\n\nWhen an urgent call went out from Washington for physicians to go to\nFrance for hospital work among the men of the American Expeditionary\nForce, a specialist in a city of the Middle West decided to respond. Of\ncourse some of his friends told him he was foolish; they urged that he\nwas needed for service at home. \"Let doctors go who can be spared\nbetter than you,\" they said. \"Think of the great work you are\ndoing--work that will be more than ever necessary because thousands of\nothers are leaving practices and going to the Front. Think of your\npast--how you worked your way through medical college at cost of severe\ntoil; think of your family and the increasing demands on you; think of\nthe future--what will become of your lucrative practice?\"\n\nThe specialist did think of these things; he had delayed decision\nbecause the arguments had presented themselves forcibly to his own mind.\n\nAt last, however, his mind was made up. He would go to France. He would\nleave his patients in charge of two capable friends who would do\neverything possible to turn over, on the return of the volunteer, the\nlucrative office practice built up through many years.\n\nHe spent six months in camp with the members of the hospital unit of\nwhich he was given charge. Just before he went \"over there\" a friend\nsaid to him:\n\n\"It is fortunate that your practice is to be cared for so efficiently.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" was the reply. \"Oh, you mean the colleagues who took over\nmy patients? They, too, have enlisted, and will soon be going abroad.\"\n\n\"But what of your $35,000 income?\" was the dismayed rejoinder. \"Surely\nyou haven't the courage to give up all that!\"\n\nThe major snapped his fingers, and said, with a smile, \"_That_ for the\npractice! It is my business to respond to my country's call. Don't talk\nof the sacrifice. What if I do have to start all over again when I come\nhome? Just now I don't have to think about that.\"\n\nThis incident came to mind when reading in a popular weekly a telling\nstory, camouflaged as to names, location and business, but recorded as\nthe experience of a captain of industry. The story made him a\nmanufacturer of shoes who, in the beginning, was rejoicing that his\nplants were running full time, turning out so many shoes for the regular\ntrade that the profits of the year were bound to be tremendous. With\nothers, he heard the plea of the Government for shoes for the soldiers.\nCarefully he assured himself that he would not need to respond; there\nwere many manufacturers who would rush headlong for government\ncontracts. When he learned that there were not enough volunteers he felt\nuncomfortable. Then, to his relief, he was asked to take the\nchairmanship of the subcommittee on shoes of the State Council of\nDefense.\n\n\"I'll do it!\" he decided. \"That will let me out honorably. As chairman I\nshall be criticized if I bid on the contracts myself.\"\n\nOf course he learned his mistake. At length he decided to turn over one\nof his six plants to government contracts. The decision made him feel\nquite virtuous. Content was his only a little while, however. So he\ndecided to devote another plant. Yet when he made his figures he thought\nhe would add five cents a pair to his bid, as an extra margin of safety.\nAgain his calculations were upset when his son told him that he had\nenlisted.\n\n\"That wasn't necessary,\" the father said. \"What made you do it?\"\n\n\"Why, dad, you know you'd expect me to feel ashamed if you didn't do\njust every little thing you could in a business way to help win this\nwar--if you held back a shoe that would help the Government or charged a\ncent more than you ought to. You furnish the shoes and I'll furnish the\nshoots!\"\n\nOf course more had to be done after that. Soon half the plants were\nenlisted for the country. Surely nothing more could be asked than that\nhe should go fifty-fifty, half for the country and half for himself.\n\nThe remainder of the story can be imagined--in one form it was lived out\nin the experience of millions. \"Why don't you have done with that\nhalf-way patriotism?\" came a voice that he could not silence.\n\nThe battle between Patriotism and Private Profits was decided\ngloriously--in the only possible manner. Away with fifty per cent.\npatriotism! Every one of the plants was put on Government orders.\n\nNaturally there were those who asked, \"Was such a sacrifice necessary?\"\nBut the reply was convincing.\n\nThat is the question that has been asked of Christians ever since the\nday when Christ said to Peter and Andrew, \"Follow me.\" Our hearts are\nstirred by the simple record of what followed: \"Straightway they left\ntheir nets,\"--their livelihood, their associates, their families, their\nposition in the world, everything--\"and followed Him.\" The question was\nput to Prince Gallitzin when he renounced title and fortune and went to\nthe mountains of Pennsylvania to make a home for some of his oppressed\nRussian countrymen. The words were hurled at the son of a wealthy\nEnglish brewer, because he decided that if he would obey Christ fully\nhe must renounce the source of his wealth as well as the money that had\nbeen made in an unrighteous business. The inquiry was heard many times\nby Matthias W. Baldwin, the builder of Old Ironsides and founder of the\nBaldwin Locomotive Works, when he gave up the making of jewelry because\nhe thought that, as a Christian man, he ought to make his talents count\nfor something more worth-while, and later on when he insisted on\nborrowing from the banks in time of financial panic to pay his pledges\nto Christian work.\n\nStill the query persists, as it will persist long as the world stands.\n\nYou have heard it yourself, if you, like Caleb of old, are trying to\nfollow God wholly. \"Was the sacrifice necessary?\"\n\nBeware of the question, for it is a temptation to slack service, though\noften spoken by one who would show himself a friend. Necessary? Of\ncourse. Isn't it involved in courageous following of Christ?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SIX\n\n_GOLDEN RULE COURAGE_\n\n          \"There is so much good in the worst of us,\n           And so much bad in the best of us,\n           That it hardly becomes any of us\n           To talk about the rest of us.\"\n\n\nTHAT popular rhyme hits the nail squarely on the head. We are not to\njudge others. The world would be a pleasanter dwelling place if we would\nlay aside our critical attitude, and look on the best side of the men\nand women about us. Instead, however, it sometimes seems as if we were\ndetermined to forget all the good, and remember only the evil. Our\nadditions to the comments of others are not praise, but blame. We do not\nseek to correct an unfavorable comment by saying, \"But think of the good\nthere is in his life\"; we insist on drowning merited praise by saying,\n\"But think how selfish he is; how careless of the comfort of others!\"\nThat is the cowardly thing to do. And life calls for courage.\n\nThe worst thing about the maker of such comments is that the readier he\nis to see--or imagine--faults in another, the more blind he is apt to\nbecome to faults in himself. This inability to see his own shortcomings\nwould be ludicrous if it were not so pitiful. Yet these shortcomings are\napparent to all who know him. Jesus, who knew human nature, said, \"Judge\nnot, that ye be not judged ... first cast out the beam out of thine own\neye; then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy\nbrother's eye.\"\n\nThe courageous task of reforming ourselves seems prodigious when we\nthink what good opinions we have of ourselves and what poor opinions we\nhave of others, but the task is not impossible, for God has promised to\ngive us the help we need, and He will never disappoint us. An earthly\nfather knows how to give good things to his children; shall not the\nHeavenly Father do as much and more?\n\nSince we have such a Father, it is the least we can do to learn of Him\nthe true philosophy of life. Listen while He tells us what it is:\n\n\"All things, therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you,\neven so do ye also unto them.\"\n\nImpossible and impracticable? Let us see.\n\n\nI\n\nLOOKING OUT FOR OTHERS\n\nThe president of a big manufacturing concern, who is also its active\noperating head, is quoted as saying that he finds a growing tendency\namong young men to go after business by sharp practice when they cannot\nget it any other way. They will \"cut the corners of a square deal to\nland an order.\" In applying for positions, he goes on to say, some young\nfellows have tried to recommend themselves by telling how they got\norders for former employers by some neat trick.\n\n\"I have had to tell them, square and plain,\" he adds, \"that there wasn't\nany recommendation in that kind of talk with me. I have made up my mind\nthat I am going to write out some plain talks on righteousness and post\nthem up around the offices and shops where everybody will have a chance\nto read them. I have explained my plan about these bulletins to a number\nof other manufacturers, and I think several of them are going to do the\nsame thing. Besides the moral reasons for the policy, it's the only\npolicy to build up a sound business on. Take even the men who would be\nwilling to make profit for themselves by shady deals, and they all want\nto buy goods for themselves of a firm that they can depend on. I think\nour history this past year has proved the wisdom of it; business has\nbeen rolling in from points that we never had an idea of getting\nanything from. The Golden Rule works.\"\n\nNathan Strauss was once asked what contributed most to his remarkable\nsuccess. \"I always looked out for the man at the other end of the\nbargain,\" he said.\n\nIn 1901 the State of Wisconsin struck a beautiful bronze medal in honor\nof Professor Stephen Moulton Babcock, the inventor of the milk test\nmachine. Professor Babcock, so one admirer says, \"knew its value to\nfarmer and dairyman. He also knew its possibilities of fortune for\nhimself. This invention has 'increased the wealth of nations by many\nmillions of dollars and made continual new developments possible in\nbutter and cheesemaking.' All this Professor Babcock knew it would do\nwhen he announced his discovery in a little bulletin to the farmers of\nWisconsin. But at the bottom of that bulletin he added the brief and\nunselfish sentence, 'this test is not patented.' With that sentence he\ncheerfully let a fortune go. He wanted his invention to help other\npeople, rather than make himself rich.\"\n\nWhat a difference it would make if everyone should take the Golden Rule\nas the motto for each day, asking Christ's help in living in accordance\nwith it! What a difference it would make in every home if father and\nmother and all the sons and daughters should resolve to make theirs a\nGolden-Rule household! The first thing necessary in bringing about such\na change in the home is for one member to make the resolution and to do\nhis best to live up to it. Others will follow inevitably when they note\nhis careful, unselfish life and helpful acts.\n\nThere is a Jewish tradition that a Gentile came to Hillel asking to be\ntaught the law, in a few words, while he stood on one foot. The answer\nwas given, \"Whatsoever thou wouldst that men should not do to thee, that\ndo not thou to them.\" This was good, as far as it went, but there was\nnothing positive about it. Christ's teaching supplies the lack, showing\nwhat we are to do as well as what we are to leave undone. Christ always\ngives the touch required to make old teachings glow with life.\n\n\nII\n\nSUCCEEDING BY COURAGEOUS SERVICE\n\nWhen John E. Clough was a student working his way through college, he\nwas employed in a menial capacity at a hotel in a western town. His\nemployer was absent for a season and the student was compelled to take\ncharge of the hotel. He was successful, for he learned how to handle men\nof many sorts, how to provide for their comfort, how to make them feel\nthat he was doing his best for them.\n\nYears later, when he was a missionary in India, it became necessary for\nhim to plan for the temporary entertainment of the men and women who\ncame to the mission station by hundreds, and even by thousands, seeking\nChristian baptism. For days it was necessary to provide for their\ncomfort. Many men would have been dismayed by the task, but to Dr.\nClough the problem presented was simple; he had only to do on a large\nscale the very things which made his boyhood efforts at hotel-keeping\nsuch a pronounced success.\n\nExperience in a hotel is a good course of preparation for any young man,\nwhether he plans to be a missionary or to serve in any of the home\ncallings that demand the Christian's time and thought. However, it is\nnot possible for more than a very small proportion of young people to\nserve a period in a hotel; so it will be helpful to them to read some of\nthe suggestions that have been made by a successful hotel proprietor.\nThose who heed these suggestions are apt to be successful in dealing\nwith men and women anywhere.\n\nIt is worth while to note some of these rules:\n\n\"The hotel is operated primarily for the benefit and convenience of its\nguests.\n\n\"Any member of our force who lacks the intelligence to interpret the\nfeeling of good will that this hotel holds toward its guests, cannot\nstay here very long.\n\n\"Snap judgments of men often are faulty. The unpretentious man with the\nsoft voice may possess the wealth of Croesus.\n\n\"You cannot afford to be superior or sullen with any patron of the\nhotel.\n\n\"At rare intervals some perverse member of our force disagrees with a\nguest as to the rightness of this or that.... Either may be right.... In\nall discussions between hotel employees and guests, the employee is dead\nwrong from the guest's standpoint, and from ours....\n\n\"Each member of our force is valuable only in proportion to his ability\nto serve our guests.\n\n\"Every item of extra courtesy contributes towards a better pleased\nguest, and every pleased guest contributes toward a better, bigger\nhotel....\"\n\nYet a young man should not have to go to a hotel to learn these lessons.\nThey were taught in the Book that every one of us should know better\nthan any other book in our library. Listen to these messages of the\nBook, and compare them with the rules of the hotel:\n\n\"Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the\nthings of others....\n\n\"Be tenderly affectioned one to another, in honor preferring one\nanother....\n\n\"Judge not that ye be not judged.... The rich and the poor meet\ntogether: Jehovah is the maker of them all....\n\n\"Better it is to be of a lowly spirit....\n\n\"He that is slow in anger appeaseth strife....\n\n\"I am among you as he that serveth....\n\n\"Ye are the light of the world....\"\n\nThe best book for anyone who is trying to be a success in the world is\nthe Bible, for the Bible teaches how to serve, and he who has the\ncourage best to serve his fellows in the name of the great Servant is\nthe most successful man.\n\n\nIII\n\nSERVICE BY SYMPATHY\n\nIt has been said that, while the word \"sympathy\" does not occur in the\nBible, the idea is there; it is in bud in the Old Testament, but it is\nin full blossom in the New Testament. Christ was always sympathetic. He\nfelt for the disturbed host at the wedding; His heart went out to\nZaccheus; He wept with Mary and Martha; He listened to the plea of the\nblind and the lepers; He was deeply stirred as He saw the funeral\nprocession of him who was the only son of his mother, a widow.\n\nAn eloquent preacher was talking to his people of this glorious flower\nof the Christian life. \"Beholding the lily,\" he said, \"sympathy breathes\na prayer that no untimely frost may blight the blossom; beholding the\nsparrow, sympathy fills a box with seeds for the birds whose fall 'the\nHeavenly Father knoweth'; beholding some youth going forth to make his\nfortune, sympathy prays that favorable winds may fill these sails and\nwaft the boy to fame and fortune. Do the happy youth and maiden stand\nbefore the marriage altar, the Christian breathes a prayer that love's\nflowers may never fall, and that 'those who are now young may grow old\ntogether.'\"\n\nOne of the pleasing stories told of Richard Harding Davis, the writer\nand war correspondent, was of an incident when real sympathy transformed\nhim.\n\nIn May, 1898, when the Massachusetts troops were about to go from\nFlorida to Cuba, Mr. Davis entered the encampment as the men were\nsaddened by the first death in the company. At once his cheerful face\ntook on a subdued look. The next day proved to be \"a broiling dry hot\nday which set the blood sizzling inside of one,\" but Davis tramped for\ntwo hours in the search of flowers. Then he learned that eight miles\naway he might secure some. Though no one was abroad who did not have to\nbe, Mr. Davis started on a sixteen-mile horseback trip. Securing the\nflowers, he brought them back and made a cross of laths on which he tied\nthem. Then came the search for colors to make the flag. Again he tramped\na weary distance, but at last he found red, white and blue ribbon. That\nnight he laid his tribute on the casket.\n\nAn American author who lived several generations before Davis was noted\nfor his sympathetic attitude to the suffering. Richard Henry Dana was\ncompelled when a young man to take a voyage around Cape Horn on a\nsailing ship. That classic of the sea, \"Two Years Before the Mast,\" was\none of the results of that experience. Another result was that when the\nauthor became a lawyer in Boston, his knowledge of ships made him a\nfavorite advocate in nautical cases. His knowledge of the sufferings of\nthe men before the mast, who were so often abused, was responsible for\nhis taking their part in many an unprofitable case. He had learned by\nbitter experience what the sailors under a brutal captain had to suffer,\nand any mistreated seaman had in him a firm friend and a fearless\npleader.\n\nThe truest sympathy comes from those who, like Dana, know what suffering\nmeans. An author in Scotland, who lived in Dana's generation, never\nheard of the American friend of seamen, but he had the same spirit, born\nof his own suffering. He was not accustomed to complain, and was always\nreticent in speaking of himself. Once, however, for the sake of a\nfriend, he allowed himself to tell of his own life:\n\n\"With all your sorrows I sympathize from my heart,\" he wrote. \"I have\nlearned to do so through my own sufferings. The same feeling which made\nyou put your hand into your pocket to search among the crumbs for the\nwanting coin for the beggar, leads me to search in my heart for some\nconsolation for you. The last two years have been fraught to me with\nsuch sorrowful experiences that I would gladly exchange my condition for\na peaceful grave. A bankrupt in health, hope and fortune, my\nconstitution shattered frightfully, and the almost certain prospect of\nbeing a cripple for life before me, I can offer you as fervent and\nunselfish a sympathy as ever one heart offered another. I have lain\nawake, alone, and in darkness, suffering severe agony for hours, often\nthinking that the slightest aggravation must make my condition\nunbearable and finding my only consolation in murmuring to myself the\nwords patience, courage and submission.\"\n\nThat, surely, is a part of what Robert Louis Stevenson meant when, as\none element in his statement of the ideal for the perfect life, he named\n\"to be kind.\" True kindness is impossible without sympathy.\n\nSo long as there is so much real sympathy in the world there can be no\nplace for the maunderings of a pessimist. Every sight of a man, a woman\nor a child whose life is beautified by the outgoing of sympathy is an\neffective message of courage, of cheer, of hope.\n\n\nIV\n\nDOING BUSINESS FOR OTHERS\n\nA Boston boy, Samuel Billings Capen, wanted to become a minister. Yet it\ndid not seem possible to secure the special training which was\nessential. Instead of being discouraged, he determined to go into\nbusiness.\n\nBut he resolved that he would be a business man of God. From the first\nhe carried his Christian principles with him into the carpet business.\nHis faithful work as office boy was a part of his testimony for Christ,\nand when--within five years--he became a member of the firm, he was\nknown as one of the solid Christian men of the city. Always his duty to\nChrist came first. In the words of his biographer, \"There was not a\nmoment when he would not have left the firm with which he was associated\nhad the business demanded any compromise with the best things of\ncharacter.\"\n\nOnce he spoke to young men of these few things essential to vital\nliving:\n\n\"The first is fidelity--that kind of conscientiousness which performs\nthe smallest details well.\n\n\"The second condition is earnestness. There is no chance for the idle or\nindifferent.\n\n\"The third condition is integrity--not that lower form which refuses to\ntell a downright falsehood, but that higher form of conscientiousness\nwhich will not swerve a hair's breadth from the strictest truth, no\nmatter what the temptation; the courage to lose a sale rather than to do\nthat which is mean or questionable.\n\n\"The fourth condition I would name is purity of heart and life. I do not\nbelieve it is possible for any man to be true and pure and faithful in\nevery respect without help from above. We need the personal help of a\npersonal God.\"\n\nThirteen years after beginning his service as apprentice, Mr. Capen's\nhealth failed. For many months his life was in danger. God used the\nsickness to draw the young man nearer to Himself. \"Compelled to remain\nfor months in absolute idleness, unable to talk to his friends except to\na limited extent, he made the solemn resolve with his God that if his\nhealth was restored he would never shirk any work nor complain of any\ntask that might be presented to him.\"\n\nFor a generation he was not only a leader in business, but he was as\nconspicuous in his service of the State as in his services in the\nChurch.\n\nWhy did he succeed? He was not a genius. His health was poor. He was\nnot mentally brilliant. In these respects he was just an average man.\nBut in other respects he was above the average. He had the courage to\ngive himself in service of his fellows. \"He believed that conscious\nfellowship with God is the foundation of every strong life.\"\n\nA life like that influenced for good everyone about him. Many men were\ndrawn by him into the paths of righteousness. Others were held back by\nhim from ways of evil. Once he presided over a public meeting which\ncorrupt politicians had planned to capture for their own purpose. But\nthey made no attempt to carry out their plans. \"How could we succeed\nwith that man watching us?\" they asked their friends.\n\nIt is good to be a minister of the gospel. But for every minister the\nworld needs hundreds of men who are possessed of Samuel B. Capen's\ncourageous eagerness to live for God in the midst of business cares.\n\n\nV\n\nPRAYING AND HELPING\n\nA business man entered the office of a friend just as the friend was\nhanging up the receiver of the telephone. There were tears in the eyes\nof the man at the desk as he turned from the instrument to take the hand\nof his visitor.\n\n\"I'm afraid you have had bad news,\" the visitor said, deciding that it\nwas not a propitious time to talk of the matter on which he had come.\n\n\"No bad news--the best of news,\" was the reply. \"Now see if you don't\nagree with me. This morning my wife, who is always thinking of other\npeople, remarked that it was too bad my pastor's wife could not have a\nvacation this summer; she shows the need of it because of a severe\nstrain that had been on her. Yet we knew that she could not look forward\nto a vacation.\n\n\"'Let's pray about it,' my wife suggested, just before we knelt at the\nfamily altar. We prayed then; we've been praying since. And the answer\nhas come quickly. My wife was on the telephone just now; she told me\nthat the postman had brought a letter from a California friend of whom\nwe had all but lost sight. Fifteen years ago we lent him a sum of money\nwhich we never expected to see again. Yet the letter contained a check\nfor the amount of the loan!\n\n\"'What shall we do with the money?' my wife asked.\n\n\"'I wonder if you are not thinking the same thing I am,' I said to her.\n\n\"'Yes, isn't it the answer to our prayer?' she replied. 'I'm going to\ntake it to our pastor's wife right now.'\"\n\nThe business man was thoughtful as he passed from his friend's office.\nJust a few hours before he had been told by an acquaintance of his\nlonging, when on a long trip, to have such a glimpse of the life of one\nof the many passengers near him that he would be able to help that\npassenger before the end of the journey. The wish was a prayer. Not long\nafter the making of the prayer he noted a man who was so restless that\nhe could not sit still. Every moment or two he looked at his watch, then\nstudied his time table. Evidently he was disturbed because the train was\nlate.\n\n\"I hope you are not to lose a connection in Chicago?\" the observing\ntraveler said to him.\n\n\"Yes, I'll miss it--and my baby is dying five hours from Chicago,\" was\nthe response, given with a sob.\n\nThe time was short, but there was opportunity for the interchange of a\nfew words, then for a conference with the conductor, who wired asking\nthat the connecting train--at another station and on another road--be\nheld for ten minutes.\n\nA week later came a note from the happy father. His babe was rapidly\nrecovering. \"And I'll never forget the words you spoke to me in my\nagony,\" he wrote. \"God is more real to me since our talk as we went into\nChicago. You put heart into me.\"\n\n\nVI\n\nGIVING THAT COUNTS\n\nAn old fable tells of a good man to whom the Lord said he would give\nwhatever he most desired. Besought by friends to ask great things, he\nrefused. Finally he asked that he might be able to do a great deal of\ngood without ever knowing it. And so it came about that every time the\ngood man's shadow fell behind him or at either side, so that he could\nnot see it, it had the power to cure disease, soothe pain and comfort\nsorrow.\n\nWhen he walked along, his shadow, thrown on the ground on either side or\nbehind him, made arid paths green, caused withered plants to bloom, gave\nclear water to dried up brooks, fresh color to pale little children, and\njoy to unhappy mothers.\n\nBut he simply went about his daily life, diffusing virtue as the star\ndiffuses light and the flower perfume, without ever being aware of it.\nAnd the people, respecting his humility, followed him silently, never\nspeaking to him about his miracles. Little by little, they even came to\nforget his name, and called him only \"The Holy Shadow.\"\n\nIt would be a splendid thing if all would learn the lesson taught in the\nfable--that the man who would do good should have the courage to be\nunconscious of the good he is doing, and so as unlike as possible the\nrich woman of whom some one has told, who turned a deaf ear to every\npetition for help unless there was a subscription paper circulated and\nshe was given the chance to head the list. \"But no poor person came into\nher house who said, 'May God reward you!' She never experienced the\npleasure of making a poor woman on the back stairs happy with a cup of\nwarm coffee, or hungry children with a slice of bread and butter, or an\ninfirm man with a penny. Perhaps she satisfied her conscience by saying\nthat she did not believe in indiscriminate charity. Frequently that\nexcuse is given conscientiously but how often the real meaning is, 'I do\nnot believe in charity that does not make people talk of my\ngenerosity.'\"\n\nIn the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught the folly of giving in such a\nmanner. The lesson was enforced by two pictures--a man standing on the\nstreet, giving alms to the poor, while attention is called to his\ngenerosity by the sounding of a trumpet which everyone must hear, and a\nman whose giving is so much a matter of secrecy that he does not think\nof it a second time. There is no rolling of it over as a sweetmeat under\nhis tongue, as if to say, \"What a generous man I am!\" Nor is there any\nmotive in the giving but pure desire to glorify God. All this is\nproperly included in the interpretation of \"Let not thy left hand know\nwhat thy right hand doeth.\"\n\n\nVII\n\nEXPENSIVE ECONOMY\n\nA magazine editor offered a prize for the best account by a reader of\nthe adjustment of income and expenditure made necessary by the vaulting\nprices of recent years. The prize was awarded to one whose revised\nbudget showed the revision downward of many items, and the elimination\nof two or three other items. The comparison of the budgets was\ninteresting and helpful; most readers would be apt to approve heartily\nall but one of the changes and eliminations. This was the exception:\nthe earlier budget allowed five dollars per month for \"church and\ncharity,\" while the revised budget made no mention of the claims of\nothers, no provision for the privilege of giving.\n\nIf you had been a judge in that contest, would you have felt like giving\nthe prize to a paper that suggested such an omission? Suppose you had\nthe task of cutting your budget, would you feel like revising downward\nthe provision for giving? What do you think of the statement of a famous\nbusiness man who, having insisted in time of financial reverses on\nmaking gifts as usual, said to objecting friends, \"Economy should not\nbegin at the house of God.\" Why not let economy begin there?\n\nWhat answer would have been given to such a query by the poor tenement\ndweller in New York City who, though compelled to earn the support of\nher family by scrubbing floors in a great office building, set aside a\ndollar and a half per week for the care of four orphans in India who but\nfor her gifts would have starved?\n\nWhat answer would have been made by the Polish Jew, long resident in\nAmerica, who directed in his will that regular gifts be made at\nChristmas and Easter to the Christians as well as to the Jews of his\nhome town in Europe? That bequest was made in memory of days and nights\nof terror when, as a boy, he hid in the house from the fiendish\npersecutions of so-called Christians who thought Easter and Christmas\nfavorable times for the intimidation of the Jews. What would he have\nsaid to the idea of economy that forgets the needs of others and makes\nno provision for satisfying the hungry, to help the suffering?\n\nWhat would have been the comment of Him who told the parable of the rich\nman who built great barns to hold the surplus product of his lands,\nthinking that there was nothing better in life than to eat, drink, and\nbe merry; who compared the gifts of the rich man and the poor widow; who\ncommended the love of the woman who poured out the costly ointment upon\nHis head; who promises glorious recognition to those who give, in His\nname, to any who are in need?\n\nA successful manufacturer, whose eyes have been opened to the folly of\nattempting to save by cutting off gifts, has written a series of essays\non \"The Business Man and His Overflow,\" his purpose being to show that\nhappiness is dependent on helpfulness. \"Who is the most successful\nbusiness man?\" he asks. \"The man who has the largest bank account? Not\nnecessarily.... The most successful business man is he who renders the\ngreatest service to mankind and whose life is most useful.\"\n\nTwo paths are open to us: we can give, and we can give more, or we can\neconomize in giving until we give nothing.\n\nWhich is the path of courage?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN\n\n_COURAGE THROUGH COMPANIONSHIP_\n\n\nTHE world is full of lonely people--people who keep to themselves,\nturning away from every approach of others, from all invitations to come\nout of retirement. They persist in living alone, thinking their own\nthoughts, pleasing only themselves.\n\n\"I can have no place in my life for friendship,\" one of these\nunfortunates says.\n\n\"I can't be expected to devote myself to my family; it is all I can do\nto make a living,\" is the complaint of another.\n\n\"I live in the present,\" says a third; \"the past has no interest for me,\nand the future holds nothing but worries.\"\n\n\"Live more out-of-doors, you say!\" is the word of a fourth. \"Why should\nI bother about Nature when Nature does nothing but thwart me?\"\n\n\"Make God my friend?\" a fifth asks in surprise. \"Talk to me in rational\nterms. God doesn't bother about me; why should I bother about Him?\"\n\nIs it any wonder that the lives of so many everywhere are empty? It does\nnot occur to them that by their determination to isolate themselves they\ncut themselves off from the surest road to courage, both received and\ngiven--the road of companionship with the people and things most worth\nwhile.\n\n\nI\n\nCOMPANIONSHIP WITH FRIENDS\n\nThere are those who say that friendship is a lost art; that modern life\nis too busy for friendship. \"Why don't you pause long enough to call on\nB----?\" a father asked his son; \"you used to be such good friends.\" \"Oh,\nI haven't time for that now,\" was the careless reply; \"if I am to get\nahead, I feel I must devote myself only to those things that can be a\ndecided help to my advancement.\"\n\nThe mistake made by that son is emphasized by the advice of a keen old\nman, spoken to a business associate: \"If I were asked to give advice to\na group of young men who wanted to get ahead in business, I would simply\nsay, 'make friends.' As I sat before the fire the other night I let my\nmind run back, and it was with surprise that I learned that many of the\nthings which in my youth I credited to my ability as a business man came\nto me because I had made influential friends who did things for me\nbecause they liked me. The man who is right has the right kind of\nfriends, and the man who is wrong has the kind of friends who are\nattracted by his wrongness. A man gets what he is.\"\n\nPossibly some will think that advice faulty in expression, for it seems\nat first glance to put friendship on a coldly calculating basis, as if\nit urged the maker of friends to say before consenting to try for a\nman's friendship, \"Is there anything I can get out of such a friendship\nfor myself?\" Of course it is unthinkable that anyone should estimate\nfriendship in that way; friendship that calculates is unworthy the name,\nand the calculator ought to be doomed to the loneliest kind of life.\nBut, evidently, what the adviser had in mind is the spirit that makes\nfriends because it is worth while to have friends for friendship's sake,\nthat never counts on advancement through the efforts of others. Such a\nspirit is bound to be surprised some day by the realization that for his\nsuccess he owed much to the friends whom he made without a thought of\nself.\n\nOne beginner in business decided that he must find his friendships in\nserving others. There were those who told him he was making a mistake,\nbut he went calmly on, devoting hours each week to service with an\nassociate in a boys' club. Nothing seemed to come of this but\nsatisfaction to himself and joy to a group whose homes were cheerless.\nYet, there was something more--the pleasure of friendship with his\nassociate. One day he was surprised by an invitation to call on the head\nof a large manufacturing concern. \"You don't know me,\" the man said,\n\"but I know you, for you have been teaching with my son down at the\nboys' club. For a long time I have been on the lookout for a young man\nwho can come into this business with a view to taking up the work with\nmy son when I must retire. From what I have heard your friend, my son,\ntell of you, you are the man I have sought.\"\n\nIt is impossible to count on a thing like that as a result of\nfriendship, and the man who is worthy of such a friendship never thinks\nof reckoning on anything but giving to his friend the best that is in\nhim as he enjoys the comfort of association with him.\n\nMany years ago the author of _The Four Feathers_ wrote of such a\nfriendship between two men:\n\n\"It was a helpful instrument, which would not wear out, put into their\nhands for a hard, lifelong use, but it was not and never had been spoken\nof between them. Both men were grateful for it, as for a rare and\nundeserved gift; yet both knew that it might entail an obligation of\nsacrifice. But the sacrifices, were they needful, would be made, and\nthey would not be mentioned.\"\n\nIt has been well said that \"Love gives and receives, and keeps no\naccount on either side,\" but that is very different from deliberately\nusing friendship for selfish ends.\n\n\nII\n\nSUCCESSFUL COMRADES\n\nFor days two men had been together, tramping, driving, boating, eating,\nsleeping, talking. And when the time for separation came, one said to\nthe other: \"Will you please give a message to your wife? Tell her for\nme, if you will, that she has made her husband into a real comrade.\"\n\nThat man would have been at a loss to tell what are the elements that go\nto the making up of a good comrade. In fact, he intimated as much on the\nlast day of the excursion. \"You can no more tell the things that go to\nmake up a real comrade than you can explain the things that make a\nlandscape beautiful; you can only see and rejoice.\"\n\nJust so, it is possible to see instances of good comradeship and\nrejoice.\n\nIn order that there may be real comradeship between two individuals it\nis not at all necessary that they shall belong to the same station in\nlife. One of those to whom John Muir, the great naturalist, proved\nhimself a true comrade was a guide who many times went with him into the\nfastnesses of the high Sierras of California. \"It was great to hear him\ntalk,\" the guide has said. \"Often we sat together like two men who had\nalways known each other. It wasn't always necessary to talk; often there\nwould be no word said for half an hour. But we understood each other in\nthe silence.\"\n\nNor is it essential that people shall be much together before they can\nbe real comrades. Theodore Roosevelt and Joel Chandler Harris knew one\nanother by reputation only until the red letter day when Uncle Remus\nentered the door of the White House, in response to an urgent letter of\ninvitation in which the President wrote: \"Presidents may come and\npresidents may go, but Uncle Remus stays put. Georgia has done a great\nmany things for the Union, but she has never done more than when she\ngave Joel Chandler Harris to American literature.\" When the two\nanimal-lovers finally came together there was real comradeship. That the\nreporters understood this was evident from the wire one of them sent to\nhis paper: \"Midnight--Mr. Harris has not returned to his hotel. The\nWhite House is ablaze with light. It is said that Mr. Harris is telling\nthe story of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby.\" But the Georgian's own\ncolloquial account of the memorable session with his comrade at\nWashington was more explicit:\n\n\"There are things about the White House that'll astonish you ef ever you\ngit there while Teddy is on hand. It's a home; it'll come over you like\na sweet dream the minnit you git in the door.... It's a kind of feelin'\nthat you kin have in your own house, if you've lived right, but it's the\nrarest thing in the world that you kin find it in anybody else's\nhouse.... We mostly talked of little children an' all the pranks they're\nup to from mornin' till night, an' how they draw old folks into all\nsorts of traps, and make 'em play tricks on themselves. That's the\nkinder talk I like, an' I could set up long past my bedtime an' listen\nto it. Jest at the right time, the President would chip in wi' some of\nhis adventures wi' the children.... I felt just like I had been on a\nvisit to some old friend that I hadn't seen in years.\"\n\nWhen Robert Louis Stevenson and Edward Livingston Trudeau spent days\ntogether at Dr. Trudeau's Adirondack sanitarium--the one as patient, the\nother as physician--they proved that true comradeship is possible even\nwhen men's tastes are most unlike. It was possible because they knew how\nto ignore differences and to find common ground in the worth-while\nthings. \"My life interests were bound up in the study of facts, and in\nthe laboratory I bowed duly to the majesty of fact, wherever it might\nlead,\" Dr. Trudeau wrote. \"Mr. Stevenson's view was to ignore or avoid\nas much as possible unpleasant facts, and live in a beautiful,\nextraneous and ideal world of fancy. I got him one day into the\nlaboratory, from which he escaped at the first opportunity.... On the\nother hand, I knew well I could not discuss intelligently with him the\nthings he lived among and the masterly work he produced, because I was\nincompetent to appreciate to the full the wonderful situations his\nbrilliant mind evolved and the high literary merit of the work in which\nhe described the flights of his great genius.\"\n\nYet these two men were great companions, for in spite of differences as\nto details, their hopes and ambitions and ideals all pointed to the best\nthings in life. After the author's departure, he sent to the doctor a\nsplendidly bound set of his works, first writing in each volume a\nwhimsical bit of rhyme, composed for the occasion.\n\nThough all of these men were real comrades, there is a higher\nmanifestation of comradeship than this. This was shown in the relation\nof Daniel Coit Gilman, later President of Johns Hopkins University, when\nhe wrote to a fellow student of the deepest things in his life:\n\n\"I don't wish merely to thank you in a general way for writing as you\ndid an expression of sympathy, but more especially to respond to the\nsentiments on Christian acquaintance which you there bring out. I agree\nwith you most fully and only regret that I did not know at an earlier\ntime upon our journey what were your feelings upon a few such topics. I\ntell you, Brace, that I hate cant and all that sort of thing as much as\nyou or anyone else can do. It is not with everyone that I would enjoy a\ntalk upon religious subjects. I hardly ever wrote a letter on them to\nthose I know best. But when anyone believes in an inner life of faith\nand joy, and is willing to talk about it in an earnest, everyday style\nand tone, I do enjoy it most exceedingly.\"\n\nTheodore Storrs Lee cultivated the relation of a comrade with his fellow\nstudents that he might talk to them, without cant, on the deepest things\nof life. His biographer says: \"Many a time did he seek out men in lonely\nrooms, bewildered or weakened by the college struggles. Many a quiet\ntalk did he have as he and his selected companion trod his favorite\nwalk. No one else in college had so many intimate talks with so many\nmen.... On one occasion, when he was urging a friend to give his life to\nChristian service, he seemed to be unsuccessful--until, on leaving the\nman at the close of the walk, he made a genial, large-minded remark that\nopened the way to the heart of his friend.\" ... \"It was only natural\nthat I should try to meet him half-way,\" the friend said later, in\nexplanation of his own changed attitude. He had been won by real\ncomradeliness. \"It was this devotion to the men in college that led him\ninto the holy of holies of many a man's heart,\" wrote a friend, \"causing\nmany of us to feel in a very real way the sentiment expressed by Mrs.\nBrowning:\n\n          \"The face of all the world is changed, I think\n           Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul.\"\n\n\nIII\n\nCOMPANIONSHIP WITH THE PAST\n\nWhat, courage from companionship with the past? The pessimist says,\n\"Impossible! The past was so much better than the present. See how the\ncountry is going to the dogs!\" and they point to the revelations of\ndishonesty in high places. \"There were no such blots on our records when\nthe country was young.\"\n\nA public man gave an effective answer to such croakers when he said:\n\n\"As we go on year by year reading in the newspapers of the dreadful\nthings that are occurring; wicked rich men, wicked politicians and\nwicked men of all kinds, we are apt to feel that we have fallen on very\nevil times. But are we any worse than our fathers were? John Adams, in\n1776, was Secretary of War. He wrote a letter which is still in\nexistence, and told of the terrible corruption that prevailed in the\ncountry; he told how everybody was trying to rob the soldiers, rob the\nWar Department, and he said he was really ashamed of the times in which\nhe lived. When Jefferson was President of the United States it was\nthought that the whole country was going to be given over to French\ninfidelity. When Jackson was President people thought the country\nruined, because of his action in regard to the United States Bank. And\nwe know how in Polk's time the Mexican War was an era of rascality and\ndishonesty that appalled the whole country.\"\n\nIt is a mistake to look back a generation or two and say, \"The good old\ndays were better than these.\" In the address already referred to the\nspeaker continued:\n\n\"Only thirty years ago, on my first visit to California, I went with a\nfriend to the mining district in the Sierras. One summer evening we sat\nupon the flume looking over the landscape. My friend was a distinguished\nman of great ability. In the distance the sun was setting, reflecting\nits light on the dome of the Capitol of the state, at Sacramento, twenty\nmiles off. He turned to me and said suddenly: 'I would like to be you\nfor one reason, that you are thirty years younger than I am, and they\nare going to be thirty of the greatest years the world has ever seen.'\nHe is dead now, but his words were prophetic. He and I used to talk\nabout how we could send power down into the mines. An engine would fill\nthe mine with smoke and gases, and yet we must have power to run the\ndrills, etc., using compressed air. How easy to-day, just to drop a wire\ndown and send the power of electricity! At that time there was but a\nsingle railroad running across the continent, which took a single\nsleeping car each day. Look at the difference now, with six great trunk\nlines sending out more than a dozen trains, and more than a hundred\nsleeping cars each day.\"\n\nStudents of American history know something of the fears of early\nadherents of the United States Government lest the republic prove a\nfailure, and of the threats of doubters and disaffected citizens to do\ntheir best to replace the republic by a monarchy. But comparatively few\nrealize how great were the fears, and how brazenly the prophecies were\nspoken.\n\nAn examination of \"The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson,\" the\ncollection of private memoranda made by the patriot when he was\nsuccessively Secretary of State, Vice-President, and President,\ndiscloses the fact that some of the gravest of these fears were held by\nthose high in authority, and that the prophecies of evil came from men\nwho were leaders in the nation.\n\nOn April 6, 1792, President Washington, in conversation with Jefferson,\n\"expressed his fear that there would, ere long, be a separation of the\nUnion, that the public mind seemed dissatisfied and tending to this.\" On\nOctober 1, 1792, he spoke to the Secretary of his desire to retire at\nthe end of his term as President. \"Still, however, if his aid was\nthought necessary to save the cause to which he had devoted his life\nprincipally, he would make the sacrifice of a longer continuance.\"\n\nOn April 7, 1793, Tobias Lear, in conversation with Jefferson, spoke\npessimistically of the affairs of the country. The debt, he was sure,\nwas growing on the country in spite of claims to the contrary. He said\nthat \"the man who vaunted the present government so much on some\noccasions was the very man who at other times declared that it was a\npoor thing, and such a one as could not stand, and he was sensible they\nonly esteemed it as a stepping-stone to something else.\"\n\nOn December 1, 1793, an influential Senator (name given) said to several\nof his fellow Senators that things would never go right until there was\na President for life, and a hereditary Senate.\n\nOn December 27, 1797, Jefferson said that Tenche Coxe told him that a\nlittle before Alexander Hamilton went out of office, he said: \"For my\npart I avow myself a monarchist; I have no objection to a trial being\nmade of this thing of a republic, but, ... etc.\"\n\nOn February 6, 1798, it was reported to Jefferson that a man of\ninfluence in the Government had said, \"I have made up my mind on this\nsubject; I would rather the old ship should go down than not.\" Later he\nqualified his words, making his statement hypothetical, by adding, \"if\nwe are to be always kept pumping so.\"\n\nOn January 24, 1800, it was reported to Jefferson that, at a banquet in\nNew York, Alexander Hamilton made no remark when the health of the\nPresident was proposed, but that he asked for three cheers when the\nhealth of George III was suggested.\n\nOn March 27, 1800, the Anas record: \"Dr. Rush tells me that within a few\ndays he has heard a member of Congress lament our separation from Great\nBritain, and express his sincere wishes that we were again dependent on\nher.\"\n\nOn December 13, 1803, Jefferson told of the coming to President Adams of\na minister from New England who planned to solicit funds in New England\nfor a college in Green County, Tennessee. He wished to have the\nPresident's endorsement of the project. But \"Mr. Adams ... said he saw\nno possibility of continuing the union of the States; that their\ndissolution must take place; that he therefore saw no propriety in\nrecommending to New England men to promote a literary institution in the\nSouth; that it was in fact giving strength to those who were to be their\nenemies, and, therefore, he would have nothing to do with it.\"\n\nOne who reads bits like these from Jefferson's private papers\nappreciates more fully some of the grave difficulties that confronted\nthe country's early leaders; he rejoices more than ever before that the\nUnited States emerged so triumphantly from troubled waters until, little\nmore than a century after those days of dire foreboding, it was showing\nother nations the way to democracy; he takes courage in days of present\ndoubt and uncertainty, assured that the country which has already\nweathered so many storms will continue to solve its grave problems, and\nwill be more than ever a beacon light to the world.\n\n\nIV\n\nCOMPANIONSHIP WITH NATURE\n\n\"Look at the World,\" is the advice David Grayson gives to those who\nfollow him in his delightful essays on Great Possessions--possessions\nthat cannot be measured with a yardstick or entered in the bank book.\nThis is his cure for all the trials and vexations that come in the\ncourse of a busy life. For how can a man remain unsettled and morose and\ndistressed when he is gazing at the broad expanse of the sky, studying\nthe beauty of the trees, or listening to the mellow voices of the birds?\nHow can the wanderer in field and forest forget that God is love?\n\nSome people think that to drink in the glories of nature they must go to\nthe mountains, or seek some other far-away spot. Mistake! The place to\nenjoy God's world is just where one is, and the time is that very\nmoment. This was the lesson taught so impressively by Alice Freeman\nPalmer, when she described the little dweller in the tenements who\nresolved to see something beautiful each day, and who, one day, when\nconfined to the house, found her something in watching a rain-soaked\nsparrow drinking from the gutter on the tin roof. And this was the\nthought in the mind of Mr. Grayson when he said:\n\n\"I love a sprig of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark,\nor a pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a spike of timothy\ngrass drawn slowly from its sheath, or a twig of the birch that tastes\nlike wintergreen.\"\n\nHamlin Garland, in \"A Son of the Middle Border,\" has told the story of\nhis boyhood on an Iowa farm. He knew how to enjoy the sights to which so\nmany are blind:\n\n\"I am reliving days when the warm sun, falling on radiant slopes of\ngrass, lit the meadow phlox and tall tiger lilies to flaming torches of\ncolor. I think of blackberry thickets and odorous grapevines, and\ncherry-trees and the delicious nuts which grew in profusion throughout\nthe forest to the north. The forest, which seemed endless and was of\nenchanted solemnity, served as our wilderness. We explored it at every\nopportunity. We loved every day for the color it brought, each season\nfor the wealth of its experiences, and we welcomed the thought of\nspending all our years in this beautiful home where the wood and the\nprairie of our song did actually meet and mingle.... I studied the\nclouds. I gnawed the beautiful red skin from the seed vessels which hung\nupon the wild rose bushes, and I counted the prairie chickens as they\nbegan to come together in winter flocks, running through the stubble in\nsearch of food. I stopped now and again to examine the lizards unhoused\nby the shares, ... and I measured the little granaries of wheat which\nthe mice and gophers had deposited deep under the ground, storehouses\nwhich the plow had violated. My eyes dwelt enviously on the sailing hawk\nand on the passing of ducks.... Often of a warm day I heard the\nsovereign cry of the sand-hill crane falling from the azure throne, so\nhigh, so far, his form could not be seen, so close to the sun that my\neyes could not detect his solitary, majestic, circling sweep.... His\nbrazen, reverberating call will forever remain associated in my mind\nwith mellow, pulsating earth, spring grass and cloudless glorious\nMay-time skies.\"\n\nHenry Fawcett lived at about the same period in a rural district in\nEngland. He, too, delighted to ramble in the fields. One day, when he\nwas out hunting with his father, an accidental gunshot deprived him of\nhis eyesight. But the boy would not think of shutting himself away from\nthe joys of nature which meant so much to him. \"I very soon came to the\nresolution to live, as far as possible, just as I had lived before....\nNo one can more enjoy catching a salmon in the Tweed of the Spey, or\nthrowing a fly in some quiet trout stream in Wiltshire or Hampshire.\"\n\nIn the story of the life of John J. Audubon an incident is told that\nshows how the greatest joy can be found in what seems like one of the\nmost ordinary things in the life of the forest--the nesting of the\nbirds:\n\n\"He became interested in a bird, not as large as the wren, of such\npeculiar grey plumage that it harmonized with the bark of the trees, and\ncould scarcely be seen. One night he came home greatly excited, saying\nhe had found a pair that was evidently preparing to make a nest. The\nnext morning he went into the woods, taking with him a telescopic\nmicroscope. The scientific instrument he erected under the tree that\ngave shelter to the literally invisible inhabitants he was searching\nfor, and, making a pillow of some moss, he lay upon his back, and\nlooking through the telescope, day after day, noted the progress of the\nlittle birds, and, after three weeks of such patient labor, felt that he\nhad been amply rewarded for the toil and the sacrifice by the results he\nhad obtained.\"\n\nWhen a boy David Livingstone laid the foundation for the love of the\nopen that helped to make his life in Africa a never-ending delight.\n\"Before he was ten he had wandered all over the Clyde banks about\nBlantyre and had begun to collect and wonder at shells and flowers,\" one\nof his biographers says.\n\nNot far away, also in Scotland, Henry Drummond spent his boyhood. He,\ntoo, knew the pleasure of wandering afield. He liked to go to the rock\non which stands grim Stirling Castle, and look away to the windings of\nthe crooked Forth, the green Ochil Hills, and, farther away, Ben Lomond,\nBen Venue, and Ben Ledi, the guardians of the beautiful Highland lochs.\nHe was never weary of feasting his eyes on them. In later years he would\ngo back to the scenes of his boyhood, climb to the Castle, and, looking\nout on the beautiful prospect, would say \"Man, there's no place like\nthis; no place like Scotland.\"\n\nBayard Taylor first made a name for himself by his ability to see the\nthings that many people pass by, and to describe them sympathetically.\nBut he, also, in boyhood days learned the lesson that paved the way for\nlater achievements. He was not six years old when he used to wander to a\nfascinating swamp near his Pennsylvania home. If the child was missed\nfrom the house, the first thing that suggested itself was to climb upon\na mound which overlooked the swamp. Once, from the roof of the house, he\ndiscovered unknown forests and fresh fields which he made up his mind to\nexplore. Later, in company with a Quaker schoolmaster, he took long\nwalks, and thus learned many things about the trees and plants. When he\nwas twelve he began to write out the thoughts that came to him in this\nintimate study of nature.\n\nIn far-away Norway Ole Bull had a like experience. At an early age he\nbegan to be on familiar terms with the silent things about him. The\nquality of his later work was influenced by the grandeur of the scenery\nin which he lived. To him trees, rocks, waterfalls, mountains, all spoke\na language which demanded expression through the strings of his violin;\nhe turned everything into music. His biographer says:\n\n\"When, in early childhood, playing alone in the meadow, he saw a\ndelicate bluebell moving in the breeze, he fancied he heard the bell\nring, and the grass accompanying it with most exceptionally fine\nvoices.\"\n\nJohn Muir, who later wrote of the great Sequoias of California and the\nglaciers of Alaska, when a boy of ten found delight in scenes of which\nhe wrote as follows:\n\n\"Oh, that glorious Wisconsin wilderness! Everything new and pure in the\nvery prime of spring, when nature's pulses were beating highest and\nmysteriously keeping tune with our own! Young hearts, young leaves,\nflowers, animals, the winds and the streams and the sparkling lake, all\nwildly, gladly rejoicing together.\"\n\nThere is something missing in the life of one who cannot enter into the\nfeelings of a boy like Muir or Taylor or Drummond. And when such a boy\ngrows up, the gap in the life will be more conspicuous than ever.\n\nThink of the poverty of the stranger to whom a traveler, feeling that he\nmust give expression to his keen delight in the autumn foliage, said,\n\"What wonderful coloring!\" \"Where?\" came the reply. \"Oh, the trees!\nWell, I'm not interested in trees. Talk to me about coal. I know coal.\"\n\n\nV\n\nCOMPANIONSHIP WITH GOD\n\nSome people insist that it is impractical moonshine to speak of making a\ncompanion of God, that folks who talk about such things are dreamers,\nfar removed from touch with the cold reality of daily life.\n\nThen how about the nephew of whom Dr. Alexander MacColl told at\nNorthfield? He was surely a practical man. For four years he had been in\nthe thick of the fighting in France. Yet at the close of one of his\nletters to his uncle he said: \"I hope when the war is over that I may\nbe able to spend a month somewhere among the hills. I often think that\nif more people in the world had lived among such hills as we have in\nScotland there would have been no world war.\"\n\n\"When I came yesterday afternoon, and saw again the glory of these\nhills,\" was Dr. MacColl's comment, \"I found myself sharing very deeply\nin that feeling of my good nephew, and wishing that more people in the\nworld had known what it is to commune with God in the silences.\"\n\nThat fine young Scotchman would have known how to take a college student\nwho, while having a country walk with a friend, was explaining the\nreason for his belief in God and his trust in Him. As he concluded his\nmessage he pointed to a large tree which they were passing, saying as he\ndid so, \"God is as real to me as that tree.\"\n\nHe had a right to say such a thing, for he not only believed, but he was\nconscious that God was with him, his Companion wherever he went. This\nbeing the case, prayer became for him the simplest and most natural\nthing in the world. God was by his side; then why should not he talk to\nGod, by ejaculation as well as by more formal utterance? Yet his talks\nwith God never became formal. They were always intimate and\nconfidential--like the approaches of Principal John Cairns, the famous\nScotch minister. His biographer tells of a time when he was at the manse\nof a country minister in whose church he was to preach next day. The\nminister's wife withdrew to get a cup of tea for the old man, leaving\nher little boy there. By and by she heard a strange, unaccustomed sound,\nas it seemed to her under such conditions. And as she listened and\nlooked, she saw that the old man was kneeling with the boy. It had\nseemed to him the most natural thing in the world to speak to his Great\nFriend about his little friend.\n\nDr. Arthur Smith was like that with God, and his son Henry took after\nhim. One January day in 1905 the father reached New York from China and\nsought his son. They went to a hotel room to bridge the time of absence\nby \"a tremendous lot of back conversation,\" as the son wrote to the\nmother. But before they had any chance to talk of other matters the\nfather said, \"Come, boy, let's have a prayer.\" \"Wasn't that just like\nhim?\" Henry asked his mother.\n\nA minister who was spending his vacation in the northern woods was\ncalled in to see a dying lumberman. Before leaving the visitor prayed\nwith the sick man, and suggested that he pray for himself. The objection\nwas made that it was useless to pray--God understood a man's trials, and\nHe knew what was wanted before a request was made. The minister asked\nhim if he didn't know what his children needed before they asked him, if\nhe didn't know they were disappointed or troubled; yet didn't he wish to\nhave them talk over these things with him?\n\nThe man thought a moment. Then he said, \"Do you think that would be\nprayer--just for me to lie here and tell God what He knows already--how\nit hurts, and all my disappointment, and my anxiety for the future of my\nchildren and my wife--and everything--just to tell Him?\"\n\n\"I think it would,\" said the minister. \"I think it would be prayer of a\nvery real kind.\"\n\nOne who had learned that prayer is not a mere formal exercise, to be\ndreaded and postponed, has said:\n\n\"Pray often--in bits, with a persistency of habit that betrays a\nchildlike eagerness and absorption. Rise up to question God as children\ndo their earthly parents--at morning, noon and night and between times.\nAsk Him about everything. Be with Him more than with all other persons.\nAcquire the home habit with Him. Be a child in His hands. Do not fear\nlest He be too busy to listen, or too grown up to care or to understand.\nJust talk to Him, in broken sentences, half-formed with crude wishes; in\nfoolish chatter, if need be. Make the Heavenly Father the center of your\nlife, the source and judge of all your satisfactions. Be sure to let Him\nput you to bed, waken you in the morning, wait on you at table, order\nyour day's doings, protect you from harm, soothe your disquiet, supply\nall your daily needs.\"\n\nSuch a prayer is good, not only when one is sick, but when one is well\nand busy with the affairs of daily life. A clergyman has told of a visit\nto London during which he called on a merchant whom he had met in\nAmerica. At the business house he was told that he could not see the\nmerchant, as it was steamer day, and orders had been given not to\ndisturb him. But when the card was taken up, the merchant appeared, his\nface beaming with pleasure. After a moment's greeting the visitor\noffered to go away, but the merchant took him into his office, and said:\n\n\"I am very glad you have called. I would not have had you fail. I am\nvery busy, but I always have a moment for my Lord. I have a little\nplace for private prayer. You must come in with me, and we shall have a\nseason of prayer together.\"\n\nBusy, but not too busy for prayer, longing to see his friend, but eager\nto spend the ten minutes of the call in prayer with that other Friend\nwho made the brief visit worth while!\n\nIn telling this incident, one writer on the subject of prayer has said:\n\n\"Several, perhaps many merchants in one of our large cities have fitted\nup for themselves dark, narrow, boxlike closets, whither, each by\nhimself, they are wont to retire for a few minutes at times, during the\npressure of the day's business, for the refreshment of soul, which they\nfind they really need in communion with God. One of these men is\nreported to have said: 'On some days, if I had not that resort, I\nbelieve I should go mad, so great is the pressure.'\"\n\nDr. Purves once told an incident of the distinguished scientist,\nProfessor Joseph Henry, as given him by one of Dr. Henry's students. \"I\nwell remember the wonderful care with which he arranged all his\nprincipal experiments. Then often, when the testing moment came, that\nholy as well as great philosopher would raise his hand in adoring\nreverence and call upon me to uncover my head and worship in silence,\n'because,' he said, 'God is here. I am about to ask God a question.'\"\n\nTo Mary Slessor of Calabar, whom the Africans learned to love devotedly,\nprayer was as simple and easy as talking to a friend in the room. \"Her\nreligion was a religion of the heart,\" her biographer says. \"Her\ncommunion with her Father was of the most natural, most childlike\ncharacter. No rule or habit guided her. She just spoke to Him as a child\nto its father when she needed help and strength, or when her heart was\nfilled with joy and gratitude, at any time, in any place. He was so real\nto her, so near, that her words were almost of the nature of\nconversation. There was no formality, no self-consciousness, no\nstereotyped diction, only the simplest language from a quiet and humble\nheart. It is told of her that once, when she was in Scotland, after a\ntiresome journey, she sat down at the tea table alone, and, lifting up\nher eyes, said, 'Thank you, Father--ye ken I'm tired,' in the most\nordinary way as if she had been addressing her friend. On another\noccasion in the country, she lost her spectacles while coming from a\nmeeting in the dark. She could not do without them, and she prayed\nsimply and directly, 'O Father, give me back my spectacles!' A lady\nasked her how she obtained such intimacy with God. 'Ah, woman,' she\nsaid, 'when I am out there in the bush, I have often no other one to\nspeak to but my Father, and I just talk to Him....'\"\n\n\"I just talk to Him!\" There is the secret of getting and keeping close\nto the Father, the most worth-while Companion we can possibly have with\nus on country walk, on vacation excursion, amid business perplexities,\nin the desert or in the thronged city street, when the days are crowded\nwith burdens, or when the time of rest after work has come.\n\nTry Him and see if it is not so.\n\n\nVI\n\nA CHAPTER OF--ACCIDENTS?\n\nA man had planned a three-day trip with care. On paper everything looked\npromising for a combination of business and pleasure that would make\nthese days stand out in the record of the year.\n\nIn the morning he would go to Washington. There he would have\nopportunity to see in one of the Departments a man whose help in an\nemergency would prove invaluable. At four in the afternoon he would\nleave for Cincinnati. By taking the train he would miss a bit of scenery\nat Cumberland, which he had hoped to see. This could not be helped,\nhowever, for by the train he would be set down in Cincinnati in good\nseason for the important one-day session of a committee, the primary\nobject of the trip.\n\nTo be sure, he would have to miss another important committee meeting at\nhome, unless he should forego the Washington stop. But would it not be\nworth while to miss one of the meetings when he did not see how he could\nwell arrange for both?\n\nThe ticket was bought and reservation was made. Then interruption number\none came. Most unexpectedly there was a call from a neighbor to render\nsuch a service as can be given but once in a lifetime. Yet that\ndifficult service must be rendered at the moment when, according to\nprogram, he would be taking the train for Washington.\n\nOf course there could be no question as to his course. Instead of going\nto Washington and seeing the man with whom conference would mean so\nmuch, he must take train by a route more direct. This would enable him\nto reach Cincinnati in season for the committee meeting; and it would\nenable him also to attend the committee meeting at home which he had\ndecided to put aside for the sake of the Washington opportunity.\n\nAfter serving his neighbor and attending the home meeting--this turned\nout to be so important that to miss it would have been little short of a\ncalamity--the direct train for Cincinnati was taken, though not without\na sigh for the lost opportunity in Washington.\n\nYet the sigh was forgotten when on that train he became acquainted with\nthree fellow-passengers who gave him some new and needed glimpses of\nlife.\n\nA study of time tables showed him that he could return by way of\nWashington, and could have two hours for the interview there on which he\nhad counted so much, before the hour came for completing the homeward\njourney.\n\nAfter a successful committee meeting in Cincinnati, the importance of\nwhich proved to be even greater than had been anticipated, the train for\nWashington was taken at the Cincinnati terminal. At the moment this\ntrain was due to leave, there drew in on an adjoining track cars from\nwhich weary, anxious-looking passengers alighted. \"What train is that?\"\nwas the question that came to his lips.\n\n\"Number two, boss,\" the porter replied. \"Left Washington at four\nyesterday afternoon. She's ten hours late, 'count of that big wreck down\nin the mountains.\"\n\nAnd that was the train he had planned to take after finishing his\nbusiness in Washington! If he had taken it, what of his touch with the\nCincinnati meeting?\n\nIn thankful spirit, and with the resolve renewed for the ten thousandth\ntime that he would cease to question God's wisdom in thwarting his\nlittle plans, he went to his berth. First, however, he included in his\nevening prayer a petition that the train might not be late in reaching\nWashington, since the time there would be short enough, at best.\n\nThree hours later he roused with the start that is apt to come with the\nintense silence that marks a long night wait of a train between\nstations. The delay was so prolonged that soon the time table showed the\nloss of three hours.\n\nThere was one consolation, however: he would be able to pass during\nhours of daylight through the incomparable mountains of West Virginia.\n\nThe unexpected blessing was forgotten when the train drew into the\nWashington station so near the close of the afternoon that the traveler\nthought he might as well go home at once. Later on, he might be able to\nmake a special trip to the Capital. \"And I might have finished my\nprogram without all that expense and trouble,\" he thought.\n\nBut while he was there he decided he would call on the telephone the man\nin the department whom he wished to see. He told the man of his late\ntrain and his disappointment.\n\n\"Perhaps it is just as well,\" was the word from the other end of the\nwire. \"I have been afraid that the time set aside for our work this\nafternoon was altogether too short. What do you say to coming to me the\nfirst thing in the morning? Then we can devote to our program all the\ntime that proves necessary.\"\n\nSo he remained overnight. The evening gave him the chance he had sought\nfor a year to spend an evening consulting authorities at the\nCongressional Library. Next morning the real business of the stopover\nwas attended to. Then he learned why it would have been impossible to\nreceive the afternoon before the attention he received during the\nmorning hours. He knew, too, that it would have been out of the question\nto seek a second interview on the same business; therefore he would\nhave had to rest content with the results of the first conference.\n\nThe time came to take the train for the final stage of the journey. On\nthat train his seat-mate, a man he had never seen before, perhaps never\nwould see again, gave him a number of bits of vital information on the\nvery business that had led him to Washington!\n\nIs it worth while to ask God to look out for the everyday needs of His\npeople?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT\n\n_GOD THE SOURCE OF COURAGE_\n\n\n\"BE strong and of a good courage!\" More than three thousand years ago\nthe inspiring words were spoken by a great military leader to men about\nto undertake a tremendous task. Some of them were dismayed. The\ndifficulties in the path appeared insurmountable. Their minds were\nfilled with worries and fears and anxieties, until the present was heavy\nwith doubt and the future loomed before them dread, angry, portentous.\nTheir hearts were like water, until Joshua, the leader, with great\nconfidence gave his message:\n\n    \"Be strong and of a good courage--\n    \"Only be strong and very courageous--\n    \"Have not I commanded thee?\n    \"Be strong and of a good courage.\n    \"For Jehovah thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.\"\n\n\nI\n\nTHAT'S FOR ME!\n\nTwo men were going around the marvelous horseshoe curve on the Tyrone\nand Clearfield Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad when one called the\nattention of his companion to the most picturesque part of the way.\n\n\"I was looking at that precipice when I had my first understanding of\nthe fact that the Bible is a personal message; that I had the right to\nappropriate its words to my own life.\n\n\"It was the summer following the end of my final year in college. A few\nmonths earlier I had reluctantly yielded to the urging, first of my\nphysician, then of a nerve specialist, by turning my back on college at\nthe vital portion of the year. They told me that if I persisted in\nremaining they would not answer for the consequences; they said I had\napplied myself unwisely to my books until my brain was in revolt. 'It is\na grave question if you will ever be able to take the professional\ncourse to which you have been looking forward,' the specialist said.\n'One thing is certain, however: if you do not do as you are told you\nwill not do any real brain work the rest of your days.'\n\n\"That scared me, for my heart was wrapped up in my plans for the\nfuture. I felt that life would not be worth while without some sort of\nactive brain work. So I gave myself to a real bit of vacation. For\nmonths I cut myself loose from all books except the little copy of the\nTestament and Psalms which I carried with me more for form's sake than\nfor any other reason, I fear. Daily as I tramped here and there in the\nwilds I read a verse or two, more because I thought I ought to do this\nthan because I had any idea of receiving help.\n\n\"Toward the close of the summer I submitted myself to a specialist who\nshook his head, at the same time declaring that it was doubtful if even\nyet I could go on with my plan. He wouldn't say it was impossible for me\nto do brain work, but he urged that the probabilities were against me. A\nsecond specialist told me the same thing.\n\n\"So I faced the future as all summer long I had feared to face it.\nFinally my mind was made up to turn my back on professional studies.\nWhen the decision was made a suggestion came that I go into the\nmountains of Pennsylvania to investigate opportunity for a sort of work\nthat I might do.\n\n\"The journey was begun. As we left Tyrone to climb the mountains my\nspirits sank lower and lower. I rebelled against the idea of taking the\noffered opening. How I longed to enter professional school in two weeks!\nBut I dared not do it. To be sure, the physicians said that they saw no\nreason why I should not, though they feared the result. Why not try it?\nI had used all available means for restoration of the brain to the\nold-time keenness. Yet it would be awful to try and fail. No, I did not\ndare.\n\n\"So I was in the depths when my hand touched the pocket Testament and\nPsalms. Mechanically the book was opened, probably because of the\nunconscious realization that the daily portion had not yet been read.\nBut listlessness was gone in an instant when my eyes fell on the words\nof Psalm 37:5:\n\n\"'Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He will bring it\nto pass.'\n\n\"At first the words dazed me. Then I said: 'That's for me, and I'll do\nit! I've spent the summer as the doctors said I must. Surely I am\nwarranted in committing myself unto the Lord in just the way the Psalm\nsays. Of course I can't be sure that the result of going back to school\nwill be precisely what I hope; but I can trust, and do my best. Then if\nthe attempt results in failure, I shall have the satisfaction of\nknowing that I am following Him to whom I have committed my way.\n\n\"Some of my friends thought it was folly to begin my professional\ncourse. Can you imagine my joy when, from the day school opened, I had\nno recurrence of my trouble? Of course I was very careful until I could\nfeel sure of my health.\"\n\n\"How do you explain your ability to go on with your studies?\" his\ncompanion asked.\n\n\"I am not trying to explain it,\" was the reply. \"But without question\nthe assurance that came to me with that text from the Psalm, the\nassurance that God is my God and that I have a right to count on Him,\nmade me strong to face things to which I had been unequal only a few\nmonths before.\n\n\"And is it strange that I have often wondered if there would have been\nany breakdown in college, if I had only known a little sooner of the\nstrength that waits for those who, while putting forth their own utmost\nendeavor, at the same time count on God's unfailing strength?\"\n\n\nII\n\nBANKING ON GOD'S PROMISES\n\nIsn't it strange that so many Christians while believing, theoretically,\nin the reality and trustworthiness of God's promises, do not have the\nsame sort of practical belief in Him which they show in the promise of\ntheir bank to pay them, on demand, the sum written down in their book of\ndeposit?\n\nAnd banks have been known to fail in keeping their very limited\npromises, while God has never failed in keeping His unlimited assurances\nof blessing.\n\nFor so many the strange delusion that God's promises are not to be\ncounted on in the same literal sense as the promises of our associates\npersists through life, but there are fortunate Christians who have their\neyes opened to the truth. And what a difference the knowledge makes to\nthem!\n\nF. B. Meyer told in one of his public addresses of the transformation\nwrought for him when his eyes were opened to the truth. As a boy of\nthirteen he had been a student at Brighton College. He was timid and\nsensitive, and the older students soon learned that they could make his\nlife a burden to him. With a sigh of relief he went home at the end of\nthe first week of school. On Sunday, however, the thought that he must\nreturn came to him with oppressing force. How could he stand up against\nthe older students? He was idly turning the pages of his Bible when he\ncame to the 121st Psalm. \"How voraciously I devoured it!\" he said. \"How\nI read it again and again, and wrapt it round me! How I took it as my\nshield! And the next day I walked into the great expanse in front of the\ncollege so serene and strong. It was my first act of appropriating the\npromises of God.\"\n\nThree years later the student was agonizing because he wanted to be a\nminister, yet feared to plan for the work because his voice was weak,\nand he feared that he would not have the courage to speak. He had been\nasking God to show him His will, and to help him in his difficulty. Then\nhe found Jeremiah 1:7, and read it for the first time. \"With\nindescribable feelings I read it again and again, and even now never\ncome on it without a thrill of emotion,\" he said of his experience. \"It\nwas the answer to all my perplexing questionings. Yes, I was the child;\nI was to go to those to whom He sent me, and speak what He bade me, and\nHe would be with me and teach my lips.\"\n\nAnother man, who had learned to accept literally God's promise, \"Ask,\nand it shall be given unto you,\" wrote gratefully of his experience:\n\n\"My life is one long, daily, hourly record of answered prayer. For\nphysical health, for mental overstrain, for guidance given marvelously,\nfor errors and dangers averted, for enmity to the Gospel subdued, for\nfood provided at the exact hour needed, for everything that goes to make\nup life and my poor service, I can testify with a full and often\nwonder-stricken awe that I believe God answers prayer. I know God\nanswers prayer. Cavillings, logical or physical, are of no avail to me.\nIt is the very atmosphere in which I live and breathe and have my being,\nand it makes life glad and free and a million times worth living.\"\n\nA worker among his fellows in India stated the ground of his belief in\nGod's promise to supply the needs of his people. The sentence was\nwritten while he was at home on furlough:\n\n\"Whatsoever you ask, believe that you have received it, and you shall\nhave it. The belief is not the denial of a fact, but rather the\nassurance that the petition is in accordance with God's will, and that\nHe is as disposed to give as we to receive; our reception of the gift\ndepends on our holding on to His will. Now the practical question is,\nWhat is God's will? Am I conforming to it? Through lack of faith am I\nfailing to receive and appropriate for myself and Satara what I and\nSatara need? Is it God's will that I should return and that there should\nbe better paid work? More of it? More school-houses? New houses for\nworkers?\"\n\nA few days later he added to these notes the word \"Yes.\" His faith\nenabled him to claim God's promise.\n\nA Christian young man in Japan was accustomed to stand at the entrance\nto the park in Tokyo, offering Bibles and preaching the Gospel. Years\npassed, and he saw no results of his work. Yet he believed in Him who\nhad promised that His name should be exalted among the heathen. At\nlength a Testament was bought by a young man to whom the words of John\n3:16 brought life and joy. He went back to the old man from whose hand\nhe had received the book, and told him that he had become a Christian.\nThe man was overcome with joy.\n\n\"Ten years,\" he said, \"I have been selling New Testaments here at the\npark gates, and you are the first who has ever come to tell me you were\nhelped.\"\n\nBut throughout those ten years the faithful worker was sustained by his\nbelief in the faithfulness of Him who had promised to bless him in his\nwork. He knew that God would not fail him.\n\n\nIII\n\nPRACTICAL PRECEPTS FROM PROVERBS\n\nThere is nothing like the Bible to put heart into a man. This is not\nstrange, for the Book was written for this purpose by men of God's\nchoosing whose business it was to strengthen their fellows.\n\nOne of the most vivid parts of the Bible is the book of Proverbs.\n\n\"Would that our young men were saturated with its thought,\" Albert J.\nBeveridge said of it, while he was a member of the United States Senate.\n\"It is rich in practical wisdom for the minute affairs of practical\nlife. It abounds in apt and pointed suggestions and pungent warnings\nconcerning our companionship, our personal habits, our employments, our\nmanagement of finance, our speech, the government of tongue and temper,\nand many other such things, which daily perplex the earnest soul, and\ndaily occasion harm to the thoughtless and misguided.\"\n\nYears earlier, another eminent American, Washington Irving, used what is\nthe keynote of the book in an earnest talk with George Bancroft, later\nthe historian of his country, then a student in Europe. The two were\ntaking a walking excursion, when the older man said something the\nstudent remembered all his life. It was natural, then, that Bancroft's\nbiographer should give this in his subject's own words, in \"Life and\nLetters of George Bancroft:\"\n\n\"At my time of life, he tells me, I ought to lay aside all care, and\nonly be bent on laying in a stock of knowledge for future application.\nIf I have not pecuniary resources enough to get at what I would wish\nfor, as calculated to be useful to my mind, I must still not give up the\npursuit. Still follow it; scramble to it; get at it as you can, but be\nsure to get at it. If you need books, buy them; if you are in want of\ninstruction in anything take it. The time will soon come when it will be\ntoo late for all these things.\"\n\nMore than a century ago an immigrant from Scotland landed in New York.\nIn the story of his life he later told how the book of Proverbs became\nhis rock. The first night he slept in an old frame building with a\nshingle roof. During the night he was aroused by a storm of rain\naccompanied by thunder and lightning such as he had never experienced in\nScotland. Homesick, terrified, unable to sleep, he rose and took from\nhis chest the Bible his father had carefully packed with his clothes. He\nwrote later that as the book was opened, \"My eyes fell on the words, 'My\nSon.' I was thinking of my father. I read on with delight. Having\nfinished the last verse I found I had been reading the third chapter of\nthe Proverbs of Solomon. Get a Bible and read the chapter. Then suppose\nyourself in my situation--sore in body, sick at heart, and commencing\nlife among a world of strangers, and see if words more suitable could be\nput together to fit my case. I looked upon it as a chart from heaven,\ndirecting my course among the rocks, shoals and storms of life.... I\nwent forth with a light heart to work my way through the world, resolved\nto keep this chapter as a pilot by my side.\"\n\nThe importance for to-day of the message in Proverbs 30:8, \"Remove far\nfrom me vanity and lies,\" is illustrated by several incidents told by\nLucy Elliot Keeler, in \"If I Were a Boy:\"\n\n\"The son of a distinguished American recently entered business in New\nYork, beginning, at his father's request, at the foot of the ladder, and\nreceiving the princely salary of $20 a month. At a time when his\nfather's name was in everybody's mouth the editor of a yellow journal\nsent for the son and invited him to join the staff. 'You need not write\nany articles,' he said, with a smile, 'nor do any reporting. Just sign\nyour name to an article which I will furnish you each day, and I will\npay you $200 a month....' The young man's reply was too emphatic to be\naccurately reported here, but it was to the effect that he would rather\nstarve than pick untold dollars out of the gutter.\n\n\"A few years ago an American commissioner occupying a house in the West\nIndies hired a man to wash the windows and another to scrub the floors.\nThe bills submitted were for $12 and $7, respectively. 'What does this\nmean?' was the astonished query. '$12 for a day's work? Man, you are\ncrazy!' 'Oh,' came the soft reply, 'of course, I only expect a dollar\nand a half for myself, but that was the way we always made out bills for\nthe Spanish officers.' 'Take back your bills,' was the American's\nemphatic reply, 'and make them out honestly.'\"\n\nThe wisdom of the warning in Proverbs 27:2, \"Let another man praise\nthee, and not thine own mouth,\" has seldom been more strikingly\nillustrated than at a large convention when several thousand people\nlistened attentively as a speaker of reputation was introduced to them.\nHe talked fluently for several minutes, then began to ramble. He made\nseveral attempts to regain his lost hold on his hearers, then took his\nseat.\n\n\"I can't imagine what was wrong to-day,\" he said to his neighbor on the\nplatform. \"I had all ready what I felt sure would be a telling address,\nbut somehow I couldn't say what I wanted.\" A sympathetic answer was\ngiven by the man to whom he had spoken, but if he had said all that was\nin his heart this would have been his message: \"I know you had a telling\nargument to present, for I read your manuscript. But you spent the first\nthree minutes in talking about yourself. It was there you lost the\nattention of the people; they did not come to hear about you, but to\nlearn of your Master. And when you had put yourself in the foreground,\nit was impossible for you to present Him with power.\"\n\nThe speaker's mistake is repeated every day, not merely by men on the\nplatform, but by everyday people in the home, in the school, and at\nwork. It is fatal to usefulness to put ourselves in the foreground; but\nthose who forget self and remember others are welcome wherever they go.\n\n\nIV\n\nGETTING CLOSE TO THE BIBLE\n\nOne of the blessings that came to the world out of the anguish of the\nGreat War was a new appreciation of God's Word on the part of many who\nhad never paid much attention to the inspired Book, and the formation of\nthe habit of Bible reading by tens of thousands of those who were once\nheedless of God's Word.\n\nAbsence from home in hours of danger, privation and suffering, opened\nthe way for testing Him who reveals his power to give infinite blessing\nby saying tenderly, \"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I\ncomfort you.\" The sense of absolute powerlessness in the face of\nbarbarism led to dependence upon God who holds the worlds in His hands.\nRealization of the uncertainty of life and familiarity with death made\neasy and natural the approach to the Lord of life and death.\n\nProbably there were soldiers who laughed at the words of Field Marshal\nLord Roberts, spoken when the first British troops were crossing the\nChannel:\n\n\"You will find in this little Book (the Bible) guidance when you are in\nhealth, comfort when you are in sickness, and strength when you are in\nadversity,\" but the day came when one of the soldiers themselves, Arthur\nGuy Empey, wrote:\n\n\"How about the poor boy lying wounded, perhaps dying, in a shell hole,\nhis mother far away? Perhaps to him even God seems to have forgotten; he\nfeels for his first-aid packet, binds up his wounds, and then\nwaits--years, it seems to him--for the stretcher-bearers. Then he gets\nout his Testament; the feel of it gives him comfort and hope. He reads.\nThat boy gets religion, even though when he enlisted he was an atheist.\"\n\nA Young Men's Christian Association secretary told of an incident when\nthe soldiers were just leaving for the trenches. \"He saw a young lad\nnervously making his way up to the counter. He knew the boy wanted\nsomething, and was afraid to ask or was timid about it. He said, 'Want\nsomething, lad?' 'Yes, sir, I have got a Bible and I don't know much\nabout it. I'd like you to mark some passages in it. I am going out to\nthe trenches to-night.' 'Sure!' said the secretary. 'Mark some good\nones, now,' said the lad.\n\n\"While he was marking the first lad's book half a dozen other boys came\nup and said, 'Mark mine, too, sir!' And for half an hour this secretary\nwas busy marking verses in the Bibles of those boys. An interested\nobserver asked him what he marked, and he said, 'Matthew 10:23; 11:28;\n6:19, 20; John 3:16; Romans 8:35-39.'\"\n\n\"Fighting\" Pat O'Brian, of the Royal Fighting Corps, whose marvelous\nescape from his German captors thrilled multitudes, said:\n\n\"I haven't been given to talking much about religion, but when, after\ntwo months of flight through an enemy country as an escaped prisoner,\ngoing without food except such as I could pick up in the fields and eat\nraw, and time and again coming within a hair's breadth of being caught,\nI finally got through the lines on to the neutral soil of Holland, I was\nmighty glad to get down on my knees and thank God that He had got me\nthrough. A lot of men who have never thought much about religion are\nthinking about it now. I believe they will read those little khaki\nTestaments, and I am sure they will get help from them.\"\n\nThat \"those little khaki Testaments\" were going into the hands of the\nsoldiers pleased General Pershing, who said, \"Its teachings will fortify\nus for our great task.\" And Secretary of the Navy Daniels rejoiced that\nthe books were going to the sailors, for he said, \"The Bible is the one\nbook from which men can find help and inspiration and encouragement for\nwhatever conditions may arise.\"\n\n\nV\n\nTHE BIBLE AND ONE MAN\n\nIn June, 1862, John E. Clough was graduated from an Iowa college. He had\nbeen eager to make a name for himself. Many promising avenues of secular\nwork had opened to him, and he had tried to take one or another of them.\nBut always he knew that it was not right for him to plan for anything\nbut the ministry. The impression was deepened when the president of the\ncollege took for the text of his baccalaureate sermon, \"For none of us\nliveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.\" So the young graduate\nleft the college feeling that he was no longer free to go out and use\nhis education for the career he had dreamed of.\n\nBut he did decide to teach for a year. With Mrs. Clough, he made an\nengagement to teach a public school one year. But he did not dare stay\nfor a second year, because the people were so good to the new teacher,\nand there was so much evidence of this popularity, that the Bible words\nkept ringing in his ears, \"Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of\nyou.\" He knew he was not in the right place. In later life, when\nopposition came to him because he was doing faithful Christian work, he\nwas strengthened by the memory of this text that had once been anything\nbut a comfort to him.\n\nAt last came the beginning of the work in India that made the name of\nJohn E. Clough famous. His success was due, in large measure, to the\nfact that he emphasized God's Word. One of his first acts was to prepare\na tract in Scripture language, telling the things necessary for\nsalvation, and this proved useful throughout his services.\n\nEverywhere he went he quoted Scripture to the people. He felt that\nwhatever else he might say to them, this would be most effective. One\ntext was used more than any other, in private conversation and in\nsermons, the invitation of Jesus, \"Come unto me, all ye that labor and\nare heavy laden, and I will give you rest.\" This, he said, was always\nnew, and the people received his explanations gladly. Once, during a\ntime of grievous famine, when about them millions of the natives died of\nwant and disease, these words proved especially effective.\n\nAs a measure of famine relief the missionary took the contract for a\nsection of the great Buckingham Canal. Under his leadership the natives\nwere set to work on this. Native evangelists as well as white\nmissionaries toiled day after day, and this gave a splendid chance for\npreaching the gospel. \"The name of Jesus was spoken all day long from\none end of our line to the other,\" Mr. Clough wrote in his\nautobiography. \"The preachers carried a New Testament in their pockets.\nIt comforted the people to see the holy book of the Christians amid all\ntheir distress. They said, when they sat down for a short rest, 'Read us\nagain out of your holy book about the weary and heavy laden.' That\nverse, 'Come unto me all ye that labor,' was often all I had to give the\npeople by way of comfort. The preachers were saying it all day long. It\ncarried us through the famine. We all needed it, for even the strongest\namong us sometimes felt our courage sinking.\"\n\nAll through Dr. Clough's missionary career there was one verse in\nparticular that carried him far. When he was out on tour among the\npeople, often many miles distant from home, Mrs. Clough was accustomed\nto send after him a messenger who would take to him, for his\nencouragement, the message she felt he needed. Knowing his fondness for\nthe text, \"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the\nheathen,\" she sent the words to him on more than one occasion. In the\nstory of his life he told of a day when the text came to him with\nspecial force:\n\n\"I was tempted to shake the dust off my feet and go. My helpers and I\nhad camped in a new place, and had been trying hard to get the people to\ncome and listen to the gospel, but they would not. I concluded that it\nwas a hard place, and told my staff of workers that we were justified in\nleaving it alone and moving on elsewhere. Toward noon I went into my\ntent, closed down the sides, let the little tent flap swing over my\nhead, and rested, preparatory to starting off for the next place. Just\nthen a basket of supplies was brought to my feet by a coolie, who had\nwalked seventy miles with the basket on his head. In the accompanying\nletter Mrs. Clough quoted my favorite verse to me. While reading this,\nsome of the preachers put their heads into the tent and said, 'Sir,\nthere is a big crowd out here; the grove is full; all are waiting for\nyou. Please come out.'\"\n\nOnce the two verses that were the keynote of the missionary's life were\nespecially prominent. For a long time he had been discouraged because\nresults seemed slow and difficulties were great. But the day came when\nhe stood before thousands and preached to them the Word, strong in the\nassurance of the presence of Him who said, \"Be still, and know that I am\nGod: I will be exalted among the heathen.\" The text that day, as so\noften before, was \"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.\"\nFor an hour the people listened to his words. Then they began to plead\nfor baptism, and would not be denied. At length, after rigid\nexamination, baptism was administered to 3,536 within three days. And he\nhad not baptized one soul in fifteen months before this time!\n\nGod's Word gave courage to Clough; it enabled him to give courage to\nothers; and it will give courage to you.\n\n\nVI\n\nOUT OF THE DEPTHS\n\nDuring the year 1538 an Italian spent long weeks in a noisome\nunderground prison cell, where he was kept on account of religious\ndifferences. For a precious hour and a half of each day, when the light\nstruggled in through a tiny window, he read the Bible, especially the\nPsalms. Among the Psalms that meant most to him was the one hundred and\nthirtieth, whose beginning \"Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O\nLord,\" expressed the longings of his heart for companionship and\ncomfort.\n\nExactly two hundred years later, on May 24, 1738, John Wesley, then in\nthe midst of the greatest anxiety and longing for God, heard the choir\nat St. Paul's Cathedral sing, \"Out of the depths have I cried unto thee,\nO Lord.\" The words brought joy to him. From the depths in which he found\nhimself that afternoon he cried unto God, and that evening there came to\nhim the knowledge of God's presence that gave him strength to begin the\nwonderful work that built up the great Methodist Church.\n\nThese same words meant much to Josiah Royce, the American teacher of\nphilosophy, who died in 1916. In one of his later books, he wrote:\n\n\"We come to such deep places that we can only cry. We are astonished\nthat we can cry. And then we become aware that our cry is heard. And he\nwho hears is God. And so God is often defined for the plain man as 'He\nwho hears man's cry from the depths.'\"\n\nOne who knew Professor Royce well wondered if he did not enter the\ndepths from which he cried to God and received such satisfying response,\nafter the death of his only son. In the same way those who delight in\nthe message of Psalm 130 wonder what could have been the experience of\ndepression that opened the way for his reception of God's blessing.\n\nWe can only speculate about these things. But there is one thing of\nwhich we can be absolutely sure: there is no depth so low that the cry\nof one of God's children will not reach from it to the heart of the\nFather; no sorrow so crushing, no anxiety so overwhelming, no pain so\nintense, no difficulty seemingly so unsolvable, no sin so awful, that\neager, earnest prayer will not bring God to the relief of the sufferer.\n\n\"If out of the depths we cry, we shall cry ourselves out of the depths,\"\none has said who has written of the words that Professor Royce found so\nhelpful. Then he asks: \"What can a man do who finds himself at the foot\nof a beetling cliff, the sea in front, the wall of rock at his back,\nwithout foothold for a mouse, between the tide at the bottom and the\ngrass at the top? He can do but one thing, he can shout, and, perhaps,\nmay be heard, and a rope may come dangling down that he can spring at\nand catch. For sinful men in the miry pit the rope is already let down,\nand their grasping it is the same as the psalmist's cry. God has let\ndown His forgiving love in Christ, and we need but the faith which\naccepts it while it asks, and then we are swung up into the light, and\nour feet set on a rock.\"\n\nEach one has depths peculiarly his own, and longs to be out of them.\nThen why not call to Him who hears men's cry from the depths, with the\nquiet confidence of quaint old Herbert, who wrote:\n\n        Of what an easie quick accesse,\n        My blessed Lord, art Thou! how suddenly\n        May our requests thine ears invade!\n        If I but lift mine eyes my suit is made;\n        Thou canst no more not heare than Thou canst die.\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nObvious punctuation errors were corrected.\n\nPage 44, \"conjuctions\" changed to \"conjunctions\" (prepositions, and\nconjunctions)\n\nPage 56, \"year'sexpenses\" changed to \"year's expenses\" (next year's\nexpenses)\n\nPage 62, \"throughness\" changed to \"thoroughness\" (thoroughness by\nperforming)\n\nPage 96, \"then\" changed to \"than\" (further than usual)\n\nPage 98, \"begining\" changed to \"beginning\" (thought of beginning)\n\nPage 138 \"mments\" changed to \"comments\" (comments is that the)\n\nPage 153, \"be-because\" changed to \"because\" (need of it because)\n\nPage 164, \"Yes\" changed to \"Yet\" (Yet, there was something)\n\nPage 214, \"woud\" changed to \"would\" (would be most effective)","title":"The Book of Courage","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":44106}