{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36695/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36695","id":"gutenberg_36695","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36695","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Character","Conduct of life"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Juliet Sutherland, Alex Gam and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  _RIGHT LIVING AS\n  A FINE ART_\n\n  A Study of Channing's Symphony\n  as an Outline of the\n  Ideal Life and Character\n\n  NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  Fleming H. Revell Company\n  New York  Chicago  Toronto\n  1903\n\n  COPYRIGHTED 1898-1899 BY\n  FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY.\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n  _ONE_\n  A Study of Channing's \"Symphony\" as an\n  Outline of the Ideal Life and Character\n\n  _TWO_\n  Channing's Vision of the Beautiful Life\n\n  _THREE_\n  The Largest Wealth\n\n  _FOUR_\n  The World a Whispering Gallery\n\n  _FIVE_\n  How Knowledge Becomes Wisdom\n\n  _SIX_\n  The Disguises of Inferiority\n\n  _SEVEN_\n  Strength Blossoming into Beauty\n\n  _EIGHT_\n  Life's Crowning Perfection\n\n\n\n\n\"_And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the\nwork of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it._\"\n\n_Psalm xc: 17._\n\n\n\n\nMY SYMPHONY.\n\n\nTo live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and\nrefinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy,\nnot rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages with open heart; to\nstudy hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions,\nhurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,\ngrow up through the common--this is my symphony.\n\n                                                    WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING.\n\n\n\n\nA STUDY OF CHANNING'S \"SYMPHONY\" AS AN OUTLINE OF THE IDEAL LIFE AND\nCHARACTER.\n\n\nTo the revival of learning in the fourteenth century, to the revival of\nreligion in the sixteenth, and the revival of liberty in the eighteenth\ncentury must now be added the revival of the beautiful in this new era for\nart. In former ages man was content if his house was dry, his coat was\nwarm, his tool strong. But now has come an era when man's house must have\nbeautiful walls, when woman's dress must have harmonious hues, when the\nspeaker's truth must be clothed in words of beauty; while in religion if\nthe worshiper once was content with a harsh hymn, now man best loves the\nsong that has a beautiful sentiment and a sweet tune. Always the useful had\na cash value. Now beauty has become a commodity. To-day, to hold his place,\nthe artisan must become an artist. The era of ugliness, with its clumsy\ntools and ungainly garments, has gone forever. No longer content with\nlending strength to coat or chair or car, manufacturers now vie with one\nanother in a struggle to make the garment take on lines of grace, and\ncolors soft and beautiful. Society seems to be standing upon the threshold\nof the greatest art movement in history. Best of all this, revival of the\nbeautiful promises to be a permanent social possession.\n\nVery brief and fitful that first art epoch when Phidias polished statues,\nthe very fragments of which are the despair of modern sculptors. All too\nshort also that era when Raphael and Botticelli brought the canvas into\nwhat seemed the zenith of its perfection. It was as if the vestal virgin of\nbeauty had drawn near to fan the flickering light into a fierce flame only\nto allow it quickly to die out again. But if other art epochs have been\nsoon followed by eras of ugliness and tyranny, it was because formerly the\npatrician class alone was interested in the beautiful. In that far-off\ntime, Pericles had his palace and Athens her temple, but the common people\ndwelt in mud huts, wore coats of sheepskin, and slept on beds of straw. The\nbeauty that was manifest in pictures, marbles, rich textures, bronzes,\nbelonged exclusively to the cathedral or the palace.\n\nNow has come an era when art is diffused. Beauty is sprinkled all over the\ninstruments of dining-room, parlor and library. It is organized into\ntextures of cotton, wool and silk. Even in the poor man's cottage blossoms\nbreak forth upon floor and walls, while vines festoon the humblest door.\nOnce, at great expense, a baron in France or Germany would send an artist\ninto Italy to copy some masterpiece of Titian or Tintoretto. Now modern\nphotography makes it possible for the poorest laborer to look upon the\nsemblance of great pictures, statues, cathedrals, landscapes--treasures\nthese once beyond the wealth of princes. Having made tools, books, travel,\nhome, religion to be life-teachers, God has now ordained the beautiful as\nan apostle of the higher Christian life.\n\nRecognizing the hand of God in every upward movement of society, we explain\nthis new enthusiasm for art upon the principle that beauty is the outer\nsign of an inner perfection. Oft with lying skill men veneer the plaster\npillar with slabs of marble, and hide soft wood with strips of mahogany.\nBut beauty is no outer veneer. When ripeness enters the fruit within a soft\nbloom steals over the peach without. When every drop of blood in the veins\nis pure a beauteous flush overcasts the young girl's cheek. When summer\nhath lent ripeness to the harvests God casts a golden hue over the sheaf\nand lends a crimson flush to the autumn leaves. For beauty is ripeness,\nmaturity and strength. Therefore when the seer says, \"God maketh everything\nbeautiful in its time,\" he indicates that God's handiwork is perfect work.\nWhen some Wordsworth or Emerson leaves behind men's clumsy creations and\nenters the fields where God's workmanship abounds, the poet finds the\nground \"spotted with fire and gold in tints of flowers\"; he finds the trees\nhung with festooned vines; finds the forests uniting their branches in\ncathedral arches; finds the winds making music down the long, leafy aisles;\nfinds the birds pouring forth notes in choiring anthems, while the very\nclouds rise like golden incense toward an unseen throne. Though the\ntraveler journey far, he shall find no bud, no bough, no landscape or\nmountain or ocean, that is not overcast with bloom and beauty.\n\nWe are not surprised therefore when we see that as man's arts and\nindustries go toward perfection they go toward beauty. Carry the coarse\nflax up toward beauty and it becomes strong cloth. Carry the cocoon of a\nworm up to beauty and it becomes a soft silken robe. Carry rude Attic\nspeech up to beauty and it becomes the language of Homer or Hesiod. Carry\nthe strange face or form tatooed upon the arm of the savage up to beauty\nand it becomes a Madonna or a Transfiguration. Carry a stone altar and a\nsmoking sacrifice up to beauty and it becomes a Cologne cathedral or a\nWestminster Abbey. Indeed, historians might use the beautiful as the\ntouchstone of human progress. The old milestones of growth were metals.\nFirst came the age when arrows were tipped with flint. Then came the iron\nage, when the spear had a metal point. The bronze age followed, lending\nflexibility to ore hitherto unyielding. Later came the steel age, when\nweapons that bruised gave place to the keen edge that cuts. Perhaps the\ndivinity chat represents our era will stand forth plated with oxide of\nsilver.\n\nBut his ideas of beauty would measure man's progress quite as accurately.\nIn that first rude age beauty was external. Man twisted gay feathers into\nhis hair, painted his cheeks red or yellow, wore rings of bright shells\nabout his neck. But our age is high because beauty has ceased to be mere\npersonal adornment. Man now seeks to make his books beautiful for the\nintellect, his library and gallery beautiful for taste and imagination, his\ntemple beautiful for worship, his home beautiful in the interest of the\nheart, his song and prayer not simply true, but beautiful with praise to\nthe unseen God. If in rude ages beauty was associated with physical\nelements, the glory of our era is that beauty, unfolding from century to\ncentury, is now increasingly associated with those moral qualities that\nlend remembrance to mother and martyr, to hero and patriot and saint.\n\nTo-day, fortunately for society, this world-wide interest in art is\nbecoming spiritualized. From beautiful objects men are passing to beautiful\nthoughts and deeds. We begin to hear much of the art of right living and\nthe science of character building. Having lent charm and value to column\nand canvas, to marble and masterpiece, beauty now moves on to lend\nloveliness to mind and heart. For it seems an incongruous thing for man to\nadorn his cottage, lend charm to its walls and windows, make its ceilings\nto be like the floor of heaven for beauty, while within his heart he\ncherishes groveling littleness, slimy sin, light-winged evasions, brutal\npassions. He whose body rides in a palace car must not carry a soul that is\nlike unto a savage. Having lingered long before the portrait of Antigone or\nCordelia, the young girl finds herself pledged to turn that ideal into life\nand character. The copy of the Sistine Madonna hanging upon the wall asks\nthe woman who placed it there to realize in herself this glorious type of\nmotherhood.\n\nWhen the admirers of Shakespeare bought the house in which their hero was\nborn, they planted in the garden the flowers which the poet loved. Passing\nthrough the little wicket gate the pilgrim finds himself moving along a\nperfumed path, while to his garments clings the odor of violets and roses,\nsweet peas and buttercups, the columbine and honeysuckle--flowers these,\nwhose roots are in earth indeed, but whose beauty is borrowed from heaven.\nFrom these grounds men have expelled the poison ivy, the deadly nightshade,\nall burdocks and thistles. And the soul is a garden in which truth, purity,\npatience, love, long suffering are qualities whiter than any lily and\nsweeter than any rose, whose perfume never passes, whose beauty does not\nfade. And having succeeded in transforming waste places into centers of\nradiant beauty, man encourages the hope that he can carry his own reason,\njudgment and ambition up to full symmetry and perfection.\n\nWhat a transformation man has wrought in matter! Nature says, here is a\nlump of mud; man answers, let it become a beautiful vase. Nature says, here\nis a sweet briar; man answers, let it become a rose double and of many\nhues. Nature says, here is a string and a block of wood; man answers, let\nthem be a sweet-voiced harp. Nature says, here is a daisy; Burns answers,\nlet it become a poem. Nature says, here is a piece of ochre and some iron\nrust; Millet answers, let the colors become an Angelus. Nature says, here\nis reason rude and untaught; man must answer, let the mind become as full\nof thoughts as the sky of stars and more radiant. Nature says, here is a\nrude affection; man must answer, let the heart become as full of love and\nsympathy as the summer is full of ripeness and beauty. Nature says, here is\na conscience, train it; man should answer, let the conscience be as true to\nChrist and God as a needle to the pole. Marvelous man's skill through the\nfine arts! Wondrous, too, his handicrafts! But no picture ever painted, no\npoem ever perfected, no temple ever builded is comparable for strength and\nbeauty to a full-orbed soul, matured through a widely trained reason and a\nsober judgment--mellow in heart and conscience, pervaded throughout with\nthe spirit of Jesus Christ, the soul's master and model.\n\n\n\n\nCHANNING'S VISION OF THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE.\n\n\nAmong those gifted spirits who have toiled tirelessly to carry the\nindividual life up to unity, symmetry and beauty, let us hasten to mention\nthe name of Channing. The child of genius, he was gifted with a literary\nstyle that lent strange fascination to all his speech. But great as he was\nin intellect, his character shone with such splendor as to eclipse his\ngenius. He was of goodness all compact.\n\nEarly the winds of adversity beat against his little bark. Invalidism and\nmisfortune, too, threatened to destroy his career. But bearing up amid all\nmisfortune, he slowly wrought out his ideal of life as a fine art.\nPatiently he perfected his dreams. Daily he practiced frugality, honor,\njustice, faith, love and prayer. He met storm with calm; he met provocation\nwith patience; he met organized iniquity with faith in God's eternal truth;\nhe met ingratitude and enmity with forgiveness and love.\n\nAt last he completed his symphony of an ideal life, that he hoped would\nhelp the youth and maiden to make each day as inspiring as a song, each\ndeed as holy as a prayer, each character as perfect as a picture. For he\nfelt that the life of child and youth, of patriot and parent should have a\nloveliness beyond that of any flower or landscape, and a majesty not found\nin any cataract or mountain, being clothed also with a beauty that does not\ninhere in Canova's marble and a permanency that is not possessed by Von\nRiles' cathedral, a structure builded of thoughts and hopes and\naspirations, of tears and prayers, and purposes, whose foundation is\neternal truth.\n\n\nTHE FOUNDATION OF HAPPINESS.\n\nIn founding his ideal life upon contentment with small means, Channing\npleads for simplicity and the return to \"plain living and high thinking.\"\nHe would fain double the soul's leisure by halving its wants.\n\nLooking out upon his age, he beheld young men crazed with a mania for\nmoney. He saw them refusing to cross the college threshold, closing the\nbook, neglecting conversation, despising friendship, postponing marriage,\nthat they might increase their goods. Yet he remembered that earth's most\ngifted children have been content with small means, achieving their\ngreatest triumphs midst comparative poverty.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LARGEST WEALTH.\n\n\nThe Divine Carpenter and His immortal band dwelt far from luxury. Poor\nindeed were Socrates, the reformer, and Epictetus, the slave, and Virgil,\nthe poet. Burns, too, and Wordsworth and Coleridge, with Keats and\nShelley--all these dwelt midway between poverty and riches. When that young\nEnglish scholar learned that his relatives had willed him a fortune of\nL5,000 he wrote the dying man begging him to abandon his design, saying\nthat he already had one servant, and that added care and responsibility\nmeant the cutting off of a few minutes for study in the morning and a few\nminutes for reflection at night.\n\n\nA PLEA FOR SIMPLICITY.\n\nHere are our own Hawthorne and Longfellow--\"content with small means.\" Here\nis Emerson resigning his church in Boston and leaving fame behind him, that\nupon the little farm at Concord he might escape the thousand and one\ndetails that robbed his soul of its simplicity. Here is Thoreau building\nhis log cabin by Walden pond, living on forty dollars a year because he saw\nthat man was being \"destroyed by his unwieldy and overgrown establishment,\ncluttered with much furniture and tripped with his own traps, ruined by\nluxury and heedless expense, whose only hope was in rigid economy and\nSpartan simplicity.\"\n\nOurs is a world where Cervantes writes Don Quixote living upon three bowls\nof porridge brought by the jailer of the prison. The German philosopher\nasked one cluster of grapes, one glass of milk and a slice of bread twice\neach day. Having completed his philosophy, the old scholar looked back upon\nforty happy years, saying that every fine dinner his friends had given him\nhad blunted his brain for one day, while indigestion consumed an amount of\nvital energy that would have sufficed for one page of good writing.\n\nA wise youth will think twice before embarking upon a career involving\nlarge wealth. Some there are possessed of vast property whose duty it is to\ncarry bravely their heavy burden in the interest of society and the\nincrease of life's comforts, conveniences and happiness. Yet wise Agur's\nprayer still holds: \"Give me neither poverty nor riches.\" Whittier, on his\nlittle farm, refusing a princely sum for a lecture, was content with small\nmeans. Wendell Phillips, preferring the slave and the contempt of Boston's\nmerchants and her patrician society, chose to \"be worthy, not respectable.\"\nSome Ruskin, distributing his bonds and stocks and lands to found\nworkingmen's clubs, art schools and colleges, that he might have more\nleisure for enriching his imagination and heart, chose to \"be wealthy, not\nrich.\" Needing many forms of wisdom, our age needs none more than the grace\nto \"live content with small means, seeking elegance rather than luxury, and\nrefinement rather than fashion.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD A WHISPERING GALLERY.\n\n\nWhen the sage counsels us \"to listen to stars and birds, to babes and\nsages,\" he opens to us the secrets of the soul's increase in wisdom and\nhappiness. All culture begins with listening. Growth is not through shrewd\nthinking or eloquent speaking, but through accurate seeing and hearing. Our\nworld is one vast whispering gallery, yet only those who listen hear \"the\nstill, small voice\" of truth. Putting his ear down to the rocks, the\nlistening geologist hears the story of the rocks. Standing under the stars,\nthe listening astronomer hears the music of the spheres. Leaving behind the\ndin and dirt of the city, Agassiz plunged into the forests of the Amazon,\nand listening to boughs and buds and birds he found out all their secrets.\n\nOne of our wisest teachers has said, \"The greatest thing a human soul ever\ndoes in this world, is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain\nway. Hundreds of people can talk, for one who can think. But thousands can\nthink for one who can see; to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion\nall in one. Therefore finding the world of literature more or less divided\ninto thinkers and seers, I believe we shall find also, that the seers are\nwholly the greater race of the two.\" For greatness is vision. Opening his\neyes, Newton sees the planets revolve and finds his fame. Opening his ears,\nWatt hears the movement of steam and finds his fortune. Millet explained\nhis fame by saying he copied the colors of the sunset at the moment when\nreapers bow the head in silent prayer. The great bard, too, tells us he\nwent apart and listened to find \"sermons in stones, and books in the\nrunning brooks.\"\n\n\nTHE SECRET OF CULTURE.\n\nIt is a proverb that pilgrims to foreign lands find only what they take\nwith them. Riding over the New England hills near Boston, Lowell spake not\nto his companion, for now he was looking out upon the pageantry of a\nglorious October day, and now he remembered that this was the road forever\nassociated with Paul Revere's ride. Reaching the outskirts of Cambridge, he\nroused from his reverie to discover that his silent companion had been\nbrooding over bales and barrels, not knowing that this had been one of\nthose rare days when October holds an art exhibit, and also oblivious to\nthe fact that he had been passing through scenes historic through the valor\nof the brave boy.\n\nOf the four artists copying the same landscape near Chamouni, all saw a\ndifferent scene. To an idler a river means a fish pole, to a heated\nschoolboy a bath; to the man of affairs the stream suggests a turbine\nwheel; while the same stream leads the philosopher to reflect upon the\ninfluence of great rivers upon cities and civilizations. Coleridge thought\nthe bank of his favorite stream was made to lie down upon, but Bunyan,\nbeholding the stream through the iron bars of a prison cell, felt the\nbreezes of the \"Delectable Mountains\" cool his fevered cheek, and stooping\ndown he wet his parched lips with the river of the waters of life. Nature\nhas no message for heedless, inattentive hearers. It is possible for a\nyouth to go through life deaf to the sweetest sounds that ever fell over\nHeaven's battlements, and blind to the beauty of landscape and mountain and\nsea and sky. There is no music in the autumn wind until the listener comes.\nThere is no order and beauty in the rolling spheres until some Herschel\nstands beneath the stars. There is no fragrance in the violet until the\nlover of flowers bends down above the blossoms.\n\nListening to stars, Laplace heard the story how fire mists are changed to\nhabitable earths, and so became wise toward iron and wood, steel and stone.\nListening to birds, Cuvier heard the song within the shell and found out\nthe life history of all things that creep or swim or fly. Listening to\nbabes that have, as Froebel thought, been so recently playmates with\nangels, the philosopher discovered in the teachableness, trust and purity\nof childhood, the secret of individual happiness and progress. Listening to\nsages, the youth of to-day garners into the storehouse of his mind all the\nintellectual treasures of the good and great of past ages. That youth may\nhave culture without college who gives heed to Channing's injunction \"to\nlisten to stars and birds, to babes and sages.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOW KNOWLEDGE BECOMES WISDOM.\n\n\nWhen all the caravans of knowledge have gone trooping through the eye-gate\nand the ear-gate into the soul city, Channing reminds us that these\nknowledges must be assorted and assimilated by \"studying hard and thinking\nquietly.\"\n\nIf some rich men fill their shelves with books that are never read, some\npoor men fill their memory with facts upon which they never think. The mere\naccumulation of truths about earth and air, about plants and animals and\nmen, does not mean culture. Education does not mean stuffing the mind with\nGreek roots, as the husbandman stuffs his granary with vegetables. It is a\nproverb, that no fool is a perfect fool until he can talk Latin. Looking\nout upon land and sea and sky, the educated soul sees all, and appreciates\nall. Culture lends the note of distinction and acquaints the youth with all\nthe best that has been said and done. Trying to steal the secret of the\nhoney bee, a scientist extracted the sweets of half an acre of blossoms.\nUnfortunately, the vat of liquor proved to be only sweetened water. By its\nsecret processes, the bee distills the same liquor into honey. It is\npossible for the youth to sweep into the memory a thousand great facts\nwithout having distilled one of these honeyed drops named wisdom and\nculture.\n\nIn studying the French Revolution Carlyle read five hundred volumes,\nincluding reports of officers, generals, statesmen, spies, heroes,\nvillains. Then, closing all the books, he journeyed into Scotland. In\nsolitude he \"thought quietly.\" Having brooded alone for weeks and months,\none morning he rose to dip his pen in his heart's blood and write his\nFrench Revolution. In that hour the knowledge that had been in five hundred\nbooks became the culture distilled into one.\n\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF THE REFLECTIVE MIND.\n\nThe youth who plans the life of affairs is in danger of despising the\nbrooding that feeds the hidden life. We can never rightly estimate our\nindebtedness to those who have gone apart to \"think quietly.\"\n\nAll law and jurisprudence go back to Moses for forty years brooding in an\nempty, voiceless desert upon the principles of eternal justice. All\nastronomy goes back to Ptolemy, who looked out upon a weary waste of sand\nand turned his vision toward a highway paved with stars and suns. Our\npoetry and literature begins with Homer, blind indeed to earthly sights and\nsciences, but who traced with an inner eye, the strifes of gods and men,\nand gave his inner thoughts immortal form and beauty. All modern science\nbegins with that scholar who for fifty years was unknown in the forum or\nmarket-place, for Charles Darwin was \"studying hard and thinking quietly\"\nin his little garden, where he watched his seeds, earthworms, his beetles\nand doves.\n\nThe air of London is so charged with deadly acids that the lime tree alone\nflourishes there, for the reason that it sheds its bark each year, thus\ncasting off the defiled garment. But there is a mountain peak in the\nHimalayas so high that it towers beyond the reach of snows and rains, and a\nscientist has said, an open page might there remain unsoiled by dust\nthrough passing centuries. And to those who \"think quietly\" it is given to\nrise into the upper air. Dwelling upon the heights, these may look down\nupon all heated centers with their soot and grime, their stacked houses,\nreeking gutters, the din and noise of wheels, the hoarse roar of the\nclashing streets, and in these hours of reverie, the soul marvels that it\nwas ever tossed about upon these furious currents of ambition.\n\nHours there are when Fame whispers, \"Joy is not in me.\" Ambition, worn with\nits fierce fever, whispers, \"Joy is not in me.\" Success confesses, \"Joy is\nnot in me.\" In such hours happy the youth who has learned in solitude to go\napart and find that happiness that \"the world can neither give nor take\naway.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE DISGUISES OF INFERIORITY.\n\n\nAnd when the soul has gone toward full-orbed splendor and stands forth\nclothed with full manhood the sage condenses the wisdom of a thousand\nvolumes into four maxims, \"Act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry\nnever.\"\n\nThe principle of acting frankly demands truth in the hidden parts, rebukes\nhim whose method is \"the iron hand in a velvet glove,\" smites the\nMachiavelian policy of smiling gently while arranging instruments of death.\nIn their ignorance shrewd men advise the youth to cloak his keen desire\nbeneath an outer indifference. But small men use lying artifices and\ndisguises to protect themselves. Conscious of weakness, inferiority fears\nfrankness. Great men are as open as glass bee-hives and as transparent as\nthe sunbeams, for they are conscious of their enormous reserves. Nature\npermits no flower or fruit to conceal its real self. The violet frankly\ntells its story; the decaying fruit frankly reveals its nature. No flaming\ncandle pretends to light while emitting rays of blackness. Victories won by\nconcealment are lying victories. All these battles must be fought over\nagain. The law of frankness is the law of truth, that is at once the\nfoundation of character and crowns the structure with strength and beauty.\n\nVast issues also are involved in the injunction \"to talk gently.\" Noise is\nweakness. Bluster is inferiority rising into consciousness. The rattle of\nmachinery means waste power somewhere. Rushing forward at the rate of\nthousands of miles an hour, the planets are noiseless as sunbeams, because\nthey represent power that is harnessed and subdued. Silently the dewdrop\nfalls upon some crimson-tipped flower. Yet the electric energy necessary to\ncrystallize that drop would hurl a car from Cambridge to Boston. Those\nforces manifest in thunder are nature's weakest forces. Her monarch\nenergies work silently in the roots and harvests, or lift, without rattle\nof engine or noise of wheel, countless millions of tons of water from ocean\ninto the air. For gentleness is not weakness. Only giants can be gentle.\nFronting an emergency weakness is agitated, but strength is calm and cool.\nGentleness is controlled strength. The giant _is_ gentle, because his vast\nenergies are restrained, subdued, and wisely used. The test of all great\nwork is the ease with which it is done. Scott writes one of his priceless\nchapters before breakfast. Ruskin says Turner finished a whole drawing in a\nmorning, before going out to shoot, without strain or struggle. The highest\neloquence also is not a spasmodic effort, but the quiet manifestation of\nyears of preparation. But this easy effort has infinite reserve lying back\nof it. There is a profound philosophy in this injunction, \"Talk gently,\"\nand act quietly.\n\n\nSUCCESS AND TIMELINESS.\n\nBut the strongest man needs to \"await occasions.\" The essence of all good\nwork is timeliness. For the right thing done at the wrong time is as bad as\nthe wrong thing at any time. Preparing telescopes and instruments of\nphotography, the astronomer sails to Africa, and there waits weeks for the\nmoment of full eclipse. At last the \"occasion\" comes. Nature will not be\nhurried. For her finest effects in fruits and flowers, she takes her own\ntime. In February the husbandman finds the sun refusing warmth, the clouds\nrefusing rain, the soil refusing seed. Therefore he awaits occasions. And\nlo! in May, the sunbeams wax warm, the soil wakens to full ardor, the\nclouds give forth their rain, and the husbandman enters into his\nopportunity.\n\nIn his reminiscences General Sherman explains his victorious march to the\nsea by saying that during his college days he spent a summer in Georgia.\nWhile his companions were occupied with playing cards and foolish talk he\ntramped over the hills, and made a careful map of the country. Years passed\nby. The war came on. Ordered to march upon Atlanta his expert knowledge won\nhis victory. Readiness for the occasion brought him to fame and honor.\nTo-morrow some jurist, merchant, statesman will die. The youth who is ready\nfor the place, will find the mantle falling upon his shoulders. Success is\nreadiness for occasions.\n\nBut whether waiting or working, man must \"hurry never.\" It is fear that\nmakes haste. Confidence is composed. Greatness is tranquillity. Dead\nobjects, like bullets, can be hurled swiftly. Living seeds cannot be\nforced. Slowly the acorn goes toward the oak. Slowly the babe journeys\ntoward the sage. Slowly and with infinite delays Haydn and Handel moved\ntoward their perfect music. Filling barrels with manuscripts and refusing\nto publish, Robert Louis Stevenson attained his exquisite style. Millet\ndescribed his career as ten years of daubing, ten years of drudgery, ten\nyears of despair and ten years of liberty and success. Man begins at\nnothing. Life is a school. Duties are drill-masters. Man's faculties are\ncomplex. Slowly the soul moves toward harmony, symmetry and beauty. He who\n\"hurries never\" has found the secret of growth, serenity and repose.\n\n\n\n\nSTRENGTH BLOSSOMING INTO BEAUTY.\n\n\nIf the greatest scientist is he who discerns some law of gravity that\nexplains the forward movement of all stars and planets, if the great\nhistorian is he who unfolds one social principle that governs all nations,\nso he is the greatest moral teacher who discovers some unit idea that\nsweeps all details into one glorious unity, as did Channing when he said,\n\"Let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.\"\nAll undefined and indefinable the spiritual glow and beauty that lie upon\nthe soul, like the soft bloom upon a ripe peach. What song is to the birds,\nwhat culture is to the intellect, and eloquence is to the orator, that the\nspiritual is to character. It is the soul made ample in faculty, fertile in\nresource, struck through and through with ripeness, and inflected toward\nChrist's own sympathy, self-sacrifice and love.\n\nThe spiritual element also explains the note of distinction in the highest\nlife and art. Many of our modern painters have failed, because they have\nbeen fleshly. Mud shows in the bottom of their eyes. Their pictures are\nindeed so shallow that \"a fly could wade through them without wetting its\nfeet.\" Fra Angelico, preparing to paint, entered his closet, expelled every\nevil thought, subdued every unholy ambition, flung away anger and jealousy\nas one would fling away a club or dagger. Then, with face that shone with\nthe divine light, upon his knees he painted his angels and seraphs, and the\nspiritual breaking through the common lent a radiant glow and an immortal\nbeauty to his priceless pictures.\n\nCertain pictures of Rubens are of \"the earth, earthy.\" In painting them,\nthe artist seems to have had no thought save of the flesh tints. The mood\nand soul of Rubens' Venus was nothing--her body everything. Here, beauty is\nonly color deep. Paint is everything--spirit nothing. But with the great\nartists in their greatest moods, paint is at best only an incident, and for\nthe soul aspirations and ideals as seen in vision hours are everything.\nHope, faith, love, joy, peace, sympathy, self-sacrifice,\nhumility--spiritual qualities these, that shine through the face, and\ntransform the life.\n\n\n\n\nLIFE'S CROWNING PERFECTION.\n\n\nCulture can do much, but art, music, books, and travel have their\nlimitations. When that brave boy returned from battling with the Black\nPrince, the tenants gathered before his father's castle and presented him\ntokens of love and honor. The farmer brought a golden sheaf, the husbandman\nbrought a ripe cluster and a bough of fruit, the goldsmith offered a ring,\nthe printer gave a rare book, while children strewed flowers in the way.\nBut last of all his father gave the youth the title deeds of his\ninheritance and lent him name and power. Not otherwise the soul enters the\nscene like a conqueror to whom gifts are offered. The library offers a\nbook. The lecture hall offers learning. The gallery offers a picture.\nTravel offers experience. But the fine arts, wisdom and culture cannot do\neverything. Culture can beautify the life, lend refinement to reason, lend\nwings to imagination. But God, the soul's father, alone can crown life with\nrichness and influence. The secret of strength and beauty is hidden with\nJesus Christ. What the great thinkers and seers can do for the intellect,\nwhat the poets can do for imagination, what the heroes can do for\naspiration and purpose, that and a thousand fold more the Christ can do for\nthe soul's life. He alone has mastered the science of right living. He only\ncan teach the art of character building. He can lend reason true wisdom. He\ncan lend taste true refinement. He can make conscience clear, and will\ninvincible. Freeing the soul from sin, He can crown it with supreme beauty.\nHe can make life a song, and the soul career a symphony.\n\n\n\n\nNewell Dwight Hillis\n\n\nGREAT BOOKS AS LIFE-TEACHERS\n\nStudies of Character, Real and Ideal.\n\n12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50.\n\n\n_Fifteenth Edition_\n\nA MAN'S VALUE TO SOCIETY\n\nStudies in Self-culture and Character.\n\n16mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25.\n\n\n_Ninth Edition_\n\nTHE INVESTMENT OF INFLUENCE\n\nA Study of Social Sympathy and Service.\n\nUniform with \"A Man's Value to Society,\" $1.25.\n\n\nRIGHT LIVING AS A FINE ART\n\nA Study of the Ideal Character, based upon Channing's \"Symphony of\nLife.\"\n\n12mo, decorated boards, 35 cents, net.\n\n\n_Little Book Series_\n\nFORETOKENS OF IMMORTALITY\n\nStudies for the Hour when the Immortal Hope Burns Low in the Heart.\n\nLong 16mo, decorated cloth, 50 cents.\n\n\n_Quiet Hour Series_\n\nHOW THE INNER LIGHT FAILED\n\nA Study of the Atrophy of the Spiritual Sense, to which is added \"How\nthe Inner Light Grows.\"\n\n18mo, cloth, 25 cents.\n\n\nFleming H. Revell Company","title":"Right Living as a Fine Art: A Study of Channing's Symphony as an Outline of the Ideal Life and Character","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":5756}