{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_51469/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_51469","id":"gutenberg_51469","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51469","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Conduct of life","Self-control"],"text":"SELF-CONTROL\n                              ITS KINGSHIP\n                              AND MAJESTY\n\n\n                                   by\n\n                                WILLIAM\n                                 GEORGE\n                                 JORDAN\n\n\n                               FLEMING H.\n                                 REVELL\n                                COMPANY\n\n                  CHICAGO                    LONDON\n                  TORONTO       NEW YORK   EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\n          Republished from the _Saturday Evening Post_ through\n             the courtesy of the Curtis Publishing Company,\n\n                      Copyright, 1898 and 1899, by\n                       CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY\n\n\n                      Copyright, 1899 and 1905, by\n                       FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY\n\n\n                       New York: 158 Fifth Avenue\n                     Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.\n                     London: 21 Paternoster Square\n                      Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n                                                          PAGE\n\n        _I._       _The Kingship of Self-Control_            7\n\n        _II._      _The Crimes of the Tongue_               18\n\n        _III._     _The Red Tape of Duty_                   28\n\n        _IV._      _The Supreme Charity of the World_       38\n\n        _V._       _Worry, the Great American Disease_      49\n\n        _VI._      _The Greatness of Simplicity_            60\n\n        _VII._     _Living life Over Again_                 71\n\n        _VIII._    _Syndicating our Sorrows_                82\n\n        _IX._      _The Revelations of Reserve Power_       93\n\n        _X._       _The Majesty of Calmness_               104\n\n        _XI._      _Hurry, the Scourge of America_         113\n\n        _XII._     _The Power of Personal Influence_       124\n\n        _XIII._    _The Dignity of Self-Reliance_          135\n\n        _XIV._     _Failure as a Success _                 147\n\n        _XV._      _Doing Our Best at All Times_           161\n\n        _XVI._     _The Royal Road to Happiness_           178\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n                             _Self-Control_\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                     The Kingship _of_ Self-Control\n\n\nMan has two creators,\u2014his God and himself. His first creator\nfurnishes him the raw material of his life and the laws in conformity\nwith which he can make that life what he will. His second\ncreator,\u2014himself,\u2014has marvellous powers he rarely realizes. It is what\na man makes of himself that counts.\n\nWhen a man fails in life he usually says, \u201cI am as God made me.\u201d When he\nsucceeds he proudly proclaims himself a \u201cself-made man.\u201d Man is placed\ninto this world not as a finality,\u2014but as a possibility. Man\u2019s greatest\nenemy is,\u2014himself. Man in his weakness is the creature of\ncircumstances; man in his strength is the creator of circumstances.\nWhether he be victim or victor depends largely on himself.\n\nMan is never truly great merely for what he _is_, but ever for what he\nmay become. Until man be truly filled with the knowledge of the majesty\nof his possibility, until there come to him the glow of realization of\nhis privilege to live the life committed to him, as an individual life\nfor which he is individually responsible, he is merely groping through\nthe years.\n\nTo see his life as he might make it, man must go up alone into the\nmountains of spiritual thought as Christ went alone into the Garden,\nleaving the world to get strength to live in the world. He must there\nbreathe the fresh, pure air of recognition of his divine importance as\nan individual, and with mind purified and tingling with new strength he\nmust approach the problems of his daily living.\n\nMan needs less of the \u201cI am a feeble worm of the dust\u201d idea in his\ntheology, and more of the conception \u201cI am a great human soul with\nmarvellous possibilities\u201d as a vital element in his daily working\nreligion. With this broadening, stimulating view of life, he sees how he\nmay attain his kingship through self-control. And the self-control that\nis seen in the most spectacular instances in history, and in the\nsimplest phases of daily life, is precisely the same in kind and in\nquality, differing only in degree. This control man can attain, if he\nonly will; it is but a matter of paying the price.\n\nThe power of self-control is one of the great qualities that\ndifferentiates man from the lower animals. He is the only animal capable\nof a moral struggle or a moral conquest.\n\nEvery step in the progress of the world has been a new \u201ccontrol.\u201d It has\nbeen escaping from the tyranny of a fact, to the understanding and\nmastery of that fact. For ages man looked in terror at the lightning\nflash; to-day he has begun to understand it as electricity, a force he\nhas mastered and made his slave. The million phases of electrical\ninvention are but manifestations of our control over a great force. But\nthe greatest of all \u201ccontrol\u201d is self-control.\n\nAt each moment of man\u2019s life he is either a King or a slave. As he\nsurrenders to a wrong appetite, to any human weakness; as he falls\nprostrate in hopeless subjection to any condition, to any environment,\nto any failure, he is a slave. As he day by day crushes out human\nweakness, masters opposing elements within him, and day by day\nre-creates a new self from the sin and folly of his past,\u2014then he is a\nKing. He is a King ruling with wisdom over himself. Alexander conquered\nthe whole world except,\u2014Alexander. Emperor of the earth, he was the\nservile slave of his own passions.\n\nWe look with envy upon the possessions of others and wish they were our\nown. Sometimes we feel this in a vague, dreamy way with no thought of\nreal attainment, as when we wish we had Queen Victoria\u2019s crown, or\nEmperor William\u2019s self-satisfaction. Sometimes, however, we grow bitter,\nstorm at the wrong distribution of the good things of life, and then\nrelapse into a hopeless fatalistic acceptance of our condition.\n\nWe envy the success of others, when we should emulate the process by\nwhich that success came. We see the splendid physical development of\nSandow, yet we forget that as a babe and child he was so weak there was\nlittle hope that his life might be spared.\n\nWe may sometimes envy the power and spiritual strength of a Paul,\nwithout realizing the weak Saul of Tarsus from which he was transformed\nthrough his self-control.\n\nWe shut our eyes to the thousands of instances of the world\u2019s\nsuccesses,\u2014mental, moral, physical, financial or spiritual,\u2014wherein\nthe great final success came from a beginning far weaker and poorer than\nour own.\n\nAny man may attain self-control if he only will. He must not expect to\ngain it save by long continued payment of price, in small progressive\nexpenditures of energy. Nature is a thorough believer in the installment\nplan in her relations with the individual. No man is so poor that he\ncannot _begin_ to pay for what he wants, and every small, individual\npayment that he makes, Nature stores and accumulates for him as a\nreserve fund in his hour of need.\n\nThe patience man expends in bearing the little trials of his daily life\nNature stores for him as a wondrous reserve in a crisis of life. With\nNature, the mental, the physical or the moral energy he expends daily in\nright-doing is all stored for him and transmuted into strength. Nature\nnever accepts a cash payment in full for anything,\u2014this would be an\ninjustice to the poor and to the weak.\n\nIt is only the progressive installment plan Nature recognizes. No man\ncan make a habit in a moment or break it in a moment. It is a matter of\ndevelopment, of growth. But at any moment man may _begin_ to make or\nbegin to break any habit. This view of the growth of character should be\na mighty stimulus to the man who sincerely desires and determines to\nlive nearer to the limit of his possibilities.\n\nSelf-control may be developed in precisely the same manner as we tone up\na weak muscle,\u2014by little exercises day by day. Let us each day do, as\nmere exercises of discipline in moral gymnastics, a few acts that are\ndisagreeable to us, the doing of which will help us in instant action in\nour hour of need. The exercises may be very simple\u2014dropping for a time\nan intensely interesting book at the most thrilling page of the story;\njumping out of bed at the first moment of waking; walking home when one\nis perfectly able to do so, but when the temptation is to take a car;\ntalking to some disagreeable person and trying to make the conversation\npleasant. These daily exercises in moral discipline will have a wondrous\ntonic effect on man\u2019s whole moral nature.\n\nThe individual can attain self-control in great things only through\nself-control in little things. He must study himself to discover what is\nthe weak point in his armor, what is the element within him that ever\nkeeps him from his fullest success. This is the characteristic upon\nwhich he should begin his exercise in self-control. Is it selfishness,\nvanity, cowardice, morbidness, temper, laziness, worry, mind-wandering,\nlack of purpose?\u2014whatever form human weakness assumes in the masquerade\nof life he must discover. He must then live each day as if his whole\nexistence were telescoped down to the single day before him. With no\nuseless regret for the past, no useless worry for the future, he should\nlive that day as if it were his only day,\u2014the only day left for him to\nassert all that is best in him, the only day left for him to conquer all\nthat is worst in him. He should master the weak element within him at\neach slight manifestation from moment to moment. Each moment then must\nbe a victory for it or for him. Will he be King, or will he be\nslave?\u2014the answer rests with him.\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                       The Crimes _of the_ Tongue\n\n\nThe second most deadly instrument of destruction is the dynamite\ngun,\u2014the first is the human tongue. The gun merely kills bodies; the\ntongue kills reputations and, ofttimes, ruins characters. Each gun works\nalone; each loaded tongue has a hundred accomplices. The havoc of the\ngun is visible at once. The full evil of the tongue lives through all\nthe years; even the eye of Omniscience might grow tired in tracing it to\nits finality.\n\nThe crimes of the tongue are words of unkindness, of anger, of malice,\nof envy, of bitterness, of harsh criticism, gossip, lying and scandal.\nTheft and murder are awful crimes, yet in any single year the aggregate\nsorrow, pain and suffering they cause in a nation is microscopic when\ncompared with the sorrows that come from the crimes of the tongue. Place\nin one of the scale-pans of Justice the evils resulting from the acts of\ncriminals, and in the other the grief and tears and suffering resulting\nfrom the crimes of respectability, and you will start back in amazement\nas you see the scale you thought the heavier shoot high in air.\n\nAt the hands of thief or murderer few of us suffer, even indirectly. But\nfrom the careless tongue of friend, the cruel tongue of enemy, who is\nfree? No human being can live a life so true, so fair, so pure as to be\nbeyond the reach of malice, or immune from the poisonous emanations of\nenvy. The insidious attacks against one\u2019s reputation, the loathsome\ninnuendoes, slurs, half-lies, by which jealous mediocrity seeks to ruin\nits superiors, are like those insect parasites that kill the heart and\nlife of a mighty oak. So cowardly is the method, so stealthy the\nshooting of the poisoned thorns, so insignificant the separate acts in\ntheir seeming, that one is not on guard against them. It is easier to\ndodge an elephant than a microbe.\n\nIn London they have recently formed an Anti-Scandal League. The members\npromise to combat in every way in their power \u201cthe prevalent custom of\ntalking scandal, the terrible and unending consequences of which are not\ngenerally estimated.\u201d\n\nScandal is one of the crimes of the tongue, but it is only one. Every\nindividual who breathes a word of scandal is an active stockholder in a\nsociety for the spread of moral contagion. He is instantly punished by\nNature by having his mental eyes dimmed to sweetness and purity, and his\nmind deadened to the sunlight and glow of charity. There is developed a\nwondrous, ingenious perversion of mental vision, by which every act of\nothers is explained and interpreted from the lowest possible motives.\nThey become like certain carrion flies, that pass lightly over acres of\nrose-gardens, to feast on a piece of putrid meat. They have developed a\nkeen scent for the foul matter upon which they feed.\n\nThere are pillows wet by sobs; there are noble hearts broken in the\nsilence whence comes no cry of protest; there are gentle, sensitive\nnatures seared and warped; there are old-time friends separated and\nwalking their lonely ways with hope dead and memory but a pang; there\nare cruel misunderstandings that make all life look dark,\u2014these are but\na few of the sorrows that come from the crimes of the tongue.\n\nA man may lead a life of honesty and purity, battling bravely for all he\nholds dearest, so firm and sure of the rightness of his life that he\nnever thinks for an instant of the diabolic ingenuity that makes evil\nand evil report where naught but good really exists. A few words lightly\nspoken by the tongue of slander, a significant expression of the eyes, a\ncruel shrug of the shoulders, with a pursing of the lips,\u2014and then,\nfriendly hands grow cold, the accustomed smile is displaced by a sneer,\nand one stands alone and aloof with a dazed feeling of wonder at the\nvague, intangible something that has caused it all.\n\nFor this craze for scandal, sensational newspapers of to-day are largely\nresponsible. Each newspaper is not one tongue, but a thousand or a\nmillion tongues, telling the same foul story to as many pairs of\nlistening ears. The vultures of sensationalism scent the carcass of\nimmorality afar off. From the uttermost parts of the earth they collect\nthe sin, disgrace and folly of humanity, and show them bare to the\nworld. They do not even require _facts_, for morbid memories and fertile\nimaginations make even the worst of the world\u2019s happenings seem tame\nwhen compared with their monstrosities of invention. These stories, and\nthe discussions they excite, develop in readers a cheap, shrewd power of\ndistortion of the acts of all around them.\n\nIf a rich man give a donation to some charity, they say: \u201cHe is doing it\nto get his name talked about,\u2014to help his business.\u201d If he give it\nanonymously, they say, \u201cOh, it\u2019s some millionaire who is clever enough\nto know that refraining from giving his name will pique curiosity; he\nwill see that the public is informed later.\u201d If he do not give to\ncharity, they say: \u201cOh, he\u2019s stingy with his money, of course, like the\nrest of the millionaires.\u201d To the vile tongue of gossip and slander,\nVirtue is ever deemed but a mask, noble ideals but a pretense,\ngenerosity a bribe.\n\nThe man who stands above his fellows must expect to be the target for\nthe envious arrows of their inferiority. It is part of the price he must\npay for his advance. One of the most detestable characters in all\nliterature is Iago.\n\nEnvious of the promotion of Cassio above his head, he hated Othello. His\nwas one of those low natures that become absorbed in sustaining his\ndignity, talking of \u201cpreserving his honor,\u201d\u2014forgetting it has so long\nbeen dead that even embalming could not preserve it. Day by day Iago\ndropped his poison; day by day did subtle resentment and studied\nvengeance distill the poison of distrust and suspicion into more\npowerfully insidious doses. With a mind wonderfully concentrated by the\nblackness of his purpose, he wove a network of circumstantial evidence\naround the pure-hearted Desdemona, and then murdered her vicariously, by\nthe hand of Othello. Her very simplicity, confidence, innocence and\nartlessness made Desdemona the easier mark for the diabolic tactics of\nIago.\n\nIago still lives in the hearts of thousands, who have all his despicable\nmeanness without his cleverness. The constant dropping of their lying\nwords of malice and envy have in too many instances at last worn away\nthe noble reputations of their superiors.\n\nTo sustain ourselves in our own hasty judgments we sometimes say, as we\nlisten, and accept without investigation, the words of these modern\nIagos: \u201cWell, where there is so much smoke, there must be _some_ fire.\u201d\nYes, but the fire may be only the fire of malice, the incendiary firing\nof the reputation of another by the lighted torch of envy, thrown into\nthe innocent facts of a life of superiority.\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n                         The Red Tape _of_ Duty\n\n\nDuty is the most overlauded word in the whole vocabulary of life. Duty\nis the cold, bare anatomy of righteousness. Duty looks at life as a debt\nto be paid; love sees life as a debt to be collected. Duty is ever\npaying assessments; love is constantly counting its premiums.\n\nDuty is forced, like a pump; love is spontaneous, like a fountain. Duty\nis prescribed and formal; it is part of the red tape of life. It means\nrunning on moral rails. It is good enough as a beginning; it is poor as\na finality.\n\nThe boy who \u201cstood on the burning deck,\u201d and who committed suicide on a\ntechnical point of obedience, has been held up to the school children of\nthis century as a model of faithfulness to duty. The boy was the victim\nof a blind adherence to the red tape of duty. He was placing the whole\nresponsibility for his acts on someone outside himself. He was\nhelplessly waiting for instruction in the hour of emergency when he\nshould have acted for himself. His act was an empty sacrifice. It was a\nuseless throwing away of a human life. It did no good to the father, to\nthe boy, to the ship, or to the nation.\n\nThe captain who goes down with his sinking vessel, when he has done\neverything in his power to save others and when he can save his own life\nwithout dishonor, is the victim of a false sense of duty. He is cruelly\nforgetful of the loved ones on shore that he is sacrificing. His death\nmeans a spectacular exit from life, the cowardly fear of an\ninvestigating committee, or a brave man\u2019s loyal, yet misguided, sense of\nduty. A human life, with its wondrous possibilities, is too sacred an\nindividual trust to be thus lightly thrown into eternity.\n\nThey tell us of the \u201csublime nobleness\u201d of the Roman soldier at Pompeii,\nwhose skeleton was found centuries afterward, imbedded in the once\nmolten lava which swept down upon the doomed city. He was still standing\nat one of the gates, at his post of duty, still grasping a sword in his\ncrumbling fingers. His was a morbid faithfulness to a discipline from\nwhich a great convulsion of Nature had released him. An automaton would\nhave stood there just as long, just as boldly, just as uselessly.\n\nThe man who gives one hour of his life to loving, consecrated service to\nhumanity is doing higher, better, truer work in the world than an army\nof Roman sentinels paying useless tribute to the red tape of duty. There\nis in this interpretation of duty no sympathy with the man who deserts\nhis post when needed; it is but a protest against losing the essence,\nthe realness of true duty in worshipping the mere form.\n\nAnalyze, if you will, any of the great historic instances of loyalty to\nduty, and whenever they ring true you will find the presence of the real\nelement that made the act almost divine. It was duty,\u2014plus love. It was\nno mere sense of duty that made Grace Darling risk her life in the awful\nstorm of sixty years ago, when she set out in the darkness of night, on\na raging sea, to rescue the survivors of the wreck of \u201cThe Forfarshire.\u201d\nIt was the sense of duty, warmed and vivified by a love of humanity, it\nwas heroic courage of a heart filled with divine pity and sympathy.\n\nDuty is a hard, mechanical process for making men do things that love\nwould make easy. It is a poor understudy to love. It is not a high\nenough motive with which to inspire humanity. Duty is the body to which\nlove is the soul. Love, in the divine alchemy of life, transmutes all\nduties into privileges, all responsibilities into joys.\n\nThe workman who drops his tools at the stroke of twelve, as suddenly as\nif he had been struck by lightning, may be doing his duty,\u2014but he is\ndoing nothing more. No man has made a great success of his life or a fit\npreparation for immortality by doing merely his duty. He must do\nthat,\u2014and more. If he puts love into his work, the \u201cmore\u201d will be easy.\n\nThe nurse may watch faithfully at the bedside of a sick child as a duty.\nBut to the mother\u2019s heart the care of the little one, in the battle\nagainst death, is never a duty; the golden mantle of love thrown over\nevery act makes the word \u201cduty\u201d have a jarring sound as if it were the\nvoice of desecration.\n\nWhen a child turns out badly in later years, the parent may say, \u201cWell,\nI always did my duty by him.\u201d Then it is no wonder the boy turned out\nwrong. \u201cDoing his duty by his son\u201d too often implies merely food,\nlodging, clothes and education supplied by the father. Why, a public\ninstitution would give that! What the boy needed most was deep draughts\nof love; he needed to live in an atmosphere of sweet sympathy, counsel\nand trust. The parent should ever be an unfailing refuge, a constant\nresource and inspiration, not a mere larder, or hotel, or wardrobe, or\nschool that furnishes these necessities free. The empty boast of mere\nparental duty is one of the dangers of modern society.\n\nChristianity stands forth as the one religion based on love, not duty.\nChristianity sweeps all duties into one word,\u2014love. Love is the one\ngreat duty enjoined by the Christian religion. What duty creeps to\nlaboriously, love reaches in a moment on the wings of a dove. Duty is\nnot lost, condemned or destroyed in Christianity; it is dignified,\npurified and exalted and all its rough ways are made smooth by love.\n\nThe supreme instance of generosity in the world\u2019s history is not the\ngiving of millions by someone of great name; it is the giving of a mite\nby a widow whose name does not appear. Behind the widow\u2019s mite was no\nsense of duty; it was the full, free and perfect gift of a heart filled\nwith love. In the Bible \u201cduty\u201d is mentioned but five times; \u201clove,\u201d\nhundreds.\n\nIn the conquest of any weakness in our mental or moral make-up; in the\nattainment of any strength; in our highest and truest relation to\nourselves and to the world, let us ever make \u201clove\u201d our watchword, not\nmere \u201cduty.\u201d\n\nIf we desire to live a life of truth and honesty, to make our word as\nstrong as our bond, let us not expect to keep ourselves along the narrow\nline of truth under the constant lash of the whip of duty. Let us begin\nto love the truth, to fill our mind and life with the strong white light\nof sincerity and sterling honesty. Let us love the truth so strongly\nthat there will develop within us, without our conscious effort, an\never-present horror of a lie.\n\nIf we desire to do good in the world, let us begin to love humanity, to\nrealize more truly the great dominant note that sounds in every mortal,\ndespite all the discords of life, the great natural bond of unity that\nmakes all men brothers. Then jealousy, malice, envy, unkind words and\ncruel misjudging will be eclipsed and lost in the sunshine of love.\n\nThe greatest triumph of the nineteenth century is not its marvellous\nprogress in invention; its strides in education; its conquests of the\ndark regions of the world; the spread of a higher mental tone throughout\nthe earth; the wondrous increase in material comfort and wealth,\u2014the\ngreatest triumph of the century is not any nor all of these; it is the\nsweet atmosphere of Peace that is covering the nations, it is the\ngrowing closer and closer of the peoples of the earth. Peace is but the\nbreath, the perfume, the life of love. Love is the wondrous angel of\nlife that rolls away all the stones of sorrow and suffering from the\npathway of duty.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n                   The Supreme Charity _of the_ World\n\n\nTrue charity is not typified by an almsbox. The benevolence of a check\nbook does not meet all the wants of humanity. Giving food, clothing and\nmoney to the poor is only the beginning, the kindergarten class, of real\ncharity. Charity has higher, purer forms of manifestation. Charity is\nbut an instinctive reaching out for justice in life. Charity seeks to\nsmooth down the rough places of living, to bridge the chasms of human\nsin and folly, to feed the heart-hungry, to give strength to the\nstruggling, to be tender with human weakness, and greatest of all, it\nmeans\u2014obeying the Divine injunction: \u201cJudge not.\u201d\n\nThe true symbol of the greatest charity is the scales of judgment held\non high, suspended from the hand of Justice. So perfectly are they\npoised that they are never at rest; they dare not stop for a moment to\npronounce final judgment; each second adds its grain of evidence to\neither side of the balance. With this ideal before him, man, conscious\nof his own weakness and frailty, dare not arrogate to himself the Divine\nprerogative of pronouncing severe or final judgment on any individual.\nHe will seek to train mind and heart to greater keenness, purity, and\ndelicacy in watching the trembling movement of the balance in which he\nweighs the characters and reputations of those around him.\n\nIt is a great pity in life that all the greatest words are most\ndegraded. We hear people say: \u201cI do so love to study character, in the\ncars and on the street.\u201d They are not studying character; they are\nmerely observing characteristics. The study of character is not a puzzle\nthat a man may work out over night. Character is most subtle, elusive,\nchanging and contradictory\u2014a strange mingling of habits, hopes,\ntendencies, ideals, motives, weaknesses, traditions and\nmemories\u2014manifest in a thousand different phases.\n\nThere is but one quality necessary for the perfect understanding of\ncharacter, one quality that, if man have it, he may _dare to\njudge_\u2014that is, omniscience. Most people study character as a\nproofreader pores over a great poem: his ears are dulled to the majesty\nand music of the lines, his eyes are darkened to the magic imagination\nof the genius of the author; that proofreader is busy watching for an\ninverted comma, a mis-spacing, or a wrong-font letter. He has an eye\ntrained for the imperfections, the weaknesses. Men who pride themselves\non being shrewd in discovering the weak points, the vanity, dishonesty,\nimmorality, intrigue and pettiness of others, think they understand\ncharacter. They know only part of character\u2014they know only the depths\nto which some men may sink; they know not the heights to which some men\nmay rise. An optimist is a man who has succeeded in associating with\nhumanity for some time without becoming a cynic.\n\nWe never see the target a man aims at in life; we see only the target he\nhits. We judge from results, and we imagine an infinity of motives that\nwe say must have been in his mind. No man since the creation has been\nable to live a life so pure and noble as to exempt him from the\nmisjudgment of those around him. It is impossible to get aught but a\ndistorted image from a convex or a concave mirror.\n\nIf misfortune comes to someone, people are prone to say, \u201cIt is a\njudgment upon him.\u201d How do they know? Have they been eavesdropping at\nthe door of Paradise? When sorrow and failure come to us, we regard them\nas misdirected packages that should be delivered elsewhere. We do too\nmuch watching of our neighbor\u2019s garden, too little weeding in our own.\n\nBottles have been picked up at sea thousands of miles from the point\nwhere they have been cast into the waters. They have been the sport of\nwind and weather; carried along by ocean currents, they have reached a\ndestination undreamed of. Our flippant, careless words of judgment of\nthe character of someone, words lightly and perhaps innocently spoken,\nmay be carried by unknown currents and bring sorrow, misery and shame to\nthe innocent. A cruel smile, a shrug of the shoulders or a cleverly\neloquent silence may ruin in a moment the reputation a man or woman has\nbeen building for years. It is as a single motion of the hand may\ndestroy the delicate geometry of a spider\u2019s web, spun from its own body\nand life, though all the united efforts of the universe could not put it\nback as it was.\n\nWe do not need to judge nearly so much as we think we do. This is the\nage of snap judgments. The habit is greatly intensified by the\nsensational press. Twenty-four hours after a great murder there is\ndifficulty in getting enough men who have not already formulated a\njudgment, to try the case. These men, in most instances, have read and\naccepted the garbled, highly colored newspaper account; they have to\ntheir own satisfaction discovered the murderer, practically tried him\nand\u2014sentenced him. We hear readers state their decisions with all the\nforce and absoluteness of one who has had the whole Book of Life made\nluminant and spread out before him. If there be one place in life where\nthe attitude of the agnostic is beautiful, it is in this matter of\njudging others. It is the courage to say: \u201cI don\u2019t know. I am waiting\nfurther evidence. I must hear both sides of the question. Till then I\nsuspend all judgment.\u201d It is this suspended judgment that is the supreme\nform of charity.\n\nIt is strange that in life we recognize the right of every criminal to\nhave a fair, open trial, yet we condemn unheard the dear friends around\nus on mere circumstantial evidence. We rely on the mere evidence of our\nsenses, trust it implicitly, and permit it to sweep away like a mighty\ntide the faith that has been ours for years. We see all life grow dark,\nhope sink before our eyes, and the golden treasures of memory turn to\ncruel thoughts of loss to sting us with maddening pain. Our hasty\njudgment, that a few moments of explanation would remove, has estranged\nthe friend of our life. If we be thus unjust to those we hold dear, what\nmust be the cruel injustice of our judgment of others?\n\nWe know nothing of the trials, sorrows and temptations of those around\nus, of pillows wet with sobs, of the life-tragedy that may be hidden\nbehind a smile, of the secret cares, struggles and worries that shorten\nlife and leave their mark in hair prematurely whitened, and in character\nchanged and almost re-created in a few days.\n\nWe say sometimes to one who seems calm and smiling: \u201cYou ought to be\nsupremely happy; you have everything that heart could wish.\u201d It may be\nthat at that very moment the person is passing alone through some agony\nof sorrow, where the teeth seem almost to bite into the lips in the\nattempt to keep feelings under control, when life seems a living death\nfrom which there is no relief. Then these light, flippant phrases jar\nupon us, and we seem as isolated and separated from the rest of humanity\nas if we were living on another planet.\n\nLet us not dare to add to the burden of another the pain of our\njudgment. If we would guard our lips from expressing, we must control\nour mind, we must stop this continual sitting in judgment on the acts of\nothers, even in private. Let us by daily exercises in self-control learn\nto turn off the process of judging\u2014as we would turn off the gas. Let us\neliminate pride, passion, personal feeling, prejudice and pettiness from\nour mind, and higher, purer emotions will rush in, as air seeks to fill\na vacuum. Charity is not a formula; it is an atmosphere. Let us\ncultivate charity in judging; let us seek to draw out latent good in\nothers rather than to discover hidden evil. It requires the eye of\ncharity to see the undeveloped butterfly in the caterpillar. Let us, if\nwe would rise to the full glory of our privilege, to the dignity of true\nliving, make for our watchword the injunction of the supreme charity of\nthe world\u2014\u201cJudge not.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n                  Worry, _the_ Great American Disease\n\n\nWorry is the most popular form of suicide. Worry impairs appetite,\ndisturbs sleep, makes respiration irregular, spoils digestion, irritates\ndisposition, warps character, weakens mind, stimulates disease, and saps\nbodily health. It is the real cause of death in thousands of instances\nwhere some other disease is named in the death certificate. Worry is\nmental poison; work is mental food.\n\nWhen a child\u2019s absorption in his studies keeps him from sleeping, or\nwhen he tosses and turns from side to side, muttering the multiplication\ntable or spelling words aloud, when sleep does come, then that child\nshows he is worrying. It is one of Nature\u2019s danger-signals raised to\nwarn parents, and in mercy the parent should take a firm stand. The\nburden of that child\u2019s daily tasks should be lightened, the tension of\nits concentration should be lessened, the hours of its slavery to\neducation should be cut short.\n\nWhen a man or woman works over in dreams the problems of the day, when\nthe sleeping hours are spent in turning the kaleidoscope of the day\u2019s\nactivities, then there is either overwork or worry, and most likely it\nis the worry that comes from overwork. The Creator never intended a\nhealthy mind to dream of the day\u2019s duties. Either dreamless sleep or\ndreams of the past should be the order of the night.\n\nWhen the spectre of one grief, one fear, one sorrow, obtrudes itself\nbetween the eye and the printed page; when the inner voice of this\nirritating memory, or fear, looms up so loud as to deaden outside\nvoices, there is danger to the individual. When all day, every hour,\nevery moment, there is the dull, insistent, numb pain of something that\nmakes itself felt through, above and below all our other thinking, we\nmust know that we are worrying. Then there is but one thing to do,\u2014we\nmust stop that worry; we must kill it.\n\nThe wise men of this wondrous century have made great discoveries in\ntheir interviews with Nature. They have discovered that everything that\nhas been created has its uses. They will teach you not to assassinate\nflies with paper coated with sweetened glue, for \u201cthe flies are Nature\u2019s\nscavengers.\u201d They will tell you just what are the special duties and\nresponsibilities of each of the microscopic microbes with telescopic\nnames. In their wildest moods of scientific enthusiasm they may venture\nto persuade you into believing that even the _mosquito_ serves some real\npurpose in Nature, but no man that has ever lived can truthfully say a\ngood word about worry.\n\nWorry is forethought gone to seed. Worry is discounting possible future\nsorrows so that the individual may have present misery. Worry is the\nfather of insomnia. Worry is the traitor in our camp that dampens our\npowder, weakens our aim. Under the guise of helping us to bear the\npresent, and to be ready for the future, worry multiplies enemies within\nour own mind to sap our strength.\n\nWorry is the dominance of the mind by a single vague, restless,\nunsatisfied, fearing and fearful idea. The mental energy and force that\nshould be concentrated on the successive duties of the day is constantly\nand surreptitiously abstracted and absorbed by this one fixed idea. The\nfull rich strength of the _unconscious_ working of the mind, that which\nproduces our best success, that represents our finest activity, is\ntapped, led away and wasted on worry.\n\nWorry must not be confused with anxiety, though both words agree in\nmeaning, originally, a \u201cchoking,\u201d or a \u201cstrangling,\u201d referring, of\ncourse, to the throttling effect upon individual activity. Anxiety faces\nlarge issues of life seriously, calmly, with dignity. Anxiety always\nsuggests hopeful possibility; it is active in being ready, and devising\nmeasures to meet the outcome.\n\nWorry is not one large individual sorrow; it is a colony of petty,\nvague, insignificant, restless imps of fear, that become important only\nfrom their combination, their constancy, their iteration.\n\nWhen Death comes, when the one we love has passed from us, and the\nsilence and the loneness and the emptiness of all things make us stare\ndry-eyed into the future, we give ourselves up, for a time, to the agony\nof isolation. This is not a petty worry we must kill ere it kills us.\nThis is the awful majesty of sorrow that mercifully benumbs us, though\nit may later become, in the mysterious working of omnipotence, a\nrebaptism and a regeneration. It is the worry _habit_, the constant\nmagnifying of petty sorrows to eclipse the sun of happiness, against\nwhich I here make protest.\n\nTo cure worry, the individual must be his own physician; he must give\nthe case heroic treatment. He must realize, with every fibre of his\nbeing, the utter, absolute uselessness of worry. He must not think this\nis commonplace,\u2014a bit of mere theory; it is a reality that he must\ntranslate for himself from mere words to a real, living fact. He must\nfully understand that if it were possible for him to spend a whole\nseries of eternities in worry, it would not change the fact one jot or\ntittle. It is a time for action, not worry, because worry paralyzes\nthought and action, too. If you set down a column of figures in\naddition, no amount of worry can change the sum total of those figures.\nThat result is wrapped up in the inevitability of mathematics. The\nresult can be made different only by changing the figures as they are\nset down, one by one, in that column.\n\nThe one time that a man cannot afford to worry is when he _does_ worry.\nThen he is facing, or imagines he is, a critical turn in affairs. This\nis the time when he needs one hundred per cent. of his mental energy to\nmake his plans quickly, to see what is his wisest decision, to keep a\nclear eye on the sky and on his course, and a firm hand on the helm\nuntil he has weathered the storm in safety.\n\nThere are two reasons why man should not worry, either one of which must\noperate in every instance. First, because he _cannot_ prevent the\nresults he fears. Second, because he _can_ prevent them. If he be\npowerless to avert the blow, he needs perfect mental concentration to\nmeet it bravely, to lighten its force, to get what salvage he can from\nthe wreck, to sustain his strength at this time when he must plan a new\nfuture. If he _can_ prevent the evil he fears, then he has no need to\nworry, for he would by so doing be dissipating energy in his very hour\nof need.\n\nIf man do, day by day, ever the best he can by the light he has, he has\nno need to fear, no need to regret, no need to worry. No agony of worry\nwould do aught to help him. Neither mortal nor angel can do more than\nhis best.\n\nIf we look back upon our past life we will see how, in the marvellous\nworking of events, the cities of our greatest happiness and of our\nfullest success have been built along the rivers of our deepest sorrows,\nour most abject failures. We then realize that our present happiness or\nsuccess would have been impossible had it not been for some terrible\naffliction or loss in the past,\u2014some wondrous potent force in the\nevolution of our character or our fortune. This should be a wondrous\nstimulus to us in bearing the trials and sorrows of life.\n\nTo cure one\u2019s self of worry is not an easy task; it is not to be removed\nin two or three applications of the quack medicine of any cheap\nphilosophy, but it requires only clear, simple commonsense applied to\nthe business of life. Man has no right to waste his own energies, to\nweaken his own powers and influence, for he has inalienable duties to\nhimself, to his family, to society, and to the world.\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n\n                     The Greatness _of_ Simplicity\n\n\nSimplicity is the elimination of the non-essential in all things. It\nreduces life to its minimum of real needs; raises it to its maximum of\npowers. Simplicity means the survival,\u2014not of the fittest, but of the\nbest. In morals it kills the weeds of vice and weakness so that the\nflowers of virtue and strength may have room to grow. Simplicity cuts\noff waste and intensifies concentration. It converts flickering torches\ninto searchlights.\n\nAll great truths are simple. The essence of Christianity could be given\nin a few words; a lifetime would be but continued seeking to make those\nwords real and living in thoughts and acts. The true Christian\u2019s\nindividual belief is always simpler than his church creed, and upon\nthese vital, foundation elements he builds his life. Higher criticism\nnever rises to the heights of his simplicity. He does not care whether\nthe whale swallowed Jonah or Jonah swallowed the whale. Hair-splitting\ninterpretation of words and phrases is an intellectual dissipation he\nhas no time for. He cares naught for the anatomy of religion; he has its\nsoul. His simple faith he lives,\u2014in thought and word and act, day by\nday. Like the lark he lives nearest the ground; like the lark he soars\nhighest toward heaven.\n\nThe minister whose sermons are made up merely of flowers of rhetoric,\nsprigs of quotation, sweet fancy, and perfumed commonplaces,\nis\u2014consciously or unconsciously\u2014posing in the pulpit. His literary\ncharlotte-russes, sweet froth on a spongy, pulpy base, never helped a\nhuman soul,\u2014they give neither strength nor inspiration. If the mind and\nheart of the preacher were really thrilled with the greatness and\nsimplicity of religion, he would, week by week, apply the ringing truths\nof his faith to the vital problems of daily living. The test of a\nstrong, simple sermon is results,\u2014not the Sunday praise of his\nauditors, but their bettered lives during the week. People who pray on\ntheir knees on Sunday and prey on their neighbors on Monday, need\nsimplicity in their faith.\n\nNo character can be simple unless it is based on truth\u2014unless it is\nlived in harmony with one\u2019s own conscience and ideals. Simplicity is the\npure white light of a life lived from within. It is destroyed by any\nattempt to live in harmony with public opinion. Public opinion is a\nconscience owned by a syndicate,\u2014where the individual is merely a\nstockholder. But the individual has a conscience of which he is sole\nproprietor. Adjusting his life to his own ideals is the royal road to\nsimplicity. Affectation is the confession of inferiority; it is an\nunnecessary proclamation that one is not living the life he pretends to\nlive.\n\nSimplicity is restful contempt for the non-essentials of life. It is\nrestless hunger for the non-essentials that is the secret of most of the\ndiscontent of the world. It is constant striving to outshine others that\nkills simplicity and happiness.\n\nNature, in all her revelations, seeks to teach man the greatness of\nsimplicity. Health is but the living of a physical life in harmony with\na few simple, clearly defined laws. Simple food, simple exercise, simple\nprecautions will work wonders. But man grows tired of the simple things,\nhe yields to subtle temptations in eating and drinking, listens to his\npalate instead of to Nature,\u2014and he suffers. He is then led into\nintimate acquaintance with dyspepsia, and he sits like a child at his\nown bounteous table, forced to limit his eating to simple food that he\nscorned.\n\nThere is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in\nescaping from the world and society and getting back to the simple\nduties and interests we have slighted and forgotten. Our world grows\nsmaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm\nfor us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is\ngreatest and best, in our pursuit of some phantom.\n\nSimplicity is the characteristic that is most difficult to simulate. The\nsignature that is most difficult to imitate is the one that is most\nsimple, most individual and most free from flourishes. The bank note\nthat is the most difficult to counterfeit successfully is the one that\ncontains the fewest lines and has the least intricate detail. So simple\nis it that any departure from the normal is instantly apparent. So is it\nalso in mind and in morals.\n\nSimplicity in act is the outward expression of simplicity in thought.\nMen who carry on their shoulders the fate of a nation are quiet, modest,\nunassuming. They are often made gentle, calm and simple by the\ndiscipline of their responsibility. They have no room in their minds for\nthe pettiness of personal vanity. It is ever the drum-major who grows\npompous when he thinks that the whole world is watching him as he\nmarches at the head of the procession. The great general, bowed with the\nhonors of many campaigns, is simple and unaffected as a child.\n\nThe college graduate assumes the airs of one to whom is committed the\nwisdom of the ages, while the great man of science, the Columbus of some\ngreat continent of investigation, is simple and humble.\n\nThe longest Latin derivatives seem necessary to express the thoughts of\nyoung writers. The world\u2019s great masters in literature can move mankind\nto tears, give light and life to thousands in darkness and doubt, or\nscourge a nation for its folly,\u2014by words so simple as to be\ncommonplace. But transfigured by the divinity of genius, there seems\nalmost a miracle in words.\n\nLife grows wondrously beautiful when we look at it as simple, when we\ncan brush aside the trivial cares and sorrows and worries and failures\nand say: \u201cThey don\u2019t count. They are not the real things of life; they\nare but interruptions. There is something within me, my individuality,\nthat makes all these gnats of trouble seem too trifling for me to permit\nthem to have any dominion over me.\u201d Simplicity is a mental soil where\nartifice, lying, deceit, treachery and selfish, low ambition,\u2014cannot\ngrow.\n\nThe man whose character is simple looks truth and honesty so straight in\nthe face that he has no consciousness of intrigue and corruption around\nhim. He is deaf to the hints and whispers of wrongs that a suspicious\nnature would suspect even before they existed. He scorns to meet\nintrigue with intrigue, to hold power by bribery, to pay weak tribute to\nan inferior that has a temporary inning. To true simplicity, to perceive\na truth is to begin to live it, to see a duty is to begin to do it.\nNothing great can ever enter into the consciousness of a man of\nsimplicity and remain but a theory. Simplicity in a character is like\nthe needle of a compass,\u2014it knows only one point, its North, its ideal.\n\nLet us seek to cultivate this simplicity in all things in our life. The\nfirst step toward simplicity is \u201csimplifying.\u201d The beginning of mental\nor moral progress or reform is always renunciation or sacrifice. It is\nrejection, surrender or destruction of separate phases of habit or life\nthat have kept us from higher things. Reform your diet and you simplify\nit; make your speech truer and higher and you simplify it; reform your\nmorals and you begin to cut off your immorals. The secret of all true\ngreatness is simplicity. Make simplicity the keynote of your life and\nyou will be great, no matter though your life be humble and your\ninfluence seem but little. Simple habits, simple manners, simple needs,\nsimple words, simple faiths,\u2014all are the pure manifestations of a mind\nand heart of simplicity.\n\nSimplicity is never to be associated with weakness and ignorance. It\nmeans reducing tons of ore to nuggets of gold. It means the light of\nfullest knowledge; it means that the individual has seen the folly and\nthe nothingness of those things that make up the sum of the life of\nothers. He has lived _down_ what others are blindly seeking to live _up_\nto. Simplicity is the sun of a self-centred and pure life,\u2014the secret\nof any specific greatness in the life of the individual.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII\n\n                         Living Life Over Again\n\n\nDuring a terrific storm a few years ago a ship was driven far out of\nher course, and, helpless and disabled, was carried into a strange bay.\nThe water supply gave out, and the crew suffered the agony of thirst,\nyet dared not drink of the salt water in which their vessel floated. In\nthe last extremity they lowered a bucket over the ship\u2019s side, and in\ndesperation quaffed the beverage they thought was sea-water. But to\ntheir joy and amazement the water was fresh, cool and life-giving. They\nwere in a fresh-water arm of the sea, and they did not know it. They had\nsimply to reach down and accept the new life and strength for which they\nprayed.\n\nMan, to-day, heart-weary with the sorrow, sin and failure of his past\nlife, feels that he could live a better life if he could only have\nanother chance, if he could only live life over again, if he could only\nstart afresh with his present knowledge and experience. He looks back\nwith regretful memory to the golden days of youth and sadly mourns his\nwasted chances. He then turns hopefully to the thought of a life to\ncome. But, helpless, he stands between the two ends of life, yet\nthirsting for the chance to live a new life, according to his bettered\ncondition for living it. In his blindness and unknowing, he does not\nrealize, like the storm-driven sailors, that the new life is all around\nhim; he has but to reach out and take it. Every day is a new life, every\nsunrise but a new birth for himself and the world, every morning the\nbeginning of a new existence for him, a new, great chance to put to new\nand higher uses the results of his past living.\n\nThe man who looks back upon his past life and says, \u201cI have nothing to\nregret,\u201d has lived in vain. The life without regret is the life without\ngain. Regret is but the light of fuller wisdom, from our past,\nillumining our future. It means that we are wiser to-day than we were\nyesterday. This new wisdom means new responsibility, new privileges; it\nis a new chance for a better life. But if regret remain merely \u201cregret,\u201d\nit is useless; it must become the revelation of new possibilities, and\nthe inspiration and source of strength to realize them. Even omnipotence\ncould not change the past, but each man, to a degree far beyond his\nknowing, holds his future in his own hands.\n\nIf man were sincere in his longing to live life over he would get more\nhelp from his failures. If he realize his wasted golden hours of\nopportunity, let him not waste other hours in useless regret, but seek\nto forget his folly and to keep before him only the lessons of it. His\npast extravagance of time should lead him to minify his loss by\nmarvellous economy of present moments. If his whole life be darkened by\nthe memory of a cruel wrong he has done another, if direct amends be\nimpossible to the injured one, passed from life, let him make the world\nthe legatee to receive his expressions of restitution. Let his regret\nand sorrow be manifest in words of kindness and sympathy, and acts of\nsweetness and love given to all with whom he comes in contact. If he\nregrets a war he has made against one individual, let him place the\nentire world on his pension list. If a man make a certain mistake once,\nthe only way he can properly express his recognition of it is not to\nmake a similar mistake later. Josh Billings once said: \u201cA man who is\nbitten twice by the same dog is better adapted to that business than any\nother.\u201d\n\nThere are many people in this world who want to live life over because\nthey take such pride in their past. They resemble the beggars in the\nstreet who tell you they \u201chave seen better days.\u201d It is not what man\n_was_ that shows character; it is what he progressively _is_. Trying to\nobtain a present record on a dead past is like some present-day\nmediocrity that tries to live on its ancestry. We look for the fruit in\nthe branches of the family tree, not in the roots. Showing how a family\ndegenerated from a noble ancestor of generations ago to its present\nrepresentative is not a boast;\u2014it is an unnecessary confession. Let man\nthink less of his own ancestors and more of those he is preparing for\nhis posterity; less of his past virtue, and more of his future.\n\nWhen man pleads for a chance to live life over, there is always an\nimplied plea of inexperience, of a lack of knowledge. This is unworthy,\neven of a coward. We know the laws of health, yet we ignore them or defy\nthem every day. We know what is the proper food for us, individually, to\neat, yet we gratify our appetites and trust to our cleverness to square\nthe account with Nature somehow. We know that success is a matter of\nsimple, clearly defined laws, of the development of mental essentials,\nof tireless energy and concentration, of constant payment of price,\u2014we\nknow all this, and yet we do not live up to our knowledge. We constantly\neclipse ourselves by ourselves, and then we blame Fate.\n\nParents often counsel their children against certain things, and do them\nthemselves, in the foolish hope that the children will believe their\nears in preference to their eyes. Years of careful teaching of a child\nto be honest and truthful may be nullified in an instant by a parent\u2019s\nlying to a conductor about a child\u2019s age to save a nickel. That may be a\nvery expensive street-car ride for the child,\u2014and for the parent. It\nmay be part of the spirit of the age to believe that it is no sin to\ncheat a corporation or a trust, but it is unwise to give the child so\nstriking an example at an age when it cannot detect the sophistry.\n\nMan\u2019s only plea for a chance to live life again is that he has gained in\nwisdom and experience. If he be really in earnest, then he can live life\nover, he can live life anew, he can live the new life that comes to him\nday by day. Let him leave to the past, to the aggregated thousands of\nyesterdays, all their mistakes, sin, sorrow, misery and folly, and start\nafresh. Let him close the books of his old life, let him strike a\nbalance, and start anew, crediting himself with all the wisdom he has\ngained from his past failure and weakness, and charging himself with the\nnew duties and responsibilities that come from the possession of his new\ncapital of wisdom. Let him criticise others less and himself more,\u2014and\nstart out bravely in this new life he is to live.\n\nWhat the world needs is more day-to-day living; starting in the morning\nwith fresh, clear ideals for that day, and seeking to live that day, and\neach successive hour and moment of that day, as if it were all time and\nall eternity. This has in it no element of disregard for the future, for\neach day is set in harmony with that future. It is like the sea-captain\nheading his vessel toward his port of destination, and day by day\nkeeping her steaming toward it. This view of living kills morbid regret\nof the past, and morbid worry about the future. Most people want large,\nguaranteed slices of life; they would not be satisfied with manna fresh\nevery day, as was given to the children of Israel; they want grain\nelevators filled with daily bread.\n\nLife is worth living if it be lived in a way that is worth living. Man\ndoes not own his life,\u2014to do with as he will. He has merely a\nlife-interest in it. He must finally surrender it,\u2014with an accounting.\nAt each New Year tide it is common to make new resolutions, but in the\ntrue life of the individual each day is the beginning of a New Year if\nhe will only make it so. A mere date on the calendar of eternity is no\nmore a divider of time than a particular grain of sand divides the\ndesert.\n\nLet us not make heroic resolutions so far beyond our strength that the\nresolution becomes a dead memory within a week; but let us promise\nourselves that each day will be the new beginning of a newer, better and\ntruer life for ourselves, for those around us, and for the world.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VIII\n\n                        Syndicating Our Sorrows\n\n\nThe most selfish man in the world is the one who is most\nunselfish,\u2014with his sorrows. He does not leave a single misery of his\nuntold to you, or unsuffered by you,\u2014he gives you all of them. The\nworld becomes to him a syndicate formed to take stock in his private\ncares, worries and trials. His mistake is in forming a syndicate; he\nshould organize a trust and control it all himself, then he could keep\neveryone from getting any of his misery.\n\nLife is a great, serious problem for the individual. All our greatest\njoys and our deepest sorrows come to us,\u2014alone. We must go into our\nGethsemane,\u2014alone. We must battle against the mighty weakness within\nus,\u2014alone. We must live our own life,\u2014alone. We must die,\u2014alone. We\nmust accept the full responsibility of our life,\u2014alone. If each one of\nus has this mighty problem of life to solve for himself, if each of us\nhas his own cares, responsibilities, failures, doubts, fears,\nbereavements, we surely are playing a coward\u2019s part when we syndicate\nour sorrows to others.\n\nWe should seek to make life brighter for others; we should seek to\nhearten them in their trials by the example of our courage in bearing\nour sorrows. We should seek to forget our failures, and remember only\nthe new wisdom they gave us; we should live down our griefs by counting\nthe joys and privileges still left to us; put behind us our worries and\nregrets, and face each new day of life as bravely as we can. But we have\nno right to retail our sorrow and unhappiness through the community.\n\nAutobiography constitutes a large part of the conversation of some\npeople. It is not really conversation,\u2014it is an uninterrupted\nmonologue. These people study their individual lives with a microscope,\nand then they throw an enlarged view of their miseries on a screen and\nlecture on them, as a stereopticon man discourses on the microbes in a\ndrop of water. They tell you that \u201cthey did not sleep a wink all night;\nthey heard the clock strike every quarter of an hour.\u201d Now, there is no\nreal cause for thus boasting of insomnia. It requires no peculiar\ntalent,\u2014even though it does come only to wide-awake people.\n\nIf you ask such a man how he is feeling, he will trace the whole\ngenealogy of his present condition down from the time he had the grippe\nfour years ago. You hoped for a word; he gives you a treatise. You asked\nfor a sentence; he delivers an encyclopedia. His motto is: \u201cEvery man\nhis own Boswell.\u201d He is syndicating his sorrows.\n\nThe woman who makes her trials with her children, her troubles with her\nservants, her difficulties with her family, the subjects of conversation\nwith her callers is syndicating her sorrows. If she has a dear little\ninnocent child who recites \u201cCurfew Shall Not Ring To-night,\u201d is it not\nwiser for the mother to bear it calmly and discreetly and in silence,\nthan to syndicate this sorrow?\n\nThe business man who lets his dyspepsia get into his disposition, and\nwho makes everyone around him suffer because he himself is ill, is\nsyndicating ill-health. We have no right to make others the victims of\nour moods. If illness makes us cross and irritable, makes us unjust to\nfaithful workers who cannot protest, let us quarantine ourselves so that\nwe do not spread the contagion. Let us force ourselves to speak slowly,\nto keep anger away from the eyes, to prevent temper showing in the\nvoice. If we feel that we _must_ have dyspepsia, let us keep it out of\nour head, let us keep it from getting north of the neck.\n\nMost people sympathize too much with themselves. They take themselves as\na single sentence isolated from the great text of life. They study\nthemselves too much as separated from the rest of humanity, instead of\nbeing vitally connected with their fellow-men. There are some people who\nsurrender to sorrow as others give way to dissipation. There is a vain\npride of sorrow as well as of beauty. Most individuals have a strange\nglow of vanity in looking back upon their past and feeling that few\nothers in life have suffered such trials, hardships and disappointments\nas have come to them.\n\nWhen Death comes into the little circle of loved ones who make up our\nworld, all life becomes dark to us. We seem to have no reason for\nexisting, no object, no incentive, no hope. The love that made struggle\nand effort bearable for us,\u2014is gone. We stare, dry-eyed, into the\nfuture, and see no future; we want none. Life has become to us a\npast,\u2014with no future. It is but a memory, without a hope.\n\nThen in the divine mystery of Nature\u2019s processes, under the tender,\nsoothing touch of Time, as days melt into weeks, we begin to open our\neyes gently to the world around us, and the noise and tumult of life\njars less and less upon us. We have become emotionally convalescent. As\nthe days go on, in our deep love, in the fullness of our loyalty, we\nprotest often, with tears in our eyes, against our gradual return to the\nspirit and atmosphere of the days of the past. We feel in a subtle way a\nnew pain, as if we were disloyal to the dear one, as if we were\nfaithless to our love. Nature sweetly turns aside our protesting hands,\nand says to us, \u201cThere is no disloyalty in permitting the wounds to\nlessen their pain, to heal gradually, if Time foreordain that they can\nheal.\u201d There are some natures, all-absorbed in a mighty love, wherein no\nhealing is possible,\u2014but these are rare souls in life.\n\nBitter though our anguish be, we have no right to syndicate our sorrow.\nWe have no right to cast a gloom over happy natures by our heavy weight\nof crape, by serving the term prescribed by Society for wearing the\nlivery of mourning,\u2014as if real grief thought of a uniform. We have no\nright to syndicate our grief by using notepaper with a heavy black\nborder as wide as a hatband, thus parading our personal sorrow to others\nin their happiest moments.\n\nIf life has not gone well with us, if fortune has left us disconsolate,\nif love has grown cold, and we sit alone by the embers; if life has\nbecome to us a valley of desolation, through which weary limbs must drag\nan unwilling body till the end shall come,\u2014let us not radiate such an\natmosphere to those round us; let us not take strangers through the\ncatacombs of our life, and show the bones of our dead past; let us not\npass our cup of sorrow to others, but, if we must drink it, let us take\nit as Socrates did his poison hemlock,\u2014grandly, heroically and\nuncomplainingly.\n\nIf your life has led you to doubt the existence of honor in man and\nvirtue in woman; if you feel that religion is a pretense, that\nspirituality is a sham, that life is a failure, and death the entrance\nto nothingness; if you have absorbed all the poison philosophy of the\nworld\u2019s pessimists, and committed the folly of believing it,\u2014don\u2019t\nsyndicate it.\n\nIf your fellow-man be clinging to one frail spar, the last remnant of a\nnoble, shipwrecked faith in God and humanity, let him keep it. Do not\nloosen his fingers from his hope, and tell him it is a delusion. How do\nyou know? Who told you it was so?\n\nIf these high-tide moments of life sweep your faith in Omnipotence into\nnothingness, if the friend in whom you have put all faith in humanity\nand humanity\u2019s God betray you, do not eagerly accept the teachings of\nthose modern freethinkers who syndicate their infidelity at so much per\nreserved seat. Seek to recover your lost faith by listening to the\nmillion voices that speak of infinite wisdom, infinite love, that\nmanifest themselves in nature and humanity, and then build up as rapidly\nas you can a new faith, a faith in something higher, better and truer\nthan you have known before.\n\nYou may have _one_ in the world to whom you may dare show with the\nfullness of absolute confidence and perfect faith any thought, any hope,\nany sorrow,\u2014but you dare not trust them to the world. Do not show the\nworld through your Bluebeard chamber; keep your trials and sorrows as\nclose to you as you can till you have mastered them. Don\u2019t weaken others\nby thus\u2014syndicating your miseries.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IX\n\n                   The Revelations _of_ Reserve Power\n\n\nEvery individual is a marvel of unknown and unrealized possibilities.\nNine-tenths of an iceberg is always below water. Nine-tenths of the\npossibilities of good and evil of the individual is ever hidden from his\nsight.\n\nBurns\u2019 prayer,\u2014that we might \u201csee oursels as ithers see us,\u201d\u2014was weak.\nThe answer could minister only to man\u2019s vanity,\u2014it would show him only\nwhat others think him to be, not what he is. We should pray to see\nourselves as we _are_. But no man could face the radiant revelation of\nthe latent powers and forces within him, underlying the weak, narrow\nlife he is living. He would fall blinded and prostrate as did Moses\nbefore the burning bush. Man is not a mechanical music-box wound up by\nthe Creator and set to play a fixed number of prescribed tunes. He is a\nhuman harp, with infinite possibilities of unawakened music.\n\nThe untold revelations of Nature are in her Reserve Power. Reserve Power\nis Nature\u2019s method of meeting emergencies. Nature is wise and economic.\nNature saves energy and effort, and gives only what is absolutely\nnecessary for life and development under any given condition, and when\nnew needs arise Nature always meets them by her Reserve Power.\n\nIn animal life Nature reveals this in a million phases. Animals placed\nin the darkness of the Mammoth Cave gradually have the sense of sight\nweakened and the senses of smell, touch and hearing intensified. Nature\nwatches over all animals, making their color harmonize with the general\ntone of their surroundings to protect them from their enemies. Those\narctic animals which in the summer inhabit regions free from snow, turn\nwhite when winter comes. In the desert, the lion, the camel and all the\ndesert antelopes have more or less the color of the sand and rocks among\nwhich they live. In tropical forests parrots are usually green;\nturacous, barbets and bee-eaters have a preponderance of green in their\nplumage. The colors change as the habits of the animals change from\ngeneration to generation. Nature, by her Reserve Power, always meets the\nnew needs of animals with new strength,\u2014new harmony with new\nconditions.\n\nAbout forty-five years ago three pairs of enterprising rabbits were\nintroduced into Australia. To-day, the increase of these six immigrants\nmay be counted by millions. They became a pest to the country. Fortunes\nhave been spent to exterminate them. Wire fences many feet high and\nthousands of miles long have been built to keep out the invaders. The\nrabbits had to fight awful odds to live, but they have now outwitted\nman. They have developed a new nail,\u2014a long nail by which they can\nretain their hold on the fence while climbing. With this same nail they\ncan burrow six or eight inches under the netting, and thus enter the\nfields that mean food and life to them. They are now laughing at man.\nReserve Power has vitalized for these rabbits latent possibilities\nbecause they did not tamely accept their condition, but in their\nstruggle to live learned _how_ to live.\n\nIn plant life, Nature is constantly revealing Reserve Power. The\npossibilities of almost infinite color are present in _every_ green\nplant, even in roots and stems. Proper conditions only are needed to\nreveal them. By obeying Nature\u2019s laws man could make leaves as\nbeautifully colored as flowers. The _wild_ rose has only a single\ncorolla; but, when cultivated in rich soil, the numerous yellow stamens\nchange into the brilliant red leaves of the full-grown cabbage-rose.\nThis is but one of Nature\u2019s miracles of Reserve Power. Once the banana\nwas a tropical lily; the peach was at one time a bitter almond. To tell\nthe full story of Reserve Power in Nature would mean to write the\nhistory of the universe, in a thousand volumes.\n\nNature is a great believer in \u201cdouble engines.\u201d Man is equipped with\nnearly every organ in duplicate\u2014eyes, ears, lungs, arms and legs, so\nthat if one be weakened, its mate, through Reserve Power, is stimulated\nto do enough for both. Even where the organ itself is not duplicated, as\nin the nose, there is a division of parts so there is constant reserve.\nNature, for still further protection, has for every part of the body an\nunderstudy in training, to be ready in a crisis,\u2014as the sense of touch\nfor the blind.\n\nBirds when frightened ruffle their feathers; a dog that has been in the\nwater shakes its coat so that each hair stands out of itself; the\nstartled hedgehog projects every quill. These actions are produced by\n\u201cskin muscles\u201d that are rudimentary in man, and over which in ordinary\nconditions he has no control. But in a moment of terrible fear Reserve\nPower quickens their action in a second, and the hair on his head\n\u201cstands on end\u201d in the intensity of his fright.\n\nNature, that thus watches so tenderly over the physical needs of man, is\nequally provident in storing for him a mental and a moral Reserve Power.\nMan may fail in a dozen different lines of activity and then succeed\nbrilliantly in a phase wherein he was unconscious of any ability. We\nmust never rest content with what we _are_, and say: \u201cThere is no use\nfor me to try. I can never be great. I am not even clever now.\u201d But the\nlaw of Reserve Power stands by us as a fairy godmother and says: \u201cThere\nis one charm by which you can transmute the dull dross of your present\ncondition into the pure gold of strength and power,\u2014that charm is ever\ndoing your best, ever daring more, and the full measure of your final\nattainment can never be told in advance. Rely upon me to help you with\nnew revelations of strength in new emergencies. Never be cast down\nbecause your power seems so trifling, your progress so slow. The world\u2019s\ngreatest and best men were failures in some line, failures many times\nbefore failure was crowned with success.\u201d\n\nThere is in the mythology of the Norsemen a belief that the strength of\nan enemy we kill enters into us. This is true in character. As we\nconquer a passion, a thought, a feeling, a desire; as we rise superior\nto some impulse, the strength of that victory, trifling though it may\nbe, is stored by Nature as a Reserve Power to come to us in the hour of\nour need.\n\nWere we to place before almost any individual the full chart of his\nfuture,\u2014his trials, sorrows, failures, afflictions, loss, sickness and\nloneliness,\u2014and ask him if he could bear it, he would say: \u201cNo! I could\nnot bear all that and live.\u201d But he _can_ and he _does_. The hopes upon\nthe realization of which he has staked all his future turn to air as he\nnears them; friends whom he has trusted betray him; the world grows cold\nto him; the child whose smile is the light of his life dishonors his\nname; death takes from him the wife of his heart. Reserve Power has been\nwatching over him and ever giving him new strength,\u2014even while he\nsleeps.\n\nIf we be conscious of any weakness, and desire to conquer it, we can\nforce ourselves into positions where we _must_ act in a way to\nstrengthen ourselves through that weakness, cut off our retreat, burn\nour bridges behind us, and fight like Spartans till the victory be ours.\n\nReserve Power is like the manna given to the children of Israel in the\nwilderness,\u2014only enough was given them to keep them for one day. Each\nsuccessive day had its new supply of strength. There is in the leaning\ntower of Pisa a spiral stairway so steep in its ascent that only one\nstep at a time is revealed to us. But as each step is taken the next is\nmade visible, and thus, step by step, to the very highest. So in the\nDivine economy of the universe, Reserve Power is a gradual and constant\nrevelation of strength within us to meet each new need. And no matter\nwhat be our line of life, what our need, we should feel that we have\nwithin us infinite, untried strength and possibility, and that, if we\nbelieve and do our best, the Angel of Reserve Power will walk by our\nside, and will even divide the waters of the Red Sea of our sorrows and\ntrials so we may walk through in safety.\n\n\n\n\n                                   X\n\n                       The Majesty _of_ Calmness\n\n\nCalmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a\ngreat nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral\natmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled.\nCalmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious\npower,\u2014ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.\n\nThe Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,\u2014petrifaction is not\ncalmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one\nlives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the\nman who is calm.\n\nThe Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment,\nhopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly indifferent\nto his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship, drifting on the\nocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known port to which he is\nsailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all nature is shown in his\nexistence of constant surrender. It is not,\u2014calmness.\n\nThe man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart.\nHis hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, hidden\nreefs,\u2014he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calm and\nserene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he needs a\nclear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do each day\nthe best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch nor\nfalter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his\ncourse for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true\nchannel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. _When_ he will\nreach it, _how_ he will reach it matters not to him. He rests in\ncalmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to be\noverthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head,\u2014in calmness.\nTo no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality. God\ncommits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days to use\nto the best of his knowledge.\n\nCalmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the\ndepths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the\nsurface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred\nfeet,\u2014below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great\ncrises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is\nthe crown of self-control.\n\nWhen the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon\nyou, and you chafe under the friction,\u2014be calm. Stop, rest for a\nmoment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these\nirritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing\nyour inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study the\ndisturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will-power of your\nnature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one,\nmelt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow of\ncalmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of an\ninflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation of\nthe supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some great hour\nof your life, when you stand face to face with some awful trial, when\nthe structure of your ambition and life-work crumbles in a moment, you\nwill be brave. You can then fold your arms calmly, look out undismayed\nand undaunted upon the ashes of your hope, upon the wreck of what you\nhave faithfully built, and with brave heart and unfaltering voice you\nmay say: \u201cSo let it be,\u2014I will build again.\u201d\n\nWhen the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority,\ntempts you for just a moment to retaliate, when for an instant you\nforget yourself so far as to hunger for revenge,\u2014be calm. When the grey\nheron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run to escape; it\nremains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly, facing the\nenemy unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle makes its\nattack, the boasted king of birds is often impaled and run through on\nthe quiet, lance-like bill of the heron. The means that man takes to\nkill another\u2019s character becomes suicide of his own.\n\nNo man in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being\ninjured in return,\u2014someway, somehow, sometime. The only weapon of\noffence that Nature seems to recognize is the boomerang. Nature keeps\nher books admirably; she puts down every item, she closes all accounts\nfinally, but she does not always balance them at the end of the month.\nTo the man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot\nreach it,\u2014even by stooping. When injured, he does not retaliate; he\nwraps around him the royal robes of Calmness, and he goes quietly on his\nway.\n\nWhen the hand of Death touches the one we hold dearest, paralyzes our\nenergy, and eclipses the sun of our life, the calmness that has been\naccumulating in long years becomes in a moment our refuge, our reserve\nstrength.\n\nThe most subtle of all temptations is the _seeming_ success of the\nwicked. It requires moral courage to see, without flinching, material\nprosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to see politicians rise into\nprominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see virtue\nin rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and\nknowledge at a discount. To the man who is really calm these puzzles of\nlife do not appeal. He is living his life as best he can; he is not\nworrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be left to\nOmniscience to solve.\n\nWhen man has developed the spirit of Calmness until it becomes so\nabsolutely part of him that his very presence radiates it, he has made\ngreat progress in life. Calmness cannot be acquired of itself and by\nitself; it must come as the culmination of a series of virtues. What the\nworld needs and what individuals need is a higher standard of living, a\ngreat realizing sense of the privilege and dignity of life, a higher and\nnobler conception of individuality.\n\nWith this great sense of calmness permeating an individual, man becomes\nable to retire more into himself, away from the noise, the confusion and\nstrife of the world, which come to his ears only as faint, far-off\nrumblings, or as the tumult of the life of a city heard only as a\nbuzzing hum by the man in a balloon.\n\nThe man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world,\nfor he is intensely interested in all that concerns the welfare of\nhumanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire\n_from_ the world to get strength to live _in_ the world. He realizes\nthat the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his self-control\nis,\u2014the majesty of calmness.\n\n\n\n\n                                   XI\n\n                   Hurry, _the_ Scourge _of_ America\n\n\nThe first sermon in the world was preached at the Creation. It was a\nDivine protest against Hurry. It was a Divine object lesson of perfect\nlaw, perfect plan, perfect order, perfect method. Six days of work\ncarefully planned, scheduled and completed were followed by,\u2014rest.\nWhether we accept the story as literal or as figurative, as the account\nof successive days or of ages comprising millions of years, matters\nlittle if we but learn the lesson.\n\nNature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. Every phase of her\nworking shows plan, calmness, reliability, and the absence of hurry.\nHurry always implies lack of definite method, confusion, impatience of\nslow growth. The Tower of Babel, the world\u2019s first sky-scraper, was a\nfailure because of hurry. The workers mistook their arrogant ambition\nfor inspiration. They had too many builders,\u2014and no architect. They\nthought to make up the lack of a head by a superfluity of hands. This is\na characteristic of Hurry. It seeks ever to make energy a substitute for\na clearly defined plan,\u2014the result is ever as hopeless as trying to\ntransform a hobbyhorse into a real steed by brisk riding.\n\nHurry is a counterfeit of haste. Haste has an ideal, a distinct aim to\nbe realized by the quickest, direct methods. Haste has a single compass\nupon which it relies for direction and in harmony with which its course\nis determined. Hurry says: \u201cI must move faster. I will get three\ncompasses; I will have them different; I will be guided by all of them.\nOne of them will probably be right.\u201d Hurry never realizes that slow,\ncareful foundation work is the quickest in the end.\n\nHurry has ruined more Americans than has any other word in the\nvocabulary of life. It is the scourge of America; and is both a cause\nand a result of our high-pressure civilization. Hurry adroitly assumes\nso many masquerades of disguise that its identity is not always\nrecognized.\n\nHurry always pays the highest price for everything, and, usually the\ngoods are not delivered. In the race for wealth men often sacrifice\ntime, energy, health, home, happiness and honor,\u2014everything that money\ncannot buy, the very things that money can never bring back. Hurry is a\nphantom of paradoxes. Business men, in their desire to provide for the\nfuture happiness of their family, often sacrifice the present happiness\nof wife and children on the altar of Hurry. They forget that their place\nin the home should be something greater than being merely \u201cthe man that\npays the bills;\u201d they expect consideration and thoughtfulness that they\nare not giving.\n\nWe hear too much of a wife\u2019s duties to a husband and too little of the\nother side of the question. \u201cThe wife,\u201d they tell us, \u201cshould meet her\nhusband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and be\never sweetness and sunshine.\u201d Why this continual swinging of the censer\nof devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to look up\nwith timid glance at the face of her husband, to \u201csize up his mood?\u201d Has\nnot her day, too, been one of care, and responsibility, and\nwatchfulness? Has not mother-love been working over perplexing problems\nand worries of home and of the training of the children that wifely love\nmay make her seek to solve in secret? Is man, then, the weaker sex that\nhe must be pampered and treated as tenderly as a boil trying to keep\nfrom contact with the world?\n\nIn their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of a life,\nmen often throw honor, truth, and generosity to the winds. Politicians\ndare to stand by and see a city poisoned with foul water until, they\n\u201csee where they come in\u201d on a waterworks appropriation. If it be\nnecessary to poison an army,\u2014that, too, is but an incident in the hurry\nfor wealth.\n\nThis is the Age of the Hothouse. The element of natural growth is pushed\nto one side and the hothouse and the force-pump are substituted. Nature\nlooks on tolerantly as she says: \u201cSo far you may go, but no farther, my\nfoolish children.\u201d\n\nThe educational system of to-day is a monumental institution dedicated\nto Hurry. The children are forced to go through a series of studies that\nsweep the circle of all human wisdom. They are given everything that the\nambitious ignorance of the age can force into their minds; they are\ntaught everything but the essentials,\u2014how to use their senses and how\nto think. Their minds become congested by a great mass of undigested\nfacts, and still the cruel, barbarous forcing goes on. You watch it\nuntil it seems you cannot stand it a moment longer, and you\ninstinctively put out your hand and say: \u201cStop! This modern slaughter of\nthe Innocents must _not_ go on!\u201d Education smiles suavely, waves her\nhand complacently toward her thousands of knowledge-prisons over the\ncountry, and says: \u201cWho are you that dares speak a word against our\nsacred school system?\u201d Education is in a hurry. Because she fails in\nfifteen years to do what half the time should accomplish by better\nmethods, she should not be too boastful. Incompetence is not always a\nreason for pride. And they hurry the children into a hundred text-books,\nthen into ill-health, then into the colleges, then into a diploma, then\ninto life,\u2014with a dazed mind, untrained and unfitted for the real\nduties of living.\n\nHurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. The old-time\ncourtesy went out when the new-time hurry came in. Hurry is the father\nof dyspepsia. In the rush of our national life, the bolting of food has\nbecome a national vice. The words \u201cQuick Lunches\u201d might properly be\nplaced on thousands of headstones in our cemeteries. Man forgets that he\nis the only animal that dines; the others merely feed. Why does he\nabrogate his right to dine and go to the end of the line with the mere\nfeeders? His self-respecting stomach rebels, and expresses its\nindignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a\nlittle bottle of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another\nvictim to this craze for speed. Hurry means the breakdown of the nerves.\nIt is the royal road to nervous prostration.\n\nEverything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the\nnewer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its\ngrowth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full\npower in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few\nweeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are\nsure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, or\nof family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow growth\nif it must be slow, and know the results _must_ come, as you would\naccept the long, lonely hours of the night,\u2014with absolute assurance\nthat the heavy-leaded moments _must_ bring the morning.\n\nLet us as individuals banish the word \u201cHurry\u201d from our lives. Let us\ncare for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as the\nprice of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness, poise,\nsweetness,\u2014doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we can;\nliving our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the\nmalice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay,\nfretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under\nopposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence\nand trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to\nits ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing toward their\nrealization.\n\nLet us see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating phases,\nlet us see that it ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and let us\ndetermine that, day by day, we will seek more and more to substitute for\nit the calmness and repose of a true life, nobly lived.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XII\n\n                   The Power _of_ Personal Influence\n\n\nThe only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the\none he thinks of least,\u2014his personal influence. Man\u2019s conscious\ninfluence, when he is on dress-parade, when he is posing to impress\nthose around him,\u2014is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the\nsilent, subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and\nacts, the trifles he never considers,\u2014is tremendous. Every moment of\nlife he is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man\nhas an atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and\nunconsciously is this influence working, that man may forget that it\nexists.\n\nAll the forces of Nature,\u2014heat, light, electricity and\ngravitation,\u2014are silent and invisible. We never _see_ them; we only\nknow that they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature\nthe wonders of the \u201cseen\u201d are dwarfed into insignificance when compared\nwith the majesty and glory of the \u201cunseen.\u201d\n\nThe great sun itself does not supply enough heat and light to sustain\nanimal and vegetable life on the earth. We are dependent for nearly half\nof our light and heat upon the stars, and the greater part of this\nsupply of life-giving energy comes from _invisible_ stars, millions of\nmiles from the earth. In a thousand ways Nature constantly seeks to lead\nmen to a keener and deeper realization of the power and wonder of the\ninvisible.\n\nInto the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good\nor for evil,\u2014the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life.\nThis is simply the constant radiation of what a man really _is_, not\nwhat he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating\nsympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope,\nor any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant\nradiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the\nrecipient of radiations.\n\nThere are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer\nand optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a\nnew and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who focus in an\ninstant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against life.\nWithout knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You lose your\nbearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is disturbed and\nunsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the magnetic needle\nof a ship is deflected when it passes near great mountains of iron ore.\n\nThere are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,\u2014cold,\nreserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you\ninvoluntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who left\nthe door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most depressing\ninfluence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated\nchilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are\nlike the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and\nundismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their presence brings warmth\nand life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous, stimulating breath of\nspring.\n\nThere are men who are like malarious swamps,\u2014poisonous, depressing and\nweakening by their very presence. They make heavy, oppressive and gloomy\nthe atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of the children\u2019s play is\nstilled, the ripples of laughter are frozen by their presence. They go\nthrough life as if each day were a new big funeral, and they were always\nchief mourners. There are other men who seem like the ocean; they are\nconstantly bracing, stimulating, giving new draughts of tonic life and\nstrength by their very presence.\n\nThere are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is\nradiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your\nwelfare,\u2014when they need you. They put on a \u201cproperty\u201d smile so\nsuddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be\nconnected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their\nvoice has a simulated cordiality that long training may have made almost\nnatural. But they never play their part absolutely true, the mask _will_\nslip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach their eyes the look\nof sterling honesty; they may deceive some people, but they cannot\ndeceive all. There is a subtle power of revelation which makes us say:\n\u201cWell, I cannot explain how it is, but I know that man is not honest.\u201d\n\nMan cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character,\nthis constantly weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade\nthe responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can\n_select_ the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can\ncultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice,\nloyalty, nobility,\u2014make them vitally active in his character,\u2014and by\nthese qualities he will constantly affect the world.\n\nDiscouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they\ncan, in the thought that they are doing so little good in the world.\nTrifles unnoted by us may be links in the chain of some great purpose.\nIn 1797, William Godwin wrote The Inquirer, a collection of\nrevolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced Thomas\nMalthus to write his Essay on Population, published in 1798. Malthus\u2019\nbook suggested to Charles Darwin a point of view upon which he devoted\nmany years of his life, resulting, in 1859, in the publication of The\nOrigin of Species,\u2014the most influential book of the nineteenth century,\na book that has revolutionized all science. These were but three links\nof influence extending over sixty years.\n\nIt might be possible to trace this genealogy of influence back from\nGodwin, through generation and generation, to the word or act of some\nshepherd in early Britain, watching his flock upon the hills, living his\nquiet life, and dying with the thought that he had done nothing to help\nthe world.\n\nMen and women have duties to others,\u2014and duties to themselves. In\njustice to ourselves we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that\nkeeps us from living our best. If the fault be in us, we should master\nit. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious\nvapor, kills our best impulses, we should remove from that\ninfluence,\u2014if we can _possibly_ move without forsaking duties. If it be\nwrong to move, then we should take strong doses of moral quinine to\ncounteract the malaria of influence. It is not what those around us _do_\nfor us that counts,\u2014it is what they _are_ to us. We carry our\nhouseplants from one window to another to give them the proper heat,\nlight, air and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of\nourselves?\n\nTo make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice what\nwe believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first\nconvert the iron into another magnet before it can attract it. It is\nuseless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children when she\nherself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be truthful and\nwho hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little social\nunpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth. The\nparent\u2019s words say \u201cdon\u2019t lie,\u201d the influence of the parent\u2019s life says\n\u201cdo lie.\u201d\n\nNo man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of\ninfluence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general\ncourse of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without\ninfluence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the\ndelicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our\ninfluence filter through human love and sympathy. We should not be\nmerely an influence,\u2014we should be an inspiration. By our very presence\nwe should be a tower of strength to the hungering human souls around us.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIII\n\n                     The Dignity _of_ Self-Reliance\n\n\nSelf-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking\nrecipe,\u2014without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the\nindividual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel\nin the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself.\n\nThe man who is self-reliant says ever: \u201cNo one can realize my\npossibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but\nmyself.\u201d He works out his own salvation,\u2014financially, socially,\nmentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that\nman must solve for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no\nvicarious service. Nature never recognizes a proxy vote. She has nothing\nto do with middlemen,\u2014she deals only with the individual. Nature is\nconstantly seeking to show man that he is his own best friend, or his\nown worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on which he will be to\nhimself.\n\nAll the athletic exercises in the world are of no value to the\nindividual unless he compel those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him,\nin strength and muscle, the power for which he, himself, pays in time\nand effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his valet to a\ngymnasium.\n\nThe medicine-chests of the world are powerless, in all the united\nefforts, to help the individual until he reach out and take for himself\nwhat is needed for his individual weakness.\n\nAll the religions of the world are but speculations in morals, mere\ntheories of salvation, until the individual realize that he must save\nhimself by relying on the law of truth, as he sees it, and living his\nlife in harmony with it, as fully as he can. But religion is not a\nPullman car, with soft-cushioned seats, where he has but to pay for his\nticket,\u2014and someone else does all the rest. In religion, as in all\nother great things, he is ever thrown back on his self-reliance. He\nshould accept all helps, but,\u2014he must live his own life. He should not\nfeel that he is a mere passenger; he is the engineer, and the train is\nhis life. We must rely on ourselves, live our own lives, or we merely\ndrift through existence,\u2014losing all that is best, all that is greatest,\nall that is divine.\n\nAll that others can do for us is to give us opportunity. We must ever be\nprepared for the opportunity when it comes, and to go after it and find\nit when it does not come, or that opportunity is to us,\u2014nothing life is\nbut a succession of opportunities. They are for good or evil,\u2014as we\nmake them.\n\nMany of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if\nthey could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the baser\nmetals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are individuals with\nrare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment who fail utterly\nin life because they lack the one element,\u2014self-reliance. This would\nunite all their energies, and focus them into strength and power.\n\nThe man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all\nhe does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure,\nbecause he is waiting for someone to advise him or because he dare not\nact in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his\nconceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is \u201cnot\nappreciated,\u201d \u201cnot recognized,\u201d he is \u201ckept down.\u201d He feels that in some\nsubtle way \u201csociety is conspiring against him.\u201d He grows almost vain as\nhe thinks that no one has had such poverty, such sorrow, such\naffliction, such failure as have come to him.\n\nThe man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the\nweakness within him that keeps him from the attainment of what he holds\ndearest; he seeks within himself the power to battle against all outside\ninfluences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history, in every\nphase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight against the\nodds of sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no more than\npassing through a tunnel is to a traveller,\u2014he knows he must emerge\nagain into the sunlight.\n\nThe nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the\none that contains within its boundaries all that its people need. If,\nwith its ports all blockaded it has not within itself the necessities of\nlife and the elements of its continual progress then,\u2014it is weak, held\nby the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must surrender.\nIts independence is in proportion to its self-reliance, to its power to\nsustain itself from within. What is true of nations is true of\nindividuals. The history of nations is but the biography of individuals\nmagnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the screen of the\npast. History is the biography of a nation; biography is the history of\nan individual. So it must be that the individual who is most strong in\nany trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his inherent strength,\nwho needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to uphold him. He must\never be self-reliant.\n\nThe wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do\nthe real work of the nation, proved the nation\u2019s downfall. The constant\ndependence on the captives of war to do the thousand details of life for\nthem, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual. Then,\nthrough weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for idle,\nluxurious ease that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters, became,\u2014a\nnation of men more effeminate than women. As we depend on others to do\nthose things we should do ourselves, our self-reliance weakens and our\npowers and our control of them becomes continuously less.\n\nMan to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all\nthings, he must be self-reliant in the one in which he would be great.\nThis self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of conceit. It is daring\nto stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do\nnot crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true\nself-reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a\nbattle you must fight for yourself,\u2014you must be your own soldier. You\ncannot buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be\nplaced on the retired list. The retired list of life is,\u2014death. The\nworld is busy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed\nto you. There is but one great password to success,\u2014self-reliance.\n\nIf you would learn to converse, put yourself into positions where you\n_must_ speak. If you would conquer your morbidness, mingle with the\nbright people around you, no matter how difficult it may be. If you\ndesire the power that someone else possesses, do not envy his strength,\nand dissipate your energy by weakly wishing his force were yours.\nEmulate the process by which it became his, depend on your\nself-reliance, pay the price for it, and equal power may be yours. The\nindividual must look upon himself as an investment of untold\npossibilities if rightly developed,\u2014a mine whose resources can never be\nknown but by going down into it and bringing out what is hidden.\n\nMan can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass\nhimself. We try too much to surpass others. If we seek ever to surpass\nourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of progress, that gives a\nharmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts. Daniel Morrell, at\none time President of the Cambria Rail Works, that employed 7,000 men\nand made a rail famed throughout the world, was asked the secret of the\ngreat success of the works. \u201cWe have no secret,\u201d he said, \u201cbut this,\u2014we\nalways try to beat our last batch of rails.\u201d Competition is good, but it\nhas its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth to mere\nappearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true\ncompetition is the competition of the individual with himself,\u2014his\npresent seeking to excel his past. This means real growth from within.\nSelf-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let the\nindividual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he\ncan almost create his life as he will. Let him never fall down in\ndespair at dangers and sorrows at a distance; they may be harmless, like\nBunyan\u2019s stone lions, when he nears them.\n\nThe man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of someone\nelse\u2019s greatness; he thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts\nfor himself. In throwing the individual thus back upon himself it is not\nshutting his eyes to the stimulus and light and new life that come with\nthe warm pressure of the hand, the kindly word and sincere expressions\nof true friendship. But true friendship is rare; its great value is in a\ncrisis,\u2014like a lifeboat. Many a boasted friend has proved a leaking,\nworthless \u201clifeboat\u201d when the storm of adversity might make him useful.\nIn these great crises of life, man is strong only as he is strong from\nwithin, and the more he depends on himself the stronger will he become,\nand the more able will he be to help others in the hour of their need.\nHis very life will be a constant help and a strength to others, as he\nbecomes to them a living lesson of the dignity of self-reliance.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIV\n\n                         Failure _as a_ Success\n\n\nIt ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take\nup the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the future,\nand proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may seem\nhopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It may\ncontain in its d\u00e9bris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, or\nthe revelation of new and higher possibilities.\n\nSome years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, by\na new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great logs\ntogether by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a raft. When\nthe novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured, a terrible\nstorm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands snapped like\nicicles and the angry water scattered the logs far and wide. The chief\nof the Hydrographic Department at Washington heard of the failure of the\nexperiment, and at once sent word to shipmasters the world over, urging\nthem to watch carefully for these logs which he described; and to note\nthe precise location of each in latitude and longitude and the time the\nobservation was made. Hundreds of captains, sailing over the waters of\nthe earth, noted the logs, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean,\nin the South Seas\u2014for into all waters did these venturesome ones\ntravel. Hundreds of reports were made, covering a period of weeks and\nmonths. These observations were then carefully collated, systematized\nand tabulated, and discoveries were made as to the course of ocean\ncurrents that otherwise would have been impossible. The loss of the\nJoggins raft was not a real failure, for it led to one of the great\ndiscoveries in modern marine geography and navigation.\n\nIn our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a patronizing tone\nof the follies of the alchemists of old. But their failure to transmute\nthe baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of chemistry. They did\nnot succeed in what they attempted, but they brought into vogue the\nnatural processes of sublimation, filtration, distillation, and\ncrystallization; they invented the alembic, the retort, the sand-bag,\nthe water-bath and other valuable instruments. To them is due the\ndiscovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and phosphorus, the cupellation\nof gold and silver, the determining of the properties of saltpetre and\nits use in gunpowder, and the discovery of the distillation of essential\noils. This was the success of failure, a wondrous process of Nature for\nthe highest growth,\u2014a mighty lesson of comfort, strength, and\nencouragement if man would only realize and accept it.\n\nMany of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success than we ever\nhoped for in our wildest dreams. Life is a successive unfolding of\nsuccess from failure. In discovering America Columbus failed absolutely.\nHis ingenious reasoning and experiment led him to believe that by\nsailing westward he would reach India. Every redman in America carries\nin his name \u201cIndian,\u201d the perpetuation of the memory of the failure of\nColumbus. The Genoese navigator did not reach India; the cargo of\n\u201csouvenirs\u201d he took back to Spain to show to Ferdinand and Isabella as\nproofs of his success, really attested his failure. But the discovery of\nAmerica was a greater success than was any finding of a \u201cback-door\u201d to\nIndia.\n\nWhen David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a\nmedical course, he was ready to enter the missionary field. For over\nthree years he had studied tirelessly, with all energies concentrated on\none aim,\u2014to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was ready\nto start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to consecrate\nhimself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word came from\nChina that the \u201copium war\u201d would make it folly to attempt to enter the\ncountry. Disappointment and failure did not long daunt him; he offered\nhimself as missionary to Africa,\u2014and he was accepted. His glorious\nfailure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and truth. His\nstudy proved an ideal preparation for his labors as physician, explorer,\nteacher and evangel in the wilds of Africa.\n\nBusiness reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad\nshoulders and the still broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a\nburden of responsibility that forced him to write. The failure spurred\nhim to almost superhuman effort. The masterpieces of Scotch historic\nfiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his\nfellow-men are a glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure.\n\nWhen Millet, the painter of the \u201cAngelus\u201d worked on his almost divine\ncanvas, in which the very air seems pulsing with the regenerating\nessence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was\nantidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put\non in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a\nrailway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas,\u2014meant\nstrength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art\nfailure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with marvellous\nintensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare spiritual\nunity, this purging of all the dross of triviality, as he passed through\nthe furnace of poverty, trial, and sorrow, gave eloquence to his brush\nand enabled him to paint as never before,\u2014as no prosperity would have\nmade possible.\n\nFailure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that\nswings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not\nbe fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental\ninspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life.\nLife is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it.\n\nWhether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for\nlittle when it is past. There is but one question for him to answer, to\nface boldly and honestly as an individual alone with his conscience and\nhis destiny:\n\n\u201cHow will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that trial or\ndeprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then,\u2014poverty has been\nriches, failure has been a success. If wealth has come to me and has\nmade me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, uncharitable, cynical, closing\nfrom me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher\ndevelopment, of possible good to my fellow-man, making me the mere\ncustodian of a money-bag, then,\u2014wealth has lied to me, it has been\nfailure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark,\ntreacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself.\u201d All things become\nfor us then what we take from them.\n\nFailure is one of God\u2019s educators. It is experience leading man to\nhigher things; it is the revelation of a way, a path hitherto unknown to\nus. The best men in the world, those who have made the greatest real\nsuccesses look back with serene happiness on their failures. The turning\nof the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously illuminated and\nsatisfying perspective.\n\nMany a man is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once\nstruggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. Failure\nis often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in a few\ninstances of his life can say, \u201cThose failures were the best things in\nthe world that could have happened to me,\u201d should he not face new\nfailures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous ministry\nof Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new\nstepping-stones?\n\nOur highest hopes are often destroyed to prepare us for better things.\nThe failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the\npassing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or destruction\nof the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It is at night,\nin the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants grow best, that\nthey most increase in size. May this not be one of Nature\u2019s gentle\nshowings to man of the times when he grows best, of the darkness of\nfailure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let us fear only\nthe failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving the results to\nthe guardianship of the Infinite.\n\nIf we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success,\nanyone who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment,\nthat success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the\nrevelation. As we trace each one back, step by step, through the\ngenealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course\nof our joy and success from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us\nmost happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused us\nsorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth have\nhad their source and their trickling increase into volume among the\ndark, gloomy recesses of our failure.\n\nThere is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and\nsincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometimes seem to be\nwasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of \u201chow\u201d to walk; the\nsecret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible\nsuccesses. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in\ncontinuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics of\nfailure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and commentators\nmay lay at his door.\n\nHigh ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they\nneed not dishearten us; they should prove sources of new strength. The\nrocky way may prove safer than the slippery path of smoothness. Birds\ncannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress in\ncalm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts.\n\nThe alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly\ntransmutes the baser metals of failure into the later pure gold of\nhigher success, if the mind of the worker be kept true, constant, and\nuntiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies\nfate to its worst while he does his best.\n\n\n\n\n                                   XV\n\n                     Doing Our Best _at_ All Times\n\n\nLife is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some\nday, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization\nthat he can make it simple,\u2014never quite simple, but always simpler.\nThere are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the\nwise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental question\nof the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever sounded. There\nare wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to pierce the\nsilence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back,\u2014only a repetition\nof their unanswered cries.\n\nTo us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that\ndarkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort:\n\n\u201cIf there really be a God, if eternal justice really rule the world,\u201d we\nsay, \u201cwhy should life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others\nfeast; why does virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs\nin the sunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest\neffort, while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is\ngreeted with the world\u2019s applause? How is it that the loving father of\none family is taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another\nis spared? Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and\nsuffering in the world\u2014why, indeed, should there be any?\u201d\n\nNeither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer\nthat is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is\never, even after the best explanations, a residuum of the unexplained.\nWe must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough\nto say, \u201cI will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will\nnot permit them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with\nvagueness and uncertainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he demands\nfrom the infinite the full solution of all His mysteries. I will found\nmy life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental truth: \u2018This\nglorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena pulsing ever\nin harmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that Creator must be\nomniscient and omnipotent. But that Creator Himself cannot, in justice,\ndemand of any creature more than the best that that individual can\ngive.\u2019 I will do each day, in every moment, the best I can by the light\nI have; I will ever seek more light, more perfect illumination of truth,\nand ever live as best I can in harmony with the truth as I see it. If\nfailure come I will meet it bravely; if my pathway then lie in the\nshadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall have the restful peace\nand the calm strength of one who has done his best, who can look back\nupon the past with no pang of regret, and who has heroic courage in\nfacing the results, whatever they be, knowing that he could not make\nthem different.\u201d\n\nUpon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure\nof religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should\nadd to his equipment for living every shred of strength and inspiration,\nmoral, mental, or spiritual that is in his power to secure.\n\nThis simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for\nnone; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the\nindividual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard.\n\nA mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to\na man as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in\nmid-ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher\nliving will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and\nappropriate it for himself, until he make it practical in his daily\nlife, until that seed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand\nflowers of thought and word and act.\n\nIf a man honestly seek to live his best at all times, that determination\nis visible in every moment of his living, and no trifle in his life can\nbe too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. The sun\nilluminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as impartially\nas a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of water in the\nocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; every drop is\nsubject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united infinity of\nbillions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men call the Sea. No\nmatter how humble the calling of the individual, how uninteresting and\ndull the round of his duties, he should do his best. He should dignify\nwhat he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he should vitalize what\nlittle he has of power or energy or ability or opportunity, in order to\nprepare himself to be equal to higher privileges when they come. This\nwill never lead man to that weak content that is satisfied with whatever\nfalls to his lot. It will rather fill his mind with that divine\ndiscontent that cheerfully accepts the best\u2014merely as a temporary\nsubstitute for something better.\n\nThe man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen,\nactive, wide-awake, and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in\ntrifles; his standard is not \u201cWhat will the world say?\u201d but \u201cIs it\nworthy of me?\u201d\n\nEdwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would\nnever permit himself to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his hours\nof privacy. In this simple thing, he ever lived his best. On the stage\nevery move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who were\nconscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking in\npublic to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and\nmotions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless\nin his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of an\u00e6mic\ncommonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of\ninterjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will\nnever be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars.\nLiving at one\u2019s best is constant preparation for instant use. It can\nnever make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish.\nEducation, in its highest sense, is _conscious_ training of mind or body\nto act _unconsciously_. It is conscious formation of mental habits, not\nmere acquisition of information.\n\nOne of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself,\nis in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are\nlucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the\nuntiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the\nsublime patience that is the secret of some men\u2019s success. Their \u201cluck\u201d\nwas that they had prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity\nwhen it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own\nopportunity came and departed un-noted, it could not waken him from his\ndreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows\ndiscouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages his\narms and chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a\nperfunctory way, or he passes through life, just ever \u201csampling\u201d lines\nof activity.\n\nThe honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is but\nan episode in a true man\u2019s life\u2014never the whole story. It is never easy\nto meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast courage to\nmaster conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help him on his\nway; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he has. He\nnever knows the long series of vanquished failures that give solidity to\nsomeone else\u2019s success; he does not realize the price that some rich\nman, the innocent football of political malcontents and demagogues, has\nheroically paid for wealth and position.\n\nThe man who has a pessimist\u2019s doubt of all things; who demands a\ncertified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be\nrecognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth\nwhile, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real\nprogress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a\nstrong tonic of reasons for action.\n\nOne of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the\nsurrender to the oncoming of years. Man\u2019s self-confidence dims and dies\nin the fear of age. \u201cThis new thought,\u201d he says of some suggestion\ntending to higher development, \u201cis good; it is what we need. I am glad\nto have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some\nsuch help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man\nadvanced in years.\u201d\n\nThis is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell\nof lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late\nto recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort,\ncloser attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not exist\nfor the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price in\ntime and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the\nassessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that\nmatters not to that mighty self-confidence that _will_ not grow old\nwhile knowledge can keep it young.\n\nSocrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play\non instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek,\nand the same age saw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy,\nhis first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus\u2019 greatest\nwork, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer\u2019s Canterbury Tales\nwas the work of the poet\u2019s declining years. Ronsard, the father of\nFrench poetry, whose sonnets even translation cannot destroy, did not\ndevelop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty. Benjamin Franklin at this\nage had just taken his really first steps of importance in philosophic\npursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, translated Josephus in his\neightieth year. Winckelmann, one of the most famous writers on classic\nantiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and lived in obscurity and\nignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the English philosopher,\npublished his version of the Odyssey in his eighty-seventh year, and his\nIliad one year later. Chevreul, the great French scientist, whose\nuntiring labors in the realm of color have so enriched the world, was\nbusy, keen and active when Death called him, at the age of 103.\n\nThese men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll\nof the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and\nheartening to every individual whose courage and confidence is weak. The\npath of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of life,\nis never shut from the individual\u2014until he closes it himself. Let man\nfeel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living factor in\nhis life and there are no limits to his progress. He has but to live his\nbest at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter what results\ncome to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what might have\nbeen, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener of\nself-confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy, for\nthat which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the\nindividual\u2019s faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself\nfor the future to the perfection of his possibilities.\n\nNature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and\nworn and weary with the struggle, \u201cDo in the best way you can the trifle\nthat is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit of\npreparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the light of\nknowledge from all the past to aid you.\u201d Do this and you have done your\nbest. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever to you.\n\nNo worry, no struggle, no suffering, no agony of despair can alter it.\nIt is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years of\neternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, weakness\nand sin, its wasted opportunities as light, in confidence and hope, upon\nthe future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to make each\ntrifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back to; each\ntrifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the future.\nThe present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the past has\ngone back, with all its messages, all its history, all its records to\nthe God who loaned you the golden moments to use in obedience to His\nlaw.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XVI\n\n                     The Royal Road _to_ Happiness\n\n\n\u201cDuring my whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness.\u201d\nSo said Prince Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth\ncentury. Eighty-three years of wealth, fame, honors, power, influence,\nprosperity and triumph,\u2014years when he held an empire in his\nfingers,\u2014but not one day of happiness!\n\nHappiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil,\nlive under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within;\nit is the revelation of the depths of the inner life as light and heat\nproclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists not of\nhaving, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm\nglow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have\nhappiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of\nhis own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with high\nideals. For what a man _has_, he may be dependent on others; what he\n_is_, rests with him alone. What he _ob_tains in life is but\nacquisition; what he _at_tains, is growth. Happiness is the soul\u2019s joy\nin the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, continuous\nhappiness in life, is impossible for the human. It would mean the\nconsummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a perfectly\nfulfilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may coexist with\ntrial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the heart rising\nsuperior to all conditions.\n\nHappiness has a number of under-studies,\u2014gratification, satisfaction,\ncontent and pleasure,\u2014clever imitators that simulate its appearance\nrather than emulate its method. Gratification is a harmony between our\ndesires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it is the thankful\nacceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one\nreceives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element in\nhappiness, but, in itself,\u2014it is not happiness.\n\nSatisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It\nexists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved.\nBut every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in\nadvance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding\nstimulates new appetites\u2014then the desires and possessions are no longer\nidentical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new activities, the\nequipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction re\u00ebnters. Man might possess\neverything tangible in the world and yet not be happy, for happiness is\nthe satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or the body.\nDissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all advance,\nthe evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the progressive\nrevelation of new possibilities.\n\nContent is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair;\nit is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without\nstriving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual swallow\nvinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content enables\none to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists only in\nmemory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens the\nactivities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and\ngrowth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best\nefforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the\nworld more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of\nprogress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a\nstation, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a\nstep; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man\nshould be content with what he _has_, but never with what he _is_.\n\nBut content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is\ntemporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a\nsymphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests; happiness,\nnever. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none can be found\nin the cup of happiness.\n\nMan is the only animal that can be really happy. To the rest of the\ncreation belong only weak imitations of the understudies. Happiness\nrepresents a peaceful attunement of a life with a standard of living. It\ncan never be made by the individual, by himself, for himself. It is one\nof the incidental by-products of an unselfish life. No man can make his\nown happiness the one object of his life and attain it, any more than he\ncan jump on the far end of his shadow. If you would hit the bull\u2019s-eye\nof happiness on the target of life, aim above it. Place other things\nhigher than your own happiness and it will surely come to you. You can\nbuy pleasure, you can acquire content, you can become satisfied,\u2014but\nNature never put real happiness on the bargain-counter. It is the\nundetachable accompaniment of true living. It is calm and peaceful; it\nnever lives in an atmosphere of worry or of hopeless struggle.\n\nThe basis of happiness is the love of something outside self. Search\nevery instance of happiness in the world, and you will find, when all\nthe incidental features are eliminated, there is always the constant,\nunchangeable element of love,\u2014love of parent for child; love of man and\nwoman for each other; love of humanity in some form, or a great life\nwork into which the individual throws all his energies.\n\nHappiness is the voice of optimism, of faith, of simple, steadfast love.\nNo cynic or pessimist can be really happy. A cynic is a man who is\nmorally near-sighted,\u2014and brags about it. He sees the evil in his own\nheart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye eclipse\nthe sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long for\ndeath,\u2014for life cannot bring him happiness, death might. The keynote of\nBismarck\u2019s lack of happiness was his profound distrust of human nature.\n\nThere is a royal road to happiness; it lies in Consecration,\nConcentration, Conquest and Conscience.\n\nConsecration is dedicating the individual life to the service of others,\nto some noble mission, to realizing some unselfish ideal. Life is not\nsomething to be lived _through_; it is something to be lived _up_ to. It\nis a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many decades on earth.\nConsecration places the object of life above the mere acquisition of\nmoney, as a finality. The man who is unselfish, kind, loving, tender,\nhelpful, ready to lighten the burden of those around him, to hearten the\nstruggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in remembering others, is\non the right road to happiness. Consecration is ever active, bold and\naggressive, fearing naught but possible disloyalty to high ideals.\n\nConcentration makes the individual life simpler and deeper. It cuts away\nthe shams and pretences of modern living and limits life to its truest\nessentials. Worry, fear, useless regret\u2014all the great wastes that sap\nmental, moral or physical energy\u2014must be sacrificed, or the individual\nneedlessly destroys half the possibilities of living. A great purpose in\nlife, something that unifies the strands and threads of each day\u2019s\nthinking, something that takes the sting from the petty trials, sorrows,\nsufferings and blunders of life, is a great aid to Concentration.\nSoldiers in battle may forget their wounds, or even be unconscious of\nthem, in the inspiration of battling for what they believe is right.\nConcentration dignifies an humble life; it makes a great life,\u2014sublime.\nIn morals it is a short-cut to simplicity. It leads to right for right\u2019s\nsake, without thought of policy or of reward. It brings calm and rest to\nthe individual,\u2014a serenity that is but the sunlight of happiness.\n\nConquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to\nopposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from\nresisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life.\nSometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems\nthat justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for\nnothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster; when hope grows dim\nand flickers, then is the time when you must tower in the great sublime\nfaith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of\ndoubt and despair, you must master yourself to master the world around\nyou. This is Conquest; this is what counts. Even a log can float with\nthe current; it takes a man to fight sturdily against an opposing tide\nthat would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the\npetty intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life\nassail you, rise above them. Be like a lighthouse that illumines and\nbeautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm that threaten it,\nthat seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest.\nWhen the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your\nheart\u2019s desire, by sacrifice of honor or principle, comes to you and it\ndoes not affect you long enough even to seem a temptation, you have been\nthe victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the royal road\nto Happiness.\n\nConscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads\never to Happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his\nconscience and get its approval, without using force or specious logic,\nthen he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual must\nbe careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or\ndeadened by the wrongdoing and consequent deafness of its owner. The man\nwho is honestly seeking to live his life in Consecration, Concentration\nand Conquest, living from day to day as best he can, by the light he\nhas, may rely implicitly on his Conscience. He can shut his ears to\n\u201cwhat the world says\u201d and find in the approval of his own conscience the\nhighest earthly tribune\u2014the voice of the Infinite communing with the\nIndividual.\n\nUnhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True\nhappiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of pain\nsoftened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in the\nwondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and sympathy\nwith others.\n\nIf the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to\nmake life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for\nothers, he would find a wondrous revelation of what Happiness really is.\nThe greatest of the world\u2019s heroes could not by any series of acts of\nheroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life in\nseeking, from day to day, to make others happy.\n\nEach day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed\nenthusiasm. \u201cJust for To-day\u201d might be the daily motto of thousands of\nsocieties through the country, composed of members bound together to\nmake the world better through constant simple acts of kindness, constant\ndeeds of sweetness and love. And Happiness would come to them, in its\nhighest and best form, not because they would seek to _absorb_ it,\nbut\u2014because they seek to _radiate_ it.\n\n               _Printed in the United States of America_\n\n\n\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n                        William George Jordan\u2019s\n\n                               T A L K S\n\n\n                       _The Trusteeship of Life_\n                             12mo, cloth, net, $1.25\n\n\n                   _Little Problems of Married Life_\n                        Decorated in Two Colors\n                             12mo, cloth, net, $1.25\n\n\n                      _The Crown of Individuality_\n                           Decorated in Two Colors\n                               12mo, cloth, net, $1.25\n\n\n                             _Self-Control_\n                          Its Kingship and Majesty\n                              Decorated in Two Colors\n                                 12mo, cloth, net, $1.25\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n                            _COMRADE SERIES_\n\n                         _The Power of Purpose_\n                    12mo, Decorated Boards, net 60c.\n\n\n                     _The Kingship of Self-Control_\n                    12mo, Decorated Boards, net 60c.\n\n\n                       _The Majesty of Calmness_\n                    12mo, Decorated Boards, net 60c.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n_Transcriber\u2019s Notes:_\n\nHyphenation, and spellings have been retained as in the original.\nPunctuation has been corrected without note. The preceeding listing of\nthe author's other publications has been relocated from the front of the\nbook.","title":"Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":23909}