Chapter IX: Part 9

During most of the active years of his life, Beethoven had been planning a musical setting for Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” In the evening of his life it was at last completed. In 1824, just about two years before his death, Beethoven directed a rendering of this music in Vienna. During this performance a pathetic scene was enacted. At the close the applause became so deafening and was so prolonged that a serious public disturbance was feared, and the police were called in. Beethoven, who could hear no sound of all that was transpiring, stood with his back to the audience, wholly unconscious of the situation. At length someone touched him and caused him to turn around. When the people saw the look of surprise that spread over his face and realized the pathos of the situation, they broke out in a fresh demonstration, during which many faces were wet with tears.

By the time he was thirty years of age Beethoven had begun to be a victim of failing hearing. The dawn of this realization, which would have broken the spirit of many a man and which was a deep grief to him, did not daunt him nor greatly interfere with the completion of a great musical career. He did not dwell unduly upon his misfortune and, for a time, he even kept it a secret. Through the remaining years of his life, he patiently endured the difficulty, hindrance, and poverty of musical enjoyment which it brought him. That it had been to him a constant source of mental anguish, however, is indicated in the closing hour of his life. That hour came at the close of an illness which had been brought on by an undue exposure. It was while a severe thunderstorm was in progress outside that the great master lay surrounded by a group of friends who had been very faithful to him during his last illness, and some of whom were themselves eminent men. He indicated to them his knowledge that the end was near and then, after a silence, he said, “I shall hear in heaven,” and in a little time he was gone.

This was the ending of an unselfish life. Nothing but real devotion can leave the record that is his self-sacrifice. For the reckless and undeserving son of a dead brother, he denied himself real necessities for years, a sacrifice which met with neither appreciation nor effort to be worthy. The uncle remained true, however, and after his death when he was found to have held some unsuspected wealth in the form of bonds, it was supposed that he had kept it intact through his own days of severe personal need in order that it might go to his unworthy charge.

Beethoven was deeply religious. His ideas of religion were not weak and sentimental but were characterized by the same strength which pervaded his life in general. He had a keen sense of the Divine Power, but he did not allow it to destroy his companion sense of human responsibility. His pastor was a trusted friend. It was with that friend that he first shared the secret of his growing deafness and who helped him for a time to keep that secret from the ears of the world. Interesting and often illuminating correspondence between the two is still preserved. It is doubtful whether a mastery so great of an art so heavenly could have been possible to a man who did not have a strong sense of the Divine. The majesty of his music came from a majesty within, which probably knew better than it could tell the sweetness of that music which was breaking on his newly-opened ears in the moment of his assurance that he should “hear in heaven.”

The Obligation of Good Cheer (1916)

To say that there is no virtue in melancholy and no harm in cheerfulness only half states the case. Melancholy is positively wrong, and good cheer is a Christian grace. Whoever has a cheerful disposition has that much of a start toward positive and complete goodness.

From every viewpoint, both of the life to come and the life that now is, cheerfulness is a thing to be cultivated. It makes for happiness, it constitutes a guard against the danger of misjudgment and censoriousness, and it makes for success in the affairs of life. Everybody seeks out and likes the cheerful person. The world has no time—nor ought it to have—for the complainer and the grumbler.

Happiness is not a thing to be bought nor to be obtained from any external source. The only happiness which has lasting quality comes from within. No one can be happy long who is not happy in soul. Toys lose their gay color, baubles fade, treasures vanish, but a merry heart is glad forever. Happiness is not exclusive in its choice of where to go. It will go anywhere that anyone is willing to receive it. It graces the hovel as well as the mansion, and it is perfectly willing to pulsate in a breast covered with the rags of poverty. Anyone, anywhere, can be happy.

Melancholy is harmful to the individual. It not only spoils life for him, but it breaks down his health as well. No unhappy person can remain healthy long. On the other hand, no unhealthy person can cultivate the grace of joy without receiving substantial physical benefits therefrom.

The reasons for this are natural and plain. The unhappy person is never relaxed. He lives between a high tension of discontent and the lifeless reaction which follows. Today he is writhing in his self-inflicted misery. Tomorrow he is drowsy and languid as the inevitable result.

No one can feel well or go efficiently about his duties with his nerves on a strain. Every muscle must be free and loose. Each organ must be at ease and liberty to proceed in the performance of its function. The physical life cannot move by fits and starts without harm to itself. We cannot go in jerks without soon feeling the harmful results of so doing.

There is a still deeper reason than this for the harmful effect of discontent on the health. Unhappy emotions promptly set up processes which form poisons and pour them out into the system. These poisons have a paralyzing effect upon muscle and nerve. This accounts for the fact that indigestion or other organic inactivity will often follow a fit of violent anger or deep grief.

The Japanese are said to cultivate the habit of forcing themselves to smile. They do this, it is said, for the general benefit it renders both to disposition and health. It is a fact that a relaxed and smiling countenance has a tendency to put the rest of the body at its ease.

The conclusion is that every cheerful moment contributes to long life and physical well-being, and that it is not possible to give way to an uncontrolled torrent of unpleasant feelings or to the chilling hold of gloom without by so much shortening the days one has to live.

Melancholy is anti-social. It would scarcely be too much to say that it is criminal. If it is a crime to trespass upon the rights or the happiness of others, then gloom is a crime, for the reason that it does increase the burden and detract from the happiness of every person who ever comes into its chilling and blighting presence.

It does not dispose of the responsibility to say that other people need not be affected by our feelings. As a matter of fact, other people cannot help being affected by our feelings. Nothing is more contagious than feeling. The warm and genial spirit sheds light and joy wherever it goes—as a matter of course. The chilled and crabbed soul makes its presence a place of arctic coldness—and equally without effort. Where there is cheer, there we find spontaneity and freedom. Where there is gloom, there are weakness and constraint.

It is a serious question whether anyone ought to be allowed so to add to the world’s burden. Having been near someone who was constitutionally unhappy has more than once unfitted someone else for his daily task. No one cares how long his day or how hard his work so long as he can keep a courageous spirit, but when he is robbed of that, he is shorn of practically all his power.

Men are not looking for more troubles. They already have more than enough. They are looking for genial souls who know the value of a smile and can teach it to men. The world really owes a large debt to the men who have made it their business to coax a laugh occasionally to its weary and hardened face. The man who has made the way a little more sunny for some far stranger whose face he will never see in this world shall in no wise lose his reward.

It may often happen that one could render no other service quite so great as to just keep happy. The other man may not need a lift with his load. He may only need a fresh supply of gladness in his heart to make him feel that it is a little lighter. The world treasures its little supply of hearty good cheer as it might treasure gold and precious gems. Furthermore, it loves none so much as it loves those who try to pluck some of its thorns and plant flowers in their places.

Melancholy is not only unhealthful and anti-social, it is also sinful. The person who treasures an unhappy spirit sins not only against himself and his fellow men, but he also sins against the Almighty.

Of course, it should be understood that in order to be happy there is no need of questionable and dangerous diversions. Let it be said once more that happiness does not come from without but from within. The whole outside world takes on the color of the spectacles we wear. It is just as unpleasing as the person who sees it is unpleasant. It is just as rosy and beautiful as the eye that looks upon it is bright and hopeful. We are speaking here not of diversions but of the inner spirit of our lives. Happiness, if it is anything, is a quality of character.

In his story of “The Laughing Man,” Victor Hugo has sketched a remarkable character. Gwynplaine is a traveling showman, who as a baby was stolen from noble parents, and so disfigured by surgical means that his face always bore the appearance of a laugh. All through his life, however heavy might be his heart, Gwynplaine had no choice but to wear a laugh upon his face. The tears might flow from his eyes, but his features never lost their look of merriment. He laughed in sun and shadow, joy and woe.

After all, there is something wonderfully suggestive in this supposedly unfortunate character. He at least helped others too to be merry. He at least did not impose the chill of a downcast countenance upon any companion while he lived. This is worth while. It would be infinitely better if more could bury their sorrows beneath their cheer. Not only would others about them fare better, but the sorrows themselves would the sooner disappear. We cannot banish sorrow, but we can learn to bear it well.

If one will look to the Bible for a vindication of the statement that cheerfulness is Christian and gloom sinful, he will find abundant evidence to that effect. Everything there goes to indicate the gladness that clings about that One in whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures forevermore. The person who thinks religion must be sombre has misread his Bible and misinterpreted his Master. It may be serious and earnest, but never morose and gloomy.

The Man of Galilee was indeed a man of sorrows, but He was too much of a man of joy to burden the world with His sorrows. He did not dwell upon them in the presence of others. He was content to endure them manfully, and to give the world an example of courage to the last.

A despondent person is no ornament to religion. It is the joy-lighted face which inspires and wins. It is the light of joy about the altar that makes it an impressive place. It is the glad service which lifts the world a little farther in its long, hard climb.

Worship and Service (1916)

Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, was an important force in early Western history. However, he stained his hands again and again with helpless blood. Selfishly he pursued his end both by fair means and foul. When the last of the Incas, from the prison into which Pizarro had thrown him to await death, offered a roomful of gold as his ransom, Pizarro accepted the gold, but the promise of life and liberty was broken, and the old man was led to his death.

One day as the conqueror sat at dinner, he was surprised by a group of avengers and was struck down. As he lay dying, Pizarro dipped his finger into the stream of lifeblood that flowed from him, drew with it the figure of a cross upon the floor, and kissed it as he died.

A beautiful thing, it may perhaps be called, that the dying thoughts of a great explorer and conqueror turned to the cross, and that his lips were last pressed against its sacred image. But a life of cruelty is not atoned for by kissing the picture of the emblem of love. Years of wrong are not changed by one symbolic act of devotion at the last. The old Inca chief and all the others who had met death at the point of Pizarro’s sword remained in their graves, their rights and treasures unrestored. The fact that their overcomer died kissing the cross was of no avail to them.

To kiss the cross at twilight will never take the place of playing the man through the day. It is better to live, simply and nobly, the spirit and principles of the cross for a single hour than to embrace its image for an eternity. Peace and love are not symbols, but realities; and righteousness is not shadow but substance. Simple fidelity in common ways far transcends the one picturesque performance done when all the world is looking. It is only the path of simple duty that leads to peace at last. He who would die in the spirit of the cross must live there. The cross is truly pictured in the life of true devotion, not with the blood of selfishness upon the couch of death.

Do It Right (1917)

The other day I saw painted behind the seat of an express truck, where the expressman would see it each time he loaded or removed a package, the simple sentence: “Do it right.”

The express company knew human nature. It also understood the laws of success. It had taken the trouble to place before the eyes of its employe the maxim which pointed the way to their mutual success.

For what will make an express company prosperous will also make its workers prosperous, namely, doing things right. And if that principle will give success in the handling of express packages, it will also result in success in the performance of any other task. There is not a walk of life in which profitable use may not be made of the maxim: “Do it right.” Whether one works with tools, with books, with facts, or with men, he cannot be a success in his line unless he does it right.

It takes longer to do a thing right. Nervousness and hurry are the foes of perfect work. The master workman must be deliberate. He will not take more time than he needs, but he must take that much. It takes longer to do a thing right, but it never has to be done over when once it is finished.

Life’s Handicaps (1918)

One day a group of Galilean people wanted to carry a sick friend to Jesus to be healed. He was in a house, and when they came near they found such a crowd about the doors and windows that they could not get in. Not to be defeated in their purpose, they cut an opening through the roof and let the sick man, bed and all, down to where the Great Physician was. Of course, the result was that the afflicted person received the gift of a whole body as the reward for their insistent attitude. The story is simply another version of the value of importunity in seeking the gifts of the Great Helper.

This story of the long ago indicates one of the great principles of life, and one which has played a part in the activities and struggles of every age. It suggests that one may at any time have to reckon with handicaps, but that there is usually a way to overcome them if one has the will to seek and follow that way. There is something highly admirable about the spirit of this group of people who, when they could not accomplish their desire in one way, promptly found another in which they could accomplish it.

The Scriptures say a good many things by implication which they do not say in exactly so many words. It is said that in an experience meeting in which the attendants fell to quoting favorite passages of Scripture, an old lady arose and stated that of all the beautiful and helpful Scripture texts in which she had found strength and comfort, her favorite was this: “Grin and bear it.” The Bible does not contain such a text, but it does contain such a teaching, and the old lady was not so far wrong after all.

This Scripture story of the sick man and his friends suggests another adage of the world, which has expression at least by implication in the Scriptures. The Bible does not contain such a text as: “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” yet such is the exact teaching implied in the story outlined above.

Along whatever way one’s path may happen to lie, and whatever may be the task which he undertakes to perform, his life would be utterly unnatural if it were devoid of difficulties. A life without handicaps would be no more natural than a summer without showers or a year without a winter. It is not even desirable that one should live without encountering more or less resistance to his efforts to realize his best and highest hopes.

Furthermore, these difficulties are often unforeseen. They cannot be calculated, but they must be allowed for. At the beginning of the carrying out of any enterprise, the proper thing to do is to reckon one’s resources and to count the cost. At the beginning of any journey, the barriers in the way must be a calculation in the plan. At the outset of any endeavor, one must realize that not every part of his task will be altogether easy. If it were, the finished product would hardly be worth while, and certainly the toiler himself would not have benefited largely from his labor. Difficulties, expected and unexpected, are as certain to come as is the succession of the days and nights.

Life is frequently likened to a race. It is true that it is a progress toward a goal, and that in it there are many who are contending against each other for what they look upon as a victory. Life is not a race, however, in which every element of the situation is ideal for every runner. It is only in dreams where such perfect conditions may be found. In the hard facts of life it is otherwise. In the real race each contestant has at least some odds against him.

Life, then, is a race in which each runner is hampered with a handicap. Each situation presents some difficulty, and occasionally the most brilliant of successes is made in spite of this hindrance. The ideal race would not be one without handicaps. It is rather one in which a man plays his part well in spite of handicaps. The ideal victory is not that which is won because the contestant had everything in his favor. It is rather the one which is gained in spite of the odds which the contestant had against him.

Homer and Milton were blind, yet each won for himself a secure place among the world’s small group of immortal poets. It would have been easy for either to have made his affliction an excuse for failure. Instead, each made his handicap an added reason for success. Each learned to glimpse a glory which is hidden to most who are blessed with faultless vision.

Demosthenes was born with a faulty utterance and with a hollow chest. Nevertheless, he conceived a great desire to be an orator. Most men would have found their physical unfitness a sufficient handicap to discourage them from any effort. Demosthenes determined to overcome the hindrances which had been born with him. He sought a remote and secluded place, shaved his head in order that he might not soon venture back among his friends, and exercised his voice and body until the weakness of both had been overcome. All the world is familiar with the final results of his efforts.

On the day when Demosthenes was uttering the amazing words which so tellingly advocated his right to receive a crown at the hands of his fellow citizens, the explanation of his achievement did not lie in his birth. It lay rather in the fact that he had willed to overcome the limitations with which nature had surrounded him. It is true that he had seized a psychological moment, but he was able to seize that moment because he had not feared the long period of painstaking effort which had been necessary to overcome his handicaps. The secret of his success was not opportunity, but toil. He had merely refused to surrender to the forces which would have destroyed the usefulness of many men. His triumph was but the result of a task patiently performed in spite of its difficulty.

During the last century, Spain produced a remarkable artist in the person of Daniel Vierge. He attained eminence in his work while still a young man. At the early age of thirty, however, he suffered complete paralysis of the right side. It would have been easy to have admitted that his work with the brush and pencil was done, and to have resigned himself to what seemed to be a hard fate. Such was not his spirit, however. He had no intention of relinquishing the tools of his art. He still had the use of his left arm, and he determined that it should be trained to possess the power which the other had lost.

The long and tedious period of training had to be gone through again. He accomplished his task, however, and in spite of the difficulty which he had encountered he learned to draw nearly as well with his left hand as he had ever been able to do with the other. By making the most of the one resource which was left to him, he managed to retain his place in the front rank of his profession as an illustrator. The work which he produced after his affliction can scarcely be distinguished in quality from his earlier efforts.

Dr. Holmes once said that the best way to live long is to become afflicted with some serious disease. What he meant was that such an affliction sometimes teaches people the care of their bodies, when enduring health would leave them utterly careless of the essential laws of well-being. It does sometimes happen that, even in this regard, a handicap is found to be a helpful thing. There are cases on record which tell the story of renewed effort to cultivate health and strength, when life was rapidly slipping away, and of the crowning of that effort with success, health, and long life.

The old story of the hare and the tortoise is re-enacted daily in modern life. The battle does not always go to the strong, nor is victory in the race the inevitable portion of the swift. The winner is more apt to be the patient toiler who has chosen a purpose, and who struggles in the direction of his goal in spite of handicaps. His progress may not always be swift, but it is at least continuous.

The Riverside (1918)

“It is not what we would like to do in this life,” says Clarence E. Flynn in ‛The Riverside,’ “but what we really get done that counts.”

“Heaven in its mercy may take the will for the deed, but human destiny in its justice never does.”

“What the world of men needs is not kindly thoughts which never come to expression nor the good will which never reaches the form of action. What it needs is the helpful word and the real deed of kindness. It is for the concrete service that the hearts of men rise up in thankfulness.”

“And, in the working out of our own careers, progress is not made by the dream which never become more than a dream nor the purpose which was never carried to fulfillment. ‛We rise by the things that are under our feet,’ and push forward by the virtue of the things really accomplished. Fate, like men, does not ask how we have felt, but what we have done.”

“Upon the record of our own characters and personalities we may get credits for feelings and our purposes, even though they were all smothered silence and inaction, but these things do not enter into the record formed by the impressions we make upon our age. It is a record of deed, and it stands when the eyes of this world have ceased to see any other.”

“A thought or a feeling of aspiration, however great or strong, is not meant to be an end within itself. It is a means to the end of its actual realization in action and accomplishment.”

“A heavenly vision is given only to shed light on a way to perform a heavenly deed. A great thought is given only to make possible a great work. A noble feeling is God’s way of pointing to a noble mission. Columbus did not have a conviction that a new world lay beyond the sea for naught. The conviction led the way to the fact and its important result. It has been so in countless similar instances.”

“It is what men do that lives after them. There is an earthly side to immortality. The deeds done in the flesh make an epitaph which cannot deceive.”

Determinants (1921)

Two trees grow together on the same hillside. They draw their sustenance from the same soil, yet each has its own peculiar bark, leaf, and fruit. Both exude gum, yet one gum contains arabic acid while the other contains none. The difference is not in the food they consume nor the environment in which they grow. It is in some hidden fact which determines the nature of each.

Two animals feed in the same pasture. They eat the same food and graze upon the same kind of grass. Yet one is covered with hair and the other with wool. The difference is not in the material of which their coats are made. It is in some unseen force which determines their natures.

Two human beings grow up together in the same home. They eat together from the same food at the same table. They have the same parental guidance. They enjoy the same physical and social environment. Yet one becomes a good man and the other a bad one. The same sustaining properties have entered into their making, but in one they bring forth good fruit, while in the other they bring forth evil fruit.

No tree ever violates the dictates of that hidden force. Its fruitage never varies. One could not change its output unless he could first change its nature. Men do not gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. Fortunately, however, this rule does not hold in the case of men. The nature of a man can be altered or reversed.

This can be done because it is possible to change the heart, and from the heart are the issues of life. Nothing can change the determinant in a tree, but there is a power that can change it in a life. This is because a man has a will, while a tree has none. It is the power of the will to resist or submit.

Love’s Burdens (1921)

A little boy sat in a wheel chair. The hand of Fate had already rested heavily upon his tender years. A paralysis had laid hold upon him and had left him as helpless as an infant. His drawn lips could not speak. His eyes could not keep themselves focussed upon any object. Only one thing about him remained normal. His mind continued to function. He knew, felt, joyed, desired, and suffered.

In some unfeeling, intellectually ideal republic, such a pitiful piece of human wreckage might have been cast upon the junk heap. It was so done in the old day, and so it would be done again if a certain type of statesman might have his pitiless way. Utopias too seldom make proper allowance for such poor unfortunates. They cannot produce anything. They are necessarily a care and a burden to others. They are worth nothing in money to society. They are not social assets. They are social liabilities.

Fortunately, this child did not dwell in a state which reckoned things on such a basis. He was born a citizen of the blessed kingdom of love. The disposition of his poor, stricken life was not determined by the dictates of the head. It was decided by the kindlier judgments of the heart. It was not a question of expediency. It was one of affection. Had his parents been ruled by the icy processes of a certain brand of common sense, they might have despised and neglected him because he was not a creditable representative of their kind. However, it was not so. Being ruled by the gentler spirit of parental love, they cared for him a little more tenderly than for any other of their children.

There is a reason. It is the fact that love is so constituted that it finds joy in bearing burdens. It deliberately reaches out to help the poorest and most unfortunate. It lavishes itself on those from whom it can expect nothing save gratitude in return. The feelings of the heart constitute the only coin in circulation in love’s domain.

Day after day an aged mother sat in her chair by the window. Her faded eyes looked continually out upon the street. One might have thought that they were looking at the stream of passers-by. It was not so. She could hardly see the friends and neighbors as they came and went. She was really looking back over the long vista of vanished years. She was seeing departed faces, and listening to voices long hushed by the blanketing clay.

A day came when she could no longer sit at the window. The thin old frame that was her body had grown too weak to support itself in a chair, so she lay upon her bed. Neglected? No. She was more tenderly cared for than ever. She was a great care for the tender, loving hands that ministered to her, but her very weakness and helplessness called the louder to loving hearts and they responded.

One day the worn-out machinery of her physical body stopped running. At evening time it had suddenly grown light, and then the darkness had fallen. The old face was the picture of peace, with its closed eyes and a certain satisfied expression upon its features.

A wise friend came and stood in the darkened room with the daughter who had faithfully cared for the aged one while she lived. She said to her:

“I know how many times your arms will ache for the burden that has been taken from them.”

She knew the law of love. It craves burdens to bear. When it has carried a heavy load through years of time and that load is suddenly lifted from its shoulders, it does not rejoice. It weeps and wishes for the burden back again. This is a part of its strange, beautiful nature. Without this nature it would not be love. The world has gone on and the race has accomplished something of an upward climb because love has always been among us, lifting, pushing, and helping. Without it we should still be a race of savages.

A little blind girl walked in the park day after day. She stepped among flowers that she had never seen. She listened to the birds, though she did not know what they looked like. She lived in a world the beauty or ugliness of which she had no power to realize. She was always led about by the same hand—that of her father. He was patient and faithful. He seemed to be trying to do all that could be done to compensate for the great lack in her life. Since joy could not find its way in through her eyes, he did what he could to help a little more of it to trickle in through her heart. He succeeded, for across her sightless face occasionally flashed a brightness announcing the arrival of gladness within.

There were other children in the family. All save this one were in full possession of their normal powers. The logical thing, after a fashion, would have been for the hearts of the parents to incline toward the well-favored. However, such was not the type of logic that prevailed. The heart of love does not lavish its affection upon those who have no need. It pours itself out for those who need help and care. Therefore, this sightless child was more tenderly cared for than any one of the rest.

It was in accordance with an established law. The troubled heart is a magnet to the spirit of affection. Moreover, the very toil and sacrifice spent for an object of love beget a greater devotion. The greater care one needs the more he is loved.

It is so among men because it is so with God. We are made in His image, and our normal feelings and efforts are only a poor human struggle to be like Him.

A beautiful thing is said in the opening sentences of the Bible. The barren picture of the first stage of creation is first sketched. It is said that the earth was waste, and void, and that darkness was upon the face of the deep. Then comes the significant sentence. It relates that the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters.

This is the explanation of all the progress that has been achieved since. The waste became order, the void became substance, and the darkness became light. Gradually civilization established itself, and the world keeps moving on toward the realization of its better day. Some time we shall see the realization of the promise of a new heaven and a new earth in which no sin or sorrow shall be known. There will be just one explanation. God has brooded in love over every shadow, and sin, and sorrow that we have ever had, and His love has always struggled on with us to better things.

One day when Jesus showed some special solicitude for those whom the correct and the respectable despised, He answered the criticism of His friends by saying that it was not the well but the sick who needed a physician. Such is the law of love. The heart of the world’s Saviour went out first to those who needed His care most. It was love looking for a burden to bear.

One evening time Jesus prayed in a garden. He was looking at the whole world that night as He had looked at the city when He wept over it. He was the divine spirit brooding that night over the needs of a race. Next morning He hung upon the cross. He was only going to the limit of the last bitter extremity for those He loved. Why do we call Him the world’s highest example of love? Because He was the world’s outstanding burden-bearer.

Love is the sweetest and the costliest thing in the world. It is the sweetest because it is the spirit and atmosphere of heaven. It is the costliest because its arms are always aching for loads to carry.

The Successors of Tantalus (1921)

Tantalus was a legendary Grecian king who is said to have displeased the gods. As punishment he was condemned to dwell by a pool, the waters of which receded when he attempted to drink from them, and to dwell just out of reach of an abundance of overhanging fruit.

Tantalus lives in many of us today. His pool of water and evasive food supply are like the visions which fade before we reach them or the hopes that burst like bubbles before they are realized. They are like the mirage that leads the traveler across the desert and fades before he has quenched his thirst at its promised springs. They resemble the summer flower that falls to pieces before one can lay hands upon it.

Yet these unrealized hopes are among the most valuable experiences we have. The traveler on the desert may not reach his palm-sheltered spring, but he often approaches nearer to the end of his journey for having followed its image. In life we do not always get what we seek, but we often find that in what seemed an hour of failure we have achieved real progress.

At maturity one often finds that the joys he sought in youth are only empty husks after having been so laboriously obtained. It may seem tragic that the name and place to which he early aspired lose so much of their appeal when they have been attained. The effort spent on the upward climb has not been in vain, however. In the struggle his ideals have lifted. He is no longer satisfied with the superficial and the unreal.

We plan endeavors and strive to successfully complete them. Sometimes we succeed, but often we fail. When we fail in a righteous cause the labor has not necessarily been in vain. One can never be robbed of the best fruit of his striving, which is the added sinew of strength gained in the trying.

The Christian Standard of Greatness (1922)

The life and destiny of a nation are largely determined by what it considers great. If its hero is a ruthless warrior, its nature will be militaristic, and its end will be that of those who fight and kill. If its idol is a man whose chief distinction is wealth, its career will be one long struggle after gold, and its journey will be to the grave of profligacy. If its ideal is a man whose sole objective is position and power, its life will be a struggle for place, and its end the decadence which such things always suffer.

This principle is true because greatness is a mirage after which all men seek. It is a rainbow’s end to which, though we may never quite reach it, we are always struggling. When a thing once comes to be considered great, it at once becomes popular. Men of every kind and condition immediately seek it. It becomes the fashion and, therefore, determines the life of the period.

=The Question of Relative Greatness=

It was a perfectly natural thing that the disciples of Jesus should concern themselves so much about the question of relative greatness in the kingdom which their Master had proclaimed. It was nothing but the world-old lust for chief positions. It was planted deeply in their natures, just as it has been in the natures of those who have lived in every age. Jesus understood it, and He realized the inevitableness of their obsession with it. He dealt gently with some of their mistakes because He knew these mistakes had their origin in this fact.

One day that wonderful little company of men arrived in the city of Capernaum, tired out with their travel on the country road. When they were safely in the house, Jesus sat down among them and asked what it was they had been discussing on the way. He made this inquiry only to open up the question, for He knew that they had been disputing about the question as to who was greatest. Then He settled the question once and for all by proclaiming a new standard of greatness. “If any man would be first,” He said, “he shall be last of all and the servant of all.”

=A Permanent and Dependable Standard=

In those words, Jesus set forth the Christian measure of greatness. With a wave of the hand, He set aside the ordinary standards and conceptions of the world. Passing show and display, temporary wealth and position, the deceitfulness of name and rank, the needless privilege of lording it over others as some great one in the land—all these are disregarded in the kingdom of things as they should be. Jesus measures greatness by the only standard which is permanent and dependable. Since we are His followers, we must do the same.

=The Paradoxes of Jesus=

The teachings of Jesus are full of the appearance of paradox. He frequently said such things as He said to the disciples that day in Capernaum. He said that to gain one’s life he must lose it, that to be first one must be last, and that to be great one must not seek to be served but to serve.

The world in general has never come to see that these things are really true. At least it has not come to act as though it realized their truth. However, the experiences of life are continually proving them. Repeatedly we have seen that one carries nothing out of the world except what he has given away. In a very real sense, one possesses only that which he has lost. One is made of account in this world as well as the next not by being ministered unto but by ministering.

=The Teachings of Jesus in Terms of Life=

Jesus was not one who preached one gospel and lived another. He preached a possible gospel and proved its possibility by living it. He himself was a perfect example of His own teachings worked out in terms of life. He went about doing good. He is the supreme figure in the life of the ages because He was the supreme servant of men. He was the divine Son of God. Therefore, His life is full and sufficient proof to us that service is more than great. It is divine.

This Christian conception of greatness has not been altogether easy for the world to accept. Men have been so long steeped in the human love for the gleam of gold, the trappings of power, and the couch of luxury that they do not readily part with the old habits of thought and the old ambitions of life.

Age-long ideas are not easy to banish. Nearly two-thousand years have passed since Jesus preached His little sermon on greatness at Capernaum, and we have not yet wholly learned the lesson. We are in process of learning it, however. The world makes progress, and some day we shall have reached the goal of high thinking, noble ideals, and great conceptions.

=Our Changing Conception of Greatness=

A little while ago one might have seen the marks of the old standard of greatness on the walls of almost any school building in the land. He would have seen displayed there a collection of pictures the great majority of which were portraits of warriors and representations of battle scenes. A census of the pictures in the ordinary school history would have revealed the same situation. This is all in accordance with an ancient law. We are hero worshippers. We have always pictured our idols on the schoolhouse walls. And in accordance with the inevitable law of suggestion, they have effected the life of the generations accordingly.

Today we see fewer warriors and battle scenes pictured. Instead we see an increasing number of portraits of the great servants of humanity. Where yesterday we saw the pictures of Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon, today we see the faces of Faraday, Watts, Fulton, Pasteur, and Burbank. This simply means that our conception of greatness is changing. We admire the great destroyers less and less. We admire the great builders and servants of the race more and more.

=Ancient and Modern Wonders of the World=

In the second century before Christ, Antipater of Sidon wrote an epigram in which he catalogued what he considered the seven most wonderful things in the world at that time. The list included the walls of Babylon, the statue of Zeus by Phidias at Olympia, the hanging gardens at Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, the pyramids of Egypt, the mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the temple of Diana at Ephesus.

Rather recently the editor of a well-known American magazine undertook to discover what is the best opinion as to the seven most wonderful things in the world today. He addressed a thousand letters to leading thinkers in various countries, asking each to record his choice among a considerable list of things.

The seven things receiving the highest number of votes were the wireless, the telephone, the aeroplane, radium, antiseptics and antitoxins, spectrum analysis, and the X-ray. The eighth wonder chosen, had the call been for that number, would have been the Panama Canal.

It will be noted that nothing in Antipater’s list expressed service to mankind. At the same time, it will be noted that everything in the modern list enumerated does signify service. This means that we are moving forward in the direction of a Christian standard of greatness.

=The True Ideal for Humanity=

It will be a blessed day for humanity when people in general come to see that the one who is servant of his times is the true ideal of greatness. Since we are hero-worshippers, and since we do take one another for our patterns, it is highly desirable that the highest type of manhood and womanhood we have shall be the examples for the rest.

The human struggle will always be in the direction of whatever is considered great. We shall always struggle to become like that which we most admire. Therefore, it is important that we shall most admire the thing that is best. Doing so, we shall become increasingly like it.

A nation made up of people who measure greatness by service will not be treading the path to national doom so long as this is true. It will be moving forward in the way of a larger and richer life. Selfishness and envy are disintegrating influences, but service in the spirit of Christ is a building force both for time and for all eternity.

The Objective of Service (1922)

The present social situation demands that we shall push forward in the direction of a twofold objective. First, we must give human life the best possible set of conditions under which to exist and develop. Second, we must do what is properly possible to assist it to develop at its best under those conditions. We must make of the physical world the best environment we can. We must then encourage people to obtain the largest benefit from that environment.

The highest values we can cultivate are the human values. It is all well enough to lay out beautiful parks, build broad streets, erect costly monuments, and rear majestic buildings. However, to do these things alone would be following a very short-sighted plan. Such a program cannot long continue unless we keep producing men who can carry it forward. Furthermore, its results would be of no value to the future without a vigorous and hardy race to enjoy them when the future arrives.

If we develop the highest type of human beings we shall not be lacking any good thing when the to-morrows come. After all, the human problems are about the only ones we have. Give us worthy people, and everything else will take care of itself. Where wealth accumulates and men decay the country decays with them. Where humanity is regnant and ascendent everything else is certain to be at its best. The world goes upward or downward, forward or backward with its people. All that enters into our physical environment must first be conceived in the mind and wrought by the hand of man. Humanity is, therefore, the most important object to which our interest and service can be dedicated. It represents both the divine problem and the human task. Only by discharging our full duty to it can we realize the dream of a new heaven and a new earth. The strength, and worth, and happiness of human beings are the things for which we should all be living, both for the sake of others and that of ourselves.

Our Blessings of Deliverance (1922)

When Thanksgiving Day comes ’round, it always reminds us how numberless are our blessings. This is true even of the visible blessings which could be listed on paper, if there were a volume large enough to hold them. It is also true of a great body of invisible blessings. We might call them our blessings of deliverance. No less important than the things which we have been given are the things from which we have been saved. What the extent of that group of blessings is we can never know.

We are here because God did not see fit to call us away this year. Our homes still shelter us because He has not decided to foreclose the mortgage He held upon them before we were born. We still receive our livings because He has not seen fit to discontinue honoring the old petition, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Our loved ones are still about us because He has not seen fit to sunder any of the bands that hold them to earth.

What sad misfortunes might have come to us, and did not! What pitiful events might have occurred, and did not! What dark storm clouds might have arisen, when the skies remained clear! Every absence of trouble is a mercy of God.

Our fathers used to have a phrase in their prayers that expressed this idea. They used to say: “Lord, we thank Thee that it is as well with us as it is.” That old prayer, so often on their lips, is worth repeating each time we come to the Throne of Mercy and Grace. How much worse things might have been than they are! God has blessed us with incalculable good. He has also preserved us from incalculable evil. Let us not forget to praise him for the storms that did not break, the tears that did not fall, the problems that did not arise, the disappointments we did not suffer, the heartaches we did not feel, the blossoms that did not wither, the hopes that were not shattered, and the graves that were not made.

The Redemption of Jean Valjean (1922)

Among all the characters of fiction, Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean stands out in a light of special distinction. The author intended him to indicate the limiting influence of social law and custom. However, he accomplishes a much better thing than that. He furnishes us a master picture of the upward struggle of a soul despite the influences acting within and without to keep it down. In certain broad and general features, the redemption of Jean Valjean is a picture of the redemption of any person in any place or time.

The opening chapters of the story of _Les Miserables_ reveal a man with sullen features, suspicious eyes, and unkempt appearance, entering the town of D. at evening time. He has just escaped from nineteen years in the galleys. His crime was a serious one. He thrust his hand through a baker’s window, and stole a loaf of bread to feed the hungry children of his poor sister. Nineteen years at the oars have been the expiation of this and his various efforts to escape. He is now a fugitive, forever branded a criminal by society. The law pursues him. Every man’s hand is against him.

Turned with suspicion from every other place of entertainment, he is finally received in the home of an aged priest—the first stranger who has ever trusted him. He yields to his criminal propensity, cultivated by his years in the galleys, and steals away in the night with the bishop’s silver.

On the way, he meets a little savoyard, and robs him of his scanty store of money. The helplessness of the child touches him. Remorse lays hold of him. He sits down upon a stone and weeps. Restoring the bishop’s silver, he kneels in prayer at the gate. In a word, Jean Valjean has found himself. He has taken the first step on the road to better things by seeing himself as he is. An angel has held a mirror before his face, and in it he has beheld himself aright.