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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77080 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note: Writings are ordered by category, then publication
+year (goal is earliest available at least with legible text), then
+alphabetically (ignoring “A”, “An”, and “The”). Investigation of
+spelling involved Google’s Ngram Viewer (//books.google.com/ngrams/).
+Appendix 1 was created for this book and is ordered alphabetically by
+title. Appendix 2 also was created for this book. Additional new
+material, and the compilation, are granted to the public domain. This
+plain text version of the book uses underscores (_) to denote the
+start and end of italicized text and equal signs (=) to denote the
+start and end of bold text.
+
+
+
+
+COLLECTED WRITINGS OF CLARENCE EDWIN FLYNN
+
+First Edition, 1929 and Earlier
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+LIST OF WRITINGS BY CATEGORY
+WRITINGS
+APPENDIX 1: BYLINES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, NOTES
+APPENDIX 2: SELECTED QUOTES AND ZINGERS
+
+
+
+
+“It is the glad service which lifts the world a little farther in its
+long, hard climb.”
+_The Obligation of Good Cheer_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+What follows is a brief introduction to Mr. Flynn, his authorship of
+these writings, and how this book came about. From my research on his
+life, which I made available at //prabook.com/web/clarence.flynn/1084802,
+Clarence Edwin Flynn (1886–1970) was an American Methodist Episcopal
+clergyman, writer, hymnist and lecturer. He’s described as a “writer of
+stories, articles and verse appearing in periodicals and anthologies”
+and is “represented in anthologies of verse. General character writing,
+religious, educational.” [1] [2] [3] His writings (sans poems) appeared
+in more than 50 different domestic and international publications.
+
+Were all of these writings authored by Clarence Edwin Flynn? I cannot
+say that is true with certainty, but I’ll offer the following support.
+Firstly, there’s moderate support in the fact that the middle initial
+“E” is used in all but two bylines; two bylines have no middle name or
+initial. Secondly, almost a third of the bylines offer strong support
+through the attributes mainly of title (e.g. Reverend) and locations
+that correspond with his biography. Thirdly, moderate to strong support
+can be found in the writings’ content, which is the basis for including
+more than half of the writings. Religious topics certainly offer strong
+support. As for the wide variety of other topics covered, the reader
+will find multiple cases where Reverend Flynn encourages preachers to
+broaden their knowledge and experiences in order to better serve their
+congregations. And if you find the content strong in the art of
+persuasion, Flynn was a member of the college oratory team. In
+conclusion, this brief analysis is limited by the absence of Clarence
+Edwin Flynn’s personal papers (their status is unknown to me).
+
+How did this book come about? In short, the writings were collected
+during the primary process of collecting poetry. The longer explanation
+is in the preface to the book cited in the third footnote. As with the
+book of poetry, this is the inaugural collection of writings and is
+limited to those published in 1929 or earlier in accordance with a
+copyright rule governing works first published before 95 years ago.
+
+  [1] _Who’s Who in America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable
+Living Men and Women_. Vol. 24, 1946–1947, Two Years. Chicago:
+The A. N. Marquis Co., 1946. p. 780
+  [2] Lawrence, Alberta, ed. _Who’s Who Among North American Authors_.
+Vol. 5, 1931–1932. Los Angeles: Golden Syndicate Publishing Co., 1931.
+p. 1089
+  [3] This collection of writings does not include poetry. I created
+a separate book of his poetry: Flynn, Clarence Edwin. _Collected Poems
+of Clarence Edwin Flynn_. First edition, 1929 and earlier. Jun 17, 2025.
+https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76332
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF WRITINGS BY CATEGORY
+
+Categories are not mutually exclusive.
+
+
+LIFTING THE ARTS
+
+“It was an innocent-faced maid” (1906): Humorous anecdote
+
+“A man entered a downtown street car” (1906): Humorous anecdote
+
+The Modern Grandmother (1915): Humorous anecdote
+
+The Opportunity and Peril of the Writer (1918): “He dare not fail to be
+a mouthpiece of truth.”
+
+The Message of the Washington Monument (1919): “...it outlines the
+essential qualities of our people.”
+
+The Post-War Outlook for Literature (1919): “The fundamental principles
+of life have not changed, but our attitude toward life and our
+application of those principles have changed mightily.”
+
+Free Verse (1921): “It is one of the best outlets poetry can ever offer
+for the expression of the moods and thoughts of the human soul.”
+
+Music and History (1921): “The issues of life have always proceeded from
+the heart, and the heart of any age expresses itself in its musical
+productions.”
+
+Correspondence (1929): “As good correspondence is an art, so a good
+correspondent is an artist.”
+
+
+LIFTING CHRISTIANITY
+
+The Sabbath Desecration (1910): “We may well ask whence this great
+difference between our age and that of the preceding generation.”
+
+The Light (1915): “In the life of man, [light] takes the form of the
+knowledge of the truth which makes him free.”
+
+The Yoke (1915): “...the command of Jesus to accept and wear His yoke
+is often much more dreadful than there is reason that it should be.”
+
+The Crowded Inn (1916): “[The story] has been the most tragic because
+it has represented the most widespread condition.”
+
+The Price of Liberty (1916): “The tragedy of Calvary opened up the way
+to liberty....”
+
+Paul’s Ideal Sufficient (1918): “Each social institution has one task
+to perform, and it will be found to be unable to perform more than that
+one task well.”
+
+The Religion of the New Age (1919): “The facts of religion can not change,
+but humanity can achieve progress in rightly interpreting them and in
+rightly adapting itself to them.”
+
+Christianity and Americanism (1920): “The perpetuity of the state
+depends most largely upon the very things for which the Christian
+religion stands.”
+
+The Christian Program (1920): “[Realization of the Kingdom]
+therefore depends upon the passing from one to another of its
+master secret.”
+
+Essay contributed to a symposium on “The Church and Young People” (1920):
+“Unless [the church’s status in relation to youth] is improved,
+the kingdom will become a victim of race suicide.”
+
+The Message of an Empty Tomb (1920): “[Jesus’s] life had been a message of
+life triumphant.”
+
+The Laboratory Test (1921): “...the only way to appraise
+[the Christian faith’s] real merits…”
+
+The Nearness of Destiny (1921): “‛What you are to be you are
+now becoming.’”
+
+Children and the Church (1922): “...we should assume that every child
+is...to be reared in its ways and teachings...until he wilfully
+forsakes it.”
+
+The Church’s Fourfold Program (1922): Evangelism, education,
+social welfare, and finance
+
+Newer Conceptions of Religion (1922): “We cannot alter the divine plan
+of life and redemption, but we can make progress in our understanding
+and use of it.”
+
+The International Religion (1923): “As to whether God proposes to save
+the many or the few, it would seem to favor the first answer.”
+
+The Great Teacher (1925): Vital things, simple and plain,
+and position clear
+
+What Can We Believe? (1928): “One is made or unmade by his beliefs.”
+
+The Christ of the Sea (1929): “He began at once promoting the kind of
+thing the practical world calls impossible because it is right.”
+
+The Comrade Perfect: An Appreciation (1929): “...life is not all that it
+ought to be without the presence of the Personality which completes us.”
+
+Four Addresses to Young People (1929): Christian service, communion
+with God, spiritual and practical leaders, and the church’s purposes
+
+What Is Happening to Religion? (1929): “Eminent scientists announcing
+their faith in and support of religion are a growing company.”
+
+
+LIFTING CHRISTIAN MINISTERS
+
+Has the Day of Great Preachers Passed (1921): “The one standard by which
+he is measured is the question of his ability as an exponent of the
+Christian religion.”
+
+The Heart Interest in Preaching (1922): “He has sensed the human side,
+and seen what it is that makes the need for preaching.”
+
+The Great Compulsion (1928): “That was the last peaceful day he ever saw,
+for our peace is the price we pay for greatness.”
+
+The Minister and His Reading (1928): “...the field with which the minister
+needs to be familiar is unlimited because it touches all the others.”
+
+Preaching to College Students (1928): “[The minister] is dealing with
+adventurous minds whose one concern is truth.”
+
+Some Problems of the Preacher (1928): “They have cost many a man his
+usefulness, and limited that of many others.”
+
+The Ambassador (1929): “It is a wonderful thing to be a minister,
+because a minister is an ambassador of the Kingdom of God.”
+
+Let the Minister Know Life (1929): “He needs to see, and hear, and know
+enough to understand the mind and heart of the world.”
+
+The Yielding of Aaron (1929): “...the adaptation of the principles and
+standards of religion to public tastes, ideals, and desires.”
+
+
+LIFTING COMMUNITY
+
+The Necessary Asset—Friends (1917): “The most valuable friend
+is the friend who is one for friendship’s sake alone.”
+
+Building a World Brotherhood (1918): “In [Jesus’s] estimation of things,
+a man was a man. He could be no more and there was no disposition to ever
+rate him as less.”
+
+The Laughing Man (1919): “My lords,” he said, “I bring you news—news of
+the existence of mankind.”
+
+The Safe Foundations for a League of Nations (1919): “If the hearts of men
+are not right toward one another, the vision of peace will be as idle
+a dream as it was in the past years.”
+
+Is It Nothing to You (1929): “By all these things we and ours are
+profoundly affected. Why should we not care?”
+
+What Makes a City? (1929): “The greatest factor [in what makes a city is]
+the care it takes of and the safeguards with which it surrounds
+its people.”
+
+
+LIFTING ECONOMICS
+
+Capitalizing War for the Tobacco Trade (1919): “This is always done
+in the name of patriotism, even though the effect may be
+altogether antipatriotic.”
+
+Creating a Demand (1919): “...helping to build that larger and better
+commercial world in which all business will be at its best because
+all people are at their best.”
+
+Should Prices Be Standardized? (1919): “In other words, it would lift
+the markets above the gambling level.”
+
+The Home Budget (1920): “It enables the poor to keep from growing poorer,
+and often enables them to reach comfortable circumstances.”
+
+Efficient Spending (1921): “Between the hoarding of money...and the
+reckless habits of the spendthrift...lies this golden mean.”
+
+
+LIFTING EDUCATION
+
+The Three Agencies in Child Training (1909): “...the aim of each
+should be the perfection of personality.”
+
+The Association of Mind and Muscle (1918): “As knowledge becomes
+a matter of action, it becomes a matter of purpose, ideal, and character.”
+
+The Sound-Reproducing Machine as a Music Teacher (1919): “The taste of
+the listener is on its way to better things.”
+
+The School Teacher and the Republic (1920): “The nation cannot recognize
+its obligation to the teacher too soon or too completely.”
+
+Some Overlooked Compensations in Teaching (1920): “[The teaching
+profession] places in the hands of those who choose it privileges which
+many of the rich would gladly give their gold to obtain.”
+
+Dollars Versus Sense (1921): “...preoccupation with material things.
+Minds become cloyed; hearts grow dull; and souls grow no wings with which
+to lift themselves above the mire and the clay.”
+
+Education and Production (1921): “The accepted canon in educational
+circles is that a man is not trained at all unless trained to be good for
+something, and that he must prove his culture by bringing forth fruits
+meet for it.”
+
+The School as a Reform Agency (1921): “Whatever the future contains,
+the school teacher holds the key to it.”
+
+
+LIFTING HUMANITY
+
+The Same Face (1915): “Along our years motherhood has planted three
+pictures that are so good for us to see that love and memory should
+always keep them bright.”
+
+The Will (1915): “The will of man is not only his danger,
+but it is also his hope.”
+
+The Sword that Keeps the Past (1916): “There is only one way to change
+the past, and that is to change it before it becomes the past.”
+
+The Fountain of Youth (1917): “Such as it is, it exists everywhere.”
+
+Some Principles of Efficiency (1917): “One has but one chance at this
+life, and he has a right to make that one effort the best possible.”
+
+The Story of the Red Cross (1917): “One of the strongest forces now making
+for a day of lasting peace is the beautiful suggestion that comes from the
+spirit of those who make it their aim to help while others destroy.”
+
+Words (1917): “The power of uplifting speech and the right to enjoy
+helpful conversation are high privileges.”
+
+The Line of Necessity (1918): “It is the unnecessary that changes
+bare existence into throbbing and purposeful life.”
+
+Some New Facts About Alcohol (1918): “Whether in the workshop or in the
+military camp, liquor and efficiency are sworn and uncompromising foes.”
+
+Facing the Future (1919): “The race is still achieving some progress,
+however, and most of us still believe that the most promising days of
+civilization are yet to be.”
+
+Life’s Backgrounds (1919): Character, preparation, and relationships
+
+The New Philosophy (1920): “...philosophers feel a growing realization
+that advancement is the proper aim of human endeavor, and that the vital
+problem of Philosophy is human welfare and progress.”
+
+The Sense of the Human (1920): “Humanity is the center of all creation,
+and the proper object of all our striving.”
+
+The Holy Spirit and Social Viewpoint (1922): “The salvation of the group
+can only be accomplished by the salvation of the individuals who
+compose it.”
+
+Civilization (1929): “denying themselves and their families the joy”
+
+The Road Uphill (1929): “successively better generations”
+
+
+LIFTING VIRTUE
+
+Some Stories About Beethoven (1915): “He placed the claims of life, right,
+and truth in a place of supremacy over all other claims.”
+
+The Obligation of Good Cheer (1916): “Whoever has a cheerful disposition
+has that much of a start toward positive and complete goodness.”
+
+Worship and Service (1916): “He who would die in the spirit of the cross
+must live there.”
+
+Do It Right (1917): “...the maxim which pointed the way to their
+mutual success.”
+
+Life’s Handicaps (1918): “Along whatever way one’s path may happen to lie,
+...his life would be utterly unnatural if it were devoid of difficulties.”
+
+The Riverside (1918): “It is not what we would like to do in this life,
+but what we really get done that counts.”
+
+Determinants (1921): “The nature of a man can be altered or reversed.”
+
+Love’s Burdens (1921): “In some unfeeling, intellectually ideal republic,
+such a pitiful piece of human wreckage might have been cast upon the
+junk heap.”
+
+The Successors of Tantalus (1921): “Yet these unrealized hopes are among
+the most valuable experiences we have.”
+
+The Christian Standard of Greatness (1922): “‛If any man would be first,
+he shall be last of all and the servant of all.’”
+
+The Objective of Service (1922): “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.”
+
+Our Blessings of Deliverance (1922): “No less important than the things
+which we have been given are the things from which we have been saved.”
+
+The Redemption of Jean Valjean (1922): “[Victor Hugo] furnishes us a
+master picture of the upward struggle of a soul despite the influences
+acting within and without to keep it down.”
+
+Eulogy for Joseph E. Henley [excerpt] (1924): “we have none too much of
+simple human kindness”
+
+The Corner Stones of Life (1925): “Any product that has in it only the
+very best of materials suggests just one thing—character.”
+
+Eulogy for Sanford F. Teter [excerpt] (1928): “He passed through the fire,
+but he did not let it burn away his courage...”
+
+
+MISCELLANEOUS
+
+Is Prohibition Paternalistic? (1919): “Freedom needs to recognize its own
+proper limits, and it will do so in any properly organized social system.”
+
+Vibration as a Basis of Invention (1919): “Nature probably holds some
+provision for our every want. We need only to establish the means by
+which she can deliver her gifts to us.”
+
+
+
+
+WRITINGS
+
+“It was an innocent-faced maid” (1906)
+
+
+It was an innocent-faced maid who stood at the postoffice window
+Saturday and asked in the tone of one seeking a bargain,
+“Have ye any postage stamps?”
+
+“Certainly,” replied the obliging clerk. “How many?”
+
+“Let me see them, please,” was the answer, and the stamps were produced
+for inspection. “I don’t quite like the color of these,” she said.
+“Don’t you have any two-cent stamps of a lighter shade?”
+
+“Only one kind of two-cent stamps are made, Miss.”
+
+“Then I think I shall take one-cent ones. I like green better than such a
+bloody red. I am a Quaker, and it is too suggestive of war.
+Can you sell me six for five cents?”
+
+“No, indeed, Miss, the price of stamps is fixed regularly.”
+
+“Then I shall try elsewhere. Please don’t be offended. I will come back
+here if I can’t get them cheaper anywhere else.”
+
+And still with the bargain-hunting air, the innocent-faced maid took
+her departure.
+
+
+“A man entered a downtown street car” (1906)
+
+
+A man entered a downtown street car one day last week. The car was full,
+and he was obliged to hang onto the strap and ride in the midst of a
+crowd of good-looking girls, most of whom were either “would-bes” or
+“has-beens.” The conversation soon started in his direction, and in secret
+tone, just loud enough for him to hear, they discussed the new arrival.
+
+“Hasn’t he the most lovely hair?” one of them exclaimed in a whisper that
+was halfway between awestruck and tender.
+
+“It couldn’t be Nicholas Longworth, surely. No, I know it isn’t, for
+Longworth is baldheaded. He must be some great actor—or—politician,”
+said another.
+
+“Oh, he is just my ideal,” put in a third. “For twen—no, I mean three
+long years I have sought just such a one, for such a one alone could I
+love and trust.” Young and innocent Jennie was evidently studying for
+the stage, and she continued: “He must be some great musician.
+What if he were Pa—”
+
+But just here the car stopped, and as the patient-looking passenger
+prepared to get off, a frowzly head popped out the door of a tumbledown
+dwelling close by the track. The head was quickly followed by a red
+Mother Hubbard, and a shrill voice called in far from pleasant tones:
+“Git off o’ that car, and come on here an’ git a few o’ these kids still.
+You’ve loafed roun’ in them good clothes an’ flirted with girls on
+street cars enough for one day.”
+
+And as the sad-faced passenger wearily left the car, a sigh escaped all
+the girls at once. Alas! the course of true love never did run smooth.
+
+
+The Modern Grandmother (1915)
+
+
+The Boy: I stopped in to tell you that my grandmother—
+
+The Boss: Well, I suppose your grandmother has passed away and is to be
+buried this afternoon about time for the game.
+
+The Boy: Oh, no, sir! My grandmother is coming by to take me to the game,
+and I want to know if I can get off to go with her.
+
+
+The Opportunity and Peril of the Writer (1918)
+
+
+We have grown accustomed to consider history as being made by the decrees
+of kings or by the power of invading and defending armies. These things
+are, however, only the instruments of the one really compelling social
+force. That force is the power of public opinion. History is made by those
+who direct and control it. This is the reason for the power of the pulpit,
+the platform, and the press. Of these three, the power of the press
+touches the largest number of people. The writer sends out an influence
+which reaches to the ends of the earth.
+
+This fact points the way to a conception of both his opportunity and his
+peril. His opportunity is the direction of a power which not even kings
+can long dare to defy. His peril is that he may fail to direct it into
+the right channels. He may guide it in such a way that it can carry the
+race steadily toward a day of complete justice for all. On the other hand,
+he may listen to some lesser voice than that of truth, or seek some lower
+aim than that of right, and thus lead the thinking of the world astray.
+The opportunity is glorious and the peril is serious, because men will
+become what they think, and the world will conform to what they become.
+Thought life is fundamental.
+
+In the midst of an age of war, the world is struggling for peace. The law
+of the jungle ceased to be the recognized principle of history, and war
+lost its standing as a means of obtaining justice because of the efforts
+of a man to guide public opinion by means of a book. No one could have
+conquered militarism with a sword in the old days, and it is doubtful
+whether it can be done now, but the strong silent force of enlightened
+opinion can do it.
+
+The history of modern international law as a basis for the preservation
+of peace among nations really began with the publication in 1625 of a
+book entitled _De Jure Belli et Pacis_. It was written by a Dutch
+publicist by the name of Hugo Grotius. This book came from the press in
+the midst of the Thirty Years’ War, and it began a process of leavening
+the popular mind with the idea that justice can be obtained by peaceable
+means. The end of that process will yet be the complete triumph of
+international law over international strife. It was the pen of a writer
+which was used as the original instrument for the blazing of the path to
+an age of concord and fraternity.
+
+The great literary need of the present day is for a man who can snatch
+the torch from the dead hand of Grotius and bear it a little farther.
+He will not receive high praise from the militaristic camp, but his
+efforts will be appreciated by those who really love their country
+enough to desire its preservation from the blasting blight of war.
+Some gifted pen will yet inoculate the popular mind with an ideal of
+peace and brotherhood which will make war forever impossible.
+
+No one will ever be able to measure correctly the influence which the
+pamphlets of Thomas Payne had in the crystallization of the sentiment
+which held the early American patriots to their cause. The historians
+have not neglected, however, to give them large credit in their final
+reckonings. They provided a sort of mental artillery, making possible
+the work of the advancing sword of a Washington.
+
+The break between the sections was healed with mortar which was mixed
+not only with the blood of the soldier, but also with the pen of the
+writer. The one thing lacking for years was the decision of the popular
+will to settle once for all the difficulty between the states. One day
+in June of 1851 there appeared in Gamaliel Bailey’s paper, _The National
+Era_, the first installment of a story entitled _Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or
+Life Among the Lowly_. It was written in the spare time of the busy wife
+of a theological professor, and she herself did not take it very
+seriously at the time of its publication. The result was, however, that
+in less than a decade public opinion had crystallized, and the sections
+were ready for the test. The rest of the story needs no telling, but the
+memory of Harriet Beecher Stowe deserves to have it said that the history
+of America in that time of crisis was largely moulded by the hand that
+held the pen.
+
+Several years ago a Federal investigation disclosed a highly unsanitary
+condition in the large packing plants of the country. The lack of
+sufficient pressure in the form of public opinion left Congress very slow
+to take definite action concerning it. Then Upton Sinclair’s story, _The
+Jungle_, came from the press. As soon as the public had read the book a
+great popular clamor went up, demanding that something be done. The result
+was a system of pure food rulings which has been very satisfactory and
+far-reaching in its results. A great industry was cleaned up, and the
+health and lives of thousands of people have been saved by the work of a
+wielder of the pen. The sword can only destroy, but the pen can do a
+better thing. It can save.
+
+Germany has long recognized the power of the writer in the moulding of
+history. She has made a large use of it in her attempts to build the
+history of the future to suit herself. This is evidenced not only by the
+fact that she has flooded the world with mischievous and deceptive
+propaganda during the present war, but also by the fact that such was her
+policy long before the beginning of the war.
+
+Nearly a decade ago a German professor published a book which emphasized
+the horrors of war. It was profusely illustrated with pictures of the
+bloody scenes of the battlefield and of the inevitable hardships of the
+military life. It was an evidence of an undercurrent which runs even in
+German thought, but which only the bolder few ever allow to go to the
+extent of public expression. The result of the publication of the book
+was the prompt suppression of it by the German government.
+
+Shortly afterward another book dealing with the subject of war was
+published in Germany. It was written by the Crown Prince who is now
+fighting so anxiously for his own future. It likewise was highly
+illustrated, but its pictures emphasized the glories of war. They were
+of dress parades and the more pleasant aspects of the life of a soldier.
+The publication of this book received every encouragement the government
+could give it. It was, of course, an official expression of the
+militaristic policy of the government itself.
+
+There is a sense in which literature mirrors life, but there is also
+another sense in which life mirrors literature. Social conditions and
+new historical epochs are always the outgrowth of the popular thought
+and spirit. One of the firmest hands upon the floodgates which control
+these things is that of the writer. He can produce an age of unrest or
+an age of calm contentment. He can make a period of faith or one of
+unbelief. He can mould an era of mortality or one of unrestraint.
+
+It does not matter what is the form of his work. It does not even matter
+whether it is serious and pretentious. It affects the thought and,
+therefore, the life of the world. A printed jest once determined the
+result of a national election. A derisive term applied by the editor
+of an enemy paper once elected a man president. The recorded and
+unrecorded history of every age is full of just such instances.
+
+The writer accepts a momentous responsibility. It is desirable to receive
+editorial checks, but his work means vastly more than that. The people
+will read what he writes; many of them will believe it; at least some of
+them will act upon it. It will travel to unsuspected places, and it will
+affect the lives of those whom he will never see either for weal or woe.
+His pen is an instrument of fate. It is highly essential that he use it
+with a careful hand and with an honest purpose. He dare not fail to be a
+mouthpiece of truth.
+
+
+The Message of the Washington Monument (1919)
+
+
+A few minutes from the South Portico of the White House, overlooking the
+majestic sweep of the Potomac, stands the tallest piece of marble masonry
+in the world. It commemorates the life and deeds of the Father of His
+Country. At its foot is a good place to stand and think for a while, as I
+did one spring afternoon.
+
+The architect who planned the Washington Monument could not have more
+fittingly characterized the man of whom it stands as a memorial. Every
+line of its vast form, stretching from the ground to more than six hundred
+feet above the level of the river, breathes the spirit of the statesman
+and soldier whose leadership is an essential part of our early history.
+
+That long stretch of Maryland marble, capped with its apex of aluminum,
+does more, however, than to memorialize and interpret the character of
+Washington; it outlines the essential qualities of our people. They were
+well typified in Washington. They are, therefore, well typified in a
+monument which symbolizes his nature. It is at once a picture of their
+past and a prophecy of their future.
+
+It combines simple plainness with rugged strength. One cannot look at it
+without thinking of the spirit of the pioneer. The picture of the
+pilgrims facing the dangers of an unknown wilderness, that of the
+embattled farmers at Concord, and that of the men who have borne the
+burdens of the Republic throughout the years each rises into view. We
+have had hard tests in the past. We are facing what may yet be harder
+ones in the future. No other spirit than that of simple, rugged
+Americanism could prove sufficient for either those past or those to come.
+
+The strongest point of America has always been the spirit of her people.
+She has amassed a national wealth which has become a wonder to the world.
+She has built up a great army and a magnificent navy. She has gained a
+place in the councils of the great world powers. She has never reached a
+place, however, where she can afford to place such reliance upon any other
+power as upon that of the spirit and ideals of her people.
+
+American guns were only an incident in the Revolution. They would have
+been failing weapons in the hands of many. They won their cause, however,
+because they were carried in the hands of men whose souls were throbbing
+with the power of a great conviction. They had the toughness, the courage,
+the bravery, and the nerve of the pioneer, but they had more than all
+these. They had the consciousness of a worthy cause. They knew they were
+fighting for all that was dear to them. They had homes to defend, a
+principle to vindicate, and a future to achieve. These things enabled them
+to show the world how men can fight when all that they are has been staked
+on the struggle.
+
+We still need guns and armies, but we need never hope to graduate from the
+fundamental necessity for sturdy and courageous men. The kind of men who
+have been our salvation in the past and who are our hope for the future
+are always found where habits of plain and rugged simplicity prevail.
+However sophisticated our thinking may become, we need to ever cultivate
+the kind of physical frames which are developed by plain living and high
+thinking. Where Rome placed softness and self-indulgence we must always
+keep the simple and wholesome ideals which proved so mighty in the lives
+of our fathers.
+
+Another thing to be noted about the Monument is the fact that it stands
+foursquare to all the winds. Its ideal of plainness decreed that it should
+be so. There are no tricky twists in its plan. Its architecture has no
+place for merely decorative turns. There is not a deceptive line nor a
+hint of anything superficial.
+
+The habit of being real deserves a place among the chiefest of all
+virtues. No one ever gained anything by any measure of pretense and
+unreality. No nation ever bettered either itself or the world by any
+process of deception and sham. We can no more outgrow the necessity for
+truth and honor than we can outdistance that for plain living and
+high thinking.
+
+In accordance with this long-standing characteristic, America is leading
+the world in its stand against shady intrigues and secret treaties. When
+that principle has been vindicated in the conduct of the nations we shall
+begin to be able to feel that Mars has been left behind the chariot of
+civilization forever.
+
+Another thing to be noticed about the Monument is the fact that it reaches
+high but it is founded deeply. From just beneath its aluminum cap the
+ground seems very far away. From the base its apex seems to be pushing
+itself through the clouds and piercing the sky beyond them. It is a
+connecting link between earth and sky, between the common and the lofty,
+between the practical and the ideal.
+
+Two people fail to get more than half the meaning and the joy of life.
+One is the star-gazer, so enraptured with his visions that he is blind
+to life’s practical realities. The other is the extreme realist, so
+fearful of the fanciful that he will not lift his eyes from the mud at his
+feet and take a look at the glories which hover about the hill of vision.
+
+The American viewpoint is represented by neither alone. It is represented,
+rather, by a combination of both. As the Monument stands with its feet
+firmly planted in the clay, but with its top among the stars, the national
+spirit is best typified by the man who keeps his plans firmly fixed among
+practical things, but who also keeps his thinking at the high level of
+splendid dreams, worthy ideals, and inspiring visions.
+
+We have achieved such marvelous progress as a nation largely because we
+have busied ourselves with real things. We have taken hold of things and
+conditions as we found them, and have made the best of them. We have
+been the better able to do so, however, because we have not forgotten the
+things of the unseen world about us. Our dealing with practical things
+has been blessed by the treasuring of spiritual ideals and the following
+of worthy dreams. Our place as a nation is largely the result of this
+union of hope and thing, this combination of dream and realization, this
+blending of the ideal and the practical.
+
+
+The Post-War Outlook for Literature (1919)
+
+
+The true writer is a sort of social seismograph, sensitive to every
+change that takes place in the life of the race. Literature is,
+therefore, the record in which is told the story of social movements,
+the mirror which reflects the history of the ages. The peace and strife,
+the faith and unfaith, the love and the malice of all the past lives in
+the literature which it has produced.
+
+The great war was preceded by a period of fermenting stagnation. It was
+a period of suppressed restlessness and hidden fears. The little
+eruptions on the surface of its seemingly placid literature bespoke the
+deeper feelings and hidden gropings of the time. At length the pent-up
+fury of things burst into a volcano of war.
+
+The war produced a literature of its own. It ran like a golden thread
+through the vast mass of ordinary war propaganda. Most of the propaganda
+was of mere brain origin, but the real literature of the war was born in
+the depths of the tried souls of men.
+
+One day I had occasion to mention to a friend the spiritual cost of the
+war. I remarked that in addition to all that the struggle had cost us in
+money, and even in blood, we had paid an unutterable price in the loss of
+brains that were born to think, souls that were made to dream, and lips
+that were fashioned to sing. She promptly replied that, while this was
+true, the war had awakened a great many minds to thoughtfulness, taught
+a multitude of souls the magic secret of weaving the fabric of dreams,
+and put a song into many lips that had hitherto been dumb.
+
+She was right. Many singers and tellers of tales went down in the crash
+of things, but out of it came many others who had been reborn. The war
+has invigorated literature for a long while to come. We shall not soon
+see another stagnant age.
+
+Having had a war literature, we now face the period in which is to be
+born a post-war literature. It is a common thought among people
+everywhere that during the years between 1914 and 1918 the elements
+melted with fervent heat. The old world has been done away, and all
+things are ready to be made new. The outlines of seas and continents
+are the same as before, but the viewpoint, outlook, and general
+consciousness of the race are totally changed. It could hardly seem more
+so if we had been bodily transported to another planet. The new age will
+express itself in a new literature—a reconstruction literature.
+
+The literature of pre-war writers already seems to belong to a very
+remote time. Scott, and Thackeray, and Dickens will never lose their
+literary excellence, but the time has already come when their work seems
+to belong to another world. The fundamental principles of life have not
+changed, but our attitude toward life and our application of those
+principles have changed mightily. A broader interpretation of them is now
+a necessity. This service must be rendered by the pen of the writer.
+
+Writers can now turn their attention from the production of propaganda
+and concern themselves more vitally with the real mission of the author.
+The world will warmly welcome, be it also said, a time when it may feel
+that the writer of its reading matter had no axe to grind in the writing.
+
+The German Empire offered an instance of the sad extent to which the pen
+can be prostituted for propaganda. Education, Science, Philosophy, and
+Literature were all made to serve the selfish ends of a party struggling
+to build a super-state upon a foundation of self-interest. At such a
+time, the soul of greatness dies from any land. Those who usher in such
+periods dig the grave of pure literature by the purchase of its makers.
+
+The wielder of the pen is now able to face the problems of life and deal
+with the principles of truth with an open mind. This has not been true
+with most since the war began. The weakness of human nature overcame many
+minds which before the war had manifested commendable poise and evident
+sincerity. In Germany and in almost every other country as well,
+erstwhile careful thinkers seemed to cast to the winds all the calmness
+of reason and temper of soul they had ever possessed. There was a perfect
+Babel of efforts to prove that all the right was on one side and all the
+wrong on the other. Butchers were whitewashed into angels, and champions
+of justice were caricatured into buffoons by pens which were supposed to
+be dedicated to the telling of the truth.
+
+During the year 1916, a German anthropologist published an article in
+which he proved, to his own satisfaction, that to be a Frenchman
+necessarily meant to be a moral degenerate. During the same year, a
+French anthropologist proved, with equal fervor and with equal
+satisfaction to himself, that to be a German necessarily meant to be a
+criminal lunatic. So long as such conceptions prevail in the minds of
+thinkers and investigators, there can be neither literature nor science
+of any dependable sort.
+
+It may be some time before the squint of prejudice is entirely removed
+from the thinking of the various peoples involved in the war. Gradually,
+however, it must necessarily relax from its violence. Thinkers should now
+do their best to work with only truth for a standard. The saner our
+reconstruction writings prove, the more potent they will be. Nothing but
+truth can ultimately prevail.
+
+While the war, as is always the case with wars, has caused much violent
+prejudice, and has led many talented people to defend a cause in
+forgetfulness of truth, it has at the same time performed one great
+service to literature. It has served to bring the work of writers on the
+various subjects down from the ethereal heights of mystical theory to the
+solid levels of plain thinking and everyday living.
+
+In order to produce the materials and solve the problems necessary to the
+winning of the war, Science was obliged to turn its work into the most
+practical channels. No thoughtful person will insinuate that Science is
+useless since it has helped us in so many ways to save the day in a great
+national emergency. The completeness of the abandon with which scientific
+investigators and writers gave themselves to war problems is evidenced by
+the fact that at the 1917 meeting of the American Academy for the
+Advancement of Science, almost every address dealt with some problem
+incident to the war and the needs of the nation.
+
+The trends in Philosophy and Theology were alike profoundly affected by
+the wartime spirit. In no single year of the past have these two
+departments of thought made such progress in their efforts to get down
+where men live and to deal with the problems which are real to people as
+they have made during either of the past two years. As a result, they are
+more intelligible, more helpful, and more widely adapted for vital use.
+Imaginary problems and arbitrary arguments have been largely laid aside.
+The literature of these least tangible subjects has come to deal with
+them in the most tangible way. It considers more and more the problems
+of everyday life and work.
+
+There has been sown into the literature of the various nations a certain
+moral and spiritual element which is very indicative of the trend of
+human thought and desire. An unusual number of dramas, for instance,
+are dealing with moral and spiritual themes and principles. The
+situations with which the war brought men face to face caused some of
+life’s great questions to demand an answer. People who had long put
+those questions aside came to face them squarely. Out of our late
+experience, probably most people came with some intelligible attitude
+toward the supreme questions related to living and dying. Neither are
+we any longer afraid to face them either in books or upon the stage.
+
+The literature of the new age may not be reflective, but it will be vital.
+The prophet of truth never faced such an opportunity as now.
+
+
+Free Verse (1921)
+
+
+We generally think of free verse as being a modern literary creation.
+Such is not really the case. That form of free verse which is now most
+in vogue, namely the form commonly called polyphonic verse, may be a
+comparatively new thing. At least it has been commonly familiar only
+during the last few years. The fundamental form of which it is but a
+variation is quite an old one.
+
+Walt Whitman was a writer of a form of free verse in a literary
+generation now vanished. His “Blades of Grass” was the most
+unconventional thing done either in his period or those prior to it. This
+verse varies from our polyphonic prose of the present time, yet the
+spirit and general form are much the same. Whitman’s work awakened an
+abundance of discussion and criticism in his day. It survives because
+he had a message, and compared with the message of a poem, its form is
+only an incidental thing.
+
+The blank verse forms, which are as venerable as they are familiar in our
+literature, are variations of the same general poetic pattern. As a rule,
+the most conservative of us are fond of holding up Shakespeare as a
+literary model for the centuries. We seem to have been about right in our
+estimate of him too, for his work certainly has evidenced a remarkable
+measure of immortality.
+
+Yet the great body of the work of Shakespeare was of the unconventional
+type. It differed, of course, from the free verse of today, yet it was a
+forerunner of what is now being produced. Shakespeare contributed largely
+toward giving blank verse a lasting good name. He ventured to pay little
+attention to rhyme in an age when England was a nest of singing birds,
+and most of them were singing in rhymes and stanzas. He preserved his
+rhythm, it is true, but our modern free verse does that also.
+
+It has a still older pedigree than Shakespeare. It appears in the
+earliest beginnings of the poetry of the English and of still more
+ancient peoples. The literature of the Hindus and Semites is full of it.
+From the earliest snatches of song recorded in the sacred writings of
+the Hebrews, the Bible has a wealth of poetry which suggests the modern
+form. Moses, David, and Solomon all used it. The Magnificat of Mary and
+the Nunc Dimittis of Simeon are both worthy of an honorable place in a
+modern magazine of free verse.
+
+Rhythmic prose is, then, quite an ancient literary institution. It
+appears in two distinct grades and types. One is the simple, childlike,
+elemental form which marks the early stages of the life of a people. The
+other is the more polished form which represents the later period
+of culture.
+
+The first is found in the early lore of most races, savage or
+semi-civilized. The American Indian had an abundance of it. The beginnings
+of the poetry of what are now the most civilized races also include a
+great deal of it. It represents that time in the life of a people when
+human feelings burst spontaneously into song. In such an age practically
+everyone is a singer, though not everyone can fashion fancy rhymes
+and stanzas.
+
+Of the second form, we have abundant examples in our large and growing
+store of fine poetical work. We have simply swung back toward the freer
+forms which gave opportunity for the expression of the feelings of our
+earlier forefathers. We may have done so because we had feelings to
+express that seemed to demand such forms. We may have done so simply for
+the sake of variety. At any rate, we have done so.
+
+This fact does not argue that any violence has been done to the quality
+of our poetic output. The present movement has simply changed the favored
+poetic form, for the time being at least. It may be that we have gone
+backward in some other things, but there is little to indicate that we
+have done so in relation to our poetry. The general run of American
+poetry today is of a very high order. Generally speaking, poetic art in
+America stands today at its highest level thus far.
+
+The rhyme and the stanza belong to the period of highly studied form.
+They are ornamental, and, like fine lace, the weaving of them calls for
+great skill if it is to be well done. They often express commanding
+thoughts and emotions, but the outstanding thing about them is their
+form. Of course, if their form were their only value they would still
+be worth while. We cannot get on without beauty. It is true, however,
+that in the case of formal rhymed verse, the thought and message cannot
+so easily be at their best. Thought must often be limited and truth
+stilted by the necessities of form.
+
+The free verse form offers an opportunity for the poet to break largely
+away from these narrowing limitations. It has been said that the prose
+writer is master of his materials while the poet is the slave of his
+style. Many a versifier has unintentionally fallen into a vein of
+grandiose expression which could hold little of sincerity and truth.
+
+The intermingling of prose and verse qualities which we find in free
+verse makes it possible for the poet to be true to the finer shades of
+his message and its meaning. He is not bound by any fixed necessities of
+rhyme and meter. This probably accounts for the fact that we have seen
+expressed in this form the most rugged sentiments and, at the same time,
+the most delicate shading of artistry.
+
+I once enjoyed a conversation with the late James Whitcomb Riley, wherein
+he spoke of the desirability of naturalness in poetry.
+
+“Poetry should not sound stilted and constrained,” he said, “but natural
+and sincere. It should run along the same even and normal course that a
+high grade of every-day conversation does. One should not say, ‛the
+rippling brook along.’ He should say, ‘along the rippling brook.’”
+
+One may notice in Mr. Riley’s work that the best of the poems he wrote
+during the period of his most serious work have just this quality.
+Consequently, they are rather free in their form. He does not break
+entirely away from rhyme and meter, but he does make them secondary.
+
+This kind of work seems to hold its place longest. Probably the reason
+is that the message and not the form is the immortal part. Out of the
+past we have preserved a few high-sounding poems for their lilt and
+rhythm, but they are few and probably will be long outlived by others
+sounding a more genuine note. If anything of their kind was produced in
+the days of Moses or David, it has long since perished. Yet the great
+sentiments that swelled from the souls of these men and burst from their
+lips are still treasured among us. After all, it does not seem to be to
+the advantage of the poet to be abjectly the slave of his style. He seems
+to be all the better remembered when he is the master of his materials.
+
+Some have the idea that free verse belongs in the same category with jazz
+music and cubist art, but it is not so. Free verse is no oddity. It is one
+of the best outlets poetry can ever offer for the expression of the moods
+and thoughts of the human soul. It is not the only form of poetry we
+should cultivate and preserve, but it is one that will have a real place
+in the great future of letters.
+
+
+Music and History (1921)
+
+
+It is often said that a nation’s life is mirrored in its literature. This
+is necessarily true because it is the mission of literature to express
+life. Even if such were not its purpose, the spirit of an age would
+naturally find its way into the writings of the period. Literature cannot
+but be a true reflection of the age which produces it.
+
+The same is true of music in an approximate, if not an equal, degree. It
+also mirrors the life of the age from which it springs. Literature is a
+word picture of the life of its time. Music is a tone picture of the
+same thing.
+
+A musical composition images the state of someone’s soul at a given
+moment. That condition of soul is a part of the great composite which
+we call the spirit of the times. It might about as well be called the
+personality of the age. It largely determines the thought, motive, and
+action of the period. It is the chief factor in the making of history.
+When one sees it spread out before him, he can almost write from it the
+story of the period represented. The issues of life have always proceeded
+from the heart, and the heart of any age expresses itself in its
+musical productions.
+
+The great general types of music are all representative of either phases
+of human life or periods in its history. The age of great passions and
+majestic emotions produced the symphony. The day of calm devotion and
+religious faith gave us the oratorio and the hymn. The time of quiet
+ways and simple joys contributed the pastorale. The age of love brought
+us the lyric and the ballad.
+
+These types of music we still have with us, for music is a permanent
+record. As we have them today, they tell us what the people of other
+ages have thought, felt, hoped, joyed, and suffered. We are now as
+busily engaged in building up a musical record of our times as they
+were in the making of a volume of work by which others might know their
+story when they were gone.
+
+The Elizabethan period is outstanding in the history of English
+literature for the quantity and quality of the lyric verse which
+it produced. It has been said with entire truthfulness that during
+that period England was a veritable nest of singing birds. Among those
+who helped to produce that volume of song are William Shakespeare,
+Ben Johnson, and Christopher Marlowe. Thus far, the work done by the
+poets and singers of that period has successfully met all the tests of
+immortality. It is both read and sung throughout the
+English-speaking world.
+
+The reason for the outstanding quality of the songs of that period is
+simply the fact that it was an amorous age in England. Love is the great
+inspirer of this type of poetry and song. Love is an elemental instinct,
+and rhyme and rhythm are the elemental ways of expressing things.
+Therefore, love finds its most suitable expression in lyric verse.
+Lovers must sing. If their suit is successful, their song is gay. If it
+meets with temporary or permanent disappointment, their song is grave.
+In either case, they must sing. Whenever the day of the lover comes in
+any day or time, and it always does come, the period during which he
+reigns will be an age of song.
+
+After reading or hearing the songs of the Elizabethan period in England,
+there is little in the history of the times that needs to occasion
+surprise to one. The writers of that period were simply representative
+of their time. Therefore, they expressed its spirit in their singing.
+The soul of the England of their time breathes in their verse.
+
+We have developed our distinct types of music in America. Each of these
+is also representative either of a period in our history or an element
+in our national spirit.
+
+It was in the stirring days of the revolutionary period that the
+American spirit was fully awakened. That consciousness naturally found
+expression in a type of song. It was such songs as “Yankee Doodle”
+that gave it voice. In the heat and fervor of our next great war was
+born the majestic national anthem to which the recent trials have given
+a new meaning.
+
+The fraternal strife of the Civil War naturally required two sets of
+songs to express its spirit. The North sang its courage up with “Tramp,
+Tramp, Tramp the Boys are Marching,” “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” and
+“Marching Through Georgia.” At the same time, the soul of the South was
+speaking in the words and music of such songs as “Dixie,” “The Bonnie
+Blue Flag,” and “Maryland, My Maryland.”
+
+The Spanish-American War and the World War just ended each brought its
+contribution of song to the lore of our times. Those who come after us
+will long be able to recall the spirit of these two periods by singing
+their songs again.
+
+We have also had our lyric age in America. The quality of its output does
+not even suggest comparison with that of the Elizabethan work, but we have
+had it. The crude backwoodsmen who occupied the stage during the earlier
+days of our wilderness life were normal people. They not only had their
+loves, hopes, joys, and sorrows, but they also sang about them. The result
+was often pitifully sentimental, but it was sincere.
+
+Down to a recent time, there was more militarism in the American spirit
+than most people realized. We had a goodly supply of the courage of battle
+left over from our several wars and their corresponding victories. America
+found expression for that spirit in the work of such men as John Philip
+Sousa, and others of similar, though less widely recognized talent. For a
+long while, the sound of the stately march has served as an outlet for our
+patriotic feelings. We now share the general decline in militaristic
+feeling, but the march will remain. If war dies from the earth, as so many
+fondly hope it will, our stirring marches will still be treasured as tone
+pictures of the days that were.
+
+Particularly is the folk song a page from the history of a people. One
+might gather more of the spirit of the old South from hearing a collection
+of its songs than from the reading of many pages of its story. The same
+would be true of any section of any land.
+
+Ragtime and Jazz represent two successive steps in the development of the
+recent world spirit. It was a spirit of nervousness and restlessness, a
+spirit willing to go to any length for the sake of novelty and action.
+It helped to make the world war possible and is still keeping the planet
+in a turmoil of restlessness and dissatisfaction. Jazz has been defined
+as animalism expressed in tone. It might also be called the anarchy
+of music.
+
+There are those who hope for a calmer day in the world’s temper and
+feeling. When that time comes, its spirit will express itself in a
+renewal of dignified and stately music. We may assume this to be true
+because the thought and action of any age, whatever its spirit, is
+traced upon the long scroll of time in the form of a golden thread
+of song.
+
+We have noted only the products of the lesser musical ability of America.
+To fail to call attention to the fortunate exceptions would be to fail to
+do justice to the better culture and taste of our country. The fact that
+we have had some real masters is one not to be overlooked. Our Cadmans
+and MacDowells bear testimony to the fact that our faces are forward.
+There is a spirit of culture in America, and it has found expression in
+some of the finer and more enduring forms of musical composition. It has
+obstacles to surmount, but it makes progress. America has a national
+future. It follows that she has a musical future. The one vouchsafes
+the other. The other expresses the one.
+
+
+Correspondence (1929)
+
+
+Two important influences go out from an office. One is that of the
+representatives who make outside personal contacts. The other is the
+stream of correspondence that issues forth into the outside world. The
+second is no less important than the first.
+
+As good correspondence is an art, so a good correspondent is an artist.
+He is not easy to find. It is as surprising as it is regrettable how few
+people have taken the trouble really to master the use of the English
+language. One can more easily find a master of mechanics than a master
+of words any time. Yet each person owes it not only to his language but
+to himself to know how to use his native tongue correctly and effectively.
+
+In all writing, and especially in writing letters upon which great
+interests turn, two things are important. One is to say the right thing.
+The other is not to say the wrong one.
+
+The president of a great bank once said to me: “I write my own
+advertisements and dictate my own letters, not necessarily because I know
+better than anyone else what to say, but rather because I probably do
+know better than anyone else what not to say.”
+
+The other day I saw a series of collection letters supposed to have been
+prepared by an expert. They were verbose and flowery. They were supposed
+to be seasonal—something about which both collector and collectee care
+exactly nothing. They had a jollying and blarneying tone which is always
+nauseating. The clear, courteous, definite letter is the one that wins.
+
+I once saw an irate letter that came to the director of a money-raising
+project for a philanthropic interest. It told him plainly that the writer
+objected to the whole scheme, and would consider it an insult to be asked
+for a subscription. A secretary answered the letter patiently,
+courteously, and explainingly, but without asking for a subscription.
+Return mail brought a letter from the erstwhile objector enclosing a
+subscription for fifty dollars. The right kind of correspondence will
+contribute largely toward the success of any business.
+
+
+The Sabbath Desecration (1910)
+
+
+We are sometimes accustomed to make rather gloomy comparisons between our
+days and those of our fathers. The ground for our doing so is oftener
+grounded in sentiment than fact, and yet there are some differences which
+are deplorable. This is especially true with reference to the observance
+of the precepts laid down in our religious teachings. We feel painfully
+lacking when we reflect upon the sturdy faith of the pioneers who blazed
+the way not only for our economic but also for our religious advancement.
+Perhaps nowhere do we feel that there is more discouraging contrast than
+in the matter of Sabbath observance. A little girl in one of our large
+cities heard the minister say in his sermon, one Sunday, that in heaven
+every day would be like Sunday. She told her mother, upon arriving home,
+that she expected to find heaven a grand place, for if every day were to
+be like Sunday, then the ceaseless round of theaters, cards, and ball
+games would certainly be delightful. Between this conception of the
+Sabbath Day and that of the stern Puritan who refused to allow his
+children to play and be happy on Sunday, there lies a long distance.
+Both are extreme views and neither could be said to be altogether
+desirable, but if American life continues in its present direction, the
+one may become as real as the other once was. We do not want our Sabbath
+Day to be a season of agonizing gloom and long faces. Nothing could be
+farther from the apparent attitude of Jesus toward it. Neither do we want
+it to be a day of selfish pleasure and frivolity. But we do want it to be
+a day of meditation, prayer, and quiet service. To keep the day holy does
+not necessarily imply absolute passivity, but in a Christian land, the
+Sabbath Day should be a day of rest. And yet the doors of many business
+houses are wide open; petty amusements reap a harvest of small coin,
+theatrical performances are given, and often the authorities fail to close
+even the saloons. Not only must we face these facts, but also that many so
+called Christians fail in very questionable ways to keep the day sacred.
+We may well ask whence this great difference between our age and that of
+the preceding generation. We are so justified by the fact that every
+effect has a cause.
+
+The tempter has many ways of accomplishing his purposes. He can not only
+quote to his purpose, but he can also utilize the social forces to his own
+advantage. Where such a force is the cause of men doing that which they
+should not do, we can best do the work of our Lord by fighting the force
+and not the act. We can not kill the dragon by cutting off the heads; we
+must strike at the life-giving root of the evil.
+
+One reason why the Sabbath is less a day of rest than formerly is probably
+to be found in the fact that this is more an age of idleness than was the
+former one. Our fathers appreciated and observed their day of rest because
+they could not help but feel their need of it. They worked hard in the
+woods or fields from the early morning till late at night, and moreover,
+their work was of such a muscular nature that their evenings and Sundays
+found them both weary in body and hungry in mind. The Sunday rest would
+relieve the one, and attendance upon Sunday services would satisfy the
+other. Thus, it was apparently to their own advantage to live the day unto
+the Lord. Not only this, but the father did not toil out his days to
+maintain his sons and daughters in lives of idleness and profligacy. Every
+member of the family had his or her share in the work of making ends meet.
+Thus, the whole family found itself weary enough to be ready for rest and
+prayer on the Sabbath. It is but natural that one who loafs the week away
+or goes on a continual round of pleasure-seeking should fail to realize
+any need for rest and relaxation on Sunday. They are the people who are
+usually found complaining that the preachers and Christians want to make a
+man sit still all day Sunday and do nothing. The argument that laboring
+men want ball games and other amusements to occupy themselves on Sunday is
+fallacious. If they work on week days as they ought to work, they will not
+be found complaining of too much rest on Sunday. Then, in this case, it is
+not so much against Sabbath desecration as it is against idleness that we
+need wage our war. If we can remove the cause, its effects must disappear.
+A sermon on honest week-day labor is really a sermon on
+Sabbath observance.
+
+But all Sabbath breakers are not idlers. Some of them work as steadily as
+the sturdy pioneer ever worked. But the occupation is of a different
+nature. Where our fathers toiled with their hands, men now toil with their
+brains. Our fathers wore out their bodies, while men now shatter their
+nervous systems. Tired limbs induce rest, while weary minds and unstrung
+nerves only hinder it. It is easy when evening comes to let go of the ax
+or the plow, but it is not so easy to forget the knotty business problem
+or perplexing professional difficulty. The need of such toilers is
+recreation. We need to get such men to take down the almighty dollar from
+its place as their guiding star and hang the higher and better things of
+life in its place. In this case, a sermon against the “ambition which
+o’erleaps itself” is a sermon against Sabbath desecration.
+
+The two facts mentioned above as causes of Sabbath breaking contribute to
+making this an extremely nervous age. Humanity is restless. It wants to be
+about doing something, and it seems not to know just where to direct its
+efforts. People seem to be afraid of themselves, and hence the quiet
+chamber and closet of secret prayer is often unappreciated. If we chance
+to feel a serious thought coming upon us, we get afraid, and at once seek
+the crowd for fear that it may mature in our minds. We forget that great
+visions must be seen in solitude and then carried out among the crowd. Our
+lonely Sinais must precede our deeds of leadership. Every Calvary is
+preceded by its Gethsemane, and quietness and solitude are not to be
+despised. We need to learn the lesson of Isaiah, “In quietness and
+confidence shall be your strength; in returning and rest shall ye be
+saved.” Only small minds are always tossing upon a sea of restlessness.
+Great lives know how to be tranquil. Such hearts know how to keep the
+Sabbath holy. Thus, when we preach and work against restlessness,
+feverishness, and worry, we preach and work against Sabbath desecration.
+
+If we can but induce men to so toil that they will become body-weary and
+soul-hungry, we shall not only further God’s creative plan, but we shall
+also help humanity to really understand the worth of a Sabbath Day of
+rest. The anxious nervousness of the masses and the cupidity of
+enterprising amusement promoters spring to meet each other as by magnetic
+attraction. When the masses learn to love the quiet of the home and
+sanctuary and no longer so persistently seek that which does not satisfy
+their nameless and misunderstood hunger, then such cupidity will no longer
+be sustained and encouraged. When we learn the habits of health, and life,
+and work that helped to make our fathers strong, then shall we have back
+again the faithful observance of the holy Sabbath Day that helped to make
+our fathers good.
+
+
+The Light (1915)
+
+
+The bringing into existence of light had an early and important place in
+the creation of the universe. It has held an important place in all the
+age-long continuance of the creative process which has been going on ever
+since that early day—so much so that it has marked the Creator as
+essentially a God of light, neither in whom nor in whose purposes is
+there any darkness at all.
+
+In the different realms of life, light must take different forms. In the
+physical universe, it takes the form of the illuminating ray that makes
+daylight out of darkness. In the life of man, it takes the form of the
+knowledge of the truth which makes him free. Wherever the influence of
+God goes, it carries with it the illuminating agency of schools, teachers,
+and books. No land remains ignorant under the sway of the gospel. The
+Christianization of a land is simply the carrying of the creative process
+on into new realms of life, and early in every such creative process is
+heard the majestic edict: “Let there be light.” The answer to the edict
+is ever the same: “And there was light.”
+
+God permitted darkness as a stage in creation, but never as a permanent
+condition. He may permit the darkness of ignorance or sin or both—for
+they go hand in hand—in a life as a stage in its development. But wherever
+a continuance of the conditions is insisted upon a day longer than
+necessity requires, the results must be disastrous.
+
+There is a certain life-giving strength in light. There is a wide
+difference between the pale and twisted plant that grows under a board
+in the garden and the plant from the same parent that has had the good
+fortune to grow in the sunlight. Much the same difference may be
+observed in the case of two lives between which there has been a
+similar difference.
+
+There is nothing in the purpose or the kingdom of God that needs fear
+the light. What will not stand the light is not of His designing. The
+best that His gospel and His power can ask is to be investigated and
+tested. There need be no fear of what will happen when all men
+investigate for themselves.
+
+
+The Yoke (1915)
+
+
+There seems to exist a general misconception of the purpose of a yoke.
+Because of it the command of Jesus to accept and wear His yoke is often
+much more dreadful than there is reason that it should be. We often fail
+to catch or refuse to believe the added assurance that “the yoke is
+easy.” This assurance is true both in figure and fact.
+
+Anyone who has been personally familiar with the working of oxen under
+the yoke is sure to understand that the yoke is used not to increase the
+burden they bear, but to furnish them with a means of bearing the burden
+they already have.
+
+A yoke does not demand the use of more energy than would otherwise be
+called into play. The beast of burden would expend the same amount of
+energy in a day’s time. If that strength were not expended in the
+performance of a useful task it would be wasted. The yoke concentrates
+the energy at command to the performance of a task worth while. The
+burden-bearer is no wearier, neither has it borne any greater burden.
+It has only borne the same burden with greater ease and to better purpose.
+
+Laziness is often a harder taskmaster than industry, and sin is always a
+harder taskmaster than righteousness. Each life will, in the course of its
+passage through the world, exert itself to just about the same degree,
+whether it works or plays. Nature and life are sure to lay upon it some
+burdens to bear, and it must bear them whether it is willing or not.
+Whether the life takes its mission seriously or frivolously, the amount
+of energy expended will be about the same. However, the life has its
+choice between finding that expenditure difficult or easy,
+useful or useless.
+
+For, early in its days, the Yoke Giver comes to it and offers His yoke as
+a means of bearing its burden more easily and usefully. It is pitiable how
+often the offer is misconstrued as an attempt to increase the burden when
+it really amounts to an offer to help in carrying it.
+
+
+The Crowded Inn (1916)
+
+
+If I were to try to paint a picture of that night in Bethlehem, there is
+one thing I would be sure not to omit.
+
+I would paint the rifted sky, opened to release the mingled praise of
+angels. I would depict the shepherds, listening in their wonder.
+
+I would hang the wondrous star in its place in the sky—heaven’s sign of
+hope to a broken world. The peaceful village, the lowly manger, the quiet
+cattle in their stalls—all these should have a place.
+
+But somewhere in the distance I would set the inn with its lighted
+windows, its gayety within, and its crowded space—a house with a closed
+door, a place with room for all except the family of an artisan who was
+to be trusted with the rearing of a King.
+
+Through the centuries this has been a most tragic story. It has been the
+most tragic because it has represented the most widespread condition. It
+has been the saddest because it has been the least realized.
+
+Some have tried to drive the King from the world with violence, but no
+violence has even been able to match the strong, sweet, silent influence
+which pervaded His life and which He set adrift in the world, and which,
+in spite of opposition, grows from more to more.
+
+The violence which sought His annihilation only aided Him in the
+fulfillment of His mission. There need be no fear of those who go out
+with swords and staves against Him.
+
+There have been those, too, who have tried to banish Him from the world
+by persecution. They, too, have failed. Faith was never stronger nor did
+ever more immovable convictions burn in the hearts of His people than
+when they fled from the hand of persecution or perished for the faith
+before the eyes of scoffers.
+
+From the Israelite down, the people of God have thrived on persecution.
+The real problems of Christianity arose after, and not before, the Roman
+state became its ally. Better far had been the bread of bitterness which
+they had eaten than the reduction to a system and a tool which they then
+suffered. The persecutor only speeds the day of the King’s dominion.
+
+There have been those who have tried to drive Him from the world by
+argument. This, likewise, has been of no avail. Atheism, agnosticism, and
+skepticism all fail before the living fact of the power of His presence
+in the world.
+
+One clear case of regeneration or one well-defined overruling of
+providence is sufficient to dispose of every argument of mere premise and
+conclusion which can be constructed against Him. The only argument against
+Him is an unfaithful follower, and that is refuted by a follower
+who is true.
+
+For Him the sword has no terrors. He never will flee persecution. There
+is no danger that He will ever be driven out. If there is any danger for
+Him today, it is that He be crowded out.
+
+There is one thing and one thing only which can defeat His purpose. That
+is the unwelcoming life, the closed heart, the master of the inn who says,
+“No room.”
+
+Let us not blame the innkeeper of the long ago. He did [not] know whom
+he was turning from his doors. He did not act in the light which twenty
+intervening centuries have given us. He was simply an innkeeper to whom
+business was business, and whose preference was naturally for the richest
+guests. Let us be moderate in our censure of him. Let us turn to the
+present. Let us find whether the doors of the throne rooms of our own
+hearts are open.
+
+Not many say they hate the Master or His Kingdom. Not many say they do
+not believe in Him. Not many are disposed to persecute. Not many even
+care to argue. But many say, “I haven’t time.”
+
+Lose what else we may in this busy time, we must find a place for Him and
+His words and His ways. A good watchword for this day of opportunity
+might be: “Make room for Jesus!”
+
+
+The Price of Liberty (1916)
+
+
+On the old battlefield of Sempach, where in 1386 the Swiss won a notable
+victory over the Austrians, there stands a monument of recognition to
+Arnold von Winkelried, a Swiss peasant, who on the day of that battle
+gave his life as the price of victory for his country.
+
+The Austrians were massed together with presented spears—“A living wall,
+a human wood.” There was only one hope of breaking through the armed line
+and that was for some one to dash against the phalanx and make an
+opening—at the cost of his life. Suddenly there was a cry: “Make way for
+liberty,” and Arnold von Winkelried rushed forward, gathering an armful
+of Austrian lances into his own breast, but opening a breach through
+which his comrades poured themselves against their foes.
+
+The Swiss marched to victory that day, but it was over the dead body of
+a man who loved them and their cause even unto death, a man who was
+moved by the love which lays down its life for its friends.
+
+There is another spot—a place unmarked by any monument—where earth’s
+supremest hero yielded up His life to make way for the liberty of His
+people. He gathered the wrath and the sting of a great world’s sin into
+His own heart, and led the way where others dared not tread.
+
+In the hour that Jesus died, the veil of the temple was rent in twain
+from the top to the bottom, and the breach was made through which every
+man might make his way to the feet of his God and to the glory of the
+eternities. The tragedy of Calvary opened up the way to liberty—the
+liberty of the truth, the liberty of pardon, the liberty of eternal life.
+
+So through the ages His people have been marching to the supreme hour of
+joy in forgiveness and assurance, to success in the conquests of
+righteousness, and through the gates of glory at the last. Each step of
+the way they have found full of joy. But it has all been over the dead
+body of one whose love was too great to know a fear, and whose devotion
+was unfailing even in the hour of supreme agony.
+
+
+Paul’s Ideal Sufficient (1918)
+
+
+It is as easy as it is dangerous for those of us who have upon our hearts
+a work of reform to become victims of fads. When new principles, directly
+or indirectly related to religious work, are discovered and announced, it
+is not difficult for our appreciation of their worth to become so
+enthusiastic as to eclipse everything else in our system of reform with
+an overdeveloped sense of their importance.
+
+They usually are important as having bearing upon the great problem we
+work to solve. The world, however, is apt to wonder if we know just what
+we are about when we lay one fad aside for another, just as we had laid
+earlier fads aside for the one, and it does not always place the most
+liberal construction upon our enthusiasm.
+
+As a way out, we should properly appreciate and use each new discovery
+which has bearing upon our task. We should not, however, allow it to
+assume the proportions of a fad so far as we are concerned. Our attitude
+toward our ideal and its realization must be broad enough to take in more
+than one side of it at once.
+
+So far as the Church and its task is concerned it will be found that the
+ideal Paul had for it is not likely to receive a successful addition.
+Each social institution has one task to perform, and it will be found to
+be unable to perform more than that one task well. We have agencies for
+the various forms of service to society. Not one of the others, however,
+approaches closely the field which the Church was designed to fill. Its
+ministry is purely spiritual and when it leaves that field and takes its
+stand in any other it is not only overlapping upon the work of other
+social agencies, but it is leaving undone a work which there is no other
+agency to do.
+
+In other words, the Church will probably not be able to define a higher
+mission for itself than that expressed in one of the letters to
+Timothy—a pillar and ground of the truth—a stay and foundation of that
+which is everlasting.
+
+
+The Religion of the New Age (1919)
+
+
+The world is being torn down like an outworn and antiquated structure.
+When the work of wrecking it is completed, it will be built over. The
+result will be a world the builders of which will have tried to profit
+by the mistakes and experiences of the ages. A Bible prophecy heralds
+a new heaven and a new earth. The postbellum reconstruction period will
+help to realize at least the latter part of that hope.
+
+It is already apparent that religion will share in the general
+readjustment. The war has stimulated the world’s thinking. It has seen,
+as it did not take time to see in the old days, the needs in the religious
+field. Any reform is rapid when men once get to thinking. The case is
+hopeless so long as apathy and lethargy prevail.
+
+We probably need not look for any revolutionary change in the fundamentals
+of religion. These do not change. Being rooted and grounded in the truth,
+they are fixed and permanent. It is not with either the substance or the
+mission of religion that the difficulty lies.
+
+The difficulty lies at the points of interpretation and application. It is
+possible for these to advance with growing knowledge, and the new world
+will unquestionably see to it that they do so. The earth has always been
+round, and it will remain round as long as it exists. Men have not,
+however, always understood the fact of its roundness. There was a time
+when geographical authority insisted that it was flat. Then there came a
+time when better knowledge existed. The fact had not changed in the least.
+Only human interpretation had undergone progress. The facts of religion
+can not change, but humanity can achieve progress in rightly interpreting
+them and in rightly adapting itself to them.
+
+It need not be supposed, either, that the religion of the new age will be
+a denatured one. It bids fair, on the contrary, to be a positive and vital
+one. It will probably be less and less the fashion to parade moral laxity
+under the false banners of liberal thinking. The coming period will not be
+superficial. It will need a religion of power and significance. It will
+try religious principles to the limit, and if such a religion can not be
+had, it will have none at all. Fortunately, a definite and positive faith
+can be had. The people who are really living want a religion which is more
+than a fashion or a convenience. It must include a working program which
+means something and is not too easy.
+
+The new religion will be composite, because it will be unified. Only in
+the reactionary centers is any real difference now apparent between
+Protestant Christian bodies. Now, under the unifying influence of a great
+common cause, Protestant, Catholic, and Jew are combining forces for the
+religious good of the soldier. That unity will probably increase
+and continue.
+
+Most carefully thinking people stand together on the things which are
+really vital. All understand that no ecclesiastical body can possess a
+monopoly of the truth. We go on and work faithfully, each for his own
+church household, but we all understand that both good and bad and both
+truth and error dwell in each of our many camps.
+
+All the world has been searching for the same God. Different peoples have
+called the Deity by different names and sought him in different ways. It
+is not the name or the method, but the spirit and motive that count most.
+Various peoples have reached various stages in their search. Probably all
+will, sooner or later, find the world’s one perfect image of the divine
+Father in Jesus. We must be patient, however, with those who are only on
+the way. In the finished faith, the chaff of all the world’s beliefs will
+have been cast away, and the abiding in them all will remain. There is
+nothing in the spirit of the cross to violate that which is good in any
+of them.
+
+The new religion will be a religion of practical standards. It will find
+its expression in terms that men know about, and its form will be one
+which can really be adapted to the needs of everyday living. The tendency
+in this day of human problems is to bring each line of human thought and
+investigation down to earth. It is with religion just as with science or
+philosophy. The demand is that it shall be practical in all its standards
+and methods.
+
+The world has not found the theology born upon a study table sufficient.
+The cry is for a theology based wholly upon the facts of life. Truth does
+not always follow the processes of formal logic. The tests of faith are
+not to be found in the syllogism but in life’s great laboratory. The
+authority of the great Teacher came largely from his fixed habit of
+talking about real things in practical terms. His only theology was life.
+In conforming our religion more and more to this principle, we shall not
+be getting away from Jesus. We shall rather be getting back to him.
+
+The new religion will be a socialized religion. In this, it will but bear
+the fruit of agitation which has already been going on for years. Religion
+can not be worth while without a definite object. Its object is not the
+appeasing of an arbitrary Deity. It is rather to bring the touch of a
+tender Father’s grace into the lives of his children. In other words, the
+object of religion is humanity. For the good of men are all laws
+established, all warnings issued, and all promises given.
+
+The achieving of the present and future salvation of people demands not
+the successful performance of some mystical process of indoctrination.
+It calls for the actual application of religious principles in everyday
+thinking and action. It has not achieved its end until testimony to its
+power and blessing is borne by all social life and by every social
+institution. It is nothing until it has come to be expressed in terms of
+life. Without surrendering any of its hope in the promise of a world to
+come, the religion of the future will lay a larger emphasis upon the life
+of the world in which we dwell. More and more men are realizing that the
+only hope we can have of gaining any other world depends upon our
+treatment of this one. The path to heaven lies directly through the earth.
+Two attitudes toward this world can never fit in with a thoughtful and
+reasonable faith. One is the attitude that this is a world of selfish
+opportunity and sensuous pleasure, and that the highest object of life is
+the satisfaction of the flesh. The other is the attitude that this is only
+a vale of tears to be endured, despised, and neglected until such time as
+we can get out of it into a happier realm. This is a life of opportunity,
+to be lived out with full appreciation and emphasis upon the sweetness and
+the worth-whileness of each day and hour. Real religion will strive to
+make it more and not less beautiful.
+
+The new religion will be one of optimism. It will understand that nothing
+is so easy as cynicism and nothing so cheap as the continual discounting
+of other people. It will find its strength not in emphasizing the badness
+of people, but in believing in them. After all these years, it will come
+to realize that Jesus saved by believing in sinners. Whoever follows in
+his footsteps will certainly have to learn to do the same. The human heart
+shrivels under accusation. It blossoms under the radiant influence of
+someone’s confidence. The new religion—an evolved form of the old—will
+count the roses and forget the thorns, and it will strive to emphasize
+the divinity in every man.
+
+The new religion will be the old reduced to its simplest and most workable
+terms. God will be upon its throne. Jesus will stand as his perfect
+expression in the flesh. The cross will overshadow all. It will be a
+religion of service, for there is much to do. It will be a religion of
+sacrifice, for this is a needy world. Reasonably interpreted, the Bible
+will be its message. Its aim will be to bring out the divinity implanted
+in all things, and its test will be its product.
+
+
+Christianity and Americanism (1920)
+
+
+Religion plays an important part in the making of any nation. The
+spirit of faith and the spirit of patriotism seem to have a genuine
+affinity for each other. The national hope of Israel was born in the
+heart of a man whose name has been handed down as that of the father
+of the faithful. It was finally realized under the leadership of a man
+chosen of God as the mouthpiece through which the law was given. Long
+before nationality was an achieved fact, the love of God and the hope
+of a country were intermingled in the hearts of the sons of Jacob. This
+is probably a chief reason for the deathlessness of the race.
+
+Through the fabric of American history, the Christian religion is woven
+like a golden thread. Many things have contributed to the glory of our
+past, but nothing else has contributed quite so much as has this fact.
+Many things enter into the making of our hope for the future, but this
+is the most important among them all.
+
+The Pilgrims came seeking a spiritual refuge. It was on bent knees that
+they first greeted the country which they had chosen for their home.
+Their memory is perpetuated by a monument which stands near the place
+where they landed. It carries five symbolic figures, representative of
+Pilgrim qualities. It is appropriate that the central one among them is
+the figure of Faith. It was in the spirit of faith that they laid the
+foundations of American life in their section of the country.
+
+What was true of the northern settlements was true of the southern ones
+as well. Practically everything that was a part of the old Jamestown
+settlement is gone. It is significant that one of the most abiding of the
+old landmarks at Jamestown was the ruins of an old church in which the
+colonists first lifted their voices in the praise of God.
+
+Among the American people, the church and state have always been
+organically separate, but they have always been spiritually united. The
+state has guaranteed protection to the church. In return, the church has
+given moral and spiritual support to the state.
+
+The state can well afford to maintain such an attitude. It has no other
+bulwark so strong as is the church. The perpetuity of the state depends
+most largely upon the very things for which the Christian religion stands.
+Among them are virtue, loyalty, and fraternity.
+
+Statesmanship is a necessity in the activities of a nation, but it is not
+the fundamental necessity. Diplomatic shrewdness may often be helpful, but
+it is not a foundation upon which rests the existence of any country. Rich
+economic development, splendid cities, cultured citizenship—all these are
+things that enter into the highest grade of national life, but they are
+not the fundamental requirements of existence and strength. The hardy
+virtues that make good men are the foundation stones upon which any sound
+national life must be built.
+
+This is true because it is from the people that the national life flows.
+It does not come from executive offices, legislative chambers, nor
+judicial tribunals. These are only instrumentalities in the carrying on
+of its affairs. Its essence depends upon the people who make the state.
+It roots in the places where they live and work. It is never any better
+nor any worse than they are. It is tempered to the home life, the
+industrial life, and the social life of the land. It is as good as human
+virtue makes it, or as bad as the lack of human virtue leaves it. It is,
+therefore, more largely dependent upon Christian agencies than upon any
+other one influence.
+
+Without the Christian church, the land would never have had these
+qualities that make life sound and strong. Deprived of the Christian
+church, it would soon cease to have them. With their departure, the
+sanctity would die out of family relations, the spirit of mutual
+helpfulness would perish from community life, and citizenship would be
+deprived of the attitude of loyalty to flag, country, and law. While
+these virtues are maintained, the state stands strong and firm. When
+they decay, the state goes to pieces as a barrel falls to staves when
+the supporting hoops are removed.
+
+This is sufficient to indicate that the state can hardly place too high
+a value upon the church, and that it cannot place too high a value upon
+the faith for which the church stands. A few words should be now said to
+the point that since the church and the faith have served the country so
+well in years gone by, they cannot afford to miss the present supreme
+opportunity to serve it.
+
+America is passing through a great transition stage. No one can say just
+what the outcome is to be, but every one recognizes the presence of a
+national ferment which is certain to result in something positive in the
+not distant future. There is probably small ground for alarm. Ours is a
+nation of thoughtful people. Whatever they do in the end will be tempered
+with wise judgment. As it has been in other days, they will choose the
+wise course, and we shall only find ourselves better situated than before.
+The fact stands, however, that we are now in a transition period. The
+whole world is entering into a new period in its existence.
+
+It is desirable that this new period shall be really an evolution of the
+old. The best of the past should survive, having added to it the best
+thought and talent the new age can furnish. Those revolutionary minds who
+think the new order will be some sudden substitution for an old one
+wrecked by the hand of annihilating violence are in the hopeless
+minority. Sound judgment will prevail, but a change is on the way. In
+fact it is already partially realized.
+
+In such a time of social unrest and upheaval as this, it is easier than
+at other times to make blunders. Other lands have felt this fever before
+ours, and some of them at that time wrote pages into their history which
+they have spent all the years since wishing they could erase. Just now
+the popular mind needs in an unusual degree the steadying influence of a
+great faith. The Christian faith is sufficiently conservative to be
+careful, and sufficiently progressive to be fearless in the face of
+vision. It is, therefore, supremely adapted to meet the needs of
+the times.
+
+The Christian Gospel is the great solvent of modern problems. The problems
+of the age are ethical and social. Fundamental to ethical and social
+problems are spiritual conditions. The Christian Gospel is an ethical and
+social message based on spiritual principles.
+
+The Gospel should, therefore, be spread to-day with such an earnestness as
+its prophets have never known before. From pulpit, in Bible school, and by
+means of printed page, it should be given the freest possible course to
+the minds of men. It should certainly be made a more common topic of
+everyday conversation. Let no one think it is unwelcome. The human race
+realizes its present situation, and it is anxious to hear about anything
+that holds out any hope or promise. The world is strangely Gospel hungry
+at the present time. It is impatient of substitutes, but anxious for the
+real article.
+
+In years past the forces of the Kingdom have been an incalculable support
+to the government. The church has carried the interests of the nation to
+the throne of grace. When necessary it has given men to defend the flag.
+The Bible and the flag have advanced together. It is safe to assume that
+in the present time the nation will find all the old-time help in the
+church and in the religion for which it stands.
+
+
+The Christian Program (1920)
+
+
+Jesus loved to set forth the nature of the Kingdom in terms of growing
+things. He likened it to a grain of mustard seed which grew into a tree,
+and to a lump of leaven which leavened the whole of three measures
+of meal.
+
+These are both apt pictures of the Kingdom and His plan for its growth.
+Its realization depends upon the germination and final fruition of the
+truth. It therefore depends upon the passing from one to another of its
+master secret.
+
+The dream of Jesus was a pretentious one. It meant not only the conquest
+of the planet but the conquest of it at its most difficult point. In such
+a conquest guns and navies are helpless. A greater than a military program
+is necessary. Jesus chose the greatest of all plans—the passing of the
+message from lip to lip through the channels of everyday conversation.
+Under his plan, each person is charged to be a witness of what he knows.
+
+The result of any problem in progression is startling. It is surprising
+how quickly a whole planet could be evangelized if the message grew in
+its sweep according to such a mathematical law. If each person who knows
+Jesus passed the knowledge of his experience on to two others, the outward
+rim of things could be touched in a little while. Such a plan is not only
+numerically adequate, but it is the only plan which is
+numerically adequate.
+
+The Christian program tends to the making of more and better Christians
+because the plan of personal evangelism makes every believer an
+evangelist. One is a little more wholly committed to the gospel he has
+passed on to others. A philosophy of words is very apt to become a
+philosophy of life. The sense of being a witness has steadied many a
+trembling Christian to a new strength and resolution. Responsibility is
+a wonderful tonic.
+
+
+Contributed essay to a symposium on “The Church and Young People” (1920)
+
+
+The status of the church in its relation to youth to-day is generally
+disappointing. Unless it is improved, the kingdom will become a victim
+of race suicide. In certain larger lines, the world seems to be
+advancing; in the simpler matters of personal ideals and moral
+standards, many people think it to be losing ground.
+
+The origin of our problem is threefold. It comes, first, from a growing
+reign of carnality in the world—the seeking of wealth and pleasure at any
+cost. It comes, secondly, from the surrender of erstwhile righteous as
+well as indifferent homes to the notion that, since one is young but once,
+he should be encouraged to spoil the only youth he is to have. It comes,
+thirdly, from a condition in social institutions and community life which
+makes it difficult for one to live the better life without severing the
+social ties that bind him to others.
+
+Young people cannot pass through the public schools of the average city
+without making a choice between being worldly and being wall flowers. It
+even seems that a young man cannot go through a great war for humanity
+without having the tobacco habit forced upon him as a part of a great
+propaganda for commercial purposes. Boys and girls can hardly attend a
+social function without seeing indecent attire and being invited to
+participate in things which deteriorate faith and ideals.
+
+Our equipment for meeting the situation is generally inadequate. We have
+plenty of organization, but it is too general, too miscellaneous, and too
+much interested in funds and reports. We have too many young people’s
+organizations and too little life in any of them. This is a general
+trouble with Methodism. We would do better with one tenth of our present
+machinery and nine times more use of that one tenth.
+
+Our program should probably cover the following points, all of which are
+old and simple: _(1) A warm spiritual life and a high personal ideal for
+all_. There are no exceptions for age or youth in the standards of the
+kingdom. _(2) An emphasis on family faith and practice, with a revival of
+proper parental authority_. If the children must rule, let the parents at
+least retain veto power in the interest of right living. _(3) A program
+of community reconstruction_ which will ultimately make schools and other
+public institutions as respectful of the ideals of evangelical Christians
+as they now are of those of Jews and Roman Catholics. _(4) Simple but
+effective organization for the recognition of the young people of the
+church as a normal social group_ and for their development along the lines
+indicated in the growth of Jesus—wisdom, stature, favor with God, and
+favor with man. There is no better program of training than that which
+includes mind, body, religious instinct, and social relationships.
+
+Beyond this I see little that the church and its agencies can do. Nothing
+is to be gained by compromising with the mind of the flesh, which is
+death. We should get the right kind of attitude, organization, and
+equipment. We should use them at their best and then stand our ground.
+The right-minded will respond to nothing less than a Christian appeal.
+The wrong-minded we shall not win anyway—until a revolution has taken
+place in their point of view.
+
+
+The Message of an Empty Tomb (1920)
+
+
+One Sunday morning twenty centuries ago a woman stood musing beside an
+empty grave. She had come there early in the morning to bring the tribute
+of a final service to a departed friend whose name was Jesus. He had died
+on a cross the preceding Friday. Being poor, his body had received the
+hospitality of a kind-hearted citizen of Arimathea.
+
+The visitor at the grave of the Nazarene met with a surprising situation.
+She did not find things as she expected—if she really expected anything.
+Probably her thoughts were little more than vague impressions, and she was
+taking it for granted that the grave still claimed its own.
+
+She did not find it so. The seal was broken; the door was open; and the
+former occupant was gone. The garden was silent, but not with the silence
+of the dead. Its stillness seemed rather to speak of life. It was like a
+battlefield upon which a great struggle has taken place, and a great
+principle vindicated. The very voicelessness seemed eloquent of victory.
+
+Mary need not have been surprised. Jesus had often told his friends that
+such a thing would happen. His emphasis had never been upon dead people
+nor dead things. His life had been a message of life triumphant. He had
+even released others from the fetters of the grave.
+
+The world has always had strange ways, however, of putting an indefinite
+construction upon the words of Jesus. Men often remark upon the wonder of
+them, but living the truth of them is quite another thing. People are
+willing to admit their beauty. Here and there are those who are even
+willing to admit their truth. They are not so many, however, who venture
+to take them for a life program.
+
+The same old story was repeated in this case. The assurance of Jesus that
+the tomb should be but a temporary habitation had been listened to with
+respect, but it had not been really taken seriously. It had become a
+forgotten promise. Whether Mary disbelieved, or only failed to believe,
+she acted upon the assumption that Jesus was dead. Others had remained in
+their graves. She took it for granted that she would find him in his. She
+had not learned her right to expect marvelous things. She cannot be blamed
+much. She only did what most people do. To her credit it must be said that
+she learned that day that hers was not a dead, but a living Lord. It is to
+be hoped that others have learned as much.
+
+The silences were eloquent, aided as they were by the shock of a great
+surprise. They spoke very clearly to Mary as she stood thoughtfully by the
+vacant tomb that morning. Indeed, they spoke so clearly that across all
+the intervening generations we can still hear some of the things
+they said.
+
+They told her that life laughs at fetters. Whoever thinks to bind it with
+stones and seals plans the impossible. It is made for the universal spaces
+and for the everlasting years. The life of Jesus possessed altogether too
+much vitality to long remain hidden behind the stone walls of a sepulcher.
+
+The world is strewn with graves. We have dug them in countless numbers,
+and departed generations made so many that the vast majority of them have
+long been forgotten. They are all as empty as was the tomb of Jesus that
+Sunday morning. We look at the earth and think of it as hiding those whom
+we have loved when we ought to look upward and think of them as in the
+keeping of another world. We look backward and think of their lives as
+belonging to the past when we ought to look onward and think of them as
+belonging to the boundless future.
+
+The silences of the garden must have told her, too, that the Lord had
+reached one of the final points in his leadership of men. His was largely
+a mission of demonstration. For ages men had been frankly doubting that
+true godliness and actual immortality were possible. Jesus demonstrated
+the fact that the divine spirit fits normally into both the affairs of
+life and the experiences of the hour of death. He proved that it was
+possible not only to live like a god, but also to die like one.
+
+He had led the way through the most trying experiences that life can
+bring. He had gone ahead into the valley and the shadow of death. On the
+first Sunday morning after his crucifixion he demonstrated his power to
+lead the world out of the grave as well as into it. Mary was the first
+witness to that demonstration.
+
+A few days later he led the way to one still farther point in the
+ascending scale of human experience—the gate of glory. He gained each of
+these points in order to show men that it is possible to reach them. It
+is for others not merely to admire, not merely to admit, not even merely
+to worship, but to follow. Wherever Jesus has gone, he has gone that
+others might also come.
+
+Not all the places by which his footprints lead may seem pleasant. They
+lie along paths of sacrifice, daring, and suffering. With an unfailingly
+majestic spirit, he faced whatever presented itself as incident to the
+fulfilling of a great mission.
+
+A valley of pain matters much less, however, when a mountain of
+achievement lifts its head beyond. It seems an insignificant thing that
+one must follow him into the chill of the grave when one knows that he
+has already broken the way through on the other side. It is not a
+permanent condition. It is almost too swift in its passing to even be
+called a temporary experience. A sunset would be a tragedy did one not
+know that the sun will rise again. We cease to dread the twilight when we
+reflect that it is but the pathway to another dawn.
+
+The silences of the resurrection morning said still another thing. They
+answered the old question as to whether the soul can exist when separated
+from the body. The physical frame of Jesus had seemed that of a dead man
+when it was taken from the cross three days before, and laid in the
+hospitable tomb of the kind-hearted Joseph. Now it was again inhabited by
+the same spirit which had shone from its eyes in other days.
+
+This was no new miracle. Its like had been repeatedly performed by the
+power of Jesus. The body and soul of his friend, Lazarus, had been
+reunited after an even longer separation. Other spirits had been rewedded
+to the tenements which they had inhabited, each time by the wonderful
+will of this man who himself lived in such positive fashion and for such
+abiding things that the hand of death could not permanently enchain him.
+
+Let it be as it will with these earthly frames of ours. The sooner they
+return to dust, after we are gone, the better. The human soul, however,
+was not made to perish. It is a thing of universal interests and eternal
+possibilities. It is life in its highest terms, and it was life with
+which Jesus was essentially concerned.
+
+The silences were eloquent as Mary stood by the tomb that morning. They
+told her that immortality was not a dream, but a fact. They declared that
+everlasting life was not a baseless hope, but a wonderful reality. They
+gave an unspoken answer to an age-long question. They proclaimed the
+glorious fulfillment of a precious promise.
+
+They spoke with a reminding voice, and it can still be heard across the
+years. They bid us not to think of the words of Jesus too vaguely. The
+greatest beauty of the gospel is its truth. The ideal of Jesus will remain
+unrealized until men have learned to accept his words at their face value,
+and to act upon the assumption that they are true. Faith knows no other
+testimony so worthy as that of obedience. The wonder of Jesus is the fact
+that his power so far outreaches the limits of our experience.
+
+
+The Laboratory Test (1921)
+
+
+We may argue about the Christian faith all we will, but the only way to
+appraise its real merits is to apply the laboratory test. An ancient
+singer challenges: “Oh, taste, and see that the Lord is good.” This is an
+invitation to possess the knowledge of experience.
+
+Certain things about Christianity must be taken by faith. Its practical
+value, however, is demonstrable. It is demonstrated in our civilization.
+It is seen in the new life of mission lands. It is revealed in the
+personal experiences of twice-born men.
+
+The testimony of opinion is uncertain. The testimony of experience is
+final and unanswerable. Arguments on the existence of love do not count
+with one who loves. The thing experienced demands no proof by
+logical processes.
+
+A laboratory test of anything demands two things. First, one must enter
+the laboratory with an open mind. One does not go there to confirm his
+prejudices, but to discover the truth. He must be willing to accept the
+truth which he discovers. One cannot alter the truth to suit himself.
+He must conform himself to the truth.
+
+Second, the honest investigator in the laboratory must put a thing to a
+complete and honest test. He must do so regardless of his own opinions or
+desires. The explorer must fulfil all the conditions of discovery before
+he announces his conclusions. One has no right to deny Christianity until
+he knows it fully, and has proven it a failure by actual test.
+
+Were this condition fulfilled there would be no unbelievers. The faith has
+nothing to fear from being tested. Indeed, the more it is tested the
+better. Whoever tries it honestly will find that it works. It can afford
+to invite the pragmatic test, for it is supremely a workable religion. The
+best things never can be adequately appraised at the first glance.
+They must be tried.
+
+
+The Nearness of Destiny (1921)
+
+
+In the opening sentence of the Book of Revelation John states that in
+it are related the things which must shortly come to pass. In that
+sentence he indicates an attitude toward the events of life which it is
+worth while for all to hold. He appreciates the fact that the future is
+not remote. With at least some of its events we are face to face. From
+none of them are we very far removed. Destiny is no far distant thing.
+The processes that build it are continually going on.
+
+The events of life are like the landmarks on a highway. Some of them
+may look to be very far ahead, but they are approaching us very swiftly.
+We travel the journey of life at great speed. The tomorrows are never long
+in arriving. We may not know what the future has in store for us, but one
+thing we do know. Whatever it has in store will not be long in arriving.
+
+To the eyes of childhood the day of maturity seems very far away. To
+the young the days drag slowly. The time of independence, maturity, and
+responsibility seems to creep toward one at the pace of a snail.
+
+One by one the days pass, and each seems to pass a little more swiftly
+than the last. Maturity finally comes, and then it seems that the years
+that brought it have been altogether too short. Our natures are so
+constituted that the morning is always calling for the noon. Then the
+noontime is always regretting that the morning has passed by.
+
+Only to the idle and the aimless do the passing days seem long. To one
+who possesses a commanding purpose in life they are very brief indeed.
+There is never time enough to do a great life work. Few great servants of
+their times pass out of this world feeling that they have completed their
+task to their own satisfaction.
+
+The worker who has a great deal of ground to cover before he ceases his
+toiling often learns this fact to his regret. He is called to his task by
+the sunrise, and he feels that the day is long. He goes about his work in
+leisurely fashion, feeling that there is no occasion for haste. As the day
+wears on he begins to measure his task by the vanishing hours. He begins
+to hasten, but the sun declines in the West all too soon. As the shadows
+lengthen he grows feverishly hurried, but it is generally too late. The
+sun goes down upon an unfinished task. The only thing that would have
+saved the day would have been an early morning sense of the swiftly
+hurrying hours.
+
+Some years ago a distinguished leader of thought in America remarked in
+the last public address he made before he died that the longest time is
+short when it is past. His words were true. The years always look long as
+they lie ahead of us, but when they have passed we are always saying how
+short a time it was.
+
+It has been the human habit to think of the Kingdom of God as a distinct
+thing. We have kept it far from us both in space and time. We have so
+thought of it in spite of the fact that we were told by Him of Galilee
+that the Kingdom is at hand. We have waited and waited for the Kingdom,
+sometimes half doubting that it would ever come, and all the while it
+was at our very finger-tips. We had only to lay hold upon it, feel it,
+realize it, and live it, to make it ours.
+
+We have assumed, too, that eternity lies somewhere in the uncertain
+reaches of the infinitely distant future. In this also we have been
+mistaken. Eternity has been going on all the while. We have simply taken
+a little section of eternity and arbitrarily named it time. It is still
+a part of eternity, just the same. Every day that goes by is just that
+much of eternity. Therefore, everything that a day holds bears an eternal
+significance. Its every event is built into the walls of destiny. All the
+issues with which we ever have to do are eternal.
+
+Such is the process of judgment. Another name for it is the law of cause
+and effect. Causes and effects swiftly succeed each other in life. The
+effect is as inevitable as the cause is definite. Moreover, it is not
+long delayed.
+
+I once knew a teacher who had inscribed in large letters over the door of
+his classroom these words: “What you are to be you are now becoming.” He
+understood this principle. The judgment is going on all the while. We can
+never hope to be in the future anything else than what we are allowing
+ourselves to become in the present.
+
+The mills of God do not grind so slowly as one might think. From the
+larger point of view it may be seen that they do some of their work with
+surprising swiftness. We cannot afford to dream away our days in the ease
+of thinking that life’s responsibilities and tests lie far in the future.
+We are very apt to find ourselves mistaken. Often they lie just ahead.
+
+The events of the life of Jesus came and went with a tragic and growing
+swiftness. During the last few days of His life in Jerusalem they seemed
+borne upon the current of a swiftly rushing stream. To Him things always
+shortly came to pass. The Christ of revelation was the same who had walked
+in Galilee. He had the same habits of thought.
+
+This is the reason why He was able to crowd ages into years. Before He had
+fairly passed the threshold of maturity, He had already succeeded in
+living the biggest life of all the centuries. He simply understood the
+nearness of destiny. He realized that time will not wait.
+
+An old Hebrew prophet called upon men to prepare to meet God. We have
+assumed that this meeting is to be at an indefinite future date, called
+the Judgment Day. We greatly need to understand that our meeting with Him
+is not only a future but also a present event. Each of us is repeatedly
+face to face with God. All through the years we have been meeting Him
+every day and hour. He is the Silent Partner in all our upward struggles.
+He is the Inevitable Factor with which we must reckon in all our
+considerations. He is the Absolute Quantity to which we must relate
+ourselves, and to whose standards we must conform. These obligations do
+not belong to some far future time. They belong to the present. We are
+not dealing with a static order, but with a progressive one. We are the
+children of One who takes into consideration but one tense.
+His word is _NOW_.
+
+We are not facing the future in blindness to these things. The curtain has
+been drawn back from their real nature that we might behold it. We know
+that the events of the future closely impend. The tomorrows are at our
+finger-tips. No dam can hold back the stream of destiny. It hurries along
+the years so rapidly that there is never too much time to prepare for the
+coming of whatever its current may sweep to our feet.
+
+The hand of prophecy never draws back the veil that we may look upon a
+lie. The Almighty does not trifle with us. The revelation of the
+Scriptures is of inevitable things. The events which they disclose are
+more certain than the course of the stars and planets. The sun may falter
+in its path, but the plans of God never do.
+
+One of the most serious and significant things the Scriptures disclose is
+the fact that the gates of the future are not far removed. They open
+directly before us. Even now our hands are upon them. Our feet are upon
+the threshold of the tomorrows.
+
+Objectively, this earthly existence is merely a rapid succession of
+events. The holidays to which we look forward with expectation, the
+meetings for which we can hardly wait, the partings that give us pain,
+the joys and the woes that make up life’s intermingling of sunshine and
+shadow, the birthdays that register our years, love, toil, death—all are
+things that “shortly come to pass.” The years hurry onward. Therefore,
+whatever one would do he must do quickly.
+
+
+Children and the Church (1922)
+
+
+The strength and membership of the Christian Church are great, but they
+are not what they should be. After all, the Church is only a
+comparatively small fraction of the sum total of human society. The
+plans of Jesus will not have been realized and the Kingdom of God will
+not have become an actual fact until the Church and the race are one.
+
+The Church is growing, but one of the evidences why there remains a
+great deal of ground to be possessed by the Kingdom is to be found in
+the fact that the race is growing more rapidly than the Church is. It
+is possible for an institution to be growing and yet losing ground if
+its problems are growing more rapidly than its power to meet them.
+
+Viewed alone, the reports on Church membership for any single year look
+somewhat encouraging. When one reflects, however, upon the growth of the
+race and the encroachments of paganism, the encouragement is diminished.
+The Church is supposed to represent a leavening force. It is quite proper
+to consider its mission in that light. A leavening force, however, must
+not remain such. Its work is to leaven the whole lump.
+
+A degree of failure is involved somewhere in the question. Otherwise, the
+mission of Christianity would have been achieved before this time. The
+difficulty is not in the matter of learning, for Christian leaders were
+never so well trained for their work as now. It does not relate to wealth,
+for it has been a long while since the Church could truly protest its
+poverty of silver and gold. It is not even in the matter of service, for
+there were never so many people working in the Kingdom as now.
+
+=The Vital Point=
+
+The trouble does not lie in our failure to work, though it does lie in our
+failure to work to the best advantage. We have toiled with the problems,
+but we have not yet unitedly attacked it at the vital point.
+That point is childhood.
+
+This word of warning does not seem to be needed by the Roman Catholic
+branch of Christendom, for that church grows rapidly. The reason for the
+following it has does not lie in the quality of its preaching, for it does
+not emphasize the sermon. It is not to be found in its form of worship,
+for that is in a strange tongue and according to antiquated formulae. The
+secret most largely lies in the persistent nurture of children in the
+faith of their fathers.
+
+In this regard Protestantism is lacking. We have cultivated too little
+conviction on the question of a child’s relation to the Church and the
+Christian faith. We have kept our minds free and easy on the question,
+until a situation has arisen to remind us that the real fruit which we
+desire for the Kingdom comes not as the result of indifference but of
+intense effort.
+
+Even a democratic conception may be carried to such an extreme that it
+counts for nothing. While Bolshevism and Anarchy have been tolerated under
+the protection of the State, they have also been fostered about the very
+firesides of many homes. We have tried to place Protestantism upon a
+democratic basis, but we must not forget that the principle of democracy
+does not diminish the necessity for conviction and fidelity. The disregard
+of obligation is not freedom.
+
+The mistaken notion that there is no place for religion in the child
+mind is already bringing forth its pitiful harvest. Its fruit is a
+generation of younger people dwelling largely apart from the Church, more
+vitally concerned with other than religious questions, and living for
+ideals which are chiefly moulded by the standards of the present world.
+
+Whatever the Church has meant in the progress of the race, and many
+thoughtful people believe that has been much, it will not be able to
+permanently maintain itself and its work unless this situation is
+reversed. It will not normally be able to realize upon the product of any
+home in which no definite emphasis has been laid upon the things for which
+it stands. We can hardly expect sustained support for the one institution
+dedicated to the saving of men in both this world and the world to come,
+unless each generation accepts the responsibility of teaching the next a
+wholesome love for and a genuine devotion to its teaching and
+its activity.
+
+One cannot say that the parents of today are not concerned about their
+children. In most ways children were never so well cared for. In this
+particular thing, however, there is a distressing neglect. This is not
+true because parents mean to neglect any vital thing, nor is it true
+because they are antagonistic to this necessity. It is true because many
+fail to see that it is a necessity for childhood. People simply blind
+themselves to the fact that spiritual growth requires food as imperatively
+as does physical development.
+
+In some cases, perhaps, it is the result of simple neglect. People are
+busy about so many things in these days that it does not always seem easy
+to give their children training in all the points requiring it. Some
+assume that the matter of religious training may properly be left to the
+church and the Sunday School.
+
+=The Necessity for Religious Nurture in the Home=
+
+Religious nurture is, however, a matter which requires the cooperation of
+the home. Some phases of it cannot be so successfully promoted anywhere
+else as there. Pastors and Sunday School teachers have a part to play in
+the religious education of the young, but certain great life lessons can
+never issue from any other source quite so appropriately as from the
+loved lips of fathers or mothers.
+
+Nothing can be more groundless than the notion that a child should not be
+influenced religiously until he is old enough to settle such questions for
+himself. Ultimately he will settle them, but his decision will be largely
+the result of early training. Home teaching and influence affect every
+decision one makes through life.
+
+One might as well refuse to feed a child until he could declare his own
+choice of food as to starve his religious nature until he could choose its
+satisfaction in his own way. Certain fundamental necessities are too
+constant and imperative to justify waiting. A life must be fed or it must
+perish, and this principle holds as true with childhood as it does with
+age. Indeed the necessities of a growing life are only the more acute.
+
+Occasionally parents will insist that their failure to bring their
+children up in the ways of the Church is the result of their own rearing.
+They declare that it is a reaction against the strictness with which they
+were sent to Church in their own childhood. First, this is a calumny
+against good parents who tried to lay in the lives of their children the
+foundations of happiness and success. Second, it looks to the spiritual
+starvation of the younger generation, the decadence of a fundamental
+instinct, and the strangling of a necessary social institution. They
+probably owe much of their success to the thing for which they unjustly
+blame their parents. Whoever is not physically equal to an hour or two in
+the sanctuary is hardly a fit candidate for the world’s responsibilities.
+
+We should assume a universal Church. By this I mean that we should assume
+that every child is born into the church, to be reared in its ways and
+teachings, and to be included among its numbers until he wilfully forsakes
+it. In other words, we should throw the chances on the right side instead
+of the wrong one as we have been doing. It is well enough to save lost
+sheep, but it is better to keep them from being lost. The religious
+experience will take care of itself if the religious life is
+properly nurtured.
+
+Children are born for the kingdom of better things. Their Maker meant us
+to keep them true to it. He will care for their regeneration, if we will
+keep them in line for it by protecting them from blighting influences.
+
+
+The Church’s Fourfold Program (1922)
+
+
+To-day the Church has her face toward the future. She has a great purpose
+throbbing in her soul. She is directed by leaders of wisdom and vision.
+She has a program as broad as life itself. That program is fourfold.
+
+It is, first, a program of evangelism. The Church is everywhere reminding
+herself that the winning of souls is her prime duty. This is true for many
+reasons, among which two are outstanding. This is the thing she has been
+set to do as the one means of ever really establishing the kingdom of God.
+Moreover, it is the one hope she herself has of surviving to continue
+her work.
+
+It is, second, a program of education. One of the first commands God gave
+to nature was, “Let there be light.” That command has been ringing through
+the creative process all the ages. As the sun of warmth and light brought
+new strength to created things, so the sum of knowledge brings a new
+blessing to the inner life of man. The Church’s program of Christian
+education in the home, the Church, the school, and the college, is already
+bearing fruit. It will do so more and more as time passes.
+
+It is, third, a program of social welfare. The Church is striving in this
+day to make itself known and felt for better things in the community. The
+organized life of the world as well as the individual life of men must be
+bettered by it. The apostolic Church was not a temple but a community. It
+must be the same with the modern Church.
+
+It is, fourth, a program of finance. It is a great thing to-day to walk
+about Zion, tell her towers, and consider her bulwarks. Back of all of it
+is the money given by faithful servants of the kingdom. What many people
+need for blessing of their own lives as well as for the growth of the
+kingdom is an adequate financial standard and program.
+
+
+Newer Conceptions of Religion (1922)
+
+
+We can never have a new set of principles of truth, but we can have new
+discoveries of old ones and new attitudes toward them. We can never
+change the constitution of life and nature, but we can learn more about
+it and better adapt ourselves to it. We cannot alter the divine plan of
+life and redemption, but we can make progress in our understanding and
+use of it. Not to do so would be an inexpressible pity. We do not have a
+new religion, but we do have newer and more adequate conceptions of the
+old faith.
+
+The older type of religious thinking was largely derived from the
+speculations of the cloister. That of the present is taken directly from
+the facts of life. The Bible was the basis of the old, and is the basis
+of the new; but in the one case it was viewed from the quiet shadows of
+the cell, while in the other it is seen from the viewpoint of the dusty
+road, the busy market place, and the domestic hearthstone.
+
+In so far as the older religious thinking did take its conclusions from
+life, it tended to place the stamp of divinity only on the unusual phases
+and outstanding experiences. It saw God in the violence of the thunder and
+lightning, but it did not always sense him in the gentle sunshine of the
+ordinary day. It recognized him in the ecstasy of the mountaintop, but it
+did not always find him in the duty of the valley. It connected him with
+the exceptional moments, but not with quiet hours, prosaic tasks, and
+drab days.
+
+The older religious thinking tended to glorify every tense except the
+present. It had its good old days on which it looked back with loving
+tenderness, and its Golden Age, toward which it looked forward with
+longing hope. The newer thinking recognizes the value of the past and the
+importance of the future, but lays its supreme emphasis upon the present.
+It glorifies only one tense, and that is the Golden Now.
+
+
+The International Religion (1923)
+
+
+The Book of Revelation is full of significant pictures, but none is more
+so than that presented in the Ninth Chapter. It is drawn in climaxes. The
+first part might seem disturbing if considered alone. As to whether God
+proposes to save the many or the few, it would seem to favor the first
+answer. John says that he heard the number of them that were sealed, and
+there were only twelve thousand from each of the tribes of Israel.
+
+But let us not form our conclusions too hastily. John has more to say. He
+follows the above assertion with this: “And after these things I saw, and
+behold a great multitude which no man could number, out of every nation
+and of all tribes, and peoples, and tongues standing before the throne and
+before the Lamb arrayed in white robes; and palms in their hands.” This
+second part of the vision is the answer as to whether God proposes to save
+the many or the few.
+
+From this point one might move out along any one of many lines of thought.
+He might think of Christianity as the religion of the masses. He might
+think of it as the religion of the long ago with their changes and their
+progress. He might see it as the religion of the nations. This leads to
+the outstanding significance of the passage under discussion. Christianity
+is the international religion. It is potentially so today. It will be
+actually so tomorrow.
+
+This means something finer than that Christ will become the temporal or
+political ruler of nations. It means more than that he will become the
+king or lord of any land. It means he will become King of kings and Lord
+of lords. He will become the spiritual ruler of the hearts of men. No
+power can go beyond that. He will be enthroned in the hearts of peoples
+everywhere. The New Jerusalem will be world-wide in its scope.
+
+
+The Great Teacher (1925)
+
+
+One day long ago a young man stepped out from the throng, took a place on
+a hillside, and began to teach the people. He did it in such a way that
+they were amazed. They said he taught as one having authority, and not as
+their scribes. Consequently, the common people heard him gladly.
+
+From that day he has been known as a teacher. The years have taught us to
+call him the Great Teacher, for they have shown us how well that title
+is deserved.
+
+I. Jesus is a great teacher because he teaches vital things. The shallow
+and inconsequential have no place in his curriculum. Some spend years
+learning what is hardly worth the trouble, but not in the school of
+Christ. Whatever is presented there must really count. His test of
+subject-matter is, “Is it worth-while?”
+
+II. He is a great teacher because he teaches in ways so simple and plain
+that none can mistake his meaning. Sometimes he speaks in the plainest
+expository form with nothing of embellishment and utterly void of the
+tricks of the rhetorician. Sometimes he makes it a story. The narrative
+is always one with familiar settings and characters, and it always makes
+a vital point before it is through. Jesus introduces a man and a truth
+to each other and sees that they become friends. The person who can do
+this well is a master instructor.
+
+III. He is a great teacher because he always makes his own position clear
+and lets the force of his own influence fall on the right side. In these
+days, there are teachers who consider it a mark of scholarship to present
+various sides of a question and then leave the helpless student to make
+his own choice—and often a wrong one. Whether or not this is a scholarly
+procedure, it certainly is not a helpful one. Jesus never followed it. He
+went after the one vitally true viewpoint, committed himself to it without
+reserve, and sought to influence his hearers to do the same. It is such a
+teacher who builds history.
+
+
+What Can We Believe? (1928)
+
+
+One is made or unmade by his beliefs. They determine his doings and shape
+his destiny. Therefore, what we believe is a matter of vital importance.
+The demands upon our credulity are confusing. We wish to be receptive to
+truth, but on our guard against error. What may we believe with a
+reasonable degree of assurance and conviction? What may safely enter into
+the making of one’s personal faith?
+
+A considerable number of claims upon our credulity may be put aside and
+disposed of once and for all. Among them are the claims which violate the
+evident laws of truth, the merely controversial claims of the various
+Christian groups, the superficial formalities of observance and
+organization, the vagaries of popular thought and personal opinion, and
+the mental effects of the shifting tides of emotion. Certain things we
+are driven to accept by the very facts of life.
+
+One of them is that back of all the wonder of the universe and of life is
+a great Source, a First Cause, a Divine Something that we have named God.
+This Architect of the universe has not always dwelt among clouds and thick
+darkness. He has given us one revelation of Himself in human terms. It is
+the sweet spirit, the rugged strength, and the simple life of the Peasant
+of Galilee. It is not difficult to believe in God when one has
+contemplated the story of Jesus.
+
+Another is that life has its consequences, that the results of right and
+wrong action are cumulative and reactive, and that each person now and
+forever reaps the reward of his doings. Some call it the law of cause and
+effect. Others call it judgment. Whatever it be called, it is not a
+penalty imposed, but a result arrived at. The goal one reaches depends
+upon the road he chooses and the direction in which he goes. The day one
+arrives at his destination is his judgment day.
+
+Another is the everlastingness of spiritual values, the chief of which is
+the human soul. If nature treasures each atom of matter, and across long
+ages does not permit one of them to be destroyed, shall not that which
+transcends matter be even more jealously guarded and preserved? Nothing
+else in the universe can be destroyed. How, then, can life be done away?
+
+
+The Christ of the Sea (1929)
+
+
+It is an old and well-known story, recounted anew each Christmas time,
+that the Wise Men from the East were led to the cradle of the infant
+Jesus by a star. That fact has taken a large place in Christian imagery
+and symbolism. But of what is a star a symbol? It is suggestive of an
+ideal. How appropriate that a star should have shown the world to the
+cradle of one who set it thinking about ideals?
+
+Jesus was a dreamer. His spiritual lineage ran far back into the life of
+the Jewish race. The nature of Esau was such that wherever he went, he was
+haunted by his physical desires. The nature of Jacob was such that
+wherever he lay down at night, even though his head were pillowed upon a
+stone, he dreamed of heaven and of angels. Jesus was of the line of Jacob.
+He lived with His head among the stars.
+
+He wasted no time in getting the current of idealism under way. He began
+at once promoting the kind of thing the practical world calls impossible
+because it is right. The night He was born angels sang of glory to God in
+the highest, peace on earth, and good will among men. It was a warring and
+hating world to which they sang, but their song was a note in the new
+harmony He had come to establish.
+
+This man who walked with His head among the stars did and said all kinds
+of impractical things. He said a kingdom of happiness was at hand, but
+that a man had to be born again in order to see it. He said the best way
+to save one’s life was to lose it. He said one should treat others as he
+wished them to treat him. He said one should love his neighbor as well as
+he loved himself. He told a rich, young man to give away everything he had
+and consecrate his life to service. The world is slowly catching the idea.
+You cannot conquer an ideal. Some time it will win.
+
+What was this ethereal, star-like dream that so commanded His life? It was
+a race redeemed from its sin, ignorance, littleness, and woe. He saw how
+His people were fettered by their own tendencies. He dreamed of a day of
+freedom to be and achieve their best. And it will come. Some day the world
+will be a picture of the vision of the Man who lived with His head among
+the stars. The light of the Bethlehem star falls across the centuries
+lighting the way to a new heaven and a new earth.
+
+
+The Comrade Perfect: An Appreciation (1929)
+
+
+In the “Passage to India,” Walt Whitman speaks of the longing of the soul
+for the “Comrade Perfect,” and asks if somewhere such a comrade does not
+wait for us. We all know perfectly well that life is not all that it ought
+to be without the presence of the Personality which completes us.
+
+There is such a comrade, and He does something better than wait for us. He
+comes to us. The abstraction of the idea of God found concrete realization
+in Him who was called Immanuel, or God with us. All this was made more
+intimate still by the coming of the spirit divine, which brought God not
+only to us but into us.
+
+God does not rule the world from some distant throne but from the dusty
+road. He does not occupy a height and frown upon His people in patronizing
+condescension. He seeks a warm place in their hearts, where He may guide
+their thoughts and actions. The divine plan looks only to the constant
+narrowing of the chasm between man and God.
+
+The philosophers and theologians dispute whether God is transcendent or
+immanent, whether He rules from above us or beside us. As is true of many
+arguments, both viewpoints are right. God transcends us in all power, all
+knowledge, and all goodness. At the same time, He is immanent in the
+ministry of Jesus, in the guidance of Providence, and in the presence of
+the Holy Spirit. The life of Jesus makes that plain, for Jesus is a
+picture of God going where men go, living where men live, and meeting the
+struggles that men meet.
+
+And so He is the Comrade Perfect. No one needs to be friendless in this
+world. No one needs to be lonely. We are always within speaking distance
+of an unfailing Friend. We need to search neither across the years nor
+across the miles. We need only to look and listen, and He is there. We
+need only to open the way, and He enters our hearts in response to our
+silent welcome. We need only to make a place, and He walks beside us,
+whatever our way may be. He is the great completing element in our
+otherwise incomplete lives.
+
+
+Four Addresses to Young People (1929)
+(Ages 16 to 22)
+
+
+1. Heralds of the Name.
+
+In one of his letters John speaks of those who for the sake of the Name
+went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. He was thinking of the
+already growing army of heralds of that Name which is above every name.
+Probably, too, he was remembering that day by the Sea of Tiberius when
+Jesus came by and he heard and answered the challenge to life’s
+highest adventure.
+
+No one should offer his life for special Christian service merely because
+he thinks it would be nice work to do, nor because it has been done by
+someone he likes or admires, nor because someone he would like to please
+wishes him to do it, nor because he thinks he can speak well or has an
+attractive personality for social contacts, nor because he thinks it will
+serve him as a stepping stone to something else. To begin on any such a
+basis means to be doomed to failure from the beginning. It also means
+injustice to the work itself.
+
+Least of all should one enter special Christian service because he thinks
+it easy. That is one of the greatest possible mistakes. Whoever goes out
+to serve Christ must prepare his soul to endure hardness as a good
+soldier. He will discover that it is a real warfare into which he is
+going. If he likes the thrill of adventure, if he enjoys doing difficult
+things, if privation appeals to him, if he does not mind standing up to
+duty in the face of opposition and danger, then he will like soldiering
+for Christ. Otherwise, he will not.
+
+Only one thing should lead one to dedicate his life to Christian work. It
+is the great compulsion. One has it when he is conscious that he cannot do
+anything else and be quite content. That was the feeling that drove Moses
+to the end of the wanderings of his people, that sent Jeremiah to thunder
+the warning to a nation drifting to its ruin, and that impelled Jesus to
+the tears of Gethsemane and the anguish of Calvary.
+
+The person who does not find it in his soul to give his life wholly to
+Jesus is to be congratulated. He will pluck many thorns, but each thorn
+will bear a rose. He will travel many hard paths, but he will have the
+joyous consciousness of being a world builder for God.
+
+2. The Conditions of Communion.
+
+One day in 737 B.C. a young man of high social standing was in the temple
+at Jerusalem. There he saw a vision of the Lord upon His throne. The
+experience humbled the young man’s soul, cleansed his lips, and sent him
+forth to sound a warning to a people swiftly rushing to their doom. The
+temple atmosphere furnished Isaiah with the conditions of communion.
+
+About 625 B.C., when the storm clouds were still hovering near Judah, a
+young priest named Jeremiah saw in the presence of the Scythian army on
+Syrian soil the possibility of invasion by them and their Assyrian allies.
+He warned his people of coming destruction, at the bidding of Jehovah, who
+told him that he had been set apart for the task since before his birth.
+The peril he saw drawing near his people furnished Jeremiah with the
+conditions of communion.
+
+One day a young man named Jesus, His as custom was, entered the little
+synagogue at Nazareth. He was one who took part in the meeting. Taking the
+roll of the prophet Isaiah, He read from it the words of a commission to
+proclaim the day of God under the compulsion of the divine spirit. As He
+read, His heart told Him that commission was His own. Jesus heard His
+great challenge to duty as He stood in the place of worship reading the
+words of those who in earlier centuries had intimately known God.
+
+One day, still later, John saw the curtains of eternity drawn aside to
+reveal to him the things that must shortly come to pass. Three things made
+his vision possible. He was in a quiet and secluded place. It was the
+Lord’s Day. He was in the spirit. Such a situation is very apt to carry
+anyone within seeing and hearing distance of God. John met God face to
+face by the fulfilment of certain fundamental psychological conditions of
+vision and communion.
+
+On the evening of the twenty-fourth of May 1738, a young man who had
+believed in God all his life, but had sought vainly for a heart experience
+of faith, went into a meeting in Nettleton Court, on the East side of
+Aldersgate Street, in London. At a quarter before nine o’clock he knelt at
+an altar and felt his heart strangely warmed. The altar of a church
+furnished John Wesley with the conditions of communion.
+
+3. The Kingdom Partnership.
+
+On the day when Moses enjoyed that high privilege, direct communion with
+the Great I Am, he heard the call of heaven to high duty and
+responsibility. He shrank from it, as greatness usually does. True worth
+is seldom a candidate. In church and state alike, things go better when
+the office seeks the man.
+
+Among the reasons Moses offered why he should not be chosen to lead Israel
+from its bondage was one very commonly heard given in reply to calls to
+religious duty. Moses said he was not eloquent.
+
+God was ready with a counter proposition. After having a man in training
+for forty years the Almighty was not to be put off so easily. He proposed
+that Moses should undertake the task of leadership as a man of action,
+while his brother Aaron should share it with him as a man of speech.
+
+It was the old but ever-new combination of the man of deeds and the man of
+words—the practical leader and the spiritual one. We see it later in the
+case of Ezra and Nehemiah, and still later in the necessary partnership
+between the modern minister and laymen in the work of the kingdom. Neither
+type of service can be at its best unless it is in cooperation with
+the other.
+
+In fact, each type of service is so necessary that the kingdom suffers
+when these two types of Christian workers get their functions confused.
+It is usually a mistake for a minister to forsake the altar to serve
+tables, and just as much so for a layman to forsake the things for which
+he is peculiarly qualified and usurp the place of the minister. In the
+work of the kingdom, Moses and Aaron each has his own function, and his
+highest ministry is to perform his own function well.
+
+The work of the minister is with the dynamics of Christianity, while that
+of the layman is with the mechanics of it. Too often each stands and
+debates with the other that his part is most important, or else each
+envies the other his task and neglects his own. The mechanics of the
+kingdom could not exist if the dynamics were not maintained, and the
+dynamics would be wasted if the mechanics were not intelligently promoted.
+
+4. The Institutionalization of Religion.
+
+The selection of Aaron as priest was a step toward religious organization.
+As nearly as such things can be determined among the mixed currents of
+human history, it was the beginning of the institutionalization of
+religion. What has been gradually growing up in the form of spiritual
+vision now began to take the form of a system of rites and ceremonies,
+housed in an especially designed building, held at fixed times and under
+specified conditions, and presided over by men especially selected,
+qualified, and prepared for their task.
+
+Subsequently, this became a stumbling block to many people. A certain type
+of mind easily becomes confused in its thinking and fails to recognize the
+difference between an institution and the thing it represents. On the one
+hand, the priest has sometimes made the mistake of regarding the
+institution as an end rather than a means. On the other hand, the man on
+the street has sometimes assumed that the church pretends to be the sum
+and substance of the faith and has, consequently, failed to use it as a
+clearing house for the service he should have rendered to God and his
+fellow men.
+
+Any great idea or interest, however spiritual in its nature, must be
+incarnated in an institution or it will die. The life of the race could
+not be nurtured without the family. Commerce would die without the market
+place and the transportation system. Government could not be maintained
+without the state. Education could not be effected without the school.
+Religion would long ago have perished without the temple and the altar.
+Spiritual ideas do not cling to human custom. An institution must make
+them visual, real, and effective. Such is the reason for the existence
+of the church.
+
+The final vision of the Book of Revelation is of a social order without a
+temple. We are led to think that such a day will come, but that it will
+come only because the whole world shall have taken on the spirit and
+viewpoint of the house of worship. The mission of the church is to make
+itself unnecessary. It will be dispensable when all the world shall at
+last have conformed to the purposes of God.
+
+
+What Is Happening to Religion? (1929)
+
+
+A recent book makes the point that the old notion that science had
+defeated religion has been banished more by what has happened in the
+field of science during the last twenty-five years than by what has
+happened in the fields of religion and theology. Certain implications
+in this statement are worthy of consideration.
+
+With all its vaunted moral ideals, the boasted Victorian age did develop
+a rather marked and dangerous hostility to religion. It was the age of
+Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley and, therefore, an age of discovery. The
+newness of some of the conclusions it reached caused the public mind to be
+carried away by its own enthusiasm. The pendulum is gradually coming to
+rest, and the scientist now understands that a new discovery is not a
+substitute for God.
+
+The greatest sobering influence science has known has been its own
+constant success in the field of discovery. The theory of development, at
+first thought to have overturned God’s throne, when studied was found to
+be full of previously unsuspected implications of the divine. Science
+discovered that it was not a substitute for God, but only a new theory of
+divine creation.
+
+The only dogmatism as prejudiced and unreasonable as that of some
+religionists is that of some scientists. No one is more prone than the
+scientist to assume the finality of what is as yet only a hypothesis, and
+to offer himself as a martyr to the cause of some fantastic phase of
+scientific fundamentalism. The knowledge of science can grow, even as may
+that of religion.
+
+It appears to be a fact that unless the theologians gird themselves anew,
+they may find the very gospel they were raised up to champion more
+zealously and loyally defended by the scientists than by themselves.
+Eminent scientists announcing their faith in and support of religion are a
+growing company. The technique of the scientific laboratory forbids
+compromise. The scientist discovers what is true and stands by it.
+The theologian must do the same.
+
+
+Has the Day of Great Preachers Passed (1921)
+
+
+Every little while we hear anew the question, “Has the day of great
+preachers passed?” Sometimes it is asked in a sincerely interrogatory
+spirit. In other cases it is meant as an implication that the times of
+great preaching are no more.
+
+All keen observers of social and spiritual influences know that the
+prophet is one of the most potent factors in the building of our
+destiny, both as a nation and as a race. It is, therefore, important
+that we should occasionally stop and take account of our situation as
+to ministerial supply. The invoice should, of course, be qualitative as
+well as quantitative. Especially do we need to do this in a time of
+crisis and need like the present.
+
+The past has indeed boasted some great preachers. Paul, Savonarola,
+Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards, Beecher, and Brooks—these are all men whose
+names stand out upon the scroll of fame with a luster which any soldier
+or statesman might envy. They will continue to occupy an honored place in
+the memory of men when the names of many soldiers and statesmen have been
+obscured by lapse of time.
+
+There is no reason, however, why the average of ability should vary much
+from one age to another. Changing times mold men into different types and
+call for new forms of service, yet the force with which they rise to the
+occasions that confront them is about the same in one period as in
+another. The preachers and the preaching of one age measure with those of
+another without much of discredit to either. They differ in type, but not
+in ability or purpose. This being true, those of the present average
+creditably with those of any period of the past.
+
+Of course, this is doubted by some good and sincere people. A number of
+things give seeming basis to their doubts. However, a second look at these
+conditions is worth while.
+
+First of all, we must recognize the common human tendency to glorify the
+past to the disadvantage of the present. We all have reason to look out
+for this disposition, but it especially besets older people. Something
+about human nature makes it prone to live in the past. We are continually
+hearing it said or suggested that the great statesmen, the great poets,
+the great scholars, the great preachers, the great virtues, and the good
+days are all dead and gone. One may read something of this sort in the
+literature of ancient as well as modern ages. Yet the progress of the
+world has gone right on.
+
+The fact is that we quickly forget what the past actually was. When to-day
+becomes yesterday, we forget its troubles and glorify its redeeming
+features. It is well enough that we do, yet the habit often leads us far
+afield of the truth. If people were really called upon to live again some
+of the good old days they talk about so much, they might soon conclude
+that the change was for the worse.
+
+Next, we must remember that the standard of greatness constantly lifts.
+It takes more to make a great man to-day than it did in other years. The
+judgment of those who pass upon the question of a man’s greatness and
+accord him his place in history was never so exacting. The Harvard of
+Emerson’s day represented about the grade of scholarship obtainable now
+in a good high school. What then was exceptional scholarship is now
+commonplace. It is the same with statesmen. Men who were outstanding in
+their day would seem altogether mediocre in the face of the demands of
+this present period. In this time of widely diffused knowledge, it takes
+more than it ever did before to win the name of greatness in the pulpit.
+
+Next, we must remind ourselves that the minister occupies a very different
+place in the community from that which he held in other days. He is,
+therefore, judged by very different standards. Of old he was apt to be the
+chief educator of the community, and was judged by his learning. That
+place is now filled by the expert educator with the best equipment money
+can place at his disposal. He was the chief commentator on current
+affairs, and was judged by the wideness of his information. That place has
+been taken over by the editor. He was often the only trained public
+speaker in the town, and was judged by the polish of his oratory. Now the
+land overflows with capable public speakers.
+
+The conclusion of it all is that the work of the minister has narrowed
+down to the one specific thing to which he is called, the specialized
+service for which society must look to him alone. He is not to be judged
+by his learning, his familiarity with public affairs, or his ability as a
+speaker, altho he needs to possess them all. The one standard by which he
+is measured is the question of his ability as an exponent of the
+Christian religion.
+
+Again, the greatness of the preacher as a prophet to-day must be in spite
+of certain influences which militate against it. Strange to say, one of
+them is the general economic development of the country, together with the
+prevalence of ease and prosperity. Our ministers, as a rule, have come
+from the poorer class of homes and from the more poorly developed sections
+of the country, especially from the hills, plains, and deserts where
+solitude prevails. One little hill section in the middle west has supplied
+most of the ministers for its own and the surrounding States. There is a
+reason. In fact, there are two.
+
+One is the fact that in the poorer home and countryside there is not much
+to compete against God for a boy’s thought and attention. Young people
+brought up there do not enjoy many compensations. They have little to make
+them pleasure-mad. They live in a very narrow world, and they hunger to
+get out and do something worth while.
+
+The other is the fact that the religious consciousness is best developed
+in the solitudes. God has often to look to the hills and the desert for
+men to be his leaders. Abraham learned to be a friend of God partly
+because he walked so much in the vast silences. Moses met the great I Am
+on the mountain side. It was in the hill country that Elkanah and Hannah
+reared the little lad who was to be the successor of Eli. Our religion
+itself was cultivated in one of the poorest sections of the old world.
+With fertile river valleys all about it, barren Palestine gave us our
+richest heritage of religious literature and leadership. The men living
+in the richer sections might have done so, but they were too preoccupied
+with wealth-getting. They had no time to listen among the silences for
+the voice of God.
+
+Unfortunately, the temper of the present age is not so conducive as it
+might be to great preaching. There is a tendency to discount the value of
+the prophetic function manifest even on the part of some quite religious
+people. One may find in almost any current publication a statement or
+inference that it is not the spoken word but the acted deed that counts.
+The fact is that both count. It took both Moses, the man of deeds, and
+Aaron, the man of words, to lead Israel to the realization of its hope.
+It took both Ezra, the scribe, and Nehemiah, the cupbearer to the king,
+to rebuild the walls and the temple of Jerusalem. It has always taken the
+prophet and the toiler together to achieve human progress in the
+best sense.
+
+We have great preachers to-day. They have terrific competition to meet,
+but when one closes his ears to the clash of the noises about him he can
+still hear the voice of the prophet lifted clear and distinct. As of old,
+there are small prophets and false ones. As of old, at the same time,
+there are great prophets and true. However, if we are to keep preachers
+and preaching great they must have every encouragement that can be
+given them.
+
+
+The Heart Interest in Preaching (1922)
+
+
+A great deal of otherwise good preaching fails of its purpose. It may be
+that no flaw can be found in it from the purely homiletic viewpoint, yet
+it fails to get the verdict for God and righteousness. Often this happens
+because the sermon has been considered as an end within itself. The
+preacher has failed to take into account the human values involved in his
+work. He has prepared his sermon with the one idea of making a
+perfect product.
+
+His more successful brother has gone at the task in quite another way.
+He has worked no less earnestly and persistently, but he has seen more
+than the paper before him. He has looked past his study table and beyond
+his book shelves out into the busy world where his people live. He has
+seen them toiling, hoping, struggling, and suffering. He has thought of
+their heartaches and problems, of their aspirations and difficulties, of
+the drag that sordid situations and drab years put upon their souls. He
+has felt their temptations, their discouragements, and their limitations.
+His heart has gone out and felt the weight of their burden with them.
+
+Then he has searched Scripture, history, science, literature, and life for
+something that will help them in their fight. In some instances, at least,
+he has found it. No wonder his work catches on and succeeds. He has sensed
+the human side, and seen what it is that makes the need for preaching. If
+there were no human problems along the road that leads to God, then the
+pulpit might as well be abolished.
+
+To such a man the sermon he has prepared is not a fetish, but a message.
+He delivers it not merely that it may be admired, but that it may be
+minted into a blessing for the people before him. He knows what is in the
+hearts behind the Sunday clothes down in the pews, and he is trying to
+answer their questions and meet their needs.
+
+
+The Great Compulsion (1928)
+
+
+What do we mean when we speak of the call to the ministry? Some mean a
+wonderful dream, some an angel visitation, some a strange ecstasy, and
+some merely the notion that they can speak well. These things may all
+have their places, but they are uncertain. The one sure and enduring
+sign is the great compulsion.
+
+The Book of Exodus relates how Moses as a young man went out one day and
+looked upon his people’s burdens. That was one of the great determining
+hours in his life. It was so because when he saw his people’s burdens
+their weight rolled onto his own heart. That was the last peaceful day he
+ever saw, for our peace is the price we pay for greatness. Thereafter, his
+days and nights were troubled with that strange mingling of hope and
+despair that comes to a leader. He was under the great compulsion.
+
+John tells how an angel brought him a little book and told him to eat it.
+He did so, and in his mouth it was sweet as honey, but as soon as he had
+swallowed it, the sweetness changed to bitterness. That is the way with
+the word of truth. We must absorb it. The study of it is sweet, but the
+weight of care it lays upon us is bitter. It places us under the
+great compulsion.
+
+One morning Jesus slipped out in the gray dawn, stood on the slope
+overlooking the quiet rooftops of Jerusalem, and wept. What so moved Him?
+It was the difference He saw between the city that was and the city that
+might have been, the world that was and the world that might have been.
+He had dreamed of better things and had discovered how difficult was their
+realization. The great compulsion was upon Him.
+
+Key words are interesting in the vocabulary of such a one as Paul. One of
+his favorite words was _bondslave_. Another was _must_. A heavy sense of
+obligation was upon him. The feeling that took the vocal form of that word
+drove him over land and sea, planting the seeds of the kingdom life.
+A great vision had gripped his soul. A dream had possessed him. He could
+never rest again, for the great compulsion was upon him.
+
+
+The Minister and His Reading (1928)
+
+
+What the world and the spirit of the times have done to the reading habits
+of the public in general, they have also done to the minister. In the case
+of the public, they have sought to substitute the motion picture, the
+tabloid newspaper, and the confession magazine for the bookshelf. In the
+case of the minister, they seek to take the hours once devoted to the
+enrichment of the mind and dedicate them to the puttering things so fondly
+called practical duties—organizations, promotion, community activities.
+
+Where the world leaves off, the church begins, for it is not wholly free
+from infection with the virus of materialism. Often the very disciples of
+Jesus get the idea that it is more important to make a stir in the world
+of today than to build life for the eternities.
+
+We hear frequent complaints that there is a dearth of commanding
+preaching. The wonder is not that there are so few challenging voices in
+the pulpit, but that there are as many as there are when so many forces
+are joined in a giant conspiracy to throttle the spirit of prophecy. There
+is not enough encouragement to men to be great preachers. Yet wherever
+there is a voice that speaks with authority and not as the Scribes, there
+are people to hear it, though it be in the slums of a city or the depths
+of a forest. There will be plenty of such voices when the world and the
+church allow men to get back to the reflective life, and when ministers
+themselves once more determine to spend much time with the truth of God.
+
+Why did the world’s crowning religion come out of a poor, barren little
+country, when there were Egypt, and Babylonia, and Greece? It was because
+Israel was poor enough and secluded enough to walk with God. The shepherd
+and the vinedresser caught the “still small voice” that was lost in the
+rush and roar about the merchant in the marketplace. Egypt was too busy
+with her civilization. Babylonia was too busy with her pleasure. Greece
+was too busy with her culture. The spirit of prophecy is found where are
+the conditions under which men can dream dreams and see visions. Great
+preaching will never come out of a maze of material interests. Shall we so
+soon forget that the first great task of Jesus was to win the victory over
+the tempting power of material things and that one of His last triumphant
+statements was that He had overcome the world?
+
+They used to say that the ideal plan for a minister is to divide his day
+equally between the cultivation of his mind and the work of his parish.
+If one would follow such a plan faithfully through a long pastorate he
+would have two things—a well-furnished mind and a well-developed church.
+However, it does not matter so much which plan one chooses. It matters
+most that he does have a plan that provides a suitable place for reading
+and study.
+
+It is not the present purpose to exalt the importance of reading beyond
+its due. Other interests are important, but this happens to be a call back
+to books, back to the delight of kings’ treasuries and queens’ gardens,
+back to the refreshing that comes from truth’s ever-flowing well, back to
+the replenishing of those powers upon which a minister must rely when
+every other key to success lies broken and useless.
+
+A certain college professor used to advise his students to get and use
+three books, even if they could have no others. He said it did not matter
+how cheaply made they were, if they were only genuine and complete. He
+told them to get an unabridged dictionary, and study it for words; to get
+a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare, and study it for usage; and
+to get a copy of the King James Bible, and study it for style. These,
+together with a standard encyclopaedia and perhaps a good Bible
+dictionary, form the necessary foundation for any ministerial library.
+
+No minister needs to be convinced of the wonders and beauties of the
+English Bible. All understand its value, but some find it difficult to
+invest the time and effort necessary to that unusual understanding of its
+message which the ministry must have. It is not difficult to show the
+public the charm of this wonderful book, but the one who reveals that
+charm must first have seen it himself.
+
+Next to the Bible comes a vast and growing field of professional material
+dealing with the work of the ministry. This the minister must take into
+account. If the physician, the lawyer, the teacher, the business man, or
+the farmer can continue to be a success only by keeping abreast of the
+newest thought and discovery in his field, certainly the minister is in no
+position to claim exemption from the rule.
+
+Occasionally we hear a minister boast that he knows nothing about
+Theology. Some even seem to regard such a claim as a qualification for the
+most serious and important work on earth. For a minister to make such a
+boast is exactly as intelligent as it would be for a lawyer to advertise
+that he is handling cases involving property and human rights without
+knowing the principles of his work, or for a physician to say that he is
+taking into his hands the life and happiness of human beings without a
+knowledge of drugs or surgery. If a minister really knows nothing about
+Theology, it is wisest to conceal the fact, if possible, until he learns
+something about it. A community soon spots a man who does not know
+his business.
+
+A minister must find some way to gain a wide general information and
+culture. The person who said that he must know everything was not far
+wrong. This is true not only because he is preaching to an increasingly
+well-informed people, but also because he must interpret God to all of
+these people in the terms with which they are familiar. Each of his
+hearers lives and works in a limited field and can get on with a knowledge
+of that field alone, but the field with which the minister needs to be
+familiar is unlimited because it touches all the others.
+
+No minister can afford to neglect good fiction. It often tells more truth
+than fact does. Upton Sinclair’s _The Jungle_ did. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
+_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ did. The parables of Jesus did. Aside from its
+entertainment value, fiction cultivates the imagination, and without that,
+no man can be a powerful public speaker. If one will speak in pictures,
+the people will hear and understand. One of the reasons why the common
+people heard Jesus gladly was the fact that His words always appealed
+to the imagination.
+
+A minister needs all kinds of books, including those which make one laugh.
+Let us not be victims of the idea that holiness excludes the sunshine.
+The man who loses the song and laughter out of his life is unfit for the
+ministry until he gets them back. Clean and genuine humor should be on the
+minister’s bookshelf and in his heart.
+
+A minister should read some of the things he dislikes and with which he
+disagrees. There is little growth in reading or hearing only what one
+already knows or believes. One owes it to truth also to know the other
+side. Even if he is certain that the other side is wrong, he should know
+its claims and how to meet them. The physician must study diseases before
+he can apply remedies. Many ministers have made too few clinical
+observations of the error and sin that are ruining the world.
+
+It is sometimes said that this kind of thing means too much religion of
+the head and too little of the heart. You cannot separate these two
+things. They are parts of the same. Physics tells us that radiant heat
+and light are one and the same. All heat makes light. All light gives
+off heat. Whatever illuminates warms. Whatever warms illuminates.
+
+On the evening of the first Easter, two disciples were on their way to
+their simple home when a stranger drew near. He took the road with them
+and talked to them about the meaning of the Scriptures. Entering the
+house with them, He ate, and departed. Then they knew it had been the
+risen Lord. They said: “Did not our hearts burn within us while He
+talked to us in the way?”
+
+The burning heart always goes with the understanding head. One cannot face
+the fair page of truth, see what God has wrought, and contemplate the
+goodness and love of the divine heart, with a soul unswept by the tides of
+spiritual feeling. Perhaps more tarrying at the feet of the Great Teacher
+of all truth would renew the testimony of the two disciples of Emmaus.
+
+It must be so, for religion does not belong alone to heart or head. It
+belongs to the whole life. We may find God in the oratory where the soul
+rises heavenward upon the wings of prayer. We may find Him in the temple
+where arch and pillar cast dim shades about us, and the altar lends us
+sanctuary from the world. We may find Him in the hour of unusual spiritual
+fervor and in the great emotional experience of a lifetime. We may find
+Him in the hot, white field of service to the troubled, the burdened, and
+the broken among men. We may find Him in the careful statement of a creed,
+the formal beauty of a liturgy, or the simple prayer of a moment of
+contrition. We may also find Him in the field of thought and knowledge
+where we behold Him and His kingdom of unsearchable riches through the
+magic gateway of the covers of a book.
+
+
+Preaching to College Students (1928)
+
+
+Preaching to college students is one of the most exacting of homiletic
+responsibilities. This is the case not so much because students are
+critical as because they are the world in the making, and the tomorrows
+will be just about as religious as they are. By some means the message
+must be put across to them.
+
+Preaching to such a constituency is no longer the task of the few. Almost
+every preacher has more or less of it to do because the influence of the
+college now reaches everywhere. In the university centers we deal with
+students in large groups, but in the smallest country community one finds
+at least a few. A sermon must be as worthwhile for the few as for the
+many. So the problem is one of general interest.
+
+The presence of students in his congregation should be a great blessing to
+a minister. It is a high challenge to him to do his best work. The mind of
+the student is alert, and his work, so far as it goes, is with current
+data. Therefore, the man who interests him must be wide awake and well
+informed. For such an influence any minister should be deeply grateful.
+
+Great numbers of college students and graduates are in the churches. Still
+greater numbers are not unwilling to be, and will be when the motive is
+clear. But the reason must certainly be established. Will the student
+derive benefit from the sermon? If not, he is not interested and that is
+the end of it. If so, he is interested and will respond. This is only as
+it should be.
+
+The average student likes to be preached to and dealt with as a human
+being. True, the species includes a few mutations who like to think they
+belong to some other order of creation, but most students know better and
+the rest will have abundant opportunity to learn better.
+
+The college student is nothing but a boy or girl from the farm dwelling,
+the village home, or the city mansion, translated into a campus setting.
+The law of adaptation operates, and certain temporary colorations, habits
+and appendages develop, all of which will pass with the next change of
+environment. These youngsters are still flesh and blood however and it may
+be said of them as it may be said of anybody that their need is for the
+universal gospel preached in the most honest and interesting possible way.
+
+The student is dealt with as such during the days of the week. His
+professors may be depended upon not to let him forget that he is a
+student. When the worship hour comes he is glad of an opportunity to
+forget it for the time being and to occupy the honorable position of
+a human being made in the spiritual image of his God.
+
+It is a great mistake to preach to students in the terms and imagery of
+campus life. The preacher who starts in to show his audience how much he
+has engaged in athletics, how familiar he is with fraternity and social
+life, and how finally he has solved the old and largely imaginary problem
+of the conflict between science and religion, will only succeed in making
+himself ridiculous. Students do not come to church to hear about things
+concerning which they know more than the preacher does. They come to hear
+about things of which he is presumed to know more than they do. Therefore,
+the safest as well as the most helpful thing he can do is to keep
+to religion.
+
+It is also a mistake to suppose that the student mind reacts unfavorably
+against serious things. It may appreciate the witticism which helps to
+illuminate a serious point in the discussion, and a first class reductio
+ad absurdum nearly always clinches a proposition, but mere buffoonery will
+make a small and brief appeal. The person who attempts thus to denature
+the gospel he preaches will not meet with permanent favor.
+
+This is the case because the student mind is essentially serious. One
+might not think so after a superficial observance of student actions,
+but it is so nevertheless. The very laughter and jesting one hears in
+student circles often mask the most earnest questionings, the deepest
+longings, and the most serious attitudes.
+
+So long as one keeps himself, as he should do, within the limits of honest
+conviction, and so long as one speaks, as he should speak, in the spirit
+of love and good will, no other class of people in the world is so ready
+to have him be brutally frank as are college students. In fact, they
+discount him if he shows any evidence of evasion or accommodation. They
+may be right about some things and wrong about other things, but they are
+honest in all things, and they expect him to be the same.
+
+Any one of the fields of thought and knowledge is a serious matter with
+the honest investigator. It is so dealt with in the classroom and the
+laboratory. To the student religion is just one more field to be explored.
+If he does not care to explore it, he does not bother. If he does care to
+explore it, he does not regard it as a joke. The person who thus
+approaches it with a sincere purpose should receive honest help.
+
+All this leads me to the point where I can say that one of the fine things
+about the student mind is that it has discarded all traditions and
+prejudices. It approaches any matter with a disposition to find and face
+the facts, whatever the consequences may be. It is a real _tabula rasa_,
+upon which one may write—provided he has a stylus that is sharp enough.
+
+Surely this is an opportunity to bring delight to the soul of the honest
+preacher. The most deadening thing in the world, intellectually and
+spiritually, is the practice of preaching platitudes and maintaining
+traditions which are proven, outworn, or unimportant—maybe all three.
+The most uncomfortable position in which any sincere preacher can find
+himself is one in which such a type of service is demanded.
+
+The preacher to college students finds himself in no such position. He may
+go anywhere he likes within the limits of the field of truth. He has no
+traditions to maintain. He is bound by no trammels of creed or dogma. He
+is not checked by any barriers of prejudice. His way is open. He has but
+to walk in it in the spirit of reverence and honesty. He is dealing with
+adventurous minds whose one concern is truth. The mind of Jesus was such
+a one, and such an audience really challenges a preacher to approach
+questions in the spirit of the Great Teacher.
+
+This is the process that is going to break down the artificialities and
+fan out the chaff of unreality from religion. Perpetuating systems is
+poor business, but adventuring in the field of truth is a high privilege.
+That is what the preacher to college students must do. Granted that it is
+in the field of religion, his one test for homiletic material is the
+question whether it is true.
+
+One of the most common mistakes made in the popular and superficial
+analysis of the student mind is the assumption that it is essentially a
+radical mind. This often becomes the basis of a great homiletic error in
+preaching to students.
+
+A comparative few students are radical, just as are a comparative few
+taken from any group one might mention. But with the mass it is not so.
+The great majority of college students are probably more conservative than
+the majority of people outside the university world. They think carefully,
+act with deliberation, and go quietly about their way while a few
+exceptions to the rule take the soap box and loudly demand the immediate
+reversal of all things.
+
+I should say that about the last place to go to start a revolution of any
+kind would be the average college campus. Yet the campus mind is alive to
+the evolution that is going on in everything—including itself.
+
+The student mind would be properly impatient of a static or reactionary
+viewpoint, but it is little concerned with wildeyed radicalism of any
+kind. The preacher who is most likely to reach its processes is the one
+who is honest, fearless, and open-minded, and yet who is conservative in
+the sense that he abandons a position only when he has found sufficient
+reason for believing that another one is better. The preacher who shows
+a conservatism which takes care to be progressive will commend himself
+and his message to the student hearer.
+
+The presence of students in one’s congregation should save him from the
+pitiful fate of ceasing to grow, and thereby becoming old. They are an
+advancing race, and it is his privilege to advance with them. If he does
+so, the day will come when he can look back across the years and find
+satisfaction in the thought that he has had a real part in the making of
+the history of his and succeeding times—that of building the solidness
+and savour of ancient truth into the life of the new world.
+
+
+Some Problems of the Preacher (1928)
+
+
+The day one offers himself to God for the work of the Christian ministry
+he takes upon himself a set of serious personal problems, along with his
+problems of leadership and service. He proposes to do God’s work, and that
+means also to be God’s man. He must be that amid difficult conditions,
+under constant scrutiny, and in the face of frequent misjudgment.
+
+One of his problems is to keep the spirit of reverence in his life. Human
+nature tends to handle ever more familiarly the things with which it has
+to do. Nadab and Abihu would have been afraid to offer strange fire if
+they had not allowed themselves to become too familiar with the things of
+the sanctuary. God, the church, and human hearts are all things our
+relationship to which should hush our souls.
+
+Another of his problems, and one of his chief ones, is to keep the stamp
+of reality upon himself and his ministry. Holy tones, unnatural attire,
+and affected mannerisms are all banes to the ministry. They have cost
+many a man his usefulness, and limited that of many others. The church
+would gain immeasurably if today every one of her army of ministers would
+undertake in a simple human way to represent normal manhood at its best.
+Certainly that is what Jesus did.
+
+Another of his problems is that of his social contacts. If he does not
+appear in public he is branded as a recluse. If he appears too much he
+becomes known as a loafer. He must find the golden mean. To know how much
+to appear, how to appear, when to appear, and the secret of mingling and
+dealing with people of all kinds without compromising one’s self with any
+is a fine art, and happy is the one who masters it.
+
+Still another of his problems is how to keep growing. Too many ministers
+become unacceptable in middle life, not because they have aged, but
+because they have ceased to grow. The most pitiful thing about these men
+is that none of them seems to know quite what is wrong. Such a time need
+not come. It does not come to those who read, and think, and keep
+interested in and sympathetic toward the life of a growing world.
+
+
+The Ambassador (1929)
+
+
+A minister is an ambassador of the Kingdom of God to the kingdom of this
+world’s life. If he will remember that, and act accordingly, it will
+both save him from many mistakes and help him to many successes.
+
+An ambassador has just one business. It is to represent, without wavering,
+change, or compromise, the interests of his country at a foreign court.
+
+If he allows himself to become more loyal to the people to whom he goes
+than to the Ruler who sends him, he is worse than a poor ambassador; he
+is a traitor. The pitiful message of the story of The Golden Calf is that
+a spiritual leader forgot that his business was to serve God, and
+surrendered to the idea that it was to please the public.
+
+The ambassador must remember that he is at a foreign court. That means
+that he cannot engage indiscriminately in what others do, that he must
+not become too deeply rooted in the alien life. He must keep his
+affections and loyalties fixed where they belong. At the same time, since
+he is among strangers, and since he is his own country incarnated in
+flesh and blood before them, he must be courteous and seek to make his
+every word and act worthy of their respect.
+
+An ambassador is often called a diplomat. Indeed, a poor diplomat could
+not be a good ambassador. Frequently he has exacting and sometimes he has
+strained situations to handle. He must do so in the least offensive way
+and, at the same time, in the way best calculated to carry the point for
+his King.
+
+For, above all, an ambassador must be faithful to his own country. He must
+not involve it, nor compromise it, nor surrender its interests in any way.
+While he must properly respect the country and people to which he is
+accredited, his business is to cooperate in establishing and maintaining
+the supremacy of his own government.
+
+It is a wonderful thing to be a minister, because a minister is an
+ambassador of the Kingdom of God.
+
+
+Let the Minister Know Life (1929)
+
+
+The young ministers used to have to learn Hebrew, Greek, and all kinds of
+ponderous tomes of Theology. Now they must learn, instead, the technique
+of the various practical enterprises in which the church is engaged.
+
+Probably a young minister needs to know something of both. But he needs
+to know another thing. He needs to know life.
+
+No man is prepared to engage in the cure of souls until he has seen the
+world as it is; until he knows what saints and sinners alike are doing,
+saying, and thinking; and until he has seen, understood, and felt for
+human life at its best and at its worst.
+
+Unless he has seen and known these things, he is like a man trying to
+practice medicine without having observed how the body is built and
+without having looked not only on the beauty of its health but also upon
+the horror and loathsomeness of its diseases. To look upon these things
+may not be pleasant, but to be helpless against them is less so.
+
+A minister is not a near-angel to be perfumed and laid away in tissue
+paper for fear of some contamination. He is a physician to the spiritual
+lives of men. He has a real battle to fight. He has conditions to face
+that are ugly, and fierce, and perilous. What can he do with them unless
+he knows about them? What can he know about them if his experience is
+limited to leading the devotions for society meetings and wearing correct
+dress at afternoon teas?
+
+A minister needs to go about, less as a minister and more as a man.
+He needs to see, and hear, and know enough to understand the mind and
+heart of the world.
+
+After a young minister graduates from the seminary and before he begins
+his public work, he may need to go to the solitudes for meditation, but
+he needs also to do another thing. He needs to go down where men live
+their lives and, keeping his own heart clean, learn at first hand what
+are the problems that he must help them to solve.
+
+
+The Yielding of Aaron (1929)
+
+
+The story of the golden calf is a familiar one. Moses was holding a
+meeting with God—a habit that began with the burning bush. His absence
+was prolonged. The people grew restless. They felt that the cure lay in
+worship, but why not worship with a little novelty in it? Why not get
+out of the rut?
+
+So they brought their jewelry to Aaron and besought him to make them a
+golden god. The idea of an unseen God was too difficult for them. Too, a
+golden god would be much easier to get on with. It would lay down no laws
+and make no ethical requirements. Too, golden gods were the style among
+their neighbors. They asked him to make them such a god.
+
+Then Aaron made the mistake of his life. As a spiritual leader, he should
+have been listening to see what God would say. But he turned his ear
+toward the congregation instead, and listened to see what the leading
+members would say. His business was to lead the congregation up to the
+foot of God’s throne. But he allowed himself to be persuaded to attempt
+to reduce God to the level of human weakness and ignorance.
+
+One of the supreme temptations of every religious leader is to seek public
+approval by the adaptation of the principles and standards of religion to
+public tastes, ideals, and desires. A thousand voices are raised on every
+side to urge him on in his error.
+
+The path of salvation is still a straight and narrow way. All that we can
+do or say will not change that fact. When we widen it, plant primroses in
+it, and take the stones out of it, we no longer have a path of salvation.
+Then real followers of God no longer care to walk in it. They like the
+challenge of the harder road.
+
+We cannot adapt God to the world. Whoever tries it fails, just as Aaron
+did. We cannot change truth, nor make over religion, nor revise the divine
+law. The God Isaiah saw in the temple was high and lifted up. The fact
+that Isaiah did not wait for the Lord to come down to his level, but began
+the long climb up to God’s level, is what made the prophet great.
+
+
+The Necessary Asset—Friends (1917)
+
+
+You cannot get on in the world without friends. You tread the golden
+bridge of friendship over many a chasm which could not otherwise be
+crossed. Friendless people must always languish on the side
+of hopelessness.
+
+Friendships do not come by chance, and neither do they force themselves
+upon you. Friendship, like everything else worth while, is the reward of
+proper effort.
+
+Friends must be made in the spirit of unselfishness. They are an
+advantage, it is true, but they must not be sought merely for purposes
+of advantage. Nothing wins friends so well nor keeps them so long as the
+unselfish disposition to be helpful. The most valuable friend is the
+friend who is one for friendship’s sake alone.
+
+A strong friendship is seldom effervescent. The cordiality which is always
+foaming over is apt to have about the consistency and permanence of the
+foam which it resembles. The best type of friendship is poised, constant,
+steady, and true to the end. Dependability is worth more in friendship
+than is mere demonstration. You can expect this quality in others only
+when it characterizes your own attitude toward others.
+
+When you speak of an absent friend, it would be well to imagine him
+present and listening to what is being said. Speak as gently of those who
+do not hear as of those who do. Speak frankly to the friend beside you,
+for insincerity never yet aided a friendship. Speak kindly of the friend
+who is away from you, for unkind speech has yet to win its first victory
+for the speaker.
+
+Speak of your enemies as though they were your friends, and some day they
+may become your friends. A kindly tongue and a helping hand for all would
+soon garland the earth with sunshine and happiness.
+
+
+Building a World Brotherhood (1918)
+
+
+Among the most valuable results of a thing are often those which are
+classed as bi-products. This is true of a certain inevitable social effect
+of Christianity. That effect is brotherhood.
+
+The natural tendency of the Christian religion is to make men understand
+the fact that from the beginning they were created brothers. As far it
+fails to accomplish this task, it will have failed of its social purpose.
+As far it succeeds, it will have wrought the foundations of the
+better day.
+
+Such is the tendency of the Christian faith, because Jesus recognized no
+artificial and arbitrary barriers. The lines across which nations and
+social classes scorned to step he threw out of his consideration, and
+crossed them regardlessly. In his estimation of things, a man was a man.
+He could be no more and there was no disposition to ever rate him as less.
+
+The world has arrived at this viewpoint slowly, but as surely as it does
+arrive at this viewpoint, its strifes will cease. Wars and troubles come
+from clannish exclusiveness and class hatred and distrust.
+
+When those who belong to such classes as capital and labor forget their
+social differences and emphasize their fraternal relations, they will
+forget that they were ever pitted against one another. The only way the
+problem can ever be solved is by the elimination of the caste lines which
+separate the contending elements. The employer must remember that the
+workman is a capitalist in time and muscle, and the employe must remember
+that his employer is also a workingman.
+
+
+The Laughing Man (1919)
+
+
+Shakespeare was a prophet of many ages beside his own; Dickens was a
+champion of the lowly and oppressed; Scott was a delicate weaver of the
+fairy fabric of romance; but Victor Hugo was an analyst of human life and
+experience. Without adornment or polish, his books are cross-sections of
+the feelings and doings of men. His knife cuts deep enough to reveal the
+workings of the inner laws.
+
+In Jean Valjean, the criminal, we have the story of a man who taught the
+world how low a man can fall and how well a fallen man can rise. In
+Gwynplaine, the laughing man, we have the story of one who taught the
+world how close may be the relation between the laughing countenance and
+the serious spirit.
+
+In the story of Gwynplaine two things stand out supremely. The first is
+the power and significance of a smile that could not come off. The second
+is the supreme importance and sacredness of humanity.
+
+The smile that could not come off was written upon his countenance with a
+knife. Gwynplaine was the son of an English nobleman. Stolen when a baby
+by a band of wandering showmen, he was trained for exhibition. They
+operated upon his helpless baby features and shaped them into a perpetual
+grin. From that day forth, no matter what were the feelings within him or
+the outlook in the path ahead of him, he carried a laughing face. He had
+been fashioned into a curiosity, but in some ways a very wholesome kind
+of curiosity.
+
+Had the story of Gwynplaine never done more than to remind the world of
+the value of laughter, it would have served its time and purpose well. No
+generation can well get on without those who make it their business to
+keep the smiles alive on the faces of the people. The world may laugh at
+them and pass them by as clowns, but the ages will have to honor them for
+having kept weary hearts hopeful when everything seemed to be crumbling
+away beneath them.
+
+The place of the humorist in literature is sometimes placed at a discount,
+but not properly so. The maker of fun whose humor was clean and genuine is
+a benefactor of his age, not to say a minister of righteousness. The hand
+of Justice lays an unfading wreath of honor upon the grave of the man who
+has helped to keep the world glad. He has planted roses where otherwise
+there would have been only thorns. He has scattered beauty and light where
+otherwise the shadows would have been left to reign supreme.
+
+One of the chief points in the story of Gwynplaine, however, was the fact
+that his smile was permanent and unfading. It was written indelibly upon
+his features and could be affected by no tempest either of joy or pain.
+His soul might be weary and his courage dead, but the world could never
+find it out by looking at his face. However often he may have been a
+troubled man, through it all he was a laughing man.
+
+It is all well enough to smile when one is gay, but the real hero is the
+one who keeps on smiling after the world has turned blue before his gaze.
+Anyone can look happy when he _is_ happy, but only the unusual man
+can keep a merry countenance when hopes die, ties are sundered, dreams
+crash in shattered fragments, and the rich promises of life prove to have
+been empty mirages of vain expectation. The smile “that cannot come off”
+is the smile worth while.
+
+The happiest-faced woman I ever knew was one whose life story would cast
+a tremor of dread upon any company. She had faced her floods of sorrow,
+had shed her tears, and then had come off with the victory of an undying
+cheerfulness which never inflicted upon another the troubles which had
+been hers.
+
+One day it was discovered that Gwynplaine, the wandering showman, was a
+man of noble blood. As such, he was entitled to a seat in the House of
+Lords. On the night when he went to take his seat among the peers of
+England, many curious eyes were fastened upon his grinning features. He
+sat and listened to the speeches. Eloquent things were being said, but
+they did not bear the note of thoughtfulness of the needs and rights of
+the lowly. These were men who had never tasted the lot of the poor. He
+could never forget the need and the neglect which he had seen and known.
+
+Then a dramatic thing happened. Gwynplaine rose in his place as though to
+speak. A suppressed titter swept over the great chamber. He opened his
+lips and began to speak. At the sound of his words the wave of merriment
+subsided. They carried a burden of heartbreak, though they fell from
+grinning lips. “My lords,” he said, “I bring you news—news of the
+existence of mankind.”
+
+This was the message the assembly needed to hear. Executive chambers and
+halls of legislation had been all too slow in welcoming it. When it came,
+it fell from the lips of a noble showman with a perpetual grin upon
+his face.
+
+Gwynplaine had a full heart, and it was full of the needs and the burdens
+of men. One word was ringing back and forth through the chambers of his
+thought. That word was Humanity. In it was represented the outstanding
+fact in human thinking—the fact of the existence of humanity. It suggested
+the highest aim of all government—the good of humanity. It pointed out the
+path of all proper human endeavor—the advancement of humanity.
+
+Humanity has been the one great concern of the Almighty Himself. He
+measures the good or the evil of a thing by the question of its
+helpfulness or its hurtfulness of people. He brooded over the race until
+it grew to manhood. When it sinned He suffered for it. He has never
+hesitated to go to any length for the sake of people. Such is also the
+spirit of those who enter into the secrets of His plans.
+
+The word humanity is not limited to a fortunate few, but it includes those
+of every station; it does not refer to a single race or color, but it has
+a place for all mankind; it does not mean a given economic or industrial
+class, but it covers the cases of employer and employe alike; it does not
+stop at a given social caste, but in its plan one is as good as another.
+Humanity includes all men, and the person who has never yet taken it into
+his heart has not yet developed as great a heart as the man of the future
+will find it necessary to have.
+
+Humanity knows no dividing line, and whoever lays them down will simply
+sow the seeds of sorrow and trouble. Class consciousness is an evil thing,
+no matter by what class it is possessed. Wars come from national lines of
+division in sympathy and fraternity. Strifes come from industrial and
+social dividing lines. There is no place in the creative plan for jealousy
+and enmity.
+
+The world can never come to its golden year until it has made manhood the
+one basis for the estimate of a man. It must recognize good as good, and
+evil as evil, regardless of where they are found; it must hold light to be
+light and darkness to be darkness, whosoever they may be; and men must be
+recognized as the most important element in the scheme of things.
+
+When the day of settled peace comes again, and the world once more sits
+clothed and in its right mind, our business will be the protection,
+nurture, and uplift of humanity. Meanwhile, may there come some teacher
+who can lead the peoples to think of one another in terms of fraternity,
+and teach each man to think of each other man as a neighbor and to trust
+him as a friend.
+
+
+The Safe Foundations for a League of Nations (1919)
+
+
+The thinking majority of people in America and among other nations know
+very well what they want. A designing minority may be willing to continue
+the bloodthirsty ways of the past for reasons of either personal gain or
+private preference. The thoughtful majority, however, desire some
+reasonable assurance that the peace of the world will not again be broken.
+
+An intelligible plan for world peace has for a long while been taking
+shape in the minds of unselfish national leaders. The war and the new
+world conditions occasioned by it have crystallized that plan into a
+purpose. We call it the League of Nations. It will be, so to speak,
+a kind of United States of the World.
+
+The plan is a promising one. Many far-seeing thinkers wished for it years
+before the outstanding national leaders were influenced by a world
+emergency to become champions of it. It simply means the extension of our
+organization for common protection, welfare, and progress into
+international proportions.
+
+Between individuals we have succeeded in reducing brawling to a minimum.
+The same means, internationally applied, will reduce it to a minimum
+between nations. We have declared that individuals shall not carry
+weapons to the menace of others. We can tell nations that they too must
+lay aside their guns for the good of the public peace. We have
+established means whereby offenders can be brought to justice and
+disputes settled between individual litigants. We can establish the same
+means for preventing lawbreaking and for the settlement of disputes in
+the case of nations. We have established police power to enforce the
+decrees of our local, state, and national courts. International law can
+be given the same authority in the same way.
+
+We will not be wise to conclude, however, that all we need is a League of
+Nations. No mere material organization can constitute complete assurance
+that men will henceforth live at peace with one another. Such an
+organization would be a great force. As in the case with local, state, and
+federal laws, its mandates would keep some people at peace through their
+good will and others through their fear of the consequences of
+disobedience. It will take more than a League of Nations, however, to make
+the peace of the world certain and permanent.
+
+This is true because the issues of life are spiritual. The strongest
+forces are not physical. The force of opinion is greater than the power of
+guns, and the union of spiritual attitudes and standards is stronger than
+any bond of mere organization.
+
+The value of whatever solution for our problem we may adopt will be
+determined not so much by the plan itself as by the spiritual basis of the
+plan. If the hearts of men are not right toward one another, the vision of
+peace will be as idle a dream as it was in the past years. If the
+relations of men, one with another, are right, then we may feel that the
+peace of the world is already assured.
+
+We may have an organized super-state. The true super-state will exist,
+however, not in the outward form of any organization but in the spiritual
+attitude of the hearts of men. In other words, if it is to exist at all,
+it must exist in the fact of brotherhood and in the conditions generated
+by the fraternal spirit. The true super-state might as well be called the
+kingdom of love. It can be nothing else and fulfil its mission.
+
+The wreck of the German Empire is the ruin of an attempt to found a
+super-state upon the wrong basis. Germany smothered the fraternal spirit,
+prostituted genius, reduced her schools to media for her propaganda, and
+killed the idea of unselfishness in the minds of her people. She bent
+everything to the making of an empire which was to be the wonder of the
+world in power, wealth, and efficiency. Like the presumptuous Babel of an
+older day, this audacious plan fell in scattered ruins, after having been
+the means of drenching the world in blood.
+
+Whoever allows his mind to harbor a dream of power, wealth, efficiency, or
+commercial supremacy on any other basis than that of brotherhood should
+remember the name of Germany and take due warning. A new world is now in
+process of building. Whatever we may have in it, we should permit the
+presence of nothing which does not rest upon a fraternal foundation. If we
+have to choose between being a people of tender hearts and possessing the
+glory and dominion of the world, we can best afford to choose to be people
+of tender hearts.
+
+The spirit of malice and distrust was the powder train by which the
+magazine of the world’s fury was exploded. The hands of both the crafty
+and the foolish helped to lay it. It has always been so, and will always
+be so until such work is done no more. While men distrust one another,
+look for unworthy motives in one another, or talk of and prepare for war
+with one another, there will be no end of strife. When men of all classes,
+nations, and races learn to genuinely love one another, the day of strife
+will cease.
+
+Some wars have been wars of punishment, but when the people of the earth
+learn to do right, there will be nothing to punish. With the life of the
+world actuated by unselfish motives, there will be no need for the avenger
+to march on errands of death, made necessary by some outrage or injustice.
+Until that time, peace will remain dim in the promise of any plan that we
+can formulate. Is there any reason why men should not do right? If duty
+were impossible, all creation would be a mockery and a
+moral contradiction.
+
+Other wars have been wars of contention, but when men deal justly there
+will be no longer anything for which to contend. The goods of the world
+may be very rich and lovely, but they are worth neither the price of life
+nor the stigma of murder. It is better, even for nations, to have less and
+have it honestly, to possess less and live in a world safe for each
+generation and its posterity. When the hearts of men are right, our
+economic systems will also be right. Every man will get his share and be
+content with it when he gets it.
+
+When the dream of world brotherhood has become a fact, we shall often
+think with a bitter surprise of the bickerings and misunderstandings of
+yesterday. The path to that time is the road of the heart. The only way to
+realize such an age is to begin to live its spirit. We shall have a world
+fraternity only when we all begin to be brothers. This will be a happy
+world when it becomes a kindly-hearted world, and it will never be a
+wholly happy one until it fulfills this law. The formula is simple and
+the conditions are plain.
+
+The time has come for selfish men to surrender their selfish ways and
+purposes. The service of self and the road of malice have been proven
+failures. They offer nothing which is permanently worth while, and they
+lead to endless trouble. For ages we have talked love. Our words will
+remain a mockery until we adopt it as a principle and apply it in
+life’s affairs.
+
+The time has come to take that forward step. The world is ready for
+anything that spells deliverance, and nothing will deliver humanity save
+rightness of heart. We had better make a garden of the world than to turn
+it into a vast cemetery for the bodies of the slain. Let us have a League
+of Nations, but let us build it on a safe foundation.
+
+
+Is It Nothing to You (1929)
+
+
+There is a type of mind which insists that it cannot understand why it
+matters to some of us what others eat, and drink, and do. It represents
+us as troublesome meddlers in the private affairs of our neighbors, and
+insists that none of the so-called evils of the time need trouble us in
+the least if we would attend to our own business.
+
+Our motive in seeking legislation to control the various evils that
+plague society has little to do with the question of the private rights
+of others. We care because we wish people well and naturally prefer to
+see them doing credit to themselves, but that alone would never lead us
+to organize reform associations, agitate reform questions, and seek the
+enactment of sumptuary laws.
+
+We do these things for three reasons. One is the fact that we too have to
+live in the world and be affected in many ways by the good or evil of its
+life. We have to help meet the cost of evildoing, endure the conditions
+which it creates, and suffer the general defeat of our ideals before its
+attack. The second reason is the fact that we care into what kind of a
+world we send our posterity to live. We may not care what a neighbor eats
+and drinks, but we do care very much what favorable or unfavorable
+conditions our children will have to meet when we are no longer here to
+help them. The third reason is the fact that what our neighbor eats, and
+drinks, and does, affects not only him, and not only us, but all mankind.
+Each individual transgression writes itself into the world life.
+
+So far as we are concerned, regrettable as it is, the man who insists on
+poisoning his body might go on getting to the last whatever satisfaction
+it affords him. But we are concerned because he passes the poison on to
+his children and to other people’s children. He degrades the life of
+society, makes his community less desirable, and even lowers property
+values in his neighborhood. In all these things we also have an interest.
+By all these things we and ours are profoundly affected.
+Why should we not care?
+
+
+What Makes a City? (1929)
+
+
+There is an old story about a town that had a high cliff from which was
+visible a particularly beautiful view. The citizens of the town, being
+enterprising people, decided to capitalize on this natural asset, and so
+they proceeded at once to make it a talking point in favor of their city
+as a show place and one desirable for residence.
+
+The advertising was effective. From far and near, people came to get a
+glimpse of the famous view. Needless to say, they spent their money while
+they were in town, and the business men around the square were able to
+note a change for the better in their bank balances.
+
+It turned out, however, that viewing the scenery from this cliff was not
+without its dangers. The precipice was high, and at its foot, the rocks
+were hard and rough.
+
+One day a visitor fell from the top of the cliff. His mangled body was
+picked up from the rocks below. The story went the rounds, and business
+began falling off. The merchants got together and agreed that they must
+do something. They decided to organize a campaign and raise money to
+build a hospital and provide an ambulance to take care of casualties.
+They did so, and with due advertising, business again picked up.
+
+One day someone suggested that a better thing would be a railing along
+the top of the cliff to keep people from falling. The railing was built,
+and there were no more accidents.
+
+But the people of the town shook their heads doubtfully and said that it
+seemed a great pity, after having gone to so much expense for a hospital
+and an ambulance and having advertised them so widely, to have no further
+use for them.
+
+=Greatest Factors Are Not Bank Balances and Buildings=
+
+What is of importance about a city? The most important thing is not its
+views, its parks and drives, its public buildings, nor its commercial
+leadership, but its people. And what makes a city? The greatest factor is
+not its bank clearings, its shipments of live stock, its factories, its
+stores, nor the extent of its public improvements, but the care it takes
+of and the safeguards with which it surrounds its people.
+
+A city is not made of streets, but of those who walk on them; not of
+stores, but of those who trade in them; not of machinery, but of those who
+drive it; not of houses, but of those who live in them. A city is its
+people. It is exactly as good or bad, as strong or weak, as desirable or
+undesirable, as enduring or temporary, as are they. With them it will go
+forward or backward, be an object of admiration or contempt,
+stand or fall, live or die.
+
+The most important question before a city is not what its population can
+be made by 1930, nor what advantages it can obtain from the next session
+of the state legislature, nor how much money the merchants can take in by
+organizing a bargain day or giving a street fair. The most important
+question is how well founded are the homes, how normal is the type of
+life, how idealistic are the labors of the people, and how safe are the
+children and youth wherever they may go about the town? How many are being
+helped? How few are being exploited?
+
+When John Smith of Chicago or Abe Hopkins of Punkin Center considers
+moving to a town to reside, to accept a position, to go into business, or
+to put the children in school, the uppermost question in his mind is how
+good a place is it in which to maintain a home? How safe a place is it in
+which to rear children? In school, on the street, in their social
+contacts, will their best interests always be conserved?
+
+Only one thing constitutes a satisfactory answer to these questions, and
+for it, there is no adequate substitute. It is high grade life lived by
+high grade human beings. Where that is present, it will reveal itself in
+every movement and institution. If it is absent, no boulevard mileage, or
+volume of business, or number of railroads can make up for the lack of it.
+
+=Failure in Homes Breeds Necessity for Substitutes=
+
+Cities often point with pride to the number and costliness of their
+substitutes for home life, but a far more prideworthy thing would be the
+prevalence of a home life so beautiful and adequate as to require no
+substitutes. The substitutes are all very well for those who are homeless
+or who are too crude and dull to appreciate the blessing of home, but
+they should not be needed by the mass of normal and average persons.
+
+Practically all the institutions for social amelioration and correction
+are parts of a widespread and inadequate attempt to make up for the
+failure of the home. The family is unloading more and more of its
+responsibilities on the school, church, and community. Moreover, its
+unwillingness or inability to discharge its duty creates the necessity
+for and the expense of juvenile courts, reform schools, and crime waves.
+
+Therefore, whenever one truly refers to a city as one of homes, he is
+making a statement of commanding importance. A real city of homes is one
+with a minimum of social problems because, as a rule, the highest grade of
+character and life is developed in the home atmosphere.
+
+A city of homes is one whose people have some concern about the place
+occupied and the work done in the community both by themselves and their
+children. They are responsible citizens, and for such citizenship, there
+is no substitute. Such people constitute a railing at the top of
+the cliff.
+
+All this may seem to be merely talk about ideals, and it is. Ideals are
+the most necessary and important things in the world, even for a city.
+Moreover, they have the highest cash value of anything with which we have
+to do.
+
+=Lack of Idealism Is Expensive=
+
+The lack of idealism is the most expensive thing the people of any city
+can have on their hands. The lower the level of idealism, the more bad
+bills are made at the stores, the greater number of thefts is committed
+with thievery’s double cost to the community, the greater is the amount
+of fraud, and the higher is the degree and, therefore, the cost of crime.
+
+Speaking from the financial viewpoint alone, and taking no account of the
+other and greater values involved, anything that breaks down the idealism
+of a city costs it heavily in money. The business man who helps to
+inaugurate an evil with the thought that it will bring him profit will
+live to realize that, for every dollar of profit it brings him in trade,
+it will cost him a dollar in taxes and toward the suppression of crime and
+undesirable conditions. Such is the result of the coming of undesirable
+persons, practices, and situations to a community. The addition to the
+population, permanently or temporarily, of a rough and rude element with
+no ideals of conduct, no standards of sobriety, no regard for the sanctity
+of the Lord’s Day, and no respect for property rights has never profited a
+city yet. If you want thieves, hoodlums, and libertines, create a low
+standard of ideals in the community, and you will get them. Your jails,
+poorhouses, and insane asylums may serve in the place of a hospital and
+ambulance to take care of the casualties, but a high level of idealism
+would be a railing along the top of the cliff to save the people.
+
+The history of the ages is the story of the progress of the human race
+from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem, from the status of a
+perfect garden to that of a perfect city, from a simple but happy primal
+state to a complex but ideal social order.
+
+The drift of life is to the city. The farm is giving its products, but it
+is also giving its sons and daughters to the town.
+
+The drift of life is to the city. When the race has reached the climax of
+its progress, that condition will be a perfect city—a city of justice,
+righteousness, truth, faith, and brotherhood. It will have beautiful
+buildings, broad avenues, flowering parks, and prosperous institutions,
+but its real glory will be the quality of its people.
+
+Destiny is waiting on the city to become all this. What dizzy distances
+it will have to travel. It will have to fling aside the acknowledged
+domination of Mammon. It will have to get spiritual ideals and human
+values back into the first place where they belong.
+
+Each promoter of the interests of a city is advertising a precipice from
+which people may stumble to their doom, or pointing with pride to the
+beautiful hospital and ambulance provided by the magnanimous people to
+take care of the maimed and broken, or building railings along the tops
+of cliffs to keep people from falling and to make the place safe, even
+for the young, the weak, and the blind. Which one of these things are
+you doing for your town?
+
+
+Capitalizing War for the Tobacco Trade (1919)
+
+
+The effect of war in the battle zones themselves is hardly less definite
+than that which it exerts among the home populations of the nations
+involved. With no uncertain hand it writes its name across the commercial
+and social life of a country. There is hardly a phase of thought and
+activity which does not show marked reaction to war conditions.
+
+For one thing, a war always offers a name and a flag under which
+profiteers and promoters undertake to sail. Some find their boats capsized
+early in the struggle. Others have a sufficient following to keep their
+business popular and are able to establish their enterprise in more or
+less permanent comfort. Vendors of wares both helpful and harmful take
+occasion to push the sale of their products in the name of patriotism.
+Riders of hobbies both innocent and perilous take excuse to encourage both
+their own habits and the weaknesses of their fellow citizens. This is
+always done in the name of patriotism, even though the effect may be
+altogether antipatriotic. A certain advantage can be taken at a time when
+everyone is afraid of being misjudged. Like the undertaker’s bill, such
+things are often brought forward at a time when everyone feels that he
+must swallow the dose and ask no questions.
+
+During the recent conflict it became a widespread habit to advertise
+various products in the name of patriotism. We were told that the person
+who wanted to be patriotic must wear a certain brand of clothes, drink a
+prescribed blend of coffee, and shave with a given make of safety razor.
+If the Government gave an enterprise the slightest encouragement or
+patronage, it was featured to the limit. The tobacco companies were not
+long in taking advantage of the opportunity presented. During the war we
+were continually told that the soldiers in our splendid national army
+considered tobacco a necessity. Then not only the element possessing
+double-jointed moral convictions but also many who had stood for high
+ideals fell victims to the contagion. Even church workers took to sending
+to sons what their mothers had prayed might never enter their lives and
+what leading magazines have been refusing to advertise just as they have
+refused to advertise intoxicating liquors.
+
+Naturally, the members of the national army who had considered tobacco a
+necessity at home also considered it so abroad. Just as naturally, those
+who had not used it at home would not have cared for it abroad. The
+demand was by no means of the one-hundred-percent variety. When I think
+of the number of men who never knew the taste of tobacco until it was
+forced upon them by some well-intentioned but misguided war agency, I
+cannot believe that the demand for it was universal. When I hear parents
+testify that their sons were untouched with the desire for tobacco until
+they were influenced to use it in the army, I cannot help feeling that
+much of the insistence upon it had its origin only in artificially
+induced public opinion.
+
+The capitalizing of a war to the advantage of a trade depending for its
+profits on human weakness had an outstanding instance at the time of the
+Civil War. However wise a provision for the Federal finances the leaders
+of that day may have thought they were making, the fact is that the
+internal revenue on intoxicating liquors fastened the business on the
+country for many years. It so got its fingers upon our throat that we
+have not yet wholly shaken them loose. It has robbed us of far more money
+than it ever gave us. It has at the same time ruined what was worth much
+more to us than all our gold—the life and happiness of our people.
+
+There are those among us who suspect that much of the late demand for
+tobacco did not come from the army at all but that it was conceived in the
+minds and fostered under the guiding care of representatives of the
+tobacco trade. So successful was this effort and so meekly did the country
+as a whole fall into line with the program that it now looks as if another
+taint is fastened upon us for at least the lifetime of the
+present generation.
+
+Though it may be admitted that the evil is less serious than that of
+Civil War days, it is by no means to be considered negligible. The facts
+disclosed by the physical examination of millions of our men should have
+made us more careful instead of less so. The physical unfitness of much of
+our male population for service overseas had a number of reasons behind
+it. There is no doubt in many thoughtful minds, however, that among these
+reasons were the consumption of adulterated soft drinks and the widespread
+use of tobacco. Instead of discouraging these things in a time of national
+crisis, we encouraged them more than we ever did before.
+
+No reasonable person is contending that the use of tobacco is a mortal
+sin. If no worse sins were committed, ours would indeed be a wonderful
+Nation. This, however, is no excuse for that which is a physical evil and,
+to some extent at least, a moral and religious evil. The real question is
+as to why we should encourage it at all. We do not get at the danger of
+any evil by comparing one evil with another. The question for a vigorous
+Nation in a trying time is not as to what is the harm in a thing but as to
+what is the good.
+
+At least three undisputed facts must be recorded about the tobacco habit.
+We have allowed the war to make each of the three more outstanding than
+before. The first is that it is unclean. If it were true that neither
+physical nor moral questions were involved, some very important sanitary
+ones would still remain to be considered. It is not easy to see why anyone
+should insist upon making more stained teeth, repulsive breaths,
+malodorous bodies, and unclean mouths.
+
+The second is that it is expensive. Our tobacco bill for a few years would
+pay the cost of the war. It would do a much better thing: It would provide
+agricultural reclamation, commercial development, and philanthropic
+beneficence on a world scale. The soldier cannot afford to pay this bill.
+Neither can the free-hearted public afford to assume that it is one of the
+necessities of war and pay it from benevolent funds. The 1917 tobacco crop
+of more than one billion pounds brought an average of twenty-five cents a
+pound. This was two-fifths more than the price during the preceding year
+and twice the price during the years between 1911 and 1915.
+
+The third is that it is increasing. The 1917 tobacco crop was the largest
+in our history. Estimated at 1,196,451,000 pounds, it was an increase of
+43,181,000 pounds over the crop of the preceding year. The output of
+cigars was 8,266,770,593, an increase of 876,587,423 over that of 1916.
+A total of 35,377,751 pounds of snuff were manufactured during 1917, an
+increase of two million pounds over 1916. Of smoking and chewing tobacco,
+445,763,206 pounds were put upon the market, an increase of more than
+twenty-eight million pounds. Tax was paid on thirty billions of
+cigarettes, and nobody knows how many were rolled and smoked from prepared
+tobacco. The sale of cigarettes increased almost fifty per cent during
+1917. This serves to show with what success our widespread pro-tobacco
+propaganda has met.
+
+The internal revenue income on tobacco advanced fifteen million dollars
+during 1917. The total was $103,201,592.16. Thirty-eight million dollars
+of this was on cigarettes alone. Great as this income is, it cannot
+compensate for the lowered personal standards, the physical
+disintegration, and the unuttered regret that have resulted from it.
+
+
+Creating a Demand (1919)
+
+
+There are two ways of attacking the business problem. One is to take
+advantage of opportunities already brought into existence by the laws of
+chance or the work of others. The other is to make advantage by the
+creation of opportunities which would otherwise never have existed.
+
+The first can be done by any person of average intelligence. It calls for
+no ingenuity. Its only demand is the time and effort necessary to buy
+goods on the one hand and sell them on the other. The second calls for a
+really high-grade of business ability. The man who can do it well has his
+success reasonably assured.
+
+Business is ordinarily assumed to be subject to the law of supply and
+demand. It happens to be true, however, that the matter of supply and
+demand is more or less subject to conditions which can be either created
+or altered by human interference and guidance. The selfish and designing
+have long ago discovered means of so manipulating market conditions as to
+make supply and demand a negligible factor. Such, of course, is not the
+kind of business method which will be allowed to permanently survive.
+
+There is a more worthy way of dealing with the question of supply and
+demand to the advantage of business. It often happens that, because of
+lack of public education or because of undeveloped or abnormal community
+conditions, demand for a given product has not yet been stimulated. The
+business specialist who has a really worthy article to market should be
+able to diagnose the situation, see what the hindering conditions are, and
+take steps toward that adjustment of things which will give rise to a
+normal demand. He need not be powerless in the face of the fact that
+people do not desire his product. Neither can he blame the public for rot
+needing it. He must make the public need it, make it see its need, and
+then supply it.
+
+In all the history of American business, probably no better example of
+this sort of thing could be found than the action once taken by
+James J. Hill at one stage in the development of the Great Northern
+railway system through the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Hill, by the way, was
+a notable example of real commercial genius. Having a positive mind, he
+could plan, adapt, and build. The railway system which he developed stands
+as an enduring monument to his wonderful ability.
+
+After the first lines of the Great Northern had been built and had been in
+operation for a while, Mr. Hill discovered that they were carrying very
+little livestock. There seemed no demand for that particular form of
+railway service. Looking into the question, he found a very definite
+reason for the fact. The farmers of the Northwest had never taken up
+stock-raising.
+
+No one was to blame. The situation simply constituted a condition to be
+met. There was no reason why the farmers of the Northwest should not turn
+their attention to livestock. The country was good for grazing, and the
+range was almost limitless. The only difficulty was the fact that
+livestock had never been introduced into that section.
+
+Mr. Hill began applying his remedy by doing the farmers a kindness. He
+bought several thousands of blooded cattle and hogs, and gave them to the
+farmers owning land along the right of way. There were two results. The
+first was that the Northwest rapidly developed into a leading
+stock-raising country, enriching the section and indirectly benefiting
+the railroad in many ways. The second was that within a few years the
+Great Northern was breaking the record among the railroads for the
+carrying of livestock. Finding no demand for the services of his road,
+Mr. Hill had created one.
+
+This example serves to show up the true business man in his real character
+as a commercial engineer. His function is a larger one than the slavish
+routine of mere buying and selling. It is rather that of helping to build
+that larger and better commercial world in which all business will be at
+its best because all people are at their best.
+
+Other engineers plan great mechanical projects. He plans and executes
+great commercial projects. The results of his work are no less magic than
+the results of theirs. The ability of the civil engineer is tested by his
+power to remove the impediments and bridge the chasms that lie in his way.
+The ability of the commercial engineer is tested in the same way. He must
+penetrate the hills of prejudice and bridge the chasms of unconcern.
+
+There are some enterprises which may at times succeed by force of chance
+or circumstance. The only sustained and creditable success, however, must
+come from intelligent promotion. One has little ground for satisfaction
+over a mere random success. It is real achievement that brings enduring
+satisfaction.
+
+It takes somewhat more than merely mental power, however, to plan and
+execute great commercial enterprises. The promoter must not only have a
+good mind, but it must also be of the affirmative type. Only the
+constructive thinker makes the great general, the great leader, or the
+great engineer.
+
+There is as much of a place for originality in business as in any other
+field one could enter. It is sometimes avoided on the ground that it is
+prosaic and humdrum. It is not so for the person who senses its
+opportunity and enjoys the process of working out its larger
+possibilities. It offers a practically unlimited opportunity for the
+building of one’s powers into the fabric of an altogether necessary
+social institution.
+
+Considered from this point of view, business is infinitely more than mere
+exploitation. Many have conceived the idea that it is nothing more because
+a great many selfish and misguided men have never really tried to make
+anything more of it. Fundamentally, however, business is a form of
+public service.
+
+The market place was one of the earliest developments in our social
+scheme. Theoretically it is a means for the exchange of values to the
+mutual advantage of the parties to a transaction. The assumption of any
+person who enters a legitimate line of trade is that he has an article
+needed by the public. It follows that the degree of his public service is
+commensurate with the wideness of the sale of his product.
+
+In taking steps, then, to create a legitimate demand for whatever he has
+to sell, one does not need to hesitate on the ground that it reduces his
+work to the level of mere exploitation. If he is in business as a public
+servant, then the larger the service he can render the better it is, both
+for him and for his patrons. The service of his patrons and his own
+success are commensurate because they are mutually dependent upon one
+another. Good business spells more than profit for the business man. It is
+also a help to the public, and a means of progress in the world.
+
+There need be no fear, either, that most of the possibilities of business
+have been exhausted. The real world of commercial opportunity has hardly
+more than been entered. Our own country is still largely undeveloped in
+the use of many helpful products. There are backward communities to be
+informed and cultivated. Whoever undertakes this process is a positive
+factor in the making of civilization, for the need of these communities
+is the greater need concerned. It would be a blessing to them to have a
+demand for the tools of more efficient life and work created among them.
+
+Then there are all the vast spaces of the world as yet largely untouched
+by these more advanced methods of civilization. There are more people
+waiting to be taught the use of means to comfort and efficiency than there
+are to manufacture and deliver the products to these prospective
+purchasers. Business men should support every sort of civilizing influence
+as a means of creating a demand in far countries for what they have
+to sell.
+
+
+Should Prices Be Standardized? (1919)
+
+
+Thus far in the economic history of America the scale of prices has been
+as temporary and uncertain as the indications of the mercury in a
+thermometer. Prices have gone up and down for all kinds of reasons, and
+indeed they have often seemed to do so without any apparent reason. An
+increasing number of people feel that this is not as it should be. It is
+not easy to formulate an unfailing remedy, of course. Neither is it
+possible to say whether price fixing would prove a success or a failure.
+It does look reasonably sure, however, that prices should be stabilized
+in some just and proper manner.
+
+There are always those who are ready to tell us that it is not necessary
+to attempt to do anything about the price situation. They say that the
+scale of prices will automatically take care of itself according to the
+operation of the law of supply and demand. This sort of a situation might
+do very well if only it existed in some other world than that of fancy.
+There probably was a time in the earlier periods of the history of the
+market place when the law of supply and demand governed all prices.
+That time, however, seems to have passed.
+
+Tradesmen have learned methods by which they can so successfully juggle
+the situation as to supply and demand as to entirely reverse the action
+of the time-honored law so often invoked in defense of the profiteer. The
+cold storage method of preserving eggs, for instance, has been used to
+make them cost most during that season of the year when they are most
+plentiful, and to be cheapest during that portion of the year when the
+greatest number of hens are on a vacation.
+
+As a matter of fact, the law of supply and demand is not the rightful
+governor of prices. It does not take into account the one thing which
+should be the deciding factor in the cost of an article, namely the cost
+of production. It requires as much labor and as great an investment to
+produce a bushel of cheap wheat as it does to produce the same amount of
+wheat at a good figure. The cost of a bushel of wheat should always be the
+cost of production plus a fair rate of profit to the producer. The
+producer would then be sure of his profit, and the consumer would know how
+to estimate his expense.
+
+A fluctuating price scale does not make for certainty in financial
+transactions and stability in commercial organization. Except in the most
+general way, no one is able to say today what things will cost or bring
+tomorrow. In considerable part, this condition has been brought about by
+the deals of speculators who make their living by the rise and fall of the
+markets and often by forcing prices up and down by arbitrary methods.
+
+In other words, an uncertain system of prices not only makes it possible
+for a group of men to gamble upon them, but it does much to reduce all
+dealing to a process of gambling. Even if all other conditions are
+favorable. The producer does not know whether he is to gain or lose.
+Neither does the consumer know whether he is to be able to obtain things
+at a fair price.
+
+Such a condition is unsatisfactory to both. For each advantage or
+disadvantage are alike possible, and they usually alternate. The advantage
+of one, moreover, must generally be brought about by the disadvantage of
+the other. Such is not a necessary state of affairs. One does not need to
+lose either in his buying or selling. Neither should his gain be abnormal.
+The establishment of prices upon a fair and permanent basis could make it
+possible for a transaction to be always to the mutual advantage of the
+seller and the purchaser. In other words, it would lift the markets above
+the gambling level.
+
+There is another way in which an uncertain system of prices works a great
+injustice in the economic system. They offer no real incentive to
+industry, ability, and preparation. We have done and heard a great deal of
+preaching to the point that these things pay because the man who prepares
+best and works hardest will be best rewarded.
+
+As things are now, the worst trouble with this claim is its falseness. A
+man may work ever so hard in almost any process of production and have his
+reward shrunken out of all proportion to his toil by some sudden slump in
+prices for which he was in no way responsible. On the other hand, he may
+neglect ever so important a task and at the last moment be favored with
+a rise in prices which will turn things to his profit.
+
+On the one hand, he always stands a chance of failing to receive what
+rightfully should be his, a situation which does not represent good
+business. On the other hand, he also stands a chance of receiving what he
+does not earn, a situation which does not represent good business either.
+It should be possible by means of having a stable price scale to make it
+practically sure that every person concerned in the process of production
+would receive his due. Naturally the highest reward would come to the man
+of greatest earning power. The result would be the placing of a premium
+upon industry and efficiency. Until we do so we shall have no oversupply
+of either.
+
+Uncertainty of prices has one serious social tendency. It produces a
+certain spirit of unrest on the part of the consumer. It may be true that
+the average person overdraws some of his conclusions on this question. It
+may be, too, that he bases some of them upon insufficient reasons. At the
+same time, however, his attitude is a fact which must be met and
+reckoned with.
+
+What the consumer thinks is no inconsiderable matter. He is not a small
+minority without power or influence. He is a vast majority, swaying the
+very life of the State as he will, for in one way or another we are all
+consumers. Moreover, the consumer has the last word in every argument.
+He holds the purse-strings, and when he is tired of talking, he can stop
+buying. It does not bode well when he conceives the feeling that undue
+difficulty attaches to trying to exist on the planet.
+
+He is not unreasonable. On the contrary, he is quite reasonable. He wants
+the other party, as well as himself, to have all that is his due. He has
+no objections to meeting the real cost of an article. He has some notions,
+however, as to what that cost should be. If prices go up, he expects them
+to have some proper reason for doing so. He works for his living, and he
+expects others to do the same. When he cannot count on what a day may
+bring forth, he cannot plan his financial future, for he has no idea one
+season what it is going to cost him to live the next. He has a feeling
+that it is time to get prices adjusted as they should be in fairness to
+all concerned, and then keep them so.
+
+One of the worst difficulties with our fluctuating system of prices is the
+fact that it does not make adequate provision for the economic life of the
+country. Our commercial system has the same function in the service of
+society that the blood has in maintaining the life of the body. Its work
+is to carry supplies promptly, effectively, and regularly to all the
+points where they are needed.
+
+The body is not in good health when the blood overfeeds it part of the
+time and starves it the rest of the time. It is not proper, either, to
+have congestion at one point and anaemia at another. The function of
+circulation must go on with uninterrupted constancy.
+
+The world needs a practically fixed amount of food, clothing, and supplies
+for the maintenance of its life and activity. It has also a practically
+fixed amount of wealth to keep them moving. Unsteady prices are always
+changing the value of a dollar and making the necessities of life easier
+or harder to get. The world cannot, therefore, supply its wants with the
+same ease and in the same abundance at any two successive times. The value
+of supplies and the value of money should both be constant. The world
+could then meet its needs at every point. No worker would lose his reward;
+commodities would be certain to yield their worth; and no one would be any
+the poorer for the change.
+
+
+The Home Budget (1920)
+
+
+After he had gained the pinnacle of his success, some one asked Andrew
+Carnegie to formulate the secret of wealth. His reply was as significant
+as it was laconic. He said: “Pay as you go, and keep books.”
+
+Each part of this formula is important. They are very closely related,
+but the second is the more fundamental. However important it is to pay as
+one goes, his chances for doing so are rendered very uncertain if he
+fails to keep books.
+
+There are different ways, however, of keeping books. Some keep books only
+as a means of knowing where they stand with their finances and current
+bills. This is good as far as it goes, but it is possible to make the
+process of keeping books yield a much greater service.
+
+Others realize this, and keep books as a means of keeping in the right
+relation to their financial affairs. They make their bookkeeping system
+represent their plan of operation. It then serves to keep them from
+getting too near the edge of any financial precipice. If one is to get on,
+one of the first principles he must learn is the necessity of keeping
+within his income—and a little more. Books can be kept in such a way as to
+enable one to do it. This is keeping books according to the budget plan.
+
+Some one is always certain to say that bookkeeping systems and budget
+plans are very well for people who have adequate incomes. It is said that
+the rich have something to keep books on, but that it is of little use for
+those who tread the ragged edges of want to undertake anything of
+the kind.
+
+This assumption is a grand mistake. Whatever benefits the budget system
+has are certainly common to all who care to adopt it. It is even more
+greatly needed by the home with an income below the normal level than by
+that with an income above the line of necessity. This is because its
+purpose is to enable one to make the most of the amount of money at
+command, whatever that sum may be. This service is not needed so much by
+those who have an abundance. It is calculated to help most those who must
+watch their corners and husband their resources. The budget system is a
+desirable plan in the home of wealth; it is a helpful thing in the home
+of moderate circumstances; but it is a necessity in the home where takes
+place an occasional battle with want.
+
+The budget plan is a sort of blue print of what one proposes to do with
+the funds at his command. The builder can do his work properly only with
+suitable plans before him. The difference between the structure erected
+with a plan and that erected without one is great. The difference between
+the results of an income administered according to system and those of one
+spent at random is one of just about the same degree. To attempt any work
+without a well-formulated plan of procedure means several regrettable
+things. It means a waste of materials; it means poor co-ordination of
+effort; it means a haphazard and unsatisfactory result.
+
+The budget plan is based on a system of appropriations. Such is the plan
+used by all successful business interests. The business is first analyzed
+and divided into departments. Then the amount of money needed for the work
+of each department is estimated. This amount, or as nearly this amount as
+the sum of money at command will permit, is then appropriated to the work
+of that department. It is left to keep its accounts up to the total placed
+at its disposal. It is, of course, held responsible for the use it makes
+of the funds given it. If at the end of the year it is found that the
+distribution was not equitable, the proportion can be changed.
+
+The same plan can be adapted to home use, and it will do just as much for
+the guidance and welfare of the family treasury as for that of some great
+business corporation. The work may be done after about the same fashion.
+The needs of the family should be analyzed and divided into departments.
+The resources at command may then be estimated and apportioned to the
+various departments of expenditure in the same way. Expenses are then to
+be kept within the appropriation, and, if the division is found unfair to
+any interest, it can be changed.
+
+If this is properly done, the benefits derived will be very great. If
+income is always consulted before outgo is determined, the effect of the
+system on the family resources will be found to be little less than
+magical. The funds in each department will so accumulate as to keep a
+surprising balance on hand all the time.
+
+The reason for this certain growth in reserve funds is plain. One will
+not purchase a thing in a given department of expense until enough money
+has accumulated in that particular department to pay for it. Suppose,
+for instance, that one would like to buy a suit of clothes or an article
+of furniture. Ordinarily, he would get them if he could command the money
+to do so from the total at his disposal. Therefore, he would stand a
+chance of paying for it with money which really should have gone to
+something else. Moreover, the habit of buying anything he wants and can
+pay for keeps his funds down to the low water mark all the time.
+
+When finances are cared for on the budget plan, the case is very
+different. Before one purchases a suit of clothes, an article of
+furniture, or anything else, he first looks at the page on which the
+finances of the department in question are recorded. If the money is on
+hand, he proceeds with the purchase. If the funds are insufficient, he
+waits until they have increased to a point where the purchase is possible.
+
+This plan accomplishes two things. It keeps personal or family
+expenditures within the income from which they must be made. It also
+avoids the mistake of spending for one thing the funds which rightfully
+belong to something else. These, by the way, are two of the fundamental
+principles involved in the matter of getting from a dollar its full worth.
+
+If the family income is fixed and regular, it can be divided arbitrarily
+among the different classes of things for which it is to be spent. So much
+may be appropriated to one class of things and so much to another. In this
+case the division is easy and simple.
+
+However, in many homes the income is not regular as to either time or
+amount. In this case it can best be appropriated on a percentage basis.
+A certain percentage is set aside for each division of family expense.
+It is then credited to the account of the departments involved.
+
+In making this division, a number of things have to be taken into account.
+Among them are the size of the income, the needs and tastes of the family,
+and the financial condition of the family when the plan is adopted. One
+home I know works on the following basis: Religion 10%, Indebtedness 10%,
+Savings 10%, Clothing 20%, Groceries and household supplies 30%, Home
+furnishings 10%, Miscellaneous Expenses 10%. Each home can choose its own
+plan. It can also change its plan at will.
+
+It is well to get a loose-leaf book of suitable size and to have a page
+devoted to each division of expenses. The money is kept in one sum in the
+bank, but all receipts are credited and all expenditures charged under the
+proper headings. Then the bottom figure on each page represents the amount
+available for the particular department of expense represented there.
+
+This plan simply provides for system in spending. It serves to balance
+expenditures. It also does the best that can be done to provide a reserve
+for every need. It helps the well-to-do to greater independence. It
+enables the poor to keep from growing poorer, and often enables them to
+reach comfortable circumstances. It does not make of a dollar more than a
+hundred cents. That is impossible. However, it does enable the owner of a
+dollar to get the full value of a hundred cents from it. It is a good way
+in which to “pay as you go, and keep books.”
+
+
+Efficient Spending (1921)
+
+
+In the common struggle to get on, many of us devote our attention too
+exclusively to the matter of earning money. We assume that the question
+of wealth is wholly one of income and that having is altogether a matter
+of getting. Such is not the case. Efficient spending is quite as important
+a consideration as is efficient earning. The question as to whether one
+can succeed depends not only on whether he can get and keep money. It also
+depends on whether he can accomplish the most with it after he gets it.
+The usefulness of money is a matter of getting a hundred cents of value
+from each dollar. Between the hoarding of money, on the one hand, and the
+reckless habits of the spendthrift, on the other, lies this golden mean.
+Three general principles relate to efficient spending.
+
+The first is the importance of buying only what one really needs. A great
+many people are kept poor because they buy what they do not need enough to
+warrant its purchase. Non-essential industries are permitted to sap the
+labor and support which rightfully belong to more important things because
+of this popular willingness to spend good money for that which can bring
+no real equivalent in value.
+
+Many needs are imagined, or assumed. They have their origin, not in any
+fact of necessity, but in the fever of a mind wrought up by envy or
+desire, until its possessor has joined in the general chase after that
+which is not bread. The chronic invalid of yesterday got a new disease
+each time she read over the list of symptoms in a patent medicine
+pamphlet. The spendthrift of today thinks of some new luxury to covet
+with each glance at a tastefully-decorated window, or an artfully
+drawn picture.
+
+We must learn to let reason and not desire rule in these matters. Reason
+is sometimes a little forbidding, it is true, but we frequently need the
+touch of a restraining hand in the matter of spending. Unchecked desire
+would soon make paupers of us all.
+
+The standard of living rises or falls according as desire is, or is not,
+stimulated. If it were gauged to necessity, there would be little
+variation. Necessity is a well-established thing and, therefore,
+practically constant. The scale of expenditure varies with the human
+desire for luxury and the human ability to obtain it.
+
+The measure of real necessity is surprisingly small. When one finds the
+medium ground between profligacy and stinginess, he will realize that he
+can live there, even though his income may be moderate. Greater
+moderation in many things would leave us a healthier and happier race,
+to say nothing of what it would do for our bank accounts. Certainly,
+before buying a thing, one should honestly ask himself whether he needs
+it. He should, likewise, give himself an honest answer.
+
+The second principle of efficient spending is that when one has honestly
+decided that he needs a thing, he should buy the best he can get. If one
+buys at all, it pays to search the market for an article of high quality.
+Moreover, he is very apt not to find an article of high grade unless he
+does search the market rather carefully.
+
+The purchase of a cheap grade of goods, for any serious use, is very poor
+economy. Such goods soon give way, and the service they render, while they
+do last, is not satisfactory. To obtain a given amount of service, one
+will spend more money on articles of cheap grade than upon those that are
+better. The obtaining of the same amount of pleasure and satisfaction from
+the use of a cheap thing and a good one is an impossibility.
+
+It is a fallacy to suppose that the market must be supplied with
+quantities of shoddy goods for the sake of people who have less money to
+spend. The very fact that one does have less money to spend is one of the
+chief reasons why he cannot afford to waste it on inferior things. If all
+except a really worthy and dependable grade of goods were removed from the
+market today, purchasers, both rich and poor, would be the gainers.
+
+The selection of a high grade of products calls for some ability and skill
+in making a choice. It calls for no more, however, than every person
+should possess. The average citizen should train himself to be something
+of a judge of materials. Such ability will be of real service almost
+constantly in the task of living. One of the first things he is apt to
+learn is the fact that the showiest articles are seldom the best. A
+certain camouflage of outward appearance is often put on a thing to hide
+its real defects. Quality does not have to be painted up to show it off.
+It proclaims itself. The purchaser must learn to see through the outward
+appearance and judge a thing on its merits.
+
+The third principle of efficient spending follows in logical order. It is
+that, having decided to buy a thing and having bought the best, one should
+use it until he has gotten from it the utmost service of which it
+is capable.
+
+A certain antiquated notion of economy was that when things were purchased
+they should be put away and saved. The more valuable an article was, the
+more scrupulously it was kept. Good clothes were bought and hung away to
+be eaten by the moths instead of rendering their owners the service for
+which they were intended. Valuable articles were always rusting out and
+rotting out in the name of economy.
+
+The fact is that disuse is bad for anything. Unused, a piece of machinery
+will soon become incapable of use. The worst thing that can be done with
+a piece of cloth is to fold it away and leave it alone. Service is the
+mission and the means to health of anything from a table fork to the
+biceps muscle. This is the thing an article is built for. Nothing save
+its possibilities for usefulness justifies the spending of money for it.
+If it were not to be used, good judgment would never sanction the purchase
+of it. It must be made to pay interest on the investment. Use alone proves
+its right to exist.
+
+A thing should be used as long as there is any usefulness left in it. One
+of the points at which we are forever losing out in our attempts at
+economy is in our habit of not waiting until we have exhausted the
+usefulness of a thing before we put it aside and buy another.
+
+This is the theory of the continual change taking place in styles. From
+the tip of a lady’s shoe to the shape of an automobile, things are kept
+continually changing in order to induce the public to buy new articles
+every so often, whether it needs them or not. This keeps trade going, but
+it keeps many people poor.
+
+A thing for which one has spent good money should not only be used as long
+as possible, but it should also be kept capable of use as long as
+possible. Good care and proper attention in the way of repair will extend
+its life very considerably. This is a matter of conservation as well as
+one of economy.
+
+Of course, there is no plan by which the ends of economy and thrift can be
+accomplished automatically. The human factor will always be the
+determining one. These principles will not practice themselves. Only human
+mind and will can do that. They are not a machine for the conservation of
+money. They are only a plan by which money may be made to accomplish
+the most.
+
+The poor we always have with us, but many of them are with us
+unnecessarily. We shall always have a poverty problem, but it would be
+reduced to a small minimum by the right use of money. Money is made to
+spend, but the financially independent are those who have learned
+to spend it wisely.
+
+
+The Three Agencies in Child Training (1909)
+
+
+Every normal child is born with certain tendencies and propensities in
+which either the good or the evil of past generations preponderates. If it
+is the good, there must be some agency to call forth, develop, and
+strengthen it; if, on the other hand, it is the evil, there is all the
+more need why some influence should be brought to bear to check the evil
+and inculcate the good. Upon three great institutions devolves this
+momentous responsibility. They are the home, the school, and the Church.
+Each must help the other two, and no one is complete without the
+co-operation of the others. Of the three, the home will perhaps come
+nearest to completeness within itself. The sooner these three agencies,
+which in the final analysis have a common purpose, come to understand each
+other and co-operate with each other, the better it will be for the child.
+For the responsibility of no one of the three ends with this life. The
+Church is not the only one that builds for eternity, nor should the other
+two be the only two that build for time, but all may well unite in
+building for both time and eternity, and the aim of each should be the
+perfection of personality.
+
+Three forces of equal power, pulling each in a different direction, must
+either offset the influence of each other and result in stationary
+failure, or force each other to aimless wandering. Besides all this, the
+strain is uncomfortably intense for the object upon which the pull is
+exerted. The child who has had these influences pulling him about in
+different or totally opposite directions all his life is an object
+deserving of pity, and if in his case life becomes a failure, the wonder
+will only be why the failure was not more complete. But when these forces
+unite in a common purpose, and their purpose should be a common one, the
+child can only blame himself if he does not attain some very definite
+goal. And when that common purpose is a good one, that goal can not choose
+but be a worthy one.
+
+A great many parents are wondering these days why their children did not
+grow up to be good. If their children are spiritually delinquent, they
+blame the Church, regardless of what the home example or precept has been.
+If the children use bad grammar or do not exercise good judgment, the
+blame falls upon the school, regardless of the standards of those with
+whom those children have spent the days of their mental unfolding.
+Sometimes it is more than the Church can do to merely offset the evil done
+at home, without ever reaching the aggressive side of development.
+Sometimes it is more than lies within the ability of the school to rescue
+the child from the misconceptions and errors of everyday life and speech,
+without arriving at the constructive point at all. God has committed to
+the home the arduous but sacred task of guiding the first faltering steps
+of the little ones into the ways of righteousness and truth. The first is
+out of the reach of the Church’s ability; the second is a part in
+education that the school can never play. Neither the school nor the
+Church is an orphans’ home for the purpose of taking the responsibility
+of raising people’s children from the shoulders of those to whom it
+belongs. They can only do their work upon the chief cornerstone of home
+instruction, guidance, and discipline. Better children’s meetings can be
+held at mother’s knee than anywhere else in the world, and it is wrong to
+deny to maturity the golden memories of such a childhood. The business of
+the Church is spiritual ministration, and it ought not to need to be
+anything more. Spiritual ministration, however, is a broad term, and it
+ought never to be allowed to center in earthly things. The home, then,
+ought to be the first school, and it must lay proper foundation for the
+work of the Church, for never will teachings be better learned nor longer
+remembered than those received in its quiet precincts.
+
+In this day, the school has been narrowed down in the scope of its work to
+mere mental discipline. And yet the schools from whose halls the world’s
+greatest minds have come, have not been mere knowledge machines. Our
+schools claim to teach literature, and yet their curricula ignore the
+greatest piece of literature ever written. In some States the law goes so
+far as to forbid the reading of the Bible in the public schools on the
+ground that it might engender sectarianism. The Bible is not a sectarian
+book, nor does the teaching of it need to be sectarian. There is scarcely
+a truly great life that is not a standing witness to the fact that
+education is not complete without a knowledge of the Bible, at least as
+literature and history. And yet pedagogical fads and public customs deny
+public school students the benefit of the study of it. Public school
+students are taught the pagan religions. They are taught the mythology of
+Greece and Rome, but the living and vital religion, to which even the
+school owes its being, is ignored for the petty fear of sectarianism. A
+man’s education can not be measured by what he has committed to memory,
+but by what he has learned by heart. Education is no more what one knows
+than what he is. The school needs to train the mind, but it can not afford
+to ignore the necessity of a right culture of the heart.
+
+But it is scarcely a greater mistake for the school to hold itself
+strictly to mental training to the exclusion of everything pertaining to
+religion, than it is for the Church to hold itself strictly to religious
+work to the exclusion of educative effort. In physical science, radiant
+light and heat are exactly the same thing manifested to different avenues
+of sense perception. Who knows but that in the spiritual realm, the light
+of truer wisdom and the warmth of Christian experience are one and the
+same thing, except that, in the one case, it is perceived through the mind
+and, in the other, through the heart? Upon the Church devolves the
+responsibility of lifting the thought of the community to whose needs it
+ministers to the highest, purest, and best possible plane. In this
+measure, it needs to be an educative influence. It will be able to reach
+some minds through the heart, and it will be able to reach some hearts
+through the mind, and in both cases it will be lifting men to God, who is
+both love and light. What does it matter if the preacher does lecture once
+in a while? The Old Book will always supply food for the profoundest
+thought. We not only need our hearts comforted, however important that may
+be, but if we expect to understand God’s message and plan, we will have to
+think, also. Jesus was a Scholar and will baffle the scholarship of this
+world for many years yet to come. Let the Church not ignore the
+educational side of Christianity.
+
+And so these three agencies can not encroach on each others’ territory,
+for they have a common work to do if they are true to their trust. Let the
+home give the first lessons, and all through the changing years let it be
+both an educative and religious influence. Let the school be solicitous of
+both the unfolding mind and the craving heart. Let the Church minister to
+spiritual needs and not forget that the true education of the heart does
+not despise the education of the mind. Then shall the child have it said
+of him, as it was said of that Child of the long ago, “And He advanced in
+wisdom, and in stature, and in favor with God and man.”
+
+
+The Association of Mind and Muscle (1918)
+
+
+In Nicholas Nickleby, the book in which Charles Dickens attempted to set
+forth the evils of the boarding school system in England in his day, one
+of the things at which we have sometimes pointed a finger of ridicule
+really sets forth an important pedagogical principle. It is that part of
+the story which tells how Squeers, the schoolmaster, first taught a boy
+to spell a word—usually incorrectly—and then sent him to perform some
+manual task associated with it. The imperfect spelling cannot be called
+good pedagogy, and the work to be done was not always calculated to
+contribute to the dignity of a gentleman, but it is a fact that there is
+something about the actual doing of a thing which enables the memory the
+more tenaciously to retain the concept of the thing itself.
+
+In other words, there is some strange but very real and definite
+association between the mind and the muscle. They act in close cooperation
+with one another. The mind may be capable of learning things without the
+corresponding action of the muscle, but it can learn a thing very much
+more easily and permanently with that cooperative action.
+
+This is a principle which runs through all educational effort. It has had
+expression from quite remote times. An apostle reminded his hearers of
+their duty to be doers of the word and not hearers only. His words
+constituted a very good educational gospel. We not only owe it to
+ourselves and to the world to act in accordance with the best of our
+knowledge, but we actually learn better the thing which we take the time
+and pains to do.
+
+We have always had a certain notion that it is important to keep note
+books. We have usually supposed that the chief value of a note book is in
+the fact that it affords a means of quickly referring to any facts which
+may have fled from memory. If this were the value of a note book, however,
+those who keep them and then never look at them again would derive no
+benefit from the process. Yet there are thousands of people who know that
+they have received large value from the keeping of note books to which
+they have never referred since they were written. The fact is that the
+great value of a note book lies in the power of muscular action to record
+upon the tablet of the mind the thing written down on paper. The fingers
+themselves seem to possess a certain power to remember. We know a thing
+better after having written it. One reason may be that the necessity of
+writing it has forced us to think it through, but another undoubtedly is
+the fact that the movement of the muscles inscribes its story in the
+processes of the brain.
+
+It is frequently noticeable, too, that a thing is better remembered after
+it has been spoken. To give a class recitation upon it, to deliver an
+address upon it, to make it a subject of conversation with a friend, or
+even to talk aloud about it to the silences often engraves its subject
+matter in the memory in an indelible fashion. The very movement of the
+muscles of speech cooperated with the mind in making the subject an
+everlasting possession. All this is simply another indication of the
+principle involved. It also submits proof that there is a certain value
+in saying what one honestly thinks or truly knows.
+
+In this discussion lies a point of high value to the teacher. It is one
+thing to get a pupil to take in the knowledge of a fact in such a way as
+to retain it until some seemingly more commanding fact has forced it from
+his thought. It is a very different, and a much better, thing to help him
+to assimilate the matter in question. When knowledge has once been
+assimilated, nothing save a mental breakdown can ever rob its owner of it.
+It is then a part of himself. This is the goal of the teacher, and one of
+the chief paths to it is to induce the pupil to live his knowledge as he
+gains it.
+
+When this is done, knowledge becomes more than a thing of the mind alone.
+It is not our concern to merely educate the brain. It is our commission to
+educate the whole life and to cultivate the entire being. Genuine
+education is a symmetrical process, and the person who has really learned
+a thing will profit from it in every interest of his life. As knowledge
+becomes a matter of action, it becomes a matter of purpose, ideal,
+and character.
+
+In other words, it is translated into terms of life. It is at this point
+that the teacher’s work reaches its highest stage of being and usefulness.
+It is in this sense that both he and his work are immortal.
+
+It would be a serious question whether our earnest attempts at teaching
+the race would be altogether worth their while if they amounted to nothing
+more than getting the young to know so many things, to possess such and
+such a sized storehouse of knowledge, filled with appropriately selected
+and labelled morsels of fact. It becomes a tremendously worthwhile
+proposition, however, when it is seen as a means to a larger and richer
+life. As knowledge is taught to a pupil, it should be as a means of
+enabling him to live more happily, wholesomely, and successfully. It
+should be as a sort of transfusion of blood for the living of the
+larger life.
+
+The principle stated here works both ways and with equal beauty either
+way. Not only is it true that the actual doing of a thing enables one to
+learn it better and works the knowledge deeper into life and experience,
+but it is also true that it best vindicates the useful mission
+of education.
+
+It is not mere bookishness that the world will want on the part of the
+girls and boys when they shall at last come to take their places in the
+ranks of endeavor. It will be expecting people who are capable of earning
+their keep. It will want them not only to be brilliant and cultivated, but
+also to be able to meet practical questions and perform everyday tasks.
+
+The boy or girl who has been trained to do the things he knows to do is
+the one who will best prove to the world the value of the school and the
+importance of the work of the teacher. The sending of such young people
+into the arena of action will bring a flood of service which will spell
+out an ever-accelerated progress for civilization.
+
+It is definite action alone which achieves progress. All the mere
+knowledge possible to men would not be of any real help, except insofar as
+it finds its expression in definite and positive action. Mere knowledge is
+like mere good intentions. Their presence is no better than their absence
+until they are incarnated into deeds. Knowledge has the largest of all
+potentialities for the good of mankind when it becomes calculated action
+and wise service. For this reason, the entertaining of such an educational
+ideal is significant for the good of the world as well as for the
+educational progress of the pupil himself.
+
+A Korean boy came to a missionary one day with the information that he had
+learned the entire Sermon on the Mount by heart. The missionary
+congratulated him upon his effort, but reminded him that it was a better
+thing to follow its teachings than to learn to repeat its words.
+
+“Oh,” said the boy, “That’s the way I learned it.” He had solved an
+important pedagogical problem. It was the same old process that we saw in
+the Squeers school. There it was grotesquely conceived and followed out,
+but the effect lay along the right track. When a boy learned a thing, he
+was told to go and do it.
+
+The modern school must teach boys and girls much more dependable knowledge
+than was imparted at Dotheboys Hall, and no modern teacher will abuse his
+privilege and opportunity as did Mr. Squeers; but it will be a good thing
+if it is remembered in the modern schoolroom that the educational ideal is
+twofold. It demands, first, that the child shall be taught to know a
+thing. It requires, second, that he shall not fail to make definite use of
+the knowledge which he has gained. Thus it will be made to mean the most
+in education to him and the most in service to the world.
+
+
+The Sound-Reproducing Machine as a Music Teacher (1919)
+
+
+Many changes for the better have taken place in American life during the
+past two decades; among these is a remarkable advance in musical art,
+knowledge, and appreciation. Europe once had sufficient grounds to look
+down upon us for our crudity in matters musical, but now we are
+beginning to have dignity and standing in the musical world.
+
+In this marked advance, the sound-reproducing machine has borne an
+important part. During the period named, it has evolved from the status
+of a curious toy to that of a splendid instrument, present and active in
+the best homes in this country.
+
+It is true, people often start in with the flimsiest of popular music,
+“rags,” “blues,” and such; but let one good classic find its accidental
+way into this motley collection—and things begin to change. The taste of
+the listener is on its way to better things.
+
+The small daughter of a friend of mine stepped out from the home into
+public school. At once, the parents were distressed to notice that she
+began to show a taste for the cheapest sort of music—a natural contagion
+from the class of children with whom she associated. The parents cast
+about for an antidote to this ill. They found it in the purchase of a
+sound-reproducing machine and an abundance of really good records—ranging
+from simple ballads to symphony movements.
+
+It worked. At once, instead of humming and whistling popular songs with
+their often vulgar words, she begged for the better music of the machine
+at home, and this music gradually pushed the other stuff out of her
+mind—the inevitable action of good over bad. No doubt this little
+seriocomedy has been enacted all over the country, raising the standard
+of musical taste.
+
+The sound-reproducing machine has inaugurated a veritable Democracy of
+Music. To places inaccessible to the high-priced artist or teacher it has
+come, bringing the best music, rendered in the best way, and at a
+comparatively small cost—certainly much smaller than journeys to far-off
+cities and the charge for seats at concerts. It is the tragedy of most
+good things of this life that they go only to a special few. But the
+sound-reproducing machine has been no respecter of persons—it goes into
+the humble home as well as into the wealthy one. Anyone can spend fifty
+cents or a dollar a week on a new record. And for this small sum there
+are hours of pleasure and musical profit. This is the reason why it has
+become such a strong factor in our musical life and the reason par
+excellence why we are well on the way to becoming a seriously
+musical nation.
+
+
+The School Teacher and the Republic (1920)
+
+
+At Plymouth, Massachusetts, there stands the monument which memorializes
+the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers and the ideals for which they stood.
+The Pilgrim Monument lifts aloft five sculptured figures, each symbolic
+of one of the moving and controlling principles of early New England
+life. The large central figure bears the name of Faith. At each of the
+four corners stands one of four others—Freedom, Law, Morality,
+and Education.
+
+These things represent fundamental principles in the moulding of our
+nation and its life. We have all profited more than we have realized from
+the fact that they had a place in the characters, minds, and purposes of
+our forefathers. Each is highly important, but the Pilgrims would have
+been seriously in error if they had failed to include the last named.
+
+That they did not fail to include it is evidenced by the fact that, very
+early in the colonial history of America, representative leaders met in
+conference on the question of establishing a free system of public
+schools. There is hardly a better recommendation for a nation or a more
+dependable indication of its quality than the fact that its system of
+free public schools dates almost back to the time of its original
+settlement. Such is the case with America. At no period in her history
+has she been unaccustomed to the sight of the pedagogue.
+
+America has been made what she is largely by means of the public school.
+If she is democratic, it is largely because the public school has so
+faithfully sown the seeds of democracy in the thinking of her boys and
+girls in their plastic periods. In so far as she is clean and righteous,
+the fact is largely due to the teaching the children have received in the
+public schools. Their work in character-building, their inculcation of the
+principles of scientific temperance, and now their efforts to teach
+Americanism to all classes and ages have all been good seed sown in
+fertile and productive soil. Today every schoolhouse is a symbol of
+freedom, of democracy, and of productive efficiency. To neglect the
+schools would be to neglect the source of much that is entirely necessary
+in the nation’s life.
+
+What America did for herself by means of the school in the days when her
+interests did not reach beyond her own borders, she has since done by the
+same means in the territories for which she has assumed responsibility.
+Since Spain ceded the Philippines to us, the life of their people has
+been entirely regenerated. The old insanitary cities with their shacks
+and their squalor have changed into orderly and well-improved
+municipalities. The unkempt and ignorant people are now bright,
+industrious, and efficient. A practically savage land has become a
+civilized one in slightly more than two decades.
+
+Alaska has been transformed from a fruitless wilderness into a territory
+of awakened and forward-looking people. They have developed such
+industries as their land would support. They have achieved a large degree
+of economic independence. They acquitted themselves with as great credit
+as did almost any of the states in the various responsibilities incident
+to the war. They have cleaned up their towns and developed their social
+institutions. Through their town meetings, they are becoming more and more
+a self-governing people.
+
+Hawaii is rapidly learning to make the most of herself. Porto Rico is
+doing the same. The new Virgin Islands will follow along in the same
+course the others have travelled. Cuba has developed in the last twenty
+years largely because of the start American leadership, organization, and
+education gave her. Panama has been revolutionized by American influence.
+
+There are, of course, a number of answers to the question as to why all
+this has happened. One of the chiefest of them, however, is the work of
+the public school system inaugurated wherever the hand of America holds
+sway for any length of time. Even the leadership, the scientific
+attainment, the medical skill, the genius for organization, and the
+commercial power that have entered into the moulding of these new
+civilizations all owe themselves, in greater or less degree, to the public
+school and to the work of the teacher.
+
+Our plight would be sorry indeed had it not been for the presence of the
+little red school house among us. No country has ever gotten along without
+it and escaped the penalty which Fate is certain to impose. The situation
+in Russia now is undoubtedly largely the result of the age-long lack of an
+adequate educational system. Civilization simply cannot be moulded without
+the patient and painstaking work of the pedagogue.
+
+Bismarck once said that whatever one would put into the state he must
+first put into the schools. This was a great utterance, and its truth has
+been repeatedly demonstrated in the years since. His own country used the
+principle wrongly, but her use of it demonstrated its correctness. When
+William II came to the German throne, he did not long retain Bismarck as
+his chancellor, but he did follow many of Bismarck’s policies to the end
+of his career. This was one of them.
+
+Imperial Germany was largely built upon this principle. The educational
+system from the beginner’s classes to the universities was standardized
+and utilized to inculcate the Pan-German theory of the state and its
+development. Philosophy was prostituted to this end. Literature and art
+were bought by the state for its own purposes. History was written with
+the ambitions of the state in view. According to the German theory, this
+was perfectly proper, for, as General von Bernhardi once said, “There is
+no power above the state.” The result is familiar. A loyal nation and a
+mighty military power were built up by first putting into the schools what
+the leaders wished to inject into the life of the state.
+
+Under German guidance, Turkey did much the same thing.
+When Abd-ul-Hamid II was dethroned in 1909, and the Young Turk party came
+into power, an imperialistic program was undertaken in behalf of the
+Ottoman state. One of the first things done was to standardize the
+educational system and set it to work to weave the Ottoman spirit and
+faith into the lives of the young.
+
+The leading military spirit of Turkey for centuries was the organization
+of soldiers called the Janizaries. This organization was started in the
+fourteenth century by Orkhan, son of Osman. The first members of it were
+the children exacted as tribute from conquered Christian peoples. It was
+kept up afterward by levying a tax on Christian towns to be paid in
+children. These children of Christian parents were trained to be Turks,
+Mohammedans, and soldiers, and they became all three things with a
+vengeance. They were the most loyal Turks, the most fanatical Mohammedans,
+and the most cruel soldiers. Such is the force of education. One may take
+a vine and train it in any direction. One may take a young life and make
+of it what he will.
+
+Germany and Turkey used the power of the school wrongly, of course, but
+they demonstrated what can be done with it. It is as great a force for
+weal as it is for woe, and America has thus far used it for the doing of
+good things rather than evil. The possibilities of education in either
+direction are practically boundless.
+
+When one speaks of the public school system, he speaks really of an army
+of teachers. A school has buildings and books, but it is really made and
+determined by the teacher. One may have a school without either a building
+or a book, but he cannot have one without a teacher.
+
+The nation cannot recognize its obligation to the teacher too soon or too
+completely. He has never received his just due, and the time has come when
+we need to take an inventory of the service he has rendered and reward him
+in some fair proportion to it. What we do for him we really do for the
+country and its future.
+
+
+Some Overlooked Compensations in Teaching (1920)
+
+
+The economic aspect of the teaching profession has never been encouraging.
+It was least so at the close of the recent great war. In 1918 we were
+paying our male teachers the munificent wage of $82.35 per month for the
+six to nine months of the year during which they were employed. During the
+same period, our female teachers were getting an average of $64.72.
+
+The natural consequence of such a situation was a shortage of teachers.
+A report of the Federal Bureau of Education indicated that the shortage
+in 1918 was not less than 30,000. About 87,500 new recruits are needed
+annually for the rural schools alone. In 1916 we graduated less than
+one-third of that number from all our teacher-training
+institutions together.
+
+In former days a young man was usually delighted to obtain a position on a
+college faculty. Recently a senior in a state university was offered a
+position in the Chemistry department and refused it, on the ground that it
+might tie him up to the teaching profession and thus commit him to
+poverty. This attitude is not one of utter selfishness on the part of
+young people. Most of them are willing to serve their day, and allow the
+reward to be a secondary consideration. They feel, however, that they have
+a right to physical comfort while they do serve. They realize that the
+standards of the profession are high in every way, and they feel that
+such exacting requirements warrant good pay.
+
+They are right; yet there are certain aspects of the teaching profession
+which they should not overlook. It involves less pay than it should, but
+it also involves certain compensations, some of which are very valuable
+and some of which are priceless. It places in the hands of those who
+choose it privileges which many of the rich would gladly give their gold
+to obtain. It brings within the scope of their experience things which
+many men, otherwise successful, have been disappointed in not possessing.
+
+One of these is the privilege of living in the atmosphere and under the
+influence of the best thought of all the ages. It is a great mistake to
+suppose that bread and raiment are the only necessities of life. Some of
+its intellectual and spiritual necessities are quite as commanding as its
+physical ones. Those who fail to obtain them pay the penalty by living
+cramped lives and usually dying with their deeper longings unsatisfied.
+Good pictures, good music, good books, and good friends are among the
+kinds of meat that never perish. The values they bring are everlasting.
+
+A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.
+When one has made a living, he has not necessarily lived. He has made only
+it possible to exist while he tries to live. His life is made up of the
+thoughts he thinks, the hopes he entertains, the associations he enjoys,
+and the tasks he performs. Earth and its physical necessities are only the
+stage and the setting for the drama. The play itself lies beyond them and
+is separate from them. The teacher is permitted to play always a
+leading role.
+
+He also enjoys the privilege of doing a work which carries with it
+something of its own reward. Some kinds of work detract from one’s
+strength and fitness. The work of the teacher adds to them. Each lesson
+he prepares leaves him by so much bigger and stronger. Each problem he
+masters adds to his mental sinew. Each instance in which he helps someone
+on the way benefits him more than it does the recipient of his attention.
+His is a treasure which only increases by being given away. His is the
+blessing of daily growth and development.
+
+Another compensation he enjoys is the privilege of living among the best
+people of the community. One is largely made by his associations, and his
+success in life depends largely on the type of friends he can cultivate.
+His admittance into the best society is itself a long step on the road
+to the highest success.
+
+The ordinary person must live in a new community for a long while before
+the best people make up their minds regarding him. Even after a long
+period of decision, they do not always see their way clear to admit him
+to their circle. The teacher is excused from much of this severe testing.
+His very work serves as his credentials. People assume that if he is a
+successful teacher he is eligible for the best society anywhere, and they
+are usually right about it.
+
+This means very much indeed. One cannot hope to reach a much higher level
+than that of the society in which he moves. A certain law of social
+erosion is always operative. By it the minds and personalities of people
+so act and react upon one another that they all tend to become alike.
+This being true, one cannot afford to move in any but the best society
+into which he can find his way. This is a matter in which the teacher
+has no difficulty.
+
+The teacher obtains a high value in the simple consciousness of being a
+worth-while person. One does not have to proclaim such a fact to the
+world. If it is true, the world is quite certain to learn about it. It
+brings health to one’s body and soul, however, for one to be able to feel
+honestly that his life is not a failure. It is a blessed thought to
+entertain that one really stands for something in his generation.
+
+The teacher can congratulate himself that he is a world builder. He has
+his hand upon the throttle of human progress. He turns the key that
+swings open the gate of the future.
+
+The inner life which he possesses is coveted by thousands who can never
+have it. They may try to substitute what money can buy for what only
+mind can possess, but the effort always ends in pitiful failure. One
+cannot long conceal a lack of mind and soul with clothes and paint. The
+result is only a vulgar display. The more flash and parade the ignorant
+indulge in, the cheaper they look.
+
+The person who possesses real quality and worth does not have to cover
+himself over with artificialities and affectations. He has only to
+stand forth as he is. The soul within him will tell its own story. Despite
+all the cheap ways in which the world indulges, its real hunger is for
+genuine worth, unveneered culture, real character.
+
+Some have missed these things because they made the mistake of setting out
+to make money alone. If one can have both these things and wealth, so much
+the better. If one must choose between the two, however, there is no
+question that money is the second choice. Thousands of people of every age
+could testify from their own experience that this is true.
+
+One can do much more working for society than he can if he works only for
+himself. Incidentally, he may fare best from a selfish point of view when
+all things have been considered.
+
+For many years an old colored woman sold peanuts on the grounds of
+Tuskegee Institute. A young negro girl who had just enrolled was one day
+admiring the buildings. Coming from a poor home in a backward community,
+she was amazed that one man had been able to gather together enough money
+to erect them.
+
+“If Dr. Washington had worked for himself instead of running this school,
+wouldn’t he have been rich?” she said one day to the old peanut woman.
+
+“Law, child! He wouldn’t a been worth a nickel,” was the reply.
+
+She was probably right. Plenty of people have made their only claim to
+riches by serving others. Others, with talents as promising, have spent
+their lives on mediocre levels, because it never occurred to them to live
+for anything but themselves.
+
+
+Dollars Versus Sense (1921)
+
+
+In their normal and proper relations, money and learning are very helpful
+each to the other. Money is not only a desirable thing but a necessary one
+in the work of building up our educational systems. Certain items of
+material equipment nothing but money can provide. It is also the only
+thing which can obtain certain purely educational values in the way of
+teaching talent. As educational processes become more elaborate and
+complete, they cost more.
+
+On the other hand, education exerts a natural and favorable reaction upon
+money-making. In this country, where the educational aim is not so much to
+turn out gentlemen of leisure as it is to manufacture sons of toil, school
+training is one of the greatest aids in the increase of earning capacity.
+Statistics proving by figures that the product of the schools can make
+more money than the uneducated man can do are familiar to us all. This is
+not the highest possible motive for the getting of an education, but it is
+a motive which is worth considering.
+
+However, there is something about great economic wealth in a country which
+seems to make against the interest of education. This is a surprising
+fact, but it is a fact nevertheless. One might most easily think the
+reverse would be true. Certainly it is true that the greater wealth a
+country possesses the more it could afford to invest in education if it
+cared to do so. It looks like a safe assumption that a long step in the
+direction of intellectual greatness would have been taken when a people
+becomes great commercially. However, this assumption is not borne out by
+the facts. There seems to be more truth, especially from the educational
+viewpoint, in the idea that where wealth accumulates, men decay.
+
+This principle is nothing new. It seems to be clearly indicated in
+history. At least one instance may be cited from the story of quite
+ancient times to indicate how true to form things have always run.
+
+The Phoenician Empire was one of the most remarkable dominions of the
+ancient world. Geographically it was small. It was only about 140 miles
+long and 15 miles wide, skirted by the sea on one side and by a mountain
+range on the other. With the well-known Semitic genius for trading, its
+people planted colonies, operated mines, and established trading points
+on many rivers and seas. The volume of their trade was never surpassed
+until that day, centuries afterward, when the discovery of America opened
+up a new world to exploitation.
+
+In the process of their trading, the Phoenicians carried letters and arts
+to many Old World lands. They were not their own letters and arts. All
+the intellectual treasures they had were borrowed from others. They were
+too busy buying and selling to take time to develop any of their own.
+Consequently, the only monument to Phoenicia that remains today is the
+memory of her commercial greatness. She concerned herself only with that
+which was temporary. She built nothing that could endure.
+
+That period which was characterized by the most serious search for
+knowledge in America came during the poorer days of our people. The
+educational facilities of that period were meager. The highest diploma
+then given represented a degree of learning which almost anyone may
+easily obtain now. Yet those were days when young people endured the most
+severe sacrifice in order to obtain a measure of educational advantage for
+themselves. From the modern educational viewpoint, the little red school
+house at the cross roads may look like a rather poor affair, but it housed
+some tremendously earnest spirits. Some of our most distinguished public
+servants were there prepared for usefulness to their times.
+
+In those days, poverty threw some severe limitations around the young
+person seeking an education. At the same time, it provided a great
+incentive to go forward, and it placed behind the obtaining of an
+education a motive that was of great credit and value. Many young people
+defeated the limitations of poverty by winning scholarships. This within
+itself was of great value because it required a high standard of
+studentship. Its advantage is unknown in the institution which caters to
+rich men’s sons.
+
+We have been through our periods of poverty that pinched boys and girls
+into preparing themselves for better things. We have also had our periods
+of economic independence. We have just emerged from one of actual
+prodigality. Its unfavorable effect upon education cannot escape our eyes.
+
+Conditions incident to the war write a few entries on the credit side of
+the ledger. It put many soldier boys into schools for technical training.
+It helped to awaken the country to its weakness along these lines. These
+things, however, were overshadowed by the way in which the recent period
+of swollen incomes made against learning.
+
+The high wages of the war period and of the time immediately following it
+lured from the schools a vast number who would otherwise have remained.
+The economic incentive to getting an education was removed. It was a time
+when a boy could obtain high wages without learning. In many cases he
+could go into the shops and get better pay than his instructors were
+receiving for work that demanded thorough preparation and
+intense application.
+
+Statistics showing how much more money the educated man could make had
+lost their meaning. The time had come when brawn possessed greater
+earning capacity than brain. School men all over the country had hard
+work to keep their schools from going to pieces because of the depletion
+in attendance which they suffered.
+
+It was only natural that this situation should make teachers restless.
+Their pay had never been adequate, and now they saw it dwindling to a
+still smaller figure in comparison with that of a day laborer. The morale
+of the teaching force was disturbed everywhere. Many teachers found other
+work. The American school faced a crisis. That crisis seems now to be
+passing, partly because teachers are being better compensated and partly
+because the abnormal production, the prodigal buying, and the inflated
+wages of the war period are over.
+
+The same disturbance showed itself on college faculties. One state
+university lost twenty-three men in a single year because the whole
+country was growing rich and leaving them poorer than they were before.
+One prominent member of a certain university faculty resigned to enter
+the employ of a firm headed by one of his former students.
+
+Technical schools had the same trouble. During 1919 when the country was
+literally rolling in wealth, there was very little increase in the amount
+of money placed at the disposal of agricultural schools in America.
+Meanwhile, the various industries with their offers of better salaries
+had taken many of the best teachers from these institutions. The Secretary
+of Agriculture hoisted the danger signal by declaring that our nation must
+have a well-balanced program of research and that the most capable staffs
+possible must be secured and maintained.
+
+One of the chief troubles with a great commercial period is its
+preoccupation with material things. Minds become cloyed; hearts grow dull;
+and souls grow no wings with which to lift themselves above the mire and
+the clay. When a generation gets too busy to read books, hear music, and
+encourage learning, it is an easy thing for its sons to assume that a job
+is better than an education.
+
+
+Education and Production (1921)
+
+
+A few years ago so great an emphasis on manual training and industrial
+arts was evident in our school work that some feared a decline in the
+cultural ideal in the educational process. The trend was bringing its
+benefits, to be sure, but there seemed ground for fear that the end
+might be a generation educated in hand and seriously lacking in educated
+mind and personality.
+
+It has not worked out as many expected it would. The result has rather
+been the contrary one. We face today an unexpected situation at the close
+of a war that has tried the powers and resources of the earth. We have an
+abundance of people who are willing to work at seemingly dignified and
+necessarily high-salaried tasks. We have a shortage of men willing to do
+the manual labor necessary to make the world go round.
+
+The difficulty does not lie in any lack of training for manual tasks. We
+have never had so many people with hands trained to construct buildings
+and machinery, to set type, and to till soil to the best advantage. The
+schools have been training people for this kind of work long enough so
+that several graduating classes have been emptied out into the arena of
+the world’s life. The number is constantly increasing. Yet the shortage
+seems to grow.
+
+The trouble seems to root in a certain mistaken attitude toward labor.
+Our people do not find it easy to get over the notion that gentlemen do
+not labor with their hands. The idea persists, in spite of all the wealth
+of our philosophy to the contrary, that a certain aristocracy inheres in
+idleness. People are ashamed to be seen in their working clothes, and if
+anyone comes upon them when they are engaged in some manual task, they are
+prone to make excuses. They seem to feel that they have been overtaken in
+a fault.
+
+Parents, trained in the ways mentioned, are partially responsible. Many of
+them go on in the path of error, despite the fact that they realize their
+mistaken attitude. Their solicitude for their children impels them, and it
+often impels them to courses that are not best for the
+children themselves.
+
+Just the other day I heard a mother say that she realized the need of the
+world for workers, and that she realized the benefits of work to the
+individual. Yet she could not bring herself to feel willing that her two
+sons should spend their lives working with their hands.
+
+“I cannot help wanting them to prepare for some line of work that will be
+easy and dignified,” she said.
+
+So the story has been through the years. So long as this is the motive
+from which parents send their sons and daughters to school we can hardly
+expect any great change in the situation.
+
+A certain notion persists that education and work are incompatible. The
+assumption is that something is wrong when an educated man is seen
+employed at something involving physical exertion.
+
+The other day a friend told me that he had just learned a strange thing.
+In a certain nearby city, he said, a graduate of the state university and
+of a well-known law school was working as a motorman on a street car.
+
+Perhaps something had gone wrong in the case of this man. The wages now
+paid to street car motormen compare so poorly with the money made by a
+successful lawyer that one is naturally led to this suspicion. At the
+same time, however, there is no reason why educated men should despise
+such work as that of a motorman. Neither is there any reason why the
+position of a motorman should not be made attractive to men of the
+highest grade.
+
+The day is coming when low grade men will not be desired for any kind of
+work on earth. If there is real truth in the old saying that whatever is
+worth doing at all is worth doing well, we shall gradually learn that we
+must set men at all our work who are capable of doing it well. It is a
+great question whether cheap labor is really cheap after all. The chances
+are that the most capable labor obtainable in any line is the
+highest economy.
+
+In a recent short story, one colored man is made to remark to another
+that work is not to be expected from a gentleman of brains like himself.
+“Brains,” he went on to say, “is to keep you from wukkin’.”
+
+This has too long been the general notion about intellectual ability.
+Training, both real and fancied, has too often been made the excuse for
+parasitism. The purpose of education is not to qualify one for getting
+through life on a minimum of toil. It is rather calculated to enable one
+to perform a maximum of work with a minimum of friction and waste.
+In other words, education at its best is not a means to idleness but
+to efficiency.
+
+The most representative products of our best schools are sufficient proofs
+of the productive element in the highest educational ideal. They are not
+idlers, but workers. Their work does not consist of mere fuss and parade.
+It brings forth the fruit of achievement. The idler is either a product of
+no school at all, a product of a school with a mistaken educational ideal,
+or a mutation from the really cultured type.
+
+In this regard, our notion of education is essentially different from the
+European one. In the Old World, the prevailing idea of an educational
+institution was that its work was the preparation of young people to be
+polished aristocrats. The desired product was the graceful and courtly
+gentleman or lady. That conception may have been somewhat changed by the
+war, but such was what it was before the world was so largely made over
+in that great crucible of death.
+
+Our idea of the aim of education is much the same here, except that our
+schools and teachers try to foster a somewhat different idea of what it
+takes to make an aristocrat. They do not proceed upon the theory that an
+idler is an aristocrat. The accepted canon in educational circles is that
+a man is not trained at all unless trained to be good for something, and
+that he must prove his culture by bringing forth fruits meet for it.
+
+In their efforts to establish the productive ideal in the thinking of the
+public as well as in the work of the school itself, our educational system
+has many handicaps to overcome. One of them is the fact that idleness has
+been so long and so well glorified in fiction and on the moving picture
+screen. Too many characters that walk before the eyes of our people,
+especially the boys and girls, are rich without working for their wealth.
+They live in palatial houses. They wear the finest of clothing. They
+indulge in the most expensive pleasures. Yet they toil not, neither do
+they spin.
+
+This sort of thing has soaked into the public mind pretty deeply. It has
+exerted its effect upon the life of this generation. The number who would
+like to live without much exertion are a more or less direct result of it.
+It is one of the things that must be overcome. Some day it will begin to
+right itself, for the public will realize the mistaken assumption
+underlying it. Then a reaction will set in, but we dare not wait for the
+reaction. We must be trying to stem the current for the sake of those who
+need to be shown the light now. Just now we are probably at the crest of
+the billow.
+
+It is to the credit of the public school system that it has always
+glorified work. We have never needed work and workers so much as we do
+now. Our armies have torn the world to pieces. We must now have workers
+to rebuild it into a finer and grander thing than it was before.
+Therefore, the person who expects to take up room on it and live from it
+must produce. The life of society is co-operative. Each must do his share.
+The test of learning is service.
+
+
+The School as a Reform Agency (1921)
+
+
+In the little red school house that stood on the hillside thirty years ago
+some crude things were done. At the same time, some very important and
+helpful things were done. Even some of the crude things now seem to have
+had an indispensable value. The years teach us that the only test of the
+correctness of any educational method is its result in terms of life.
+
+In those days a great deal of moralizing was done. A moral was drawn from
+everything. The great bulk of the teaching was didactic. Each lesson in
+the old-fashioned reader had its definite ethical point. Often the moral
+was stated in so many words at the end. Patriotism, thrift, industry, the
+fact that there is always room at the top—all these things came in for
+their share of attention. The result was a patriotic, thrifty,
+industrious, and ambitious generation of people. We owe that generation
+and its work largely to the teacher who did not fear to frankly face the
+moral implications of things. He may have moralized a little too much,
+but his work had its effects for good.
+
+The history of the world is largely made up of actions and reactions. The
+reaction against all this came on in due time. We witnessed the
+development of a great dislike for all stories with apparent morals and
+of a distinct resentment against all didactic teaching. We still make some
+effort at character-building, but that effort is usually veiled and often
+neglected altogether.
+
+Certain things will help to show whether we have gained or lost by this
+change in our educational policy. Let us take, for instance, the matter of
+patriotism. The Spanish-American War of 1898 came on before the old order
+ended. Every youth wanted to go because the country was aflame with zeal
+for the American cause. The recent world war came after a new generation
+of school boys had grown up. The necessities incident to that conflict
+disclosed the fact that American loyalty was partly asleep. It took very
+serious efforts to wholly awaken it.
+
+Take the question of thrift. The successful business man of today, that
+loyal public servant who carries the economic responsibilities of the
+country so capably, is a product of the times when some new lesson in
+thrift and industry came in each day of the public school course. Many
+a man who has succeeded would testify now that his first impulse to try
+came from the reading of the sayings of Poor Richard or some similar
+material. Since such things have been largely dropped, we have on our
+hands a growing race of spendthrifts.
+
+All this is not merely comparing the present unfavorably with the past.
+Everyone knows that we cannot properly do so. Taken as a whole, the public
+school is now far in advance of what it was in the days of the little red
+school house. The present purpose is to point out to the educator the
+really incomparable power and opportunity that are his. Whatever the
+future contains, the school teacher holds the key to it. The possession of
+great power is at once an opportunity and a peril, but the teacher
+certainly possesses that power. It is a wonderful thing to mould the
+world’s life into right patterns. It is a fearful thing to mould it
+wrongly, or to fail to mould it when one might. The teacher can do any one
+of these.
+
+Bismarck once said: “Whatever you would put into the state you must first
+put into the schools.” The truth of his statement was well proven in the
+subsequent history of the empire of which he was then chancellor. A whole
+people was led astray by being fed upon the false philosophy of Nietzsche
+and others. The Teuton mind and heart could not have been so completely
+shackled by any other means than the processes of popular education.
+
+When the Ottoman Empire was first founded, its fiercest military
+organization, the Janizaries, was recruited wholly from the children of
+Christian parents, taken from their homes in battle or exacted from their
+towns as tribute. They made the fiercest of soldiers, the most loyal of
+Turks, and the most fanatical of Mohammedans. This is but an example of
+what education will do.
+
+When Germany took Alsace-Lorraine from France in 1870, her first task was
+the Teutonizing of the people. She began by introducing the German
+language in the schools and the press—both educational agencies. When the
+Young Turks wrested his empire from Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II, in 1909, they
+began making it over according to their own fanciful dreams by introducing
+their ideals into the school system.
+
+Certainly the school can be made as potent a force for good as for evil.
+In fact, it has been made such a force in certain instances. Prohibition
+of the liquor traffic was a long time coming in America, but it came as
+soon as we adopted the best means of establishing a better order of
+things. A careful analyst of social influences could have told almost the
+year it would arrive. He would have taken the date when Scientific
+Temperance became a public school subject and then have reckoned how long
+it would take the boys and girls of that period to come into control of
+the country. When that time arrived America went dry. Bismarck was right.
+
+There are plenty of reasons why it happens this way. One is the general
+fact that people do about as well as they know. Most evils remain only
+because people do not realize that there is a better way. When the facts
+are laid before them, they generally act accordingly.
+
+Another is the fact that ideals and truths can be built into the lives of
+growing boys and girls more readily and more firmly than in those of older
+people. A child can learn a foreign language more readily than can an
+adult. It is the same with an ethical ideal. The growing life most easily
+adapts itself to newly discovered fact.
+
+Another is the natural position of authority occupied by the teacher. His
+words are taken as those of an oracle. Children who refuse to heed the
+instructions of their parents take those of their teachers as final.
+
+Still another is the amount of time the child is surrounded by school
+influences. No other institution has any such chance at him as does the
+public school. He spends as many waking hours there as he does at home,
+or more.
+
+Knowledge alone does not constitute education. The etymology of the word
+education is sufficient to indicate a very much wider scope. Education
+has to do with the whole life. Its measure is not merely how many
+questions one can answer, but how well he can realize upon himself in the
+actual affairs of life. Therefore, the school has for its work the making
+of men and women, and the person who builds manhood and womanhood may well
+remember that in doing so he is building the future. We can never have a
+world that is anything more or less than it is made by the people who live
+in it.
+
+The highest grade of manhood and womanhood cannot be built without a
+considerable amount of ethical teaching. No matter what we do now, the
+action and reaction law of history will ultimately sweep us back again to
+the moralizing days. Then we shall carry didacticism to the same extreme
+that we are now carrying the lack of it. A better way is to have a
+reasonable amount of it all the while.
+
+Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby had a clear conception of the ethical phases of
+the highest educational ideal. He once said that he did not merely seek to
+turn out young men trained to take first in the schools, but “thoughtful,
+manly-minded men, conscious of duty and obligation.” Such is the largest
+service the school can render to the world, because it constantly sweeps
+us in the direction of a better order of things.
+
+
+The Same Face (1915)
+
+
+Along our years motherhood has planted three pictures that are so good for
+us to see that love and memory should always keep them bright. Pictures of
+sentiment they may be. Call them so if you will. But they are,
+nevertheless, the anchors that have held many a soul from sinking in the
+mire of life’s way.
+
+The first is the picture of the young face that bent above us when we were
+babes—a face wistfully tender and wonderfully touched with the glow of
+parenthood’s first self-consciousness. The lips move. They never knew the
+name of love so well until they had trembled in the midst of dismal floods
+for love’s own sake. They never knew the voice of prayer so well until the
+burden of creation came to be shared by the heart behind them. We did not
+suspect the love that throbbed in that heart above us and gave strength to
+the arms that held us. We know something of it now—and appreciate the debt
+that never can be paid.
+
+The next is the airy and elusive picture of our own futures which her fond
+hopes painted on the shadowed walls of the old room at home or in the air
+above our beds as we slept. Those pictures were too perfect, of course,
+for the hope and love were perfect that imaged them. She thought us better
+than we were and had more faith in us than we ever had in ourselves. But,
+what a garden this world would be if we refrained from violating at least
+the spirit of the dreams that thronged her mind when we were still wrapped
+in the unconsciousness of the years before the awakenings came.
+
+The last picture is seen not by looking backward but by looking forward.
+The other two are memories. This is an anticipation. They sadden us. This
+fills us with a wondrous joy. Many times we have seen her waiting face and
+her hand upon the gate at evening time. If we look, we can see her yonder
+now—ahead of us. The face that bent above the way’s beginning looms also
+at its close. It is older and gentler and touched with a perfect light.
+But it is the same face—and her hand is on the gate.
+
+
+The Will (1915)
+
+
+I used to pass daily a very pretty and well-formed tree. I admired it so
+much and saw it so often that, at length, I came to feel toward it as
+though it were a friend. I often reflected that the reason why it was so
+lovely a thing was the fact that it had not possessed the power to refuse
+to obey the bidding of its Maker.
+
+I thought that if a man were will-less, as is a tree or a flower, his life
+would be as harmonious and as beautiful as theirs. But there is within him
+that voice which so often speaks against the divine command that he is
+robbed of much that is godlike within him. I thought that the dictates of
+that stubborn and willful voice had spoiled so many of God’s plans and
+man’s prospects that we might all be better without it.
+
+One morning, after there had been a windstorm during the night, I walked
+as usual past the tree. It lay prostrate and helpless on the ground. I was
+surprised to see that what had been so well-formed without had been hollow
+and rotten within. This had so weakened it that, when the test came, it
+had been the first to fall. Others—not so lovely—had stood because they
+were sound.
+
+The tree had possessed no will with which to disobey its Creator. Neither
+had it possessed a will with which to stand in the face of the storm.
+Least of all had it possessed a will to rise again.
+
+I had seen men have the will to disobey, yet when they had wandered into a
+far country and had become sick of the husks of sin, I had seen them have
+the will to come back again and give themselves to a noble purpose. The
+will of man is not only his danger, but it is also his hope. By it he may
+fall, but by it he may rise again to better things. It may whisper to him
+the word of temptation, but it may also become his strength for an hour of
+triumph. He needs not a life without a will which can lead him astray. He
+needs a will subjected to a high ideal and to the traversing of the
+highway of truth and right.
+
+
+The Sword that Keeps the Past (1916)
+
+
+At the gateway of every Eden from which one has gone forth fallen and
+disgraced, there hangs a sword of flame to keep the way of a misspent
+past. We control the present. The future will be what we choose to make
+it. But there is no hand strong enough to lay hold upon the gate of the
+day that is gone. The past is what we have made it, and such it must
+forever remain.
+
+The most fruitless of all wishes is that one might go back and retrace the
+way he has come, that he might travel with surer feet. There are points
+all along the way where we would prize an opportunity to undo some wrong,
+unsay some word, or perform some omitted deed of helpfulness. We feel that
+we could do infinitely better if we had another chance. Heaven may be
+willing to grant most of our wishes to do better, but this is one which
+has never yet been granted to a child of earth. The voice with which we
+cry into the past is echoless, and ineffectual are the hands with which
+we beat against its closed portals.
+
+There is only one way to change the past, and that is to change it before
+it becomes the past. To-morrow the present will be a part of the past. The
+day after to-morrow a part of what is now the future will have gone
+forever. Only that part of the eternal duration which is yet unspent still
+lies within our control. Very swiftly it flies by us, but not so swiftly
+but that we can tinge it with the very color of our souls as it passes.
+
+Thus, after all, we are the architects of human destiny. The very trend of
+the ages is entrusted to our hands. As we mould the present we are
+moulding history, and as we work out our own little lives we are affecting
+all time to come. Men must always remember the things we are doing as
+history. None will have power to change them when they are past.
+
+Make this day what you desire through all eternity to remember it as
+having been. It must dwell in your thoughts forever as a piercing thorn or
+a blooming flower. Your hand is on its gate for the last time.
+It is a day of judgment.
+
+
+The Fountain of Youth (1917)
+
+
+The past ages had a remarkable story about a fountain of youth, the waters
+of which possessed the power to keep one young forever. Some of the early
+explorers of America were lured on their way by the hope of finding that
+spring of unfailing vitality somewhere in the Western World. But they died
+without having realized their dream. They failed to realize it because
+they had supposed the fountain of youth to be a localized thing. As a
+matter of fact, location has little to do with it.
+
+There is a fountain of youth. Its place, however, is limited neither by
+the balmy waters of the southern seas nor by the icy fastnesses of arctic
+regions. Such as it is, it exists everywhere. The healing of its waters is
+not denied to any seeker. Like most priceless things, it is as well within
+the reach of the poor as of the rich. It is the privilege and opportunity
+of high and lowly alike.
+
+One of the paths to the fountain of youth is a right attitude of mind and
+right habits of thought. While many have been seeking vainly through the
+world for the desired fountain, they were all the while unconsciously
+carrying it about within their own inner lives.
+
+One is as old as the spirit within him. The outer life simply takes the
+mould of the inner thought. The marks of age take possession of one’s
+frame in approximate proportion to the degree of his surrender to them.
+A landscape bears the color of the spectacles of the beholder. The whole
+world has for a norm the attitude of the individual toward it. When the
+mind grows sluggish and purposeless, the spirit of age has laid hold upon
+its possessor. While the mind remains clear and fresh, with its vigor
+unabated, the individual still shares in the saving waters of the immortal
+fountain. The date of one’s birth may be misleading, but the spirit of his
+soul never is.
+
+One stands each moment upon the threshold between the past and the future.
+It is for him to decide which shall claim his thought. Youth dwells upon
+the future, because the future holds its hopes and plans. Age dwells upon
+the past, because the past holds the memory of its activities and kindred
+ties. While one keeps his face to the future, he remains young. When he
+begins to live in the past, he is allowing himself to grow old. There is
+a sweetness about an occasional hour spent in roaming the halls of memory,
+but in to-morrow lie life’s supreme considerations.
+
+Those who keep thinking and toiling grow old more slowly than do those who
+relinquish their hold upon the activities and the concerns of life. Body
+and spirit alike begin the process of atrophy on the day when interests
+begin to decay. When the mind and the hand pass to rest, the body may be
+expected to soon share their slumber. This is the reason why so many busy
+people grow old so courageously. It also suggests the reason why so many
+fail to long outlive their active days. Only while the mind craves
+knowledge and the heart feels the throb of the social impulse does the eye
+remain undimmed and the natural force unabated.
+
+A second path to the fountain of youth is that of right living. This is
+not merely implicit obedience to arbitrary law. It is living in harmony
+with the universe. Without it youth can never long remain.
+
+A very marked type of divine healing is to be found in the abounding
+health which is the result of living in accord with the divine laws of
+nature. The finest instances of that healing are perhaps to be found in
+the absence of diseases that have never occurred. In other words, its
+chief usefulness is preventive.
+
+In a wholly Christian race of men there would be but a minimum of disease.
+Insurance companies understand this fact. The physical decay of the body
+is chiefly the result of inroads made by disease, and the greatest
+fostering influence of disease is wrongdoing. Both directly and
+indirectly, sin works havoc with mankind. Physical abnormalities root in
+someone’s disregard for established laws. In one case the sin may be one
+of intentional wrongdoing, and in another it may be the equally
+disastrous one of common ignorance and carelessness.
+
+The Hebrews furnish a notable instance of racial vitality. They are what
+they are to-day largely as a result of the fact that their remote
+forefathers were born and nurtured in camps and cities where uncleanness
+was a disgrace and where a violation of the laws of life was a sin. The
+laws of right living are not merely a list of arbitrary regulations, the
+highest design of which is to prove the willingness of men to obey them.
+They are the provisions of a kind Providence for humanity’s own welfare
+and progress.
+
+A third path to the fountain of youth is the conservation of health
+along scientific lines. This may involve medical means frequently, and
+it may, on occasion, even involve surgical means. It will most generally,
+however, involve conformity to a liberal knowledge of the ways of nature.
+
+Dr. Metchnikoff, the great Russian scientist, who spent his last years in
+Paris, has given to the world some illuminating discoveries upon this
+question of old age. He long suspected that the thing we have been calling
+by the name of old age, was simply the physical indication of the inroads
+made by disease germs to which the increasing weakness of advancing years
+opened a freer way. He proved to his own satisfaction, and to that of many
+others as well, that the apparent signs of age are the result of the
+ravages of a certain bacillus which inhabits the intestinal tract. He also
+proved the sour principle of buttermilk to be fairly fatal to that germ.
+One of the evidences of his latter conclusion is the fact that some of the
+most noted cases of longevity have been those of regular drinkers of sour
+milk. Physical decay seems to be only a symptom of inner attacks which
+will sooner or later break down an organ or result in a general collapse.
+
+It is not to be supposed that any regard for the laws of health, however
+strict it might be, will make it impossible ever to grow old. Physical
+decay is inevitable and physical death is certain. It is possible,
+however, to long preserve the physical condition of youth by keeping the
+resistance of the body at the highest possible point. This can be done
+only by preserving the best possible continual state of health.
+
+The sedentary character of much of the life of to-day is one of the
+weakening habits of our age. On the other hand, we have an army of people
+who are so over-exercised at their daily toil that their bodies are sapped
+of all vitality and their minds are robbed of all vigor. Between these two
+extremes lies a golden mean. Well-directed use of all the muscles and
+regular movement of all the organs does afford vast help in keeping the
+body fresh and youthful.
+
+We are the victims of another age-producing habit in the excessive
+quantity and richness of the food we consume. We are too willing to eat
+all we can get and contain. We are overdisposed, too, to truckle to the
+demands of palates that have been trained to enjoy unnatural and
+unwholesome tastes.
+
+Any experience which would drive us all back to plain living, simple
+eating, and active habits would probably result in large benefit to us.
+If our plan of living were re-established upon a childlike plane, we might
+again expect to enjoy childlike vitality, with its intermingling of
+childlike activity and childlike slumber.
+
+An Old Testament story tells how a Hebrew king prayed for a new hold upon
+life and how his prayer resulted in the turning of the shadow upon the
+dial. That invisible hand which turned the shadow upon the dial of the
+days of a king waits ever to preserve the lives of the members of the
+race. The One, however, who heard the prayer of Hezekiah was the same One
+who established the laws of life and nature. Obedience to those laws is
+still the key by which the very years may be swung backward in
+their flight.
+
+
+Some Principles of Efficiency (1917)
+
+
+These are the days when the doing of things in the best and quickest way,
+and the living of one’s life to the greatest possible purpose, are among
+the livest of issues. The absorbing question is that of really getting on.
+One has but one chance at this life, and he has a right to make that one
+effort the best possible.
+
+_The Personal Attitude for Right Living._
+
+1. Preserve calmness and steadiness. Victory over material things is but
+a passing honor for the one who has failed to conquer himself. The secret
+of many a success is coolness and self-possession. The person who has the
+consciousness that he is right can look the world in the
+face unflinchingly.
+
+2. Avoid selfishness as you would a most dangerous enemy. The first
+personal pronoun is a dangerous word. No one else cares to help the person
+who tries to help no one but himself. The world has its heroes, but they
+are those whose chief concern has been for their people.
+
+3. Have a mind of your own, and use it. Many a failure has been excused
+with the words: “I didn’t think.” However, it is our business to think,
+and to act on right judgments. Man is he who thinks, and the most
+successful man is he who thinks most promptly and accurately.
+
+4. Do not get the idea that your mind is the only one. Others are thinking
+also, and some of these persons may be more nearly right than yourself.
+One must at least give others credit for having opinions. Listen to all,
+and accept only that which seems to bear the test of truth.
+
+5. Strive to be right about things. Investigate until you are clear in
+your conclusions. When you are clear, let nothing but additional light
+change your course. Stay with the right, though all the rest of the world
+disagree with you. If you find that your position was wrong, forsake
+it immediately.
+
+6. Do not judge yourself by others, nor your work by theirs. The only
+proper standard is rightness. It is a poor thing to be in fashion if the
+fashion is wrong.
+
+7. Try to understand other people. Think of others sympathetically, and
+give them credit for everything you can.
+
+_Your Personal Resources._
+
+1. The first of your personal resources is time. You have just the same
+amount of it that any one else has, and that is twenty-four hours a day.
+These twenty-four hours a day are exactly like any other asset in that
+they are capable of use or abuse. The waste of them is the same kind of
+a mistake as is the waste of money or property. Few people waste their
+time in large quantities at a time. Most people waste moments in waiting
+or idling, which, put together, would make an aggregate of hours and days.
+One should not waste his own time nor that of others. The person who keeps
+any one else waiting for him is guilty of theft. Figure out how much time
+you lose per day, and then figure how to keep from losing it.
+
+2. The second of your personal resources is talent. Of this all do not
+receive exactly alike, but all do receive in reasonable measure. Some who
+receive largely seem to do less with their gift than some others who have
+received in less degree, and the man who hides his single coin in a napkin
+is always a familiar figure. No matter whether one receives many or few,
+it is his duty to improve them and make the most of them. Finding one’s
+true place in the world is a serious matter. Find out what you are good
+for; get ready to do that thing well; then do it with all your might.
+
+3. The third of your personal resources is opportunity. The greatest
+issues of years to come will continually be found to hinge upon your
+decision and action in earlier moments of opportunity. Opportunity does
+not wait around, begging one to grasp it. One must learn to strike at the
+right moment. Watch for your chance, and do not fail to seize it when
+it comes.
+
+_The Method of Efficiency._
+
+1. Have a definite purpose in life. If you have none, get one as quickly
+as possible. If you cannot choose a permanent one, then choose a temporary
+one. At all events, have an aim, and let it be clear, definite,
+and positive.
+
+2. Having chosen a task, the next thing to do is to get at it. The word
+=NOW= is the richest word in the English vocabulary. Do not wait to begin
+in the morning. Be able, when the morning comes, to look back on at
+least a part of the task completed.
+
+3. Stay with it. It is sometimes harder to stay with it than it is to get
+at it. Always, as the day passes and weariness lays hold of mind and
+muscle, the temptation to give up gathers strength very rapidly. If the
+thing you are doing is worth while, don’t give it up. The rewards of the
+game are won neither by the fine beginning nor the brilliant play, but by
+the steady endurance which holds on to the last. Life is one great
+endurance test.
+
+4. Strive to do only a reasonable number of things, and do those things
+just as well as you can do them. The fewer they are, the better the
+execution of them is apt to be. Reduce your efforts to the realization of
+one great aim. So doing, you will be able to achieve results impossible to
+scattered efforts. “This one thing I do” was the dictum of one strong
+character. He did that thing, however, with all his might.
+
+5. Cultivate decision. Valuable time and strength are often lost in
+deciding things too unimportant to justify the loss. Learn to think
+quickly and clearly. Arrive at conclusions promptly and accurately.
+Impulse and desire are secondary, while the sense of having done the
+right thing best satisfies in the end.
+
+6. Make each effort bring you a little nearer to the goal. You will never
+have cause to complain of any day that has witnessed real progress. Do
+not try to cover the ground in a single dash, but push forward steadily
+and patiently. Be willing to wait much, to fail occasionally, and to toil
+always. At the end you will have something to show for each hour.
+
+
+The Story of the Red Cross (1917)
+
+
+The Red Cross Society is an international organization for the relief of
+the sick and wounded in any time of special distress. It has been of great
+service in times of peace, yet it is readily seen that its constitution
+makes it of particular service in time of war. Throughout its life, it has
+given good account of itself in every time of need.
+
+It bears the honorable distinction of being an agency which is designed to
+minister to the needs of the living. There are always plenty of praises
+for the dead, and enough tears are always shed over the graves heaped up
+by the bloody hand of war. It is more especially needful that there should
+be means of helping the living who still need it, and who are still able
+to appreciate it when it is given. The Red Cross is a ministry to life in
+the midst of the fields of death.
+
+It owes its origin to the efforts of Jean Henri Dunant, a Swiss author and
+philanthropist, whose whole life and fortune were both given to the
+service of mankind. Great movements must always be fathered by
+self-sacrificing spirits before they are finally taken upon the hearts of
+the people. It sometimes even happens that the name of the originator of
+a movement fails to cling to it in the days of its popularity and success.
+
+M. Dunant was present at the battle of Solferino on June 24, 1859. There
+he witnessed the suffering and need of the soldiers who fell wounded upon
+the field and realized the powerlessness of any nation to provide adequate
+hospital facilities in time of actual battle.
+
+After three years of meditation and discussion, Dunant wrote and published
+a book, in which he suggested the preparation of supplies and the training
+of nurses against the time of need, in order that the volume of distress
+might not be again so far beyond the power of any one to relieve it.
+
+He was invited to speak before the Geneva Society of Public Utility. That
+society took sufficient interest in his contention to call an
+international conference to meet in Geneva in the autumn of 1863.
+Delegates came from sixteen nations, and, after going into the subject,
+they laid some plans for future action and adjourned.
+
+A year from that time a more formally and authoritatively delegated
+assembly met in the same city. Before it adjourned, the famous Geneva
+Convention had been written and signed by its members. That convention did
+not specifically outline the plan of the present Red Cross Society, but it
+did make possible its organization and activity.
+
+Fourteen nations ratified the Geneva Convention at that time. As it came
+to be better understood and more greatly appreciated, others added their
+approval. Today all the principal nations of the world have approved and
+adopted it. It has long since come to be a movement of such influence and
+proportions as to command the fullest sanction of international law.
+
+The emblem chosen for this society was the familiar red cross design which
+has long since become a symbol of sanitation and cleanliness. The Turkish
+Government alone failed to adopt this uniform symbol. According to its
+traditional ideals, it chose the use of the crescent instead.
+
+It was not long until agreements were made by which the rules and
+practices of the Red Cross Society were applied in the navy as well as in
+the army. Now the man who falls wounded upon a battleship receives the
+same helpful attentions as does the fallen hero of the land forces.
+Moreover, the Red Cross symbol until this present war has been immune to
+attack on sea as well as on land. Conventions have, of course, been
+determined upon which are designed to prevent the wrongful use of the
+familiar symbol of mercy in time of war.
+
+The various national Red Cross organizations are independent in their
+formation and responsibility, yet it to be regarded as the Geneva
+Committee is to be regarded as central in its prestige and influence if
+not in power and authority. From time to time, Americans have been
+honored with places upon that committee. W. H. Taft was made president
+of it some years ago and is today one of the world’s most enthusiastic
+Red Cross workers.
+
+The American Red Cross Society was organized in 1884 by Miss Clara
+Barton, who throughout life interested herself in this and similar
+labors of unselfish helpfulness. She has been to the American Red Cross
+Society what M. Dunant was to the international organization.
+
+In 1905 the American Congress realized the need for an organization
+which should be more distinctly national in its scope and plan. The
+existing society was therefore disbanded, and a reorganization was
+effected along slightly different lines. The American Red Cross now
+operates under distinctly governmental supervision and authority. Its
+head is the President of the United States. Its chief officers are men
+high in governmental councils. Its accounts are audited in the War
+Department, and its activities in every way center in Washington.
+
+Yet it is distinctively a civil organization. Its membership is made up
+of the common people of the country. It accepts volunteers for medical,
+surgical, and nursing work behind the battle lines in time of war, but
+it also accepts as members all who care to enrol and pay the small
+annual membership fee.
+
+The average citizen is thus afforded an opportunity to have a part in the
+better side of war—the care of the sick, the wounded, and the distressed.
+It enables the last person, however far away and however lowly he may be,
+to do his share together with the rest.
+
+Even those who volunteer as doctors and nurses find that most of their
+work is at a distance from the firing line. Strict observance must be
+given to certain fixed rules governing the activities of Red Cross
+workers, but so long as these rules are observed the danger is
+comparatively small.
+
+The American Red Cross has, since its organization in 1884, proven its
+worth in a number of times of need. Its opportunity for wartime service
+has, thus far, been limited. Until we had been touched by the present war,
+our people had only been engaged in one brief struggle since the
+organization of the Red Cross in America. It did its work well during the
+Spanish-American War of 1898. It will now have an opportunity for much
+greater wartime usefulness in a time of much greater need.
+
+It has, however, been giving frequent service to the suffering in other
+times of catastrophe. It gave notable aid in the time of the yellow fever
+epidemic in the South, the Johnstown flood, the famines in Russia and
+Japan, tidal-wave floods in South Carolina and Texas, the Armenian
+massacre, the oppression of the Cuban people, the Mount Pelee volcanic
+eruption, and earthquakes in Chile, Jamaica, and California.
+
+These are but a few of the outstanding instances of Red Cross aid to
+stricken people. In smaller disasters almost everywhere, the same helping
+hand has been extended. The American Red Cross has expended about fifteen
+millions upon its work thus far in its history. That sum will, of course,
+be rapidly multiplied if the present war continues long. The whole
+country has been roused to a spirit of co-operation, contributing both
+work and money.
+
+It seems a particularly hopeful thing that, although war has not yet been
+recognized as a mere relic of the barbarous past, in the midst of its
+bloodshed there are to be heard the hurrying feet of messengers of mercy
+and help. One of the strongest forces now making for a day of lasting
+peace is the beautiful suggestion that comes from the spirit of those who
+make it their aim to help while others destroy. The spirit of positive
+service will endure long after the work of destruction has been forsaken.
+Those who assist in such a task will suffer no regrets.
+
+The work of M. Dunant has been significant in the cause of peace. The
+Nobel prize went to him in 1901 for distinguished services in behalf of
+international arbitration and conciliation. The day will yet come when
+the world will see the realization of his great dream of an age of
+brotherly kindness.
+
+
+Words (1917)
+
+
+Words determine the trend of human events. They make sad or glad the years
+we live. Like flowers or tares sown along the highway of life, they make
+every landscape a little brighter or a little less lovely.
+
+The tongue is equally capable of being the messenger of angels or of
+spirits of evil. It can sting like an adder. A thrust of the dagger or the
+sharp sting of a bullet, and all is over; but the sting of a hard word
+abides through the years. It warps, withers, and embitters everything it
+touches. The human heart shrivels under it like the drooping of a tender
+plant beneath the direct rays of the burning sun.
+
+But a word in due season, how good is it! It helps the weary to take
+courage again. It helps the broken life to make another effort. It revives
+drooping hopes and purposes. It counts for more than could a gift of gold
+or a bestowal of power.
+
+A dozen years ago a school boy was standing, tired and discouraged, in the
+shadow of a dark stairway on the public square of the town. He was away
+from home, and he was almost down to his last cent. He was not sure
+whether his hard efforts were worth the while. He heard an approaching
+step. It was one of his teachers. He drew farther back, not expecting the
+teacher to see him, but the teacher did. He stopped and said a good word
+for something the young fellow had done. That was all it took to put fresh
+courage into a weary heart. Today that boy, now become a man, is still
+toiling on, trying to do something worth the doing. He is still at it for
+the sake of a simple sentence or two—in due season.
+
+The value of a word is so great that the name best befits the nature of
+the Master. In the first chapter of the Gospel according to John, we find
+that Jesus is repeatedly referred to as the Word of God. He is, indeed,
+an expression of that which men had so long thought to be inexpressible.
+A Word, made flesh, He came and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.
+
+Words slip back the shutters from the windows of the inner life. It is out
+of the abundance of the heart that the mouth is sure to speak. The tongue
+is daily engaged in drawing an open picture of the heart. The very
+vocabulary of a person will tell you the story of what goes on in the
+silence of his thoughts.
+
+The power of uplifting speech and the right to enjoy helpful conversation
+are high privileges. When a group of people are together, a splendid
+opportunity is afforded for conversation which is not only self-improving
+but also mutually helpful. It is worse than a tragedy when that
+never-recurring time is spent in conversation concerning what is foolish
+and evil. Is it not a standing wonder that, when there are so many worthy
+themes, anyone should be willing to allow his conversation to keep the
+slimy level of the soil?
+
+Words should pay respect to the dignity and beauty of language. Language
+has a majesty peculiarly its own, and its sanctity ought never to be
+violated. It is violated, frequently, in two especial ways.
+
+The first is by the way of slang. Those who allow themselves to grow
+accustomed to slangy expressions do themselves and their language alike a
+great injustice. They do themselves an injustice because speech so surely
+marks the man, and the world will always take it as an indicator of
+character. They do their language an injustice because every deviation
+from its defined paths tends to break down its dignity and power.
+
+Of course, slang is not a cardinal sin, but it is like a good many other
+things that are not cardinal sins in that the tendency is a bad one. The
+cardinal sins are less dangerous because we are more afraid of them.
+
+The second is by the way of extravagant and untrue utterance. Enough
+people have gone “simply crazy” about things to fill all the insane
+asylums to overflowing, and it is a marvel how the cemeteries continue to
+provide room for all the people who have been tickled or scared “to death”
+or who have encountered so many things that were “simply killing.” The
+users of these terms are people who have not stopped to contemplate the
+fact that simple English is always sufficient for the telling of the
+whole truth.
+
+Words are certain to react upon the speaker. The effect upon others of a
+word let fly is equalled only by its effect upon the person who says it.
+In other words, speech possesses boomerang qualities.
+
+Just after William Henry Harrison had been nominated for the presidency in
+1840, a Baltimore newspaper contemptuously called attention to his humble
+habitat by referring to him as “Log Cabin Harrison.” Instead of arousing
+prejudice against him, as the utterance was meant to do, it only stirred
+up a great popular enthusiasm in his behalf. The public took up the cry as
+a slogan; the log cabin became the campaign symbol; and William Henry
+Harrison was elected.
+
+When John Wesley and a number of his fellow students who felt a desire for
+a deeper religious life formed a “Holy Club” at Oxford University, they
+became so methodical in their habits and work that other students of the
+university dubbed them “Methodists.” The name not only did not militate
+against them but John Wesley remained a Methodist, and tens of thousands
+have been proud to bear the name that was first bestowed as an epithet
+of disgrace.
+
+If there was anything derisive in the voice of Pilate when he exclaimed
+“Behold the man,” his derision has been increasingly mocked by the voice
+of history. All the years have been obeying the command of the Roman
+governor. They have been beholding not only Jesus but Pilate also, to the
+increasing fame and power of the one and the growing shame of the other.
+
+If there was any taint of sarcasm in the words Pilate ordered placed at
+the head of the Cross, the years have turned it into living truth. The
+words have risen up to mock their maker.
+
+Slander is more than half the time the offspring of jealousy and envy.
+The reason for a great deal of unjust and unkind comment is to be found
+in the proneness of man to condemn his brother most fiercely for that
+fault which lies most deeply imbedded in his own life. Adverse criticism
+is never a proper topic of conversation. The chances are so great against
+the justice and truth of a harsh judgment that it should never have a
+place in human speech.
+
+One reason for this is the fact that one never knows the inner story of
+his neighbor’s life. It is easy to fail to take into account the secret
+effort, the unknown struggle, the unheralded difficulty. Others have
+battles to fight and obstacles with which to contend of which we will
+never know. It may be, furthermore, that in their situation we would not
+do so well as they.
+
+Another reason is the fact that we are not commissioned a race of judges
+and set to determine the guilt and weigh the faults of mankind. Even if
+it were our business to be judges, we should be poor ones indeed if we
+failed to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. There is plenty of
+time to speak when one can speak from indisputable facts.
+
+There is an unwritten law which forbids speaking against the dead. It may
+be wrong to speak against those who can no longer lift their voices in
+their own defense, but it may also be remembered that, though the dead
+cannot defend themselves, neither do they need to do so. They can no
+longer be harmed by the shaft of malice, and will slumber as sweetly under
+the poison breath of the fault-finder as beneath the perfumed words of
+affection and appreciation. With the living it is different. They still
+care what men think of and say about them. They can feel the stir of joy
+and the sting of pain. They respond to kindness and recoil from the bitter
+and unjust word. If a word is to be spoken against anybody, it is far
+better that it be against the dead and that the living be spared the
+destruction of their all.
+
+One of the best services to render to the world is to breathe a helpful
+word upon it. It will be like a shower of cooling moisture on a field
+grown dry and dead. In it you send forth a messenger imperishable. It
+will echo where you little know, and it will speak for you when your lips
+of clay can speak no more.
+
+
+The Line of Necessity (1918)
+
+
+When a given course of action is considered or a particular step of
+progress is proposed, many people are in the habit of questioning whether
+the thing is necessary. They do not inquire whether it is desirable,
+whether it is helpful, or whether it is lovely. The only question raised
+is as to its necessity.
+
+The propounding of this question is not without its effect. The people who
+ask it often rob a movement of its power and occasionally cause it to fail
+completely. By its use a chill is often brought upon spirits which would
+otherwise throb with warmth. The world is deprived of the influence of
+many a cheerful song, helpful smile, gracious act, and kind word simply
+because the person who might have given them stopped to make this
+ever-recurring inquiry: “Is it necessary?”
+
+The people who ask the question would themselves be the least willing to
+have their own lives and fortunes subjected to its merciless test. They
+know full well that it would remove from their little worlds many of the
+things which now seem best and sweetest. Landscapes would lose the mystic
+charm which now serves to lift them above the commonplace. Daily
+experience would be robbed of the glamor which now makes life seem so
+sweet and beautiful. The glory would fade from about the brow of
+friendship, and even friendship itself perhaps would perish. Lovely as all
+these things are, they do not belong to the list of things that are
+absolutely necessary. They would pass away if life were denuded of all
+that the world could manage to get along without.
+
+As a matter of fact, many of the most blessed things we know lie on the
+farther side of the line of necessity. If we were never to pass beyond
+that line, then the world and all that it contains would be reduced to the
+impoverished outlines of the barest actuality. There would be no place
+left for hope, ambition, and dream. We should do no more work than is
+necessary, and our labor could no longer be a daily progress toward the
+summit of some mount of hope. We should have no more than is necessary,
+and each would become less than a peasant. We should love, help, and serve
+no more than is necessary, and all the joy of the unselfish and the
+sacrificial would be taken from life. We should have no more friends than
+is necessary, and one by one those who have been our greatest inspiration
+would depart from our ken. How poor a thing it would soon be to live!
+
+Life would indeed be soon reduced to the level of mere existence. We
+should still be in the world, but the glow and the loveliness would have
+departed. Our tables would be bare, because we should eat only what is
+strictly necessary. Our clothing would be scant and poor, for we should
+wear only what one must. Our lives would be solitary, for association is
+a luxury and not a necessity. Kindness is unnecessary, therefore our souls
+would shrivel and perish. A once cheerful world would have grown dull and
+dead, and the once joyful privilege of living would have suddenly been
+transformed into a grievous necessity.
+
+It is the unnecessary that changes bare existence into throbbing and
+purposeful life. A mere earth is changed into a lovely world by processes
+which might have been dispensed with. A house is transformed into a home
+by graces which are not the children of necessity.
+
+Even Bethlehem and Calvary were not necessary. The glory of their meaning
+comes rather from the fact that they sprang from good will alone. The
+power of the Cross springs largely from the fact that it could have been
+avoided. We appreciate it because the Master faced it willingly.
+
+No one cares for the friend who is a friend under the pressure of some
+necessity. We appreciate the friendship of those who are our friends
+because they simply want to be. We do not care for the gift offered by
+some one who felt the force of some compulsion. The impulse is to cast
+it from us in disdain. We love the gift made by the impulse of a kindly
+heart, not because it was a necessity but because it was a pleasure.
+
+I once sat in a great gathering and heard a man with silver hair offer a
+bit of advice which sprang from a life of rich experience. “Let us,” he
+said, “during the week that we are together, make it a point to be a
+little kinder to one another than is necessary.”
+
+Life had taught him that the finer graces and the sweeter instincts are
+not necessary things. They do not earn salary. They do not satisfy the
+hunger of the body. They are even sometimes discounted in the calculations
+of the shortsighted. They are, however, the beautiful things. They garland
+life and make it lovely. If the men in that gathering were to be kind to
+one another, it was desirable that they should be so for the sake of
+kindness, and not for that of compulsion.
+
+This was one of the first principles to engage the attention of the Great
+Teacher. He said to a crowd of people one day that one gets no credit
+either on the books of heaven or in the courts of his own conscience until
+he has done a little better than was strictly necessary. It is a little
+thing to give the coat that is asked for, but it is a worthy thing to give
+the cloak which is not expected. It is insignificant to travel the mile
+that is requested, but it is worth while to go the second mile unasked.
+One deserves no thanks for having loved his friend, for that is easy, but
+he who learns to love his enemies has achieved something really
+worth while.
+
+These points from the Sermon on the Mount simply state the old principle
+of the beauty and value of the unnecessary. It is the second mile
+traveled, the overflowing kindness offered, and the unnecessary act of
+goodness that sweeten and glorify the years. These things make of life
+more than a gloomy journey through a valley of trouble. They make it a
+glad procession across the hills of joy.
+
+There is a higher law than that of necessity. Necessity may supply a
+skeleton for living, but we are not interested in skeletons until they
+are clothed with flesh and vitalized with life. It represents a framework
+for existence, but the framework of a building does not seem worth while
+until it has added to it the complement of walls and the beauty of
+decorations. It may represent the stage upon which the drama of life is to
+be enacted, but the stage is empty and bare until the actors come upon it
+and lend it the enchantment of thought and action. Beyond the line of
+necessity lie the countless things which weave the web of splendor and
+throw the magic of enchantment about things. Necessity supplies the
+substance. The unnecessary adds the glory.
+
+The proper question to ask about a course of conduct to be followed or a
+thing to be obtained is not, then, that as to whether it is necessary. It
+is that as to whether it is lovely and worth while. We need to remember
+that if all the unnecessary acts were left undone and all the unnecessary
+words were left unsaid, the world soon would cease to seem a fit place in
+which to live. We need to remember that it is the will uncompelled that
+tames the wilderness, that it is the hand unconstrained that reclaims the
+desert, and that it is the kindness born of spontaneous impulse which
+brings into life the uplifting and the helpful.
+
+Of course we could get on without all these things. We do not have to have
+the flowers; we could dispense with the moonbeams; our three meals a day
+do not depend upon the singing of the birds; the world could no doubt
+continue on its way if the wind never again whispered a lullaby among the
+trees. But this is not the kind of world for which the heart longs. The
+deeper hunger is satisfied only with a world made beautiful with the
+things that were whispered only into the more sacred chambers of the heart
+of man—the beautiful and the unnecessary things.
+
+
+Some New Facts About Alcohol (1918)
+
+
+After all, it may not have been so bad a thing that many defenders rose up
+during the past years to champion the failing cause of alcohol. The debate
+which has resulted from their mistaken contentions has really led to a
+determination on the part of people in general to look into the question
+and to determine for themselves whether alcohol is really a benefit or a
+menace to the user.
+
+No believer in abstinence needs to ask for anything better than just such
+a spirit of scientific investigation. The best thing that can happen to
+the truth is that it be investigated. Such investigation into the drink
+question has been the result of the general questioning, and it has led
+to the general conclusion that alcohol works harm and not good to the
+human system.
+
+One of the most useful of American scientific establishments is the
+Carnegie Institution at Washington. During the last few years, two of its
+experts, Drs. Dodge and Benedict, have been following special lines of
+study on the effect of alcohol upon the human brain and nervous system.
+Their achievements in this field of investigation have been notable for
+both their scientific and their moral value.
+
+These investigations were, of course, conducted with that care which
+always characterizes the work of the genuine scientist. The laboratory
+expert never works from a prejudiced viewpoint. He approaches his task
+with an open mind. He does not seek the proof of some contention of his
+own. He looks for nothing more nor less than the truth about a thing. He
+would rather fail altogether in an investigation than to reach a false
+conclusion and publish it to the world. Such a result would not only be
+failure but deception as well. When one is following the results of the
+work of a true scientist, he may rely upon it that no unfair advantage
+will be taken of the facts.
+
+Of course, it must be remembered that much still remains to be discovered
+concerning alcohol. Those who have studied the subject thus far have only
+been pioneers in their field. We shall learn a great deal more about it,
+but we have already learned enough to indicate the fact that alcohol is
+an enemy of men.
+
+One of the conclusions reached is that alcohol is not, as has so long been
+supposed, a stimulant. It is, instead, really a depressant. The seeming
+increase of vitality which follows its use is entirely deceptive.
+According to fundamental tests, it really robs the body of a measure
+of vitality.
+
+We have long been accustomed to suppose the case otherwise. Even the most
+ardent opponent of liquor has taken for granted its power to stimulate.
+Working upon the basis of this assumption, the medical profession has too
+long taken it for granted that, being a stimulant, alcohol had a proper
+and rightful place in the dispensing of drugs and the practice
+of medicine.
+
+Of course, the use of alcohol is always followed by a certain increase of
+seeming vivacity. The user becomes more talkative, and, up to a certain
+stage, even more active. Whence do these manifestations come, and what is
+their cause, if alcohol depresses rather than stimulates?
+
+They rise directly from the fact that the depressing effect of alcohol
+reaches to the inhibitory centers—the storehouses of self-control. The
+point is, then, that alcohol does not increase the power of action. It
+only decreases the power of self-restraint. The things one does and says
+when under the influence of liquor are simply the things from the doing
+or saying of which he would ordinarily have restrained himself. If he were
+sober, his words and actions would be tempered with good judgment. Under
+the influence of liquor, he has no fear of any kind of risk or trespass.
+
+Some have supposed that these manifestations prove the power of liquor to
+render one temporarily clever. The fact is that the seeming cleverness in
+the actions or words of a tipsy person simply represents the things which,
+as a sober person, he would know better than to do or say.
+
+Each advance in our knowledge of the effect of alcohol upon the human
+system only serves to confirm the old contention that it is a foe of
+efficiency. This is true not only because it tends to deteriorate the
+tissues and organs of the body, but also because it strikes directly at
+the seat of reason as well.
+
+The muscular reflex is dulled. The power to react to sounds and other
+_stimuli_ is distinctly lessened. The memory is affected. The fingers lose
+approximately nine per cent of their deftness. The eye loses about eleven
+per cent of its quickness and accuracy.
+
+These are results following directly upon the effects exerted by alcohol
+upon the brain and nervous system in general. Ordinary men failed to slay
+the hydra of old because they struck only at some one of its many heads.
+It perished only when there came a man who thought to strike at the one
+vital center. Alcohol does not content itself with striking at those parts
+of the physical life which are able to renew themselves or without which
+the life can still go on. It strikes at the seat of all that makes life
+worth while. It stands second in the list of causes of insanity. It
+damages the efficiency of many thousands, however, who never reach the
+stage of complete insanity.
+
+No further words are needed to indicate the truth of the old dictum that
+drink and workmanship do not go together. Each ounce of liquor consumed
+reduces a man’s capacity for skilled labor by a definite and
+unfailing percentage.
+
+It has always been important that a workman should be at his best, but it
+has now come to be more so than ever before. The powers of men are taxed
+in an unusual degree, and processes of production are put upon the most
+severe strain of all their history. In former years, one owed it to
+himself, his family, and his friends to steer clear of alcohol, but his
+obligation is now vastly increased. He owes it to his country and his flag
+as well.
+
+An interesting development concerning the effect of alcohol upon human
+efficiency has come as a result of the military efforts of the last
+several years. It has been proven that liquor makes a poor soldier. This
+is true in spite of the notion that once prevailed to the effect that
+strong drink was a necessity in an army camp. A few cherish that notion
+still, but their tribe steadily decreases.
+
+About six years before the outbreak of the great war, the Bavarian
+ministry of war determined upon a shooting tournament in which the
+participating marksmen were to be under various degrees of the influence
+of alcohol. Thousands of shots were fired, and the results were very
+important and significant from both the military and the human viewpoint.
+
+It was found that a man can not hope, after taking a drink of liquor, to
+shoot with the accuracy that was his before. Under even the slightest
+degrees of intoxication the marksmanship of the participants was lowered,
+in many cases as much as twelve per cent.
+
+The tournament mentioned also emphasized the promptness of the effect of
+alcohol upon the nerves. It was discovered that the influence of a drink
+of liquor begins to manifest itself in a man’s marksmanship almost
+immediately after the beverage is taken. Five minutes suffices in any case
+for the results to begin to show. As moments multiply, the effect is
+increasingly apparent.
+
+As is true of work, war in the latest notable instance is no haphazard
+thing. It requires mechanical accuracy and scientific precision, and it
+can not be successfully carried on by a race of inebriates. However much
+we may hope that warfare will soon be a thing of the past, while it
+remains with us our only hope of escaping death in its awful clutches is
+our disposition and ability to maintain efficient armies. An efficient
+army necessarily means, for one thing, a sober one. Whether in the
+workshop or in the military camp, liquor and efficiency are sworn and
+uncompromising foes.
+
+
+Facing the Future (1919)
+
+
+It has become a common tendency on the part of a certain group of people
+to continually glorify the “good old days.” The type of mind possessed by
+this group sets the past up as a sort of fetish. As it were, they move
+forward with their faces turned backward. Some strange glamour about the
+by-gone days proves irresistibly fascinating. The past is the standard by
+which they judge all things. The present is good or bad to them according
+as it conforms or fails to conform to that standard.
+
+Such a criterion would not be so bad a thing if those who establish it
+only took pains to remember the past as it really was. Such is not the
+case, however. They remember it with all its imperfections omitted. The
+past which they treasure is built of dreams. It held much that was dear
+to them, and it came at the hopeful and exultant period of their lives.
+They therefore treasure its dead years in memory as a sort of acme of
+all the perfections which any age can possess.
+
+This process continues until it becomes a fixed mental habit. It is then
+indulged almost as unconsciously as the drawing of breath. At this point
+in the history of one’s thought-life his standards have become second
+nature. A thing is then proven good if its definite relation to the good
+old days can be established. On the other hand, it is at once proven
+frivolous and superficial if it is shown to originate in the present age.
+
+No real thought process is here involved. The thing is only an assumption
+and is simply taken for granted. It reveals itself in daily conversation.
+It even reveals itself in the language of the sanctuary where the truth is
+assumed to prevail. The truth, however, is never reached by methods of
+prejudice or undue assumption. It is approached by fair and honest habits
+of thought. We need but to look at the facts. If they indicate that the
+old days were better than the new, they must be accepted as dependable
+authority. Whatever the truth may be, it will prevail. We must give it
+right of way, however unwelcome its conclusions may seem. It is as
+changeless as its Creator. We must accept it as we find it, but we dare
+not fail to look first at the facts and form our conclusions accordingly.
+
+Of course, distance lends enchantment to the view. This, however, is not a
+reason for persisting in error. It is one of the facts to be taken into
+consideration in estimating the relative values to be placed upon the
+distant and the near. When a gunner is getting the range of a target an
+angle must be computed between the target and a point at each side of the
+gun. Various conditions which may affect the shot, however, must also be
+considered. Among these are the movement of the target, the condition of
+the atmosphere, and the direction and velocity of the wind. Just such
+influences must also be considered in taking mental aim. The tendency
+mentioned above is one of them.
+
+In some ways it is a fortunate fact that we are prone to forget the sordid
+in the past. It is better that it should be the good rather than the evil
+of past days that is best remembered. This is one of the hopeful elements
+in human nature. It is a fact, nevertheless, that sordid elements existed
+in the ages gone. Each epoch has had its failings, and each generation has
+discovered that life has its seamy side.
+
+It is an interesting commentary on this common human tendency that one of
+the last utterances of George Washington was an expression of regret that
+the spirit of the old times seemed to be passing, and that the tendencies
+of the new age seemed less hopeful and promising. More than a century has
+gone by since this lament was uttered. The world is still having its
+struggles, just as it did then. The prices, the weather, and the
+conditions produced by the war are still making the grounds for daily
+complaint, just as was the case in other days. The race is still achieving
+some progress, however, and most of us still believe that the most
+promising days of civilization are yet to be.
+
+The lament of the passing of the good old days may be found in times more
+remote, however, than even those of George Washington. Some years ago an
+archeological investigator discovered an ancient Egyptian record which,
+when its message had been deciphered, was found to be a complaint that the
+good old days seemed to have passed, and that great uncertainty attached
+to the dawning period which was entirely too different from the past.
+
+So it appears that this regretful attitude is not a new story. Ever since
+human nature has existed these lugubrious things have been said. Only the
+use of the power of reason is necessary, however, to see that the world
+has, after all, made wonderful progress in most things since the writing
+of the old Egyptian records, and even since the days of George Washington.
+
+The past and its real achievements should never be discounted. The present
+owes all that it is to the fact that it is built on ages gone by, and that
+its foundations were so well laid by hands which now rest from their
+labors. All things considered, however, each age has been a little better
+than the age preceding it. It is not proper to say that the old days were
+better than the new, unless it is proper to say that the foundation is
+better than the superstructure. The things that were served simply as the
+basis and preparation for the things that are.
+
+We can appreciate the past without discounting the present. We can also
+glorify the present without discounting the past. Each epoch has had its
+own particular place to fill and each generation has had its own
+particular part to play in the general scheme of things. No age could
+properly be exchanged for any other, nor could any generation properly
+fill another’s place. We must take the facts of history as they are.
+Each age is best for its own time and in its own place.
+
+Certain things are changeless. There are great, abiding quantities which
+necessarily remain the same throughout the years. Human affection, love of
+home, fidelity to a country, ambition for success, and the religious
+instinct are among those things.
+
+While the essential nature of these things is changeless, yet their
+outward manifestation does undergo development. Love remains the same,
+yet men learn how to enlarge its meaning. Patriotism is the same, yet it
+assumes higher forms with advancing standards of national life. The heart
+of religion is changeless, yet religion receives an ever more adequate and
+satisfying interpretation. The new days cannot change the nature of
+abiding things, but they can increase the adaptability of those things to
+human needs.
+
+Our times are not perfect. However, the old days also fell short of
+perfection. Not only did they have their struggles and their failings,
+but those struggles and failings menaced the race just as seriously as
+have any of later days. We too easily forget what the past was like. We
+also fail to take a full inventory of the meaning of the present. All in
+all, it is safe to assume that men are sound at heart. Each age struggles
+on as well as it knows how. We get up the hill a little way and then fall
+back. On the whole, however, we climb a little more distance than
+we tumble.
+
+We are not moving backward from the perfect to the less perfect ages as
+Ovid wrote. We are moving forward to the divine event of which Tennyson
+dreamed. We are tending toward that perfect social condition revealed in
+the visions of the seer of Patmos—a new heaven and a new earth. The past
+was that the best might come. The last of life for which the first was
+made is a racial as well as a personal hope.
+
+
+Life’s Backgrounds (1919)
+
+
+An ancient thinker remarked that life is spent like a tale that is told.
+It might just as truly be said that life is like a picture that is
+painted. It is a series of scenes which, when all are finished, becomes
+a panorama. It demands perspective. In order to have this, it possesses,
+just as does a picture, a foreground, a mid-ground, and a background.
+
+The foreground is simply a bit of nothing in particular. It contributes
+nothing substantial. It is only there to give relief and proportion. It
+does not amount to much, but the picture would not be complete without
+it. Life has some phases which are quite like it. They do not count for
+anything substantial, but they help to furnish a setting for the parts
+that are really important.
+
+The mid-ground contains the real picture. The important figures, objects,
+and action are all there. It corresponds to the toils, the concerns, and
+the achievements which go to make up life. Life’s mid-ground is composed
+of its realities.
+
+The background is the part that stretches away in the distance. It may
+not consist of much. Cloudland, shadows, or distant hills or woods may
+be all it presents to the view. It is that against which the outlines of
+the real picture are cast.
+
+It is a determining factor, for from it the picture seems to spring.
+From such a picture as Millet’s _Angelus_, for instance, take the
+background with its little church from the tower of which the bell is
+calling to prayer, and you have removed the whole motive and explanation
+of the picture itself. A natural harmony exists between the picture and
+its background. The detail cannot appropriately be anything except what
+its background determines that it shall be. The background of life’s
+picture is no less determining.
+
+One of life’s backgrounds is character. This is an invisible thing, but
+the fact that a thing is hidden from the eyes of men does not make it in
+the least less real. There is no means by which it may be measured or
+weighed as other things are, but there is no more potent factor in the
+determination of a life. It may be seldom taken into account in human
+calculations. The practical and workaday world insists that it does not
+care about vague, mystical things. It is only concerned about the
+practical questions of definite action. It only asks what a man can really
+do. This is all very well, but the man himself must not forget that what
+he can do and what he will do are entirely determined by what he is.
+
+Correct conduct of the sustained sort does not come as the result of
+calculation. One may stand upon artificial good behavior for an hour or a
+day, but he cannot do it permanently without the staying force of a fixed
+principle. It takes more than good resolutions to make an ethical life.
+One must more than have an axe to grind if he expects to deport himself
+well in any constant way. No matter what the reward may be, the lure of
+reward alone cannot lastingly elevate life to a high grade of ability and
+action. Whitewash cannot change the fact of hidden faultiness. The heart
+of a thing alone reveals the truth.
+
+The hands of a clock do not have to stop and figure their course and
+speed. If they did, they would be forever getting out of harmony with
+their purpose and with one another. They are moved and regulated by
+machinery which the ordinary observer does not see. The world only asks to
+be told what time it is, but the hands of the clock could not give the
+information were there not maintained a background of mechanism operating
+according to fixed and permanent principles. In this regard the clock is a
+very good analogy of a life.
+
+Another of life’s backgrounds is preparation. How one really conducts
+himself is largely a question of whether or not he is prepared to do the
+right thing. Opportunity does not fail anyone, but a great many people
+fail opportunity by not being prepared for it when it arrives. They may
+seize their chances, but they do not perform their part well because they
+have not gotten themselves ready in mind, hand, or soul. An attempt to
+play any worthy part in life without proper preparation gives the same
+general impression as does a picture without a background.
+The result is unsatisfying.
+
+Not all of life’s preparation can be specific. It is well enough to make
+specific preparation for the expected task of a given day. That specific
+preparation is at its best, however, only when it is backed up with a
+strong general preparation. This general background of preparation cannot
+be made in a day. It is the result of sustained reading, thinking, and
+trying throughout the years.
+
+Pliny the Elder used to have books read to him during every spare moment.
+When working at a sawmill, Daniel Webster used to carry reading matter
+with which to occupy himself to advantage during the three-minute periods
+required for the log-carriage to pass the saw. These men were merely
+hanging backgrounds for action when the time should come to act.
+Its fabric was woven of thought, knowledge, and personality.
+
+A musical artist, when asked the secret of his success, remarked that
+before anyone can expect to be an artist he must first expect to be a
+drudge. This principle holds good in everything. Whoever succeeds must
+carry a cross of self-denial. The public will suppose that he does his
+work with ease. Few will suspect his toils and sacrifices. He will,
+however, pay dearly for all the genius he acquires. While others sleep
+he will work, building the background from which will some day burst the
+outlines of worthy achievement.
+
+Another of life’s backgrounds is its relationships. In greater measure
+than many will suspect, the things we are and do will always spring from
+the influence of the friends we have had and the loves we have known.
+The ties that bind us to the hearts of others are the cables that help to
+drag us toward the dust or to lift us in the direction of the heights.
+
+Back of the lives of the great, the despicable, and the insignificant
+alike, even back of the great deeds and movements of history, one can
+detect the presence of the silent shadows of those who have made or
+marred. As the kindly old teacher built his own soul into the life of
+Geordie Hoo, the “Lad o’ Pairts,” so has someone spoken of his or her
+own spirit into the lives of each of us.
+
+So is life’s picture painted. We are often so busy that we forget the
+background, but when we think about it we see again the faces that have
+smiled, the hands that have lifted, the toils that have helped, the
+qualities that have steadied and impelled.
+
+Without its background a picture would be a lone bit of detail without
+perspective or relief. A life cannot be so. We are not unrelated beings.
+Our lives are linked with all the generations of all the ages. We are in
+league with all that has being. We are the products of the ages past and
+the forces present. Powers seen and unseen have largely made us what
+we are.
+
+
+The New Philosophy (1920)
+
+
+Old ideals and purposes have undergone sweeping revision. The very social
+structure has proved obsolete and is being reorganized.
+
+In the general process of readjustment, the various lines of thought and
+knowledge have not remained unaffected. Particularly have the more
+speculative subjects undergone a decided change in their dominant spirit
+and motive. Without exception, they have been brought down from the
+ethereal levels of their former dwelling-places and have been made to
+deal with the practical things of a practical world. This has been
+particularly true of Philosophy.
+
+The present period has, in fact, marked a revolutionary point in the
+history of that subject. We have faced many stern crises during the last
+few years, and it is natural that they should be reflected in our
+thinking. The necessity of meeting these crises has forced our thinking
+into definite, practical, and original channels. In our time of need we
+found that, while the old formulae had possessed their value, they did
+not offer sufficient help for the problems of the new day. There was
+nothing to do but to formulate new ones that were vital in their bearing
+upon our problems now.
+
+A hint at the new spirit of Philosophy is given in the fact that the
+title of the presidential address before the American Philosophical
+Association at its 1916 meeting was: “On Some Conditions of Progress in
+Philosophical Enquiry.” This title suggests that the new outlook is
+forward rather than backward, and that the philosophical searchlight is
+now turned outward as well as inward. It indicates the fact that
+philosophers feel a growing realization that advancement is the proper
+aim of human endeavor, and that the vital problem of Philosophy is
+human welfare and progress.
+
+The older Philosophy was scientifically productive only in a measurable
+degree. It spent itself somewhat too largely in unprofitable contentions.
+It had a great many exceptional minds working at random on many problems,
+but it lacked a definite and commonly accepted plan of co-operative
+investigation. The old Philosophy was largely an art. The new is
+altogether a science.
+
+The last few years, with their turmoil and suffering, have brought the
+thinking world to understand that Philosophy holds great potentiality as
+a determining factor in national and world affairs. The pressure of the
+world conditions which lately existed, and which in a measure still exist,
+has generated a proof of this statement. We have had a perfect flood of
+books and articles on the subject of Philosophy as it applies in the
+social and political fields.
+
+We could not have looked intelligently upon the events of 1914 and the
+several years preceding without seeing the power of Philosophy in the
+shaping of national ideals. Germany’s policy throughout the war was the
+direct result of the philosophy which has for years been taught in the
+German schools and encouraged by the German government. A wrong philosophy
+can lead a nation to its ruin within the space of a few generations.
+A worthy one can as promptly and definitely determine a nation’s
+progress and happiness.
+
+Possibly the majority of people dream, as some have long done, of some day
+making this a peaceful planet. If we ever achieve such an end, we shall
+have to do it through the establishment of a peaceful philosophy. The
+thinkers of a nation sow the seeds. The people sooner or later harvest the
+fruit. One of the most vital problems now confronting the philosopher is
+that of giving to the world a sane basis for peace. This involves a system
+of right human and international relationships. It involves also an
+adequate plan for social reconstruction.
+
+These are things for which the world must depend upon its thinkers.
+Fortunately, its thinkers realize their duty and are already busy at their
+task. Philosophical writing in books and periodicals indicates a common
+tendency to emphasize the forward look in a spirit of genuine concern for
+social progress. This is the normal result of a social unrest which seeks
+the realization of a safe and dependable international ideal.
+
+Philosophy has entered very largely into the making of the life of the
+various nations. Social life is, however, a sort of chambered nautilus
+which one by one outgrows the barriers of earlier customs and conceptions.
+The time seems now to have arrived when national ideals can be best
+realized through co-operation in some form of international union. This
+new social life, organized according to a world plan, Philosophy is
+struggling to help actualize.
+
+The fact that this is one of the supreme concerns of present-day thinking
+is indicated in the general theme for discussion at the meeting of the
+American Association held in December of 1917. It was: “Ethics and
+International Relations.”
+
+Nor is America the only country in which this leavening process of
+philosophical inquiry has been in progress. It is also very noticeable
+in the trend of French thought. Indeed the burden of contemporary French
+Philosophy is largely to the effect that the proper goal of the French
+Nationalism of yesterday is to be found in the dawning Internationalism
+of tomorrow.
+
+If it continues long enough, the thinking of any nation or group of
+nations crystallizes into definite and actual form. The material result
+of the internationalistic trend of thinking and agitation of the various
+countries involved will have been an inciting cause. The present ideal
+will remain dominant until a larger and more adequate one is found.
+
+It is interesting to note how the general recasting of philosophical
+thought is reflected in the new nomenclature which has now grown familiar
+to the philosophical pen. In the vocabulary of the modern philosopher,
+such words as democracy, humanity, fraternity, and liberty are apparent.
+The modern idea is, moreover, not merely to discuss these things but also
+to apply them.
+
+A great nation or a great race is dependent upon the performance of great
+actions proceeding from great motives. The fact that Philosophy is more
+and more a program of action is indicative of our future. Not all the
+questions of Philosophy are political or social, either. It has taken a
+fresh hold upon the equally vital problems of Ethics and Religion. Lately,
+men have been obliged to face serious questions. The trend of Philosophy
+indicates that they are trying to answer them and to gauge their actions
+by the truth arrived at. The result will be a more satisfactory, adequate,
+and serviceable idea of such facts as those of God, Right, Religion, and
+Providence. Each fiber of the social structure will reveal the effects of
+the new enthusiasm now evident in the field of the Philosophy of Religion.
+
+Psychology, closely related as it is to Philosophy, presents much the same
+present-day aspect. It reveals what is called a behavioristic turn.
+Pragmatism seems to be having its day. In this busy, exacting, problematic
+time, the world wants results, and it means to cling only to that which
+can produce them.
+
+We must not forget, however, that Realism is never wholly at its best when
+unmixed with Idealism. The physical and the metaphysical are not only
+mutually dependent, but they are two different phases of the same thing.
+The basis of the new order will not be exclusively material. In it, both
+the seen and the unseen world will have their place and consideration.
+
+Mind and matter will not be rivals. Hope and achievement will be partners.
+The things of the spirit and those of sense will be jointly supreme.
+
+
+The Sense of the Human (1920)
+
+
+In his book, “What Men Live By,” Dr. Richard C. Cabot makes what might be
+called a plea for the sense of the human. In speaking of the peril of
+looking on individuals in terms of sex rather than in terms of
+personality, he carries the matter a little farther. He says the physician
+should not look on a patient as merely a sort of walking disease, that the
+teacher should not think of the student as merely a piece of raw material
+for the educative process, and that the lawyer should see more in his
+client than a case at law.
+
+The point is clear. It is that we need to treasure the sense of the human,
+to keep alive a proper estimate of the human values, and to fulfil our
+obligation to the thinking, toiling, feeling people about us. People are
+the one great concern for one’s mind. Humanity is the center of all
+creation, and the proper object of all our striving.
+
+There is much in the world about us that is more or less negligible. We
+have to do with it. It plays its part in our daily round of life. It
+seems necessary in the scheme of things that we have established.
+Yet there is nothing permanent or supremely vital about it.
+
+These negligible things, however, do not include the human beings with
+whom we associate and with whom we have to deal. They belong to an
+altogether different class of interests. Humanity is one of the few
+everlasting things in the swiftly changing picture of this world’s
+temporary landscape. Moreover, it is the one thing which reacts with
+suffering when it is wronged, and is thrilled with joy at the deed of
+kindness. Humanity, therefore, is our great concern. We need to keep
+the sense of it very clear and responsive.
+
+It is important that we look further than the cheap and often sordid glare
+which surrounds us. Beyond it we can always behold a sea of human faces.
+Each represents a person who shares the common lot of humanity. Each has
+his hopes, joys, fears, struggles, and anxieties. There are among them
+many unwritten stories of heroism, many unvoiced pleadings of need, many
+unsuspected opportunities for service. There is no measuring the
+possibilities hidden in that circle of faces.
+
+Daily we see people about us without realizing their presence and what it
+means. This is altogether possible, for seeing and realizing are two
+entirely different things. One may see a rose by his path every morning
+for days or every summer for many seasons, and yet never be really
+impressed with its beauty. One morning he stops and notes its form, and
+color, and perfume. His soul reaches out in answer to its silent message.
+On this particular morning he has not only seen, but he has also realized
+the presence of the rose.
+
+In the same way we need to realize the presence of people about us. If we
+did so, we would see that we have with them a great mutuality of interest
+and need. We would realize the tenderness of their hearts, the worth of
+their lives, the presence of the immortal image upon them.
+
+The sense of the human must be kept uppermost in our relation to money and
+money-making. If it is not, one soon gets into the wrong relation to his
+money, and it becomes a curse when it might as well have been a blessing.
+
+This is a point at which many make a serious mistake. They enter life with
+the right viewpoint and understand that money is only a means to the
+happiness and well-being of people. As time goes on, however, their plans
+and purposes get out of adjustment. They become guilty of the fatal
+assumption that people are a means to the making of money. Accordingly,
+they keep wages at too low a level; sacrifice the lives of men to bad air,
+poor working conditions, and dangerous machinery; and subordinate the
+interests of living human beings to the declaring of dividends.
+
+Not only do they assume this perilous attitude toward others, but they
+also assume the same attitude toward themselves and their families. They
+have simply allowed money to get into the position of an end instead of
+that of a means. It has become a fetish instead of a convenience.
+
+The trouble is largely a lost sense of the human. The man who succumbs to
+this common temptation takes love, hope, kindliness, and human
+appreciation from the high pedestal which they should by right occupy,
+and puts a golden idol in their place.
+
+The value of a dollar is measured by its power to make life more worth
+living for some human being. The more people it can make comfortable and
+happy the more valuable it is. When it is appropriated to any other
+purpose, it is removed from its right relationship to the general scheme
+of things. As an end within itself, it is not worth the struggle it costs
+in the acquiring. Its one business is to purchase comfort for and render
+service to people.
+
+The sense of the human is also necessary in the administration of
+government. Throughout the ages, there have been two dominating ideas of
+empire. One is the autocratic idea, and the other is the democratic idea.
+The former has held that the state exists for the sake of itself and its
+rulers. The latter has held that the state exists for the good of its
+population. The former has steadily lost ground. The latter has as
+steadily gained it.
+
+A certain French monarch is said to be the author of the declaration:
+“I am the state.” Whether he said it or not, there have been plenty of
+national leaders in history whose deeds would indicate their faith in such
+a governmental philosophy. From the first, such a race has been destined
+to perish. There is no place in the modern conception of government for
+any regime which does not strive to better the condition of the people
+within its scope of power. In these times we see with increasing clearness
+that there is but one worthy conception of kingliness, and that it is the
+kingliness of service. Incidentally, against such there are
+no revolutions.
+
+A good public official thinks often of the eyes that are turned in his
+direction to see what he is going to do, of the lives that depend upon
+his action for much of their peace and contentment, of the children who
+must have food, of the aged who must have shelter, and of the struggling
+who must have encouragement. To him, the people are not simply something
+to govern. They are human beings, the mission of whose government is to
+see that each of them has his complete opportunity in life.
+
+Nowhere in these days do we need more to have the sense of the human keen
+and operative than in our industrial system. It is a question worth asking
+whether we would have our present industrial turmoils if the men who buy
+labor and the men who sell it would make a serious effort to know and
+understand one another. It seems that most of the trouble and strife of
+this world is the result of a lack of mutual human understanding.
+Capitalists and laboring men segregate themselves in different
+neighborhoods, churches, lodges, and social circles. They need to mingle
+on a common basis, be in one another’s homes, know one another’s families,
+and enter into the spirit each of the others’ joys and troubles.
+
+One is certainly not religiously heterodox when he contends for such a
+principle. Nothing stands out more clearly in the philosophy of the Man of
+Galilee than this particular ideal. The emphasis of Jesus was upon the
+human being. He held all men in much the same esteem, for to Him a human
+being was inherently worthy of respect and honor. His friends were a
+varied group. He could meet a tax collector, a fisherman, an erring
+Samaritan woman, a rich host, a conscience-stricken tradesman, an
+afflicted sufferer, a sinful woman, or a little child, and make each one
+feel that they had found a friend. When we learn to be like Him, we shall
+possess the same viewpoint.
+
+
+The Holy Spirit and Social Viewpoint (1922)
+
+
+It is the idea of some that the old Methodist standard of personal
+experience is a mere individualistic viewpoint, and that it is inadequate
+because it sounds no social note. They feel that the visitation of the
+Divine Spirit will do well enough for the man, but that it has no
+provision for the group. It will do for a personal experience but not for
+a mass movement, they say. This is one of the mistakes that has led to
+the present lack of emphasis on the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
+That it is a mistake is easy to see on second thought.
+
+The salvation of the group can only be accomplished by the salvation of
+the individuals who compose it. One by one we must come to the throne of
+grace. One by one we must confess our sins and seek pardon. One by one we
+must have our hearts transformed. One by one we must go back to the ways
+of existence and live anew. A righteous community, state, or nation is
+only a group of individuals wearing, each for himself, the clean,
+white garments of right living.
+
+However, the Holy Spirit can possess the mind of the group as well as that
+of the individual. It was so on the Day of Pentecost. Those present
+entered into that great spiritual experience as one person. They were
+gathered with one accord in one place. These are the two conditions to any
+such manifestation of divine power. They felt the experience more keenly
+and profited from it more largely because their minds were fused into a
+common consciousness.
+
+The social gospel needs the Holy Spirit element in it just as much as the
+individualistic gospel ever did. As we once tried to have the Holy Spirit
+transform hearts, and still must, so too we must now endeavor to have the
+Holy Spirit cleanse and exalt social relationships. What it once did for
+the man, and still does, we must also seek that it shall do for the mass.
+
+
+Civilization (1929)
+
+
+A visitor from Mars found his way to the planet Earth. Needless to say, he
+found plenty of things here to interest him. Many questions occurred to
+him. Some of them he asked. Others, being a gentleman, he kept in the
+silence of his own thoughts.
+
+He noticed that the earth people had a haggard and hunted look. On the
+street he looked in vain for happy faces. Eyes were dull and tired.
+Features were drawn and hard. Steps were either quick with nervous
+ambition or slow with lagging weariness.
+
+He asked about it, and was told that these people were working very long
+hours. Many of them had very exacting positions to fill during the regular
+working hours of the day, performing the duties incident to some other
+line of work evenings, odd hours, and holidays. Those who did not do this
+had to work hard all day, then help themselves along in business by
+seeking profitable and advantageous social contacts in the evening. They
+were often too tired, yet they and their families had to force themselves
+to it.
+
+The visitor from Mars asked why people punished themselves in such a way,
+struggling to get in another hour, earn another dollar, see another
+prospect, or sell another customer, before quitting for the day; denying
+themselves and their families the joy of companionship; driving on when
+they longed for blue skies, green fields, laughing waters, and roses.
+
+“They must make money,” was the answer. “There is a standard of living to
+be kept up, family position to maintain, children to push along. The
+country is developing. Skyscrapers are going up. Science, invention, and
+discovery are putting all kinds of new and wonderful things at our
+disposal. Its weight is upon us. It increases, for each year we think we
+must do better and have more. The competition is keen and fierce.
+It drives us hard.”
+
+“I see,” said the visitor from Mars. “And what do you call this giant
+thing you have built up with which to crush yourselves?”
+
+“Civilization,” was the reply.
+
+
+The Road Uphill (1929)
+
+
+One day in the year 520 B. C., Zechariah was preaching in Jerusalem. He
+had been in Babylon during the great captivity, and had returned with
+some other Jews in the hope of rebuilding the ruined capital and
+beginning anew their broken national life. He asked the younger people
+to avoid the sins which in their fathers had wrought all this ruin. He
+meant that in successively better generations is the road uphill for
+the race.
+
+One day I met a father who was some twelve inches shorter than his
+accompanying son. The difference was the more conspicuous in that they
+were close companions. Some one referred to it, and the father replied
+that he considered it was as it should be—each generation a little taller
+than the preceding one. I knew what he meant. He had seen where lies the
+road uphill.
+
+In 1714, in a little English tavern, a boy was born who was destined to
+affect the history of religion. George Whitefield was brought up cleaning
+floors and selling drink to the rough frequenters of his father’s tavern.
+He worked his way through Oxford since his parents were little concerned
+with such matters. He lived to make hearts tremble with his prophetic
+voice and to plant undying works of Christian service and benevolence. He
+pushed a little ahead of what his parents were. That is the road uphill.
+
+During the presidency of General Grant, an old sailor went to the White
+House to object that the naval department had promoted his son to a place
+of authority above him, saying that it would not look right to be taking
+orders from his own son. The President replied that he had just appointed
+his father, Jesse Grant, postmaster in a little town in a distant state,
+and that he did not seem to mind taking orders from his own son.
+Jesse Grant had seen the road uphill.
+
+One day in a Nazarene synagogue, Mary’s Son stood up and read from the
+Book of Isaiah His own commission to proclaim the kingdom of God. His
+human heritage was a long line of choice ancestors, but He had surpassed
+all those behind Him in the line. He was traveling and leading His race
+along the road uphill.
+
+
+Some Stories About Beethoven (1915)
+
+
+The world of art remembers two figures which are especially pathetic, and
+for similar reasons. One is that of Homer, the bard, living in a world the
+beauties of which he loved but could not see. The other is that of
+Beethoven, the musician, living in the midst of harmonies which he loved
+but which were denied to his unhearing ears. A great soul may be better
+able than others to fortify itself against the terrors of misfortune, but
+it is at the same time more keenly sensitive to them. Blindness is more of
+a tragedy to one who would more especially love and appreciate beauty,
+could he see it. Deafness is more of a tragedy to one whose ears feel a
+special hunger for the harmonies of sound.
+
+Ludwig van Beethoven was not only the greatest master of the classical
+school in music. He was also one of the strong and unique personalities of
+his day. He was not a puppet who fell a slave to usage and custom. The
+outlines of his nature were clear and bold. He acted with no uncertain
+meaning and spoke with no uncertain sound. That he was wholly original and
+self-reliant is shown in many incidents, the record of which has been
+preserved from among his busy and eventful years.
+
+For him mere conventionalities had no terrors. When the law of established
+custom seemed just and sufficient, he observed it. When it did not, he
+became a law unto himself. He placed the claims of life, right, and truth
+in a place of supremacy over all other claims. One of his pupils,
+Ferdinand Ries, once attempted to convince him of the impropriety of
+certain use he had made of consecutive fifths in one of his compositions.
+During the discussion Ries called attention to a number of composers who
+had forbidden their use in the manner under discussion. When Ries had
+finished, Beethoven replied with spirit, “And they have forbidden them!
+Well, I allow them.”
+
+As has been said, self-reliance was one of the strongest elements in his
+nature. At one time, Moscheles, the Austrian composer, prepared a piano
+arrangement of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and sent it to him with the
+inscription “With God’s help” written upon it. When it came back to the
+hand of Moscheles, he found that the master had written upon it the reply,
+“O man, help thyself.”
+
+He possessed of a genial nature and a happy sense of humor. When a music
+student in Vienna, he had three teachers at the same time, each one of
+whom was a great name in music. Under one of them, Schuppanzigh, he
+studied violin. His relations with this instructor were especially
+pleasant—more so than those which prevailed between him and at least one
+of the others. As time passed, the teacher revealed an increasing
+tendency to corpulence, whereupon Beethoven took up the habit of
+addressing him as “My Lord Falstaff.”
+
+A high appreciation of purely personal qualities was a part of Beethoven’s
+makeup. To him these constituted the only true fortune. He had a brother,
+Johann, who had become wealthy, and whose worldly success had acted so
+unfortunately upon his nature that his pride and arrogance had become
+somewhat unduly swollen. One day this brother called on the composer and
+did not find him at home. He left a card bearing this inscription,
+“Johann van Beethoven, Land Proprietor.” Upon returning home and receiving
+the card, the musician promptly returned it to his brother with the added
+words, “Ludwig van Beethoven, Brain Proprietor.”
+
+On another occasion, a stranger mistook the word Van in his name for the
+common sign of nobility. When addressed as a nobleman, he revealed his
+true spirit of democracy by laying his hand first upon his head and then
+upon his heart and replying that whatever claim to nobility he had lay at
+those two points.
+
+His temper was strong but not unjust. When his heart was touched rightly,
+it rose in great pity and devotion. When touched wrongly, it flamed up
+like a meteor of wrath. On one occasion, at least, he threw aside all
+restraint for the moment. One evening at a rehearsal, Beethoven’s patron,
+Prince Lobkowitz, ventured an assertion which grated very severely upon
+the composer’s sensibilities. At the end of the performance Beethoven is
+said to have run into the yard of his patron’s palace and to have shouted
+insult and ridicule at the man who, in his opinion, had committed so great
+an impropriety.
+
+He was not only a great composer and conductor, but a great pianist as
+well. He was also keenly sensitive as to his art and highly exacting in
+regard to the attitude of others toward it. Once when, in a private home,
+he was playing a duet with his pupil, Ferdinand Ries, two persons
+disturbed the performance by conversation. He immediately ceased playing
+and would neither play nor allow Ries to do so again during the evening.
+
+His music was to him an absorbing passion. No matter in what capacity he
+might be ministering at its shrine, he always did so with entire devotion.
+About 1813 an incident occurred in which his entire self-forgetfulness in
+his work caused him to play a ludicrous part. He was playing one of his
+own compositions in a public concert when he so far forgot himself as to
+think he conducting instead of playing. Leaving his seat, he began
+violently directing. He knocked the lights from the piano. Two boys were
+directed to hold the lights while the managers and audience waited for the
+seemingly mad man to become quiet. One of the boys, light and all, was
+soon floored by a blow in the mouth from the swinging arm of the musician.
+The other boy dodged and ducked in his efforts to escape a like fate,
+while the audience roared with mirth.
+
+Beethoven had a certain admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte as a soldier and
+statesman. The symphony now known as “Eroica” was written in Napoleon’s
+honor and was to bear his name. About the time of the completion of the
+first score, which was to be sent to the Corsican, the word came that its
+subject had proclaimed itself emperor. Beethoven at once tore the title
+from the score and changed the name of the composition to “Eroica.” Upon
+Napoleon’s death, he remarked that the symphony contained the funeral
+march of the conqueror.
+
+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.
+
+There is no getting further on the pathway to the higher life until one
+has first realized his own situation. So long as he pities himself and
+occupies his mind with finding excuses for his own shortcomings, there is
+little hope for him. When he sees himself a sinner, the heavenward gates
+suddenly swing open. The picture of Jean Valjean seated on a stone,
+weeping bitter tears over his sins, is nothing but a powerful sermon on
+the old-time doctrine which taught the necessity of conviction as a step
+on the road to conversion. Jean Valjean stood convicted in the court of
+God. That made him a candidate for divine mercy. The mercy was not
+withheld. It is so with us all. There is too little real conviction of
+sin in these days. We need the mirror held before us.
+
+Jean Valjean had shared in the experience of Isaiah many centuries before.
+When an invisible hand swept aside the curtains that hid the divine glory
+from human gaze, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting in his glory in the temple.
+Its effect was normal. It forced upon the man a sense of the distressing
+contrast between himself and what he saw. Consequently, he cried out that
+he was undone because of his uncleanness. Before the scene was over, he
+received the dross-destroying touch which made him fit to be a servant of
+his Lord. The redemption of Isaiah, too, began with a sense of his
+own sinfulness.
+
+The years pass, and Jean Valjean reappears upon the surface of social
+life. He has begun life anew in the town of M. sur M. under another name.
+He is now Father Madeleine, the head of a large manufacturing
+establishment, the mayor of his city, and known among his people as a
+gentle-hearted and saintly character.
+
+He is in his room at night, pacing back and forth. His step is nervous,
+his face is feverish, his breast is heaving. There is every indication
+that he is fighting a great battle. Hugo calls this scene, “The Tempest
+in a Skull.”
+
+An old man has been taken in the streets. Under suspicion of being the
+long-lost criminal, Jean Valjean, he is under arrest and about to be
+committed to the galleys. The question which confronts the prosperous
+and honored mayor of M. sur M. is evident. For him, the conflict is
+between the choice of wealth, ease, and honor and that of confession,
+disgrace, and the prison. He must decide whether he himself will answer
+to the charge society has against him, or whether he will avail himself
+of the opportunity to let an innocent man suffer in his place.
+
+As the hours pass, the question is settled as an honorable man must
+necessarily settle it. The tempest subsides. He seeks the courtroom,
+makes himself known, and sees the old man set at liberty. He has
+accomplished the next great step in his redemption by conquering himself.
+
+This is one of the severest tests to which any man is ever put. It is also
+one which many fail to meet. It is easier to overcome others than to
+conquer oneself. Noah proved the hero of the flood, then failed to be
+sufficiently master of himself to keep sober when he had planted a
+vineyard. Men sometimes lead conquering armies and then fall victims to
+their own weaknesses and passions. Yet there is no truer greatness than
+that which comes from self-mastery. The ruler of his own spirit is greater
+than the conqueror of a city. The mastery of self may be costly. It was in
+the case of Jean Valjean. However, it is a necessary step on the
+upward road.
+
+In the next significant scene, we see Jean Valjean, once more at liberty,
+slipping along a street of Paris holding the hand of a little girl. He has
+taken under his protection the orphan child of an unfortunate woman who
+worked in his factory at M. sur M. It has been many years since he has had
+any one upon whom to lavish his affection. The child receives all the love
+so long unreleased from his soul. He serves her as a real parent would do,
+as her mother would do had not grim circumstances robbed her of her life.
+She shares in his vicissitudes and dangers, but he sees her safely through
+to a beautiful womanhood.
+
+As Father Madeline, mayor of M. sur M., Jean Valjean was a notably good
+man. Now he becomes a saint. There is no quality of tender-heartedness and
+no spirit of self-sacrifice which he does not possess. He has attained to
+the glory of a beautiful old age, an old age made beautiful by the
+presence within of a noble soul. On the last lap of the journey, he has
+been led by a little child. If the influence of a child will not call out
+the tenderness planted in the human constitution, then nothing will. Jean
+Valjean yields to its influence. He accomplishes the third stage in his
+redemption when he gives himself away.
+
+The human heart must have something to love and something to which to
+cling. It is never at its best until it does. Much of the divinity planted
+in these hardened lives of ours is imprisoned until it finds some object
+of affection to draw it out. The lily of life never comes to the fullness
+of its bloom until the heart has found someone to love, to toil for, to
+sacrifice for. Silas Marner found that influence in little Eppie, who came
+to take the place of his paltry and failing gold. Jean Valjean found it
+in Cosette.
+
+The human tendency is to make self the centre of the universe. It is plain
+that one can never arrive at his best until he recovers from this
+tendency. To have the stars and planets revolve about oneself means a
+small, narrow, constricted, and embittered life. The end is failure and
+disappointment. One must live for more than self, or he never lives
+at all.
+
+
+Eulogy for Joseph E. Henley [excerpt] (1924)
+
+
+I hope I do not err in my analysis of him when I say that it seems to me
+that the great immediate contribution to the community and the world made
+by Mr. Henley was that of kindliness. I do not know how carefully he had
+weighed and compared human values, but it does seem quite clear that in
+this he brought as his gift the one thing the world needs most and has
+least. We have beautiful temples, stately liturgies, comprehensive creeds,
+pretentious programs, strong organizations—but we have none too much of
+simple human kindness. Perhaps he saw that and resolved to leave the world
+a little richer in gentleness. If so, he has succeeded in his purpose.
+
+
+The Corner Stones of Life (1925)
+Ephesians 2:20–22
+
+
+In _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_, Ruskin has likened the principles of
+that art to those of life. Longfellow declares that, “All are architects
+of fate, working in these walls of time.” Paul speaks of us as God’s
+building. This is a proper and significant figure. A great architect has
+named the four corner stones of a rightly constructed building. They are
+also the four corner stones of a rightly constructed life.
+
+I. The first is careful planning. Back of the actual building is always
+the blue print, carefully and laboriously made. Back of the blue print is
+the dream that has allowed a place for every part of the structure. Back
+of the dream is a soul that knows beauty and proportion. A life may be
+less beautiful than planned, for some plans fail, but it will never be
+more so.
+
+II. The second is careful construction. What will it cost? What aid shall
+be employed? What methods of building shall be followed? Much slipshod
+work may be done and successfully covered up, but it detracts just that
+much from the value of the finished product. Our fathers knew how to
+build. Houses they reared still stand while more modern ones have fallen.
+May it not be said that our fathers also knew better than we do how to
+build lives?
+
+III. The third is good materials. Here is where deception is especially
+easy. Poor materials can be worked in, [but] they cannot be made to stand
+the test of time. Any product that has in it only the very best of
+materials suggests just one thing—character. It is the same with a life.
+Incidentally, may it not be assumed that one will live in direct
+proportion to the endurance of the materials of which he builds his life?
+
+IV. The fourth corner stone is correct decoration. These are things that
+could be left off, but the omission of which would leave the product less
+beautiful and worthy. One is culture. One is knowledge. One is religious
+consecration and ideals. One might exist without them, but life could
+never mean so much.
+
+
+Eulogy for Sanford F. Teter [excerpt] (1928)
+
+
+...when Sanford Teter was suddenly stricken with what seemed to be
+impending death, he went under the anaesthetic for the intricate and
+serious surgical operation which so marvelously prolonged his life....
+
+He recovered sufficiently for twelve additional years of courageous and
+victorious living. Surely those twelve years had their providential
+purpose. They were years which constituted an additional period of service
+for him. They were years in which he made himself a benediction to
+his friends.
+
+But those twelve years constituted his fiercest and most fiery trial. A
+brave man is not afraid to die. There are many who can go down into the
+edge of the valley, not knowing whether they shall ever return, and yet
+not flinch nor falter. But, though the facing of what may be imminent
+death requires great courage, it requires greater courage on the part of
+a strong man to sit by the window for twelve years watching the rest of
+the world go by without being able to join in its activity. He longed with
+all the power of an intense spirit to be at work, to be moving among his
+friends, to be sharing in the life of a world of enterprise and endeavor.
+Not to be able to do so was a real trial by fire for him, but he came out
+unscathed by its flame. Life exacted a heavy price from him, but he paid
+it with a smile. There is no bitterness on this quiet face that lies
+before us, because there was no bitterness in his heart. He passed through
+the fire, but he did not let it burn away his courage....
+
+
+Is Prohibition Paternalistic? (1919)
+
+
+The history of temperance reform is largely a story of vilification. Those
+who have championed it have been steadily accused by the promoters of the
+liquor industry. They have resorted to these things for the want of better
+arguments. When mind reaches its limit it often abdicates in favor of
+temper. Argument exhausted, the stores of abuse are open. The liquor
+interests have drawn an utterly impossible picture of the temperance
+reformer, and have tried to create in the public mind a complete
+misconception of his purpose and motive.
+
+The reform agitator may not always have fully appreciated the viewpoint of
+the man on the other side of the question. It is certain that the latter
+has seldom given much evidence of appreciating the position of the
+agitator. Whether or not it has been intentional, most of the protests
+coming from the liquor interests have originated in a misunderstanding of
+the attitude of the people who are striving for a sober land.
+
+This misunderstanding was unnecessary. It would also have been impossible
+had really earnest and sincere thought been given the question. Thinking
+is not always the order of the day, however, when either profit or
+appetite is involved. There are still many people to whom life simply
+means blind following of the crowd and meek obedience to the dictates of
+superficial opinion. Comparatively few are accustomed to apply the keen
+edge of reason to each proposition. Had more defenders of the saloon
+cultivated this habit, the liquor problem would have perished of anaemia.
+
+One of the cries raised in the rather recent past was that no sumptuary
+legislation should be permitted. Political parties were in the habit of
+writing into their platforms from year to year the statement that they
+were opposed to all such enactment. This declaration seldom failed to
+garner a harvest of votes from the self-styled liberal element.
+
+It was cheap and easy to make such a declaration, but it would not have
+been so easy to bolster it up with any reasonable defence. In the light
+of deeper thought, such a position appears not only unreasonable and
+ridiculous, but vicious and perilous as well.
+
+Were one to search the criminal code from the beginning to the end he
+could find no law which does not partake of the sumptuary nature. In one
+way or another, each provision sets a limit for human liberty. Each tells
+the citizen of a thing which he may not do and remain safe from the hand
+of the law. It does not do so because society wants to prescribe the
+rules of private conduct to be followed by any individual member. It does
+so because it must protect its peaceful members against the trespasses of
+those who do not regard the rights of others.
+
+The law against burglary, for instance, is really a sumptuary measure. It
+limits liberty at the point of taking the property of other people. No one
+complains of the injustice of such a law. The menace of burglary, however,
+does not compare with the menace which the saloon system has been.
+
+The law which prevents one man from selling and another from buying
+powerful narcotic and poisonous drugs is also a sumptuary provision. It
+limits human liberty at the point of eating and drinking. Seldom does any
+one complain about it. No other poison, however, has occupied so prominent
+a place and wrought such widespread havoc as has alcohol.
+
+The saloonkeeper has harmed society more than has the burglar. He should
+therefore suffer at least an equal degree of restraint. Liquor has worked
+more damage than has any other article of common sale. There is,
+therefore, no reason why its manufacture and sale should not be affected
+by at least the same safeguards as those surrounding the manufacture and
+distribution of other dangerous drugs.
+
+A kindred complaint from the liquor champions has been that the government
+shows increasing signs of the spirit of paternalism. The contention is
+that the prohibition reformer represents a meddlesome class who want to
+control the lives of others. As is the case with the first claim
+mentioned, this proposition needs but a second look. No proper government
+and no thoughtful citizen desires the mere power to control the conduct
+of other people. Especially have we tried to foster the spirit of freedom
+in America. No one who loves his country wants unduly to destroy or
+interfere with the liberty for which the nation stands.
+
+The word freedom, however, must not suffer a wrong interpretation. Freedom
+needs to recognize its own proper limits, and it will do so in any
+properly organized social system. Such a measure as the prohibition of the
+manufacture and sale of liquor is not paternalism. It is merely the
+protection of the individual by the group.
+
+The only freedom which any man, good or bad, can justly claim is the
+freedom which ends at the point of injury to another. No one has any right
+to deny such a measure of liberty to any man. No one has the right to
+claim any measure of liberty beyond it.
+
+The reformers so often accused of efforts at paternalism have really had
+no thought of limiting the freedom of any one beyond this line of
+democratic necessity. They have not been looking at the question from that
+angle. They have been thinking neither of liberty nor of the lack of it.
+Their consideration has not been so much the imagined rights of the
+sinning as it has been the real rights of those sinned against. The limit
+to freedom which prohibition implies is only one which should have been
+set long ago by the reasonable thinking of amiable humanity. It is a
+rather pitiful fact that it became necessary to have laws to do what the
+rational conscience had failed to do.
+
+The fact that the innocent have been protected against a man and that he
+has been protected against himself gives him no right to insist that his
+liberties have been unjustly curtailed. He has only been aided in the
+interpretation of liberty in such a way as to be able to see that it
+belongs to others as well as to himself.
+
+Those who have braved the storm of misjudgment and abuse, so often the
+portion of one who tries to be true to a great trust, did not seek the
+destruction of any business nor the poverty of any class of men. The
+thought which spurred them on was that of cheerless firesides, of hungry
+stomachs, of shivering bodies, of dwarfed and neglected lives, and of the
+threatened blight of a nation. It was not a question of paternalism.
+It was one of protection.
+
+When the nation has banished the saloon from its every nook and corner, as
+it will soon do, no one can justly say that ours has become a
+paternalistic government. Our government will simply have taken a forward
+step in the fundamental task of any government—the service and protection
+of its people.
+
+When one finds another with a bottle of poison to his lips or with a gun
+to his temple, no one calls him a meddler for striking the threatening
+menace to the ground. In prohibition legislation, the national government
+will only have stricken aside the weapon in time to preserve many a man
+from destruction. Unborn generations will thus be saved from a curse
+which has long hounded the human race.
+
+
+Vibration as a Basis of Invention (1919)
+
+
+The person who would give to the world some great invention must not
+deceive himself into thinking that he can do it by creative processes.
+It is not our function to create. It is our province only to adapt the
+laws and forces already in existence to our needs. The process is really
+a relative rather than a creative one. The laws and forces are here. It
+is our work to relate ourselves to them. One cannot build a machine that
+will do anything. He can only construct a mechanism through which the
+already existing laws of nature can operate.
+
+Another mistake apt to be made by the amateur, and one which will lead him
+farther away from instead of nearer to success, is the entertainment of
+the notion that a wonderful mechanism must necessarily be complex. The
+wonderful thing about nature, after all, is its simplicity. The mechanism
+which is to establish a point of contact between us and a force of nature
+must be as simple in its principle as the force itself.
+
+The notable thing about almost any of our great inventions is the
+simplicity of their design and operative principle. After observing the
+action of any of them, one is quite apt to turn away and inwardly remark
+that he could have done the same thing himself if he had only thought of
+it. Of course, the chief approach to any notable achievement is the matter
+of thinking of it. Most of us do not think of these things, and the reason
+is often the fact that we are looking for something complex when the real
+principle is very simple.
+
+The problem of the would-be inventor or discoverer, then, is not one of
+adding something to the universe as it stands. His work is to ponder the
+forces that have long operated and the laws by which they have operated,
+and then relate his work to some one of them. One of the chief of these,
+and one upon which some of our notable inventions have been based, is the
+universal fact of vibration.
+
+The first great inventions which are based upon the vibration theory were
+made long before any of us were born, and each of us has been given a free
+sample of both. One is named the eye, while the other is known as the ear.
+So far as that is concerned, the work of the actual nerves at the surface
+of the skin is based upon the same principle.
+
+The other day in a medical laboratory I was examining a dissection of the
+human head made with a view to showing the nerves in their relation to the
+spinal trunk and to the brain. The brain had been removed down to where
+its base rests upon the spinal stem. I was not so much interested in the
+countless fibers running off from the entire length of the spinal cord
+nearly so much as the two sets of nerves which have to do with seeing and
+hearing. Off from the spinal stem, just below the base of the brain, two
+large nerves ran forward to the eyes, and two other large ones ran aside
+to the ears. These were the optic and the auditory nerves, respectively.
+
+These are the means which the Ruling Genius of the universe has
+established by which the person may maintain his contact with the outward
+world. One of these sets takes up vibrations and reports them in terms of
+light. The other takes vibrations and reports them in terms of sound. The
+two sets look almost precisely alike. The means by which they are made to
+distinguish vibrations into these two different forms of interpretation
+remains a mystery, unless it be that they are made sensitive only to given
+lengths and types of waves.
+
+The eye was the first camera, and the inventor of the photographic process
+necessarily had to base his work on precisely the same principle. A
+sensitive surface had to be provided; a means had to be established
+whereby it might receive and be affected by ether vibrations of given
+lengths; then the result, which in the case of the eye is so temporary,
+had to be chemically fixed and thereby rendered permanent.
+
+The phonographic process is related to the vibration theory of sound just
+as the photographic process is based upon the wave theory of light. A
+phonographic record is simply the photograph of a sound. A surface had to
+be provided which was capable of receiving the record of the vibrations
+which make a given sound. The means had to be provided by which they could
+be permanently recorded there. Then a mechanism capable of reproducing
+them made the phonograph complete. The same effect was produced upon the
+ear as would have been produced by the original vibrations themselves.
+Thereby the thing which is fleeting and temporary to the ear was rendered
+more or less permanent. These two inventions proved once and for all the
+truth of the theories on which they were based.
+
+Telegraphy and telephony, both ordinary and wireless, are likewise based
+upon phases of the vibration principle. Each in its day has been
+revolutionary. We are, however, only upon the threshold of achievement in
+these vibratory means of communication. Each is simple, when once
+achieved, because each is based on ordinary and everyday laws of nature.
+Those who are improving upon the processes already established are not
+those who are trying to find different paths. They are those who are
+seeking a closer acquaintance with natural laws as they are, and who are
+seeking better ways of relating ourselves to those laws. We cannot alter
+natural forces. We can only improve upon their use.
+
+There is a great field for scientific and inventive progress of an
+intensive nature. As we move forward in the effort to gain a little firmer
+hold upon natural processes, we find ourselves able to throw away today
+equipment which was very necessary yesterday. First, we could carry
+communication farther and better with metal media between the
+communicating points. Now we do it equally well without the
+artificial media.
+
+A few years ago a scientist announced that he could accumulate,
+concentrate, and unloose a vibratory force sufficient to wreck the planet
+on which we live. Should anyone want to do such a thing, and should the
+rest of the world be willing, there is little doubt that such a thing
+would be possible. There is probably no limit to the harm that could be
+done by harnessing up the ever-present vibrations to an evil end. Neither
+is there any limit to the good they can be made to do when intelligently
+turned to worthy purposes.
+
+Probably the statement of the scientist mentioned above was, after all,
+only a part of the truth. Someone has said that one cannot move his
+finger without displacing the elements of the universe all the way to the
+farthest star. Vibration is not only here but everywhere. It carries
+light to us from so far that years are required for the journey. It is
+not inconceivable that it might be made to do the same with sound.
+
+Certainly it could be made to do the same with ideas if two conditions
+could be fulfilled. First, there would have to be living and intelligent
+beings elsewhere in the universe. Second, there would have to be a common
+code or basis of interpretation between ourselves and them. About the
+first, we do not know. As to the second, no one yet sees how to accomplish
+such a thing. Archimedes could have moved the world with a lever if he had
+only had a place to stand, but of course he did not have it, so the
+possibility was spoiled. The principle of the lever, however, held just as
+good as though the impossible condition could have been fulfilled.
+Likewise, the law of vibrations would permit of a system of wireless out
+into the reaches of space. The difficulty is not with the law.
+
+Nature probably holds some provision for our every want. We need only to
+establish the means by which she can deliver her gifts to us. The universe
+thrills with life and action. Out of its heartthrobs we shall be able to
+gather many a blessing.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX 1: BYLINES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, NOTES
+
+Related poems and essays cited in the notes are attributed to Flynn unless
+specified otherwise.
+
+
+The Ambassador. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The Expositor_.
+Sep 1929. pp. 1338–39. Note: Story of the golden calf (Exodus 32).
+
+The Association of Mind and Muscle. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Kindergarten-Primary Magazine_. Vol. 31 No. 1. Manistee, MI:
+Sep 1918. pp. 14–15. Notes: 1) “be doers of the word and not hearers only”
+(James 1:22), 2) “The sending of such young people into the arena of
+action;” poems: “The Teacher v1923,” “Domsie,” 3) “Knowledge has the
+largest of all potentialities;” poem, “Iron.”
+
+Building a World Brotherhood. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_American Messenger_. Vol. 76 No. 7. New York: The American Tract Society,
+Jul 1918. p. 103. Note: “Jesus recognized no artificial and arbitrary
+barriers;” examples: Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37), eating
+with sinners and tax collectors (Mark 2:13–17).
+
+Capitalizing War for the Tobacco Trade. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Sunday School Journal_. Vol. 51 No. 5. Cincinnati: The Methodist Book
+Concern, May 1919. pp. 271–72.
+
+Children and the Church. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 80 No. 6. New York: The American Tract Society, Jun 1922.
+p. 89. Notes: 1) Church as “leavening force” (Luke 13:20–21), 2) Roman
+Catholic worship using “a strange tongue” is likely referring to Latin,
+which replaced Greek in the 2nd century CE; Latin was replaced by
+vernacular languages after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s,
+3) Responsibility for children’s religious training; essay, “The Three
+Agencies in Child Training.”
+
+Christianity and Americanism. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 78 No. 11. New York: The American Tract Society,
+Nov 1920. p. 173. Note: National life flows from the people; essay,
+“What Makes a City?”
+
+The Christian Program. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Northwestern
+Christian Advocate_. Vol. 68 No. 26. Chicago: The Methodist Book Concern,
+Jun 16, 1920. p. 664. Note: Parables of mustard seed (Matthew 13:31–32)
+and leaven (13:33).
+
+The Christian Standard of Greatness. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn.
+Source: _American Messenger_. Vol. 80 No. 8. New York: The American Tract
+Society, Aug 1922. p. 117. Notes: 1) Jesus discusses greatness with his
+disciples (Mark 9:33–35), 2) Jesus speaks of losing and finding one’s life
+(Matthew 10:39, 16:25), 3) Jesus doing good (Acts 10:38).
+
+The Christ of the Sea. Byline: Dr. Clarence E. Flynn, Pastor of Trinity
+M. E. Church. Source: _Berkeley Daily Gazette_. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley
+Gazette Publishing Company, Dec 25, 1929. p. 8. Notes: 1) Jacob uses a
+stone as a pillow (Genesis 28:11), 2) Angels sing at birth of Jesus
+(Luke 2:14), 3) Jesus speaks about being born again (John 3:3), 4) Saving
+one’s life by losing it (e.g., John 12:25), 5) Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12),
+6) Love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39), 7) Jesus speaks to
+rich, young man (Matthew 19:16–22).
+
+Contributed essay to a symposium on “The Church and Young People”. Byline:
+Rev. Clarence E. Flynn, Pastor, First Methodist Episcopal Church,
+Princeton, IN. Source: _The Sunday School Journal_. Vol. 52 No. 4.
+Cincinnati: The Methodist Book Concern, Apr 1920. pp. 203–04. Notes:
+1) Tobacco propaganda; essay, “Capitalizing War for the Tobacco Trade,”
+2) Training children’s mind, body, religious instinct, and social
+relationships; essay, “The Three Agencies in Child Training.”
+
+The Church’s Fourfold Program. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Living Church_. Vol. 67 No. 1. Milwaukee: Morehouse Publishing Co.,
+May 6, 1922. p. 16. Notes: 1) Evangelism as the thing the Church has
+been set to do (Matthew 28:16–20), 2) “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3),
+3) Christian education in the home and school; essay, “The Three Agencies
+in Child Training.”
+
+Civilization. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Social Science_. Vol. 5
+No. 1. Winfield, KS: Pi Gamma Mu, International Honor Society in Social
+Sciences; Nov 1929–Jan 1930. pp. 92–93. Notes: 1) The source listed this
+story as an editorial piece, 2) From the source’s “Contributors” section
+(p. 130): “CLARENCE E. FLYNN is pastor of the Trinity Methodist Episcopal
+Church, the university church, Berkeley, California. He is a graduate of
+De Pauw University and holds the D. D. degree from that institution. His
+work in the past consists of pastorates of several churches,
+superintendency of the Bloomington, Indiana, district of the Methodist
+Episcopal Church, magazine articles, poems and edited works in connection
+with Methodist denominational work.” [DePauw conferred the Doctor of
+Divinity degree honorarily.]
+
+The Comrade Perfect: An Appreciation. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_Youth_. Vol. 3 No. 11. Kansas City: Unity School of Christianity, Nov
+1929. p. 6. Notes: 1) “Him who was called Immanuel, or God with us”
+(Matthew 1:23), 2) “the coming of the spirit divine” (Acts 2:1–4),
+3) God seeks a place in human hearts; poems: “The King,” “No Room in the
+Inn,” 4) God as immanent; poems: “The Creator,” “God’s Manners,” “The
+Voices of God,” 5) Providence; poems: “The God of the Beginning,” “What
+Does It Matter?”
+
+The Corner Stones of Life. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Expositor_. Vol. 27 No. 1. Cleveland: F. M. Barton Co., Oct 1925.
+p. 61. Notes: 1) Quoted Longfellow from poem, “The Builders,” 2) Paul
+mentions people as God’s building in the subtitle’s biblical reference
+and 1 Corinthians 3:9–17, 3) Ideals; essay, “The Christ of the Sea.”
+
+Correspondence. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The Office Economist_.
+Vol. 11 No. 10. Jamestown, NY: Art Metal Construction Company, Dec 1929.
+p. 12. Note: Poem, “The Heart of a Child is a Scroll.”
+
+Creating a Demand. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The Dodge Idea_.
+Vol. 35 No. 9. Mishawaka, IN: Kenyon W. Mix, Sep 1919. pp. 929, 941.
+Note: Byline had misspelling, “Clarenc E. Flynn.”
+
+The Crowded Inn. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Miami Daily
+Metropolis_. Vol. 20 No. 9. Miami: Metropolis Publishing Co., Dec 23,
+1916. p. 6. Notes: 1) Inconsistent capitalization of “his/him,” as it
+refers to Jesus Christ, has been made more consistent, 2) Persecution
+as counterproductive against Christianity and Christians (Acts 5:38–42),
+3) The sentence “He never will flee persecution” was followed by the
+sentence fragment “The brightest intellect, and the most earnest seekers
+after the truth of His dominion.” The fragment seems erroneous and was
+removed for readability, 4) “Let us find whether the doors of the throne
+rooms of our own hearts are open;” poems: “Heart Gates,” “The King,” and
+“No Room in the Inn.”
+
+Determinants. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Special Crops_. Vol. 20
+No. 232. Skaneateles, NY: C. M. Goodspeed, Dec 1921. p. 309. Note: Poems:
+“Have You Tried?,” “Iron,” and “A Trouble Making World.”
+
+Do It Right. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The Boys’ World_. Vol. 16
+No. 21. Elgin, IL: David C. Cook Publishing Company, May 26, 1917. p. 5.
+Note: Poems: “Almost,” “Doing It Well,” “The Engineer,” and
+“The Section Foreman.”
+
+Dollars Versus Sense. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Princeton, IN. Source:
+_The School News and Practical Educator_. Vol. 34 No. 9. Taylorville, IL:
+Parker Publishing Company, May 1921. pp. 572–75. Notes: 1) Poem, “I Want,”
+2) “Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;” from Oliver Goldsmith’s
+poem, “The Deserted Village” (1770).
+
+Education and Production. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The School
+Arts Magazine_. Vol. 20 No. 6. Worcester, MA: The Davis Press, Inc., Feb
+1921. pp. 332–34. Notes: 1) If “the notion that gentlemen do not labor
+with their hands” sounds haughty, consider the poem, “In Conference,”
+2) “whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well;” poem, “Doing It
+Well,” 3) “perform...with a minimum of friction and waste;” essay, “The
+Yoke,” 4) “The life of society is co-operative;” poems: “Along the Road,”
+“Team-work.”
+
+Efficient Spending. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American Cookery_.
+Vol. 25 No. 7. Boston: Boston Cooking-School Magazine Company, Feb 1921.
+pp. 504–06. Note: “The poor we always have with us” (cf. Matthew 26:11).
+
+Eulogy for Joseph E. Henley [excerpt]. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn,
+First Methodist Church, Bloomington [IN]. Source: _Indiana University
+Alumni Quarterly_. Vol. 11 No. 3. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University
+Association of Alumni and Former Students, Jul 1924. p. 458. Note:
+Contrasting behavior and religious trappings: contributed essay to a
+symposium on “The Church and Young People.”
+
+Eulogy for Sanford F. Teter [excerpt]. Byline: Dr. Clarence E. Flynn,
+pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Bloomington [IN]. Source:
+_Indiana University Alumni Quarterly_. Vol. 15 No. 2. Bloomington, IN:
+Indiana University Association of Alumni and Former Students, Apr 1928.
+pp. 255–56. Note: DePauw University conferred the Doctor of Divinity
+degree honorarily to Flynn.
+
+Facing the Future. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 77 No. 3. New York: The American Tract Society, Mar 1919.
+p. 40. Notes: 1) Approaching truth by fair and honest habits of thought;
+essay, “The Laboratory Test,” 2) More adequate and satisfying
+interpretation of religion; essay, “Newer Conceptions of Religion,”
+3) Ovid writing about humanity’s backward movement (_Metamorphoses_),
+4) Tennyson writing about humanity moving forward to a divine event
+(_In Memoriam A.H.H._), 5) “the seer of Patmos” (cf. Revelation 1:9–11),
+6) “new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1).
+
+The Fountain of Youth. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 75 No. 11. New York: The American Tract Society,
+Nov 1917. p. 164. Notes: 1) “One is as old as the spirit within him;”
+poem, “The Age of a Heart,” 2) Episode involving Hezekiah (2 Kings 20).
+
+Four Addresses to Young People. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Expositor_. Mar 1929. pp. 669–71. Notes: 1) “It is the great
+compulsion;” essay, “The Great Compulsion,” 2) The presence of “not” in
+“The person who does not find it in his soul” seems inconsistent with the
+message, 3) “world builder for God;” poems: “The Builder v1924,” “The
+Builders,” 4) Call of Isaiah in temple (Isaiah 6), 5) Jesus reads from
+Isaiah (Luke 4:16–21), 6) John’s vision (Book of Revelation), 7) “Moses
+said he was not eloquent;” poem, “I am not eloquent,” 8) “mistake for a
+minister to forsake the altar to serve tables” (Acts 6:2–4).
+
+Free Verse. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The Editor_. Vol. 54
+No. 5. Highland Falls, NY: Jun 25, 1921. pp. 65–66. Notes: 1) Mary’s
+Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), 2) Nunc Dimittis of Simeon (Luke 2:29–32).
+
+The Great Compulsion. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The Expositor_.
+Cleveland: F. M. Barton Company, Oct 1928. p. 33. Notes: 1) Moses seeing
+his people’s burdens (Exodus 2:11), 2) John eats a book (Revelation 10:9),
+3) Jesus wept for Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), 4) Usage of _bondslave_
+(e.g., Colossians 4:12).
+
+The Great Teacher. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Expositor_. Vol. 26 No. 9. Cleveland: F. M. Barton and Co., Jun 1925.
+pp. 1276–77. Note: Jesus taught with authority and not as the scribes
+(Matthew 7:28–29).
+
+Has the Day of Great Preachers Passed. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn,
+Princeton, IN. Source: _The Homiletic Review_. Vol. 81 No. 2. New York:
+Funk & Wagnalls Company, Feb 1921. pp.117–19. Notes: 1) “competing against
+God for...thought and attention;” essay, “The Crowded Inn,” 2) Moses met
+God on the mountain (Exodus 3:1–14), 3) Elkanah, Hannah, and son, Samuel
+(1 Samuel), 4) Partnership of Moses and Aaron (Exodus 4:10–17).
+
+The Heart Interest in Preaching. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Princeton, IN.
+Source: _The Expositor_. Vol. 24 No. 2. Cleveland: Nov 1922. p. 192. Note:
+Poem, “Patchwork.”
+
+The Holy Spirit and Social Viewpoint. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_Northwestern Christian Advocate_. Vol. 70 No. 27. Chicago: The Methodist
+Book Concern, Jun 21, 1922. pp. 684–85. Note: Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).
+
+The Home Budget. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American Cookery_.
+Vol. 25 No. 4. Boston: Boston Cooking-School Magazine Company, Nov 1920.
+pp. 285–87.
+
+The International Religion. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Congregationalist_. Vol. 108 No. 52. Boston: The Pilgrim Press, Dec 27,
+1923. p. 884. Notes: 1) Liberty was taken in completing illegible text in
+the source’s right-hand margin, 2) If the reader does not find the text in
+Revelation 9 of their bible translation, try Revelation 7:4–9, 3) “King of
+kings and Lord of lords” (e.g., Revelation 19:16, 1 Timothy 6:15),
+4) Jesus in people’s hearts; poems: “Finding God,” “The King,” and
+“No Room in the Inn.”
+
+Is It Nothing to You. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Expositor_. Aug 1929. p. 1261.
+
+Is Prohibition Paternalistic? Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Living Church_. Vol. 60 No. 11. Milwaukee: Morehouse Publishing Co.,
+Jan 11, 1919. p. 354. Notes: 1) Control the conduct of other people;
+essay, “Is It Nothing to You,” 2) “as it will soon do;” Congress passed
+the 18th Amendment to the Constitution on Dec 22, 1917, and the necessary
+three-fourths of states ratified it by Jan 16, 1919. [Then, the necessary
+three-fourths of states ratified the 21st Amendment by Dec 5, 1933,
+thereby repealing the 18th Amendment.] (https://www.fjc.gov/history/
+exhibits/prohibition-in-federal-courts-timeline)
+
+“It was an innocent-faced maid”. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_Richmond Daily Palladium_. Richmond, IN: Palladium Printing Co.,
+Mar 5, 1906. p. 4.
+
+The Laboratory Test. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 79 No. 2. New York: The American Tract Society, Feb 1921.
+p. 36. Note: Ancient singer’s challenge (Psalm 34:8–9).
+
+The Laughing Man. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American Messenger_.
+Vol. 77 No. 5. New York: The American Tract Society, May 1919. p. 72.
+Notes: 1) Jean Valjean; essay, “The Redemption of Jean Valjean,”
+2) “[God] has never hesitated to go to any length for the sake of people.
+Such is also the spirit of those who enter into the secrets of His plans.”
+(cf. John 15:12–13).
+
+Let the Minister Know Life. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Expositor_. Sep 1929. p. 1338. Note: Poem, “Patchwork.”
+
+Life’s Backgrounds. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 77 No. 10. New York: The American Tract Society,
+Oct 1919. p. 148. Notes: 1) “life is like a picture;” multiple poems in
+poetry book’s index under “Life,” 2) Life’s determining factors; essay,
+“Determinants,” 3) Whitewashing hidden faults (cf. Matthew 23:27–28),
+4) Hard work hidden behind the success; poem, “The Lucky Man,”
+5) Influencing another person’s life; poem, “Domsie.”
+
+Life’s Handicaps. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American Messenger_.
+Vol. 76 No. 2. New York: The American Tract Society, Feb 1918. p. 24.
+Notes: 1) Jesus heals paralytic let down through roof (Mark 2:1–12),
+2) Jesus teaches about ensuring costs can be covered before starting to
+build (Luke 14:28–30).
+
+The Light. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Indianapolis, IN. Source: _The
+Christian Advocate_. Vol. 90 No. 30. New York: Methodist Book Concern,
+Jul 29, 1915. pp. 1009–10. Notes: 1) Description of God as light
+(1 John 1:5), 2) Creation of light (Genesis 1:3), 3) A determinant created
+different outcomes between plants of the same family; essay,
+“Determinants,” 4) What will and will not stand the light (John 3:19–21,
+Ephesians 5:8).
+
+The Line of Necessity. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 76 No. 7. New York: The American Tract Society,
+Jul 1918. p. 100. Notes: 1) Friendship; essay, “The Necessary
+Asset—Friends,” and poems: “Fade-Outs” and “Whatever he may wish or plan,”
+2) Points from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38–48).
+
+Love’s Burdens. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American Messenger_.
+Vol. 79 No. 1. New York: The American Tract Society, Jan 1921. p. 4.
+Notes: 1) The sick need a physician (Matthew 9:12), 2) Jesus prays in
+garden (Matthew 26:36).
+
+“A man entered a downtown street car”. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_Richmond Daily Palladium_. Richmond, IN: Palladium Printing Co., Mar 5,
+1906. p. 4.
+
+The Message of an Empty Tomb. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_Northwestern Christian Advocate_. Vol. 68 No. 15. Chicago: The Methodist
+Book Concern, Mar 31, 1920. pp. 368–69. Notes: 1) Joseph of Arimathea
+buried Jesus (Matthew 27:57–60), 2) “the valley and the shadow of death”
+(cf. Psalm 23:4), 3) Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1–44),
+4) The gospel as truth; essay, “The Light,” 5) Jesus’s ideal; essay,
+“The Christ of the Sea.”
+
+The Message of the Washington Monument. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_American Messenger_. Vol. 77 No. 2. New York: The American Tract Society,
+Feb 1919. p. 31. Note: Pretense and unreality; poem, “The Close-Up.”
+
+The Minister and His Reading. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Expositor_. Apr 1928. pp. 764–66. Notes: 1) “speaks with authority and not
+as the Scribes” (Mark 1:22), 2) “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12),
+3) Temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:1–11), 4) Jesus states he has overcome
+the world (John 16:33), 5) Disciples’ encounter with Jesus on the road to
+Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35).
+
+The Modern Grandmother. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Woman’s Home
+Companion_. Vol. 42 No. 3. Springfield, OH: Crowell Publishing Company,
+Mar 1915. p. 78.
+
+Music and History. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Princeton, IN. Source: _The
+School News and Practical Educator_. Vol. 34 No. 6. Taylorville, IL:
+Parker Publishing Company, Feb 1921. pp. 370–72.
+
+The Nearness of Destiny. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 79 No. 2. New York: The American Tract Society, Feb 1921.
+p. 29. Notes: 1) Procrastination; poem, “The Umbrella Mender,” 2) Kingdom
+of God; poem, “The Gateway of the Kingdom,” 3) Jesus stating “the Kingdom
+is at hand” (Matthew 10:7); poem, “Imminence,” 4) Daily events marked by
+eternal significance as well as cause and effect; poem, “Charge Account,”
+5) “The Christ of revelation” is at least based on the reference in the
+essay’s first sentence [Revelation 1:1, “The revelation of Jesus
+Christ...” (New American Bible)], 6) The Hebrew prophet (Amos 4:12),
+7) “shortly come to pass” (Revelation 1:1), 8) Life events mentioned in
+last paragraph; several poems in poetry book’s index under “Life.”
+
+The Necessary Asset—Friends. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The Boys’
+World_. Vol. 16 No. 48. Elgin, IL: David C. Cook Publishing Company,
+Dec 1, 1917. p. 4.
+
+Newer Conceptions of Religion. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Princeton, IN.
+Source: _The Congregationalist_. Vol. 107 No. 26. Boston: The Pilgrim
+Press, Jun 29, 1922. p. 821. Note: Refrain from living in the past;
+essay, “The Sword that Keeps the Past.”
+
+The New Philosophy. Byline: Clarence Flynn. Source: _The Editor_. Vol. 52
+No. 2. Ridgewood, NJ: The Editor Company, Jan 25, 1920. pp. 116–18.
+
+The Objective of Service. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Northwestern
+Christian Advocate_. Vol. 70 No. 26. Chicago: The Methodist Book Concern,
+Jun 14, 1922. p. 657. Notes: 1) “Where wealth accumulates, and men
+decay;” from Oliver Goldsmith’s poem, “The Deserted Village” (1770),
+2) “new heaven and a new earth” (cf. Isaiah 65:17–25).
+
+The Obligation of Good Cheer. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 74 No. 11. New York: The American Tract Society,
+Nov 1916. p. 195. Notes: 1) Essay, “The Laughing Man,” 2) “...that One in
+whose presence is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are
+pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11). [Jesus and joy (e.g., John 15:11).]
+
+The Opportunity and Peril of the Writer. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn.
+Source: _The Editor_. Vol. 48 No. 12. Ridgewood, NJ: The Editor Company,
+Jun 25, 1918. pp. 409–11. Notes: 1) Peace and brotherhood making war
+impossible; poems: “The New Day,” “Brotherhood,” 2) Stowe’s first
+installment appeared June 5, 1851 (page 1, column 1), 3) Unlike his
+mentioning of Stowe’s work, Flynn doesn’t mention the first installment of
+Sinclair’s work; it appeared in socialist Julius Wayland’s paper, _Appeal
+to Reason_, February 25, 1905 (entire cover page), 4) “A derisive
+term...once elected a man president.” In Flynn’s later essay, “Words,” he
+associates the term “Log Cabin Harrison” with William Henry Harrison.
+
+Our Blessings of Deliverance. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 80 No. 11. New York: The American Tract Society,
+Nov 1922. p. 166. Note: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11).
+
+Paul’s Ideal Sufficient. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Indianapolis, IN.
+Source: _The Christian Advocate_. Vol. 93 No. 24. New York: Methodist
+Book Concern, Jun 13, 1918. pp. 734–35. Note: “a pillar and ground of the
+truth” may refer to the church of the living God (1 Timothy 3:15).
+
+The Post-War Outlook for Literature. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Editor_. Vol. 50 No. 10. Ridgewood, NJ: The Editor Company, May 25,
+1919. pp. 74–76. Note: “various subjects down from the ethereal heights
+of mystical theory to the solid levels of plain thinking and everyday
+living;” essay, “The New Philosophy.”
+
+Preaching to College Students. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Expositor_. Jun 1928. p. 983–84. Note: Poems: “The Builder v1924,”
+“The Builders.”
+
+The Price of Liberty. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Western
+Christian Advocate_. Vol. 82 No. 6. Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern,
+Feb 9, 1916. p. 130. Notes: 1) “the love which lays down its life for its
+friends” (cf. John 15:13), 2) temple’s veil was split (Matthew 27:51).
+
+The Redemption of Jean Valjean. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_Montreal Witness and Canadian Homestead_. Vol. 77 No. 34. Montreal: John
+Dougall & Son, Aug 23, 1922. p. 10. Notes: 1) Frenchman Victor Hugo
+published _Les Miserables_ in 1862, 2) Isaiah’s redemption (Isaiah 6:1–7),
+3) Noah and the flood (Genesis 6–8), 4) Noah as drunkard (Genesis
+9:20–21), 5) Silas Marner and Eppie are characters in _Silas Marner: The
+Weaver of Raveloe_, an 1861 novel by Englishwoman Mary Ann Evans (pen name
+is George Eliot), 6) Self; poem, “The Trouble Making World,” 7) This essay
+is physically available at Flynn’s alma mater, DePauw University, in their
+Archives and Special Collections (https://depauw.libraryhost.com/
+repositories/2/resources/1887); although the essay is undated, Flynn
+graduated from DePauw in 1911, 8) This essay is used as a positive example
+of certain elements of literary writing (Webb, Mary Griffin and Edna
+Lenore Webb, eds. _Famous Living Americans_. Greencastle, IN:
+Charles Webb & Company, 1915. pp. 8, 10–11).
+
+The Religion of the New Age. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Bloomington, IN.
+Source: _The Homiletic Review_. Vol. 77 No. 3. New York: Funk & Wagnalls
+Company, Mar 1919. pp. 192–94. Notes: 1) Essay, “Newer Conceptions of
+Religion,” 2) Prophecy of a new heaven and earth (Isaiah 65:17–25),
+3) “It is with religion just as with science or philosophy;” essay,
+“The New Philosophy.”
+
+The Riverside. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Our Paper_. Vol. 35
+No. 1. Concord Junction, MA: Massachusetts Reformatory, Jan 6, 1918.
+p. 630. Note: ‛We rise by the things that are under our feet’ is from a
+poem (Holland, Josiah Gilbert. “Gradatim.” _Christian Science Journal_.
+Vol. 13 No. 5. Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, Aug 1895.
+p. 210).
+
+The Road Uphill. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Youth_. Vol. 3 No. 9.
+Kansas City: Unity School of Christianity, Sep 1929. p. 26. Notes:
+1) Zechariah speaks about avoiding the sins of their fathers
+(Zechariah 1:4), 2) Jesus reads His commission (Luke 4:16–21).
+
+The Sabbath Desecration. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn, Indianapolis, IN.
+Source: _Western Christian Advocate_. Vol. 76 No. 18. Cincinnati:
+Jennings & Graham, May 4, 1910. pp. 14–15. Notes: 1) Some Old Testament
+background on the sabbath (Exodus 16:16–30; 31:12–17), 2) “the apparent
+attitude of Jesus toward [the Sabbath]” (Matthew 12:1–8; Mark 2:23–28,
+3:1–5; Luke 6:1–11), 3) “Our lonely Sinais must precede our deeds of
+leadership,” may refer to the commission of Moses (Exodus 3 thru 4:17),
+4) Quoted lesson (Isaiah 30:15).
+
+The Safe Foundations for a League of Nations. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn.
+Source: _American Messenger_. Vol. 77 No. 7. New York: The American Tract
+Society, Jul 1919. p. 100. Notes: 1) WWI ended Nov 11, 1918. The League
+of Nations officially came into existence on Jan 10, 1920, 2) Tower of
+Babel (Genesis 11:1–9), 3) Poems: “Brotherhood;” selfish ways and
+purposes: “The Measure of Life,” “A Trouble Making World.”
+
+The Same Face. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Indianapolis, IN. Source:
+_The Christian Advocate_. Vol. 90 No. 18. New York: Methodist Book
+Concern, May 6, 1915. p. 604.
+
+The School as a Reform Agency. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Princeton, IN.
+Source: _The School News and Practical Educator_. Vol. 34 No. 5.
+Taylorville, IL: Parker Publishing Company, Jan 1921. pp. 316–18. Notes:
+1) “his first impulse to try;” poem, “The Secret,” 2) Just as a teacher’s
+“possession of great power is at once an opportunity and a peril,” so it
+is for a writer; essay, “The Opportunity and Peril of the Writer,”
+3) “Most evils remain only because people do not realize that there is a
+better way;” essay, “The Yoke”, 4) Not all subscribe to “the natural
+position of authority occupied by the teacher;” poem, “The Modern Pupil,”
+5) “the person who builds manhood and womanhood...is building the future;”
+poem, “The Teacher v1921.”
+
+The School Teacher and the Republic. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_School News and Practical Educator_. Vol. 33 No. 10. Taylorville, IL:
+Parker Publishing Company, Jun–Jul 1920. pp. 588–89. Note: Many poems in
+poetry book’s index under “teaching.”
+
+The Sense of the Human. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 78 No. 9. New York: The American Tract Society, Sep 1920.
+p. 136. Notes: 1) “realize the presence of people about us,” and later,
+“the kingliness of service;” poem, “Along the Road,” 2) “When we learn to
+be like Him, we shall possess the same viewpoint;”
+poem, “The Measure of Life.”
+
+Should Prices Be Standardized? Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_The Dodge Idea_. Vol. 35 No. 8. Mishawaka, IN: Kenyon W. Mix, Aug 1919.
+p. 900.
+
+Some New Facts About Alcohol. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Living Church_. Vol. 60 No. 9. Milwaukee: Morehouse Publishing Co.,
+Dec 28, 1918. p. 289.
+
+Some Overlooked Compensations in Teaching. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn.
+Source: _Popular Educator_. Vol. 38 No. 1. Boston: Popular Educator
+Company, Sep 1920. pp. 6–7. Notes: 1) Many poems in poetry book’s index
+under “teaching,” 2) “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of
+the things he possesses.” (cf. Luke 12:16–21); also, many poems in poetry
+book’s index under “values,” 3) “One cannot long conceal a lack of mind
+and soul with clothes and paint” (cf. Matthew 23:27–28).
+
+Some Principles of Efficiency. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Boys’ World_. Vol. 16 No. 38. Elgin, IL: David C. Cook Publishing
+Company, Sep 22, 1917. p. 6. Notes: 1) Selfishness; poems: “A Trouble
+Making World” and “I Want,” 2) Thinking and right judgments; poem,
+“Prayer for Normal Men,” 3) Acknowledging others’ minds; poem, “Minds,”
+4) Striving to be right; poem, “Let Us Be Right,” 5) Talents as a
+resource; poems: “I am not eloquent” and “Iron,” 6) “the man who hides
+his single coin in a napkin” (Luke 19:11–26), 7) Purpose in life; poem,
+“Why We Are Here,” 8) Getting at a task; poems: “Have You Tried?” and
+“The Umbrella Mender,” 9) Staying on a task; poems: “Almost” and “A Second
+Wind,” 10) Doing things well; poems: “Doing It Well,” “The Engineer,” and
+“The Section Foreman,” 11) Getting at a task, staying on it, and making
+progress; poem, “The Secret.”
+
+Some Problems of the Preacher. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Expositor_. Sep 1928. p. 1306. Note: Episode involving Nadab and Abihu
+(Leviticus 10:1–5).
+
+Some Stories About Beethoven. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Uplift_. Vol. 7 No. 7. Concord, NC: The Board of Trustees of the Stonewall
+Jackson Manual Training and Industrial School, Sep 1915. p. 14.
+
+The Sound-Reproducing Machine as a Music Teacher. Byline: Clarence E.
+Flynn. Source: _The Etude_. Vol. 37 No. 12. Philadelphia: Theodore
+Presser Co., Dec 1919. p. 789.
+
+The Story of the Red Cross. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The
+Sabbath Recorder_. Vol. 83 No. 25. Plainfield, NJ: The American Sabbath
+Tract Society, Dec 17, 1917. pp. 779–81. Notes: 1) This historical article
+is part of the collection because of the prose portraying the Red Cross as
+a means for uplifting humanity, 2) The source follows the article with a
+proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson—then President of the American
+Red Cross as well—encouraging ten million Americans to join the Red Cross
+“because it alone can carry the pledges of Christmas good will to those
+who are bearing for us the real burdens of the world-war, both in our own
+army and navy and in the nations upon whose territory the issues of the
+world-war are being fought out.” [For context, the US population in 1920
+was 106,021,568. (https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/
+dec/popchange-data-text.html).]
+
+The Successors of Tantalus. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American
+Messenger_. Vol. 79 No. 8. New York: The American Tract Society, Sep 1921.
+p. 153.
+
+The Sword that Keeps the Past. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_ Western Christian Advocate_. Vol. 82 No. 8. Cincinnati: Methodist Book
+Concern, Feb 23, 1916. p. 175.
+
+The Three Agencies in Child Training. Byline: Rev. Clarence E. Flynn.
+Source: _Western Christian Advocate_. Vol. 75 No. 24. Cincinnati:
+Jennings & Graham, Jun 16, 1909. p. 10. Notes: 1) “the living and vital
+religion, to which even the school owes its being;” essay, “The School
+Teacher and the Republic,” 2) Ending quote (Luke 2:52).
+
+Vibration as a Basis of Invention. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Indiana.
+Source: _The Wireless Age_. Vol. 6 No. 9. New York: Wireless Press Inc.,
+Jun 1919. pp. 41–43. Notes: 1) Invention; poems: “How It Started,”
+“Inventive Genius,” and “Starting Things,” 2) Phonograph; essay,
+“The Sound-Reproducing Machine as a Music Teacher.”
+
+What Can We Believe? Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Southwestern
+Christian Advocate_. Vol. 55 No. 42. Cincinnati: The Methodist Book
+Concern, Oct 18, 1928. p. 819. Note: Poems: beliefs (“The Things That I
+Believe”), God as Architect (“The Creator”), Jesus as Peasant of Galilee
+(“The King”), consequences (“Charge Account”), spiritual/soul
+(“The Divine Image”).
+
+What Is Happening to Religion? Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source:
+_Southwestern Christian Advocate_. Vol. 56 No. 4. Cincinnati: The
+Methodist Book Concern, Jan 24, 1929. p. 69. Notes: 1) “The technique
+of the scientific laboratory forbids compromise;” essay, “The Laboratory
+Test,” 2) Poem, “Imminence,” 3) Clarence E. Flynn was quoted on the topic
+of writing about science, “In trying to make science read like a fairy
+tale, one must not make a fairy tale of it.” (Leete, Frederick D.
+_Christianity in Science_. New York: The Abingdon Press, 1928. p. 137)
+
+What Makes a City? Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Member, Kiwanis Club of
+Bloomington, IN. Source: _The Kiwanis Magazine_. Vol. 14 No. 2. Chicago:
+Kiwanis International, Feb 29, 1929. pp. 86, 108. Notes: 1) “a home life
+so beautiful and adequate as to require no substitutes;” poems:
+“Home v1921,” “The Making of Home,” 2) Responsibilities of home, school,
+and church; essay, “The Three Agencies in Child Training,” 3) Sanctity of
+the Lord’s Day; essay, “The Sabbath Desecration.”
+
+The Will. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Western Christian Advocate_.
+Vol. 81 No. 38. Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern, Sep 22, 1915. p. 922.
+Note: Poem, “The Tree.”
+
+Words. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _American Messenger_. Vol. 75
+No. 7. New York: The American Tract Society, Jul 1917. p. 104. Note:
+“out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth is sure to speak”
+(cf. Matthew 12:34).
+
+Worship and Service. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _Western Christian
+Advocate_. Vol. 82 No. 7. Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern, Feb 16,
+1916. p. 154.
+
+The Yielding of Aaron. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn. Source: _The Expositor_.
+Jul 1929. p. 1140. Notes: 1) Story of golden calf (Exodus 32),
+2) Isaiah beholding God (Isaiah 6).
+
+The Yoke. Byline: Clarence E. Flynn, Indianapolis, IN. Source:
+_The Christian Advocate_. Vol. 90 No. 25. New York: Methodist Book
+Concern, Jun 24, 1915. p. 853. Note: Jesus speaks of his yoke
+(Matthew 11:29–30).
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX 2: SELECTED QUOTES AND ZINGERS
+
+Entries come from writings in this edition. The categories are not
+mutually exclusive, and intracategory entries are in no particular order.
+
+
+Arts
+
+The maker of fun whose humor was clean and genuine is a benefactor of his
+age, not to say a minister of righteousness. The hand of Justice lays an
+unfading wreath of honor upon the grave of the man who has helped to keep
+the world glad. He has planted roses where otherwise there would have been
+only thorns.
+
+In all writing...two things are important. One is to say the right thing.
+The other is not to say the wrong one.
+
+The opportunity [of the writer] is glorious and the peril is serious,
+because men will become what they think, and the world will conform to
+what they become. Thought life is fundamental.
+
+In trying to make science read like a fairy tale, one must not make a
+fairy tale of it.
+
+...the message and not the form is the immortal part.---After all, it does
+not seem to be to the advantage of the poet to be abjectly the slave of
+his style.
+
+
+Attitude/Behavior
+
+Whoever has a cheerful disposition has that much of a start toward
+positive and complete goodness.
+
+Anyone can look happy when he _is_ happy, but only the unusual man
+can keep a merry countenance when hopes die, ties are sundered, dreams
+crash in shattered fragments, and the rich promises of life prove to have
+been empty mirages of vain expectation. The smile “that cannot come off”
+is the smile worth while.
+
+A kindly tongue and a helping hand for all would soon garland the earth
+with sunshine and happiness.
+
+A great nation or a great race is dependent upon the performance of great
+actions proceeding from great motives.
+
+There is no getting further on the pathway to the higher life until one
+has first realized his own situation.
+
+There is too little real conviction of sin in these days. We need the
+mirror held before us.
+
+It is easier to overcome others than to conquer oneself.---Yet there is no
+truer greatness than that which comes from self-mastery.
+
+Victory over material things is but a passing honor for the one who has
+failed to conquer himself.
+
+Is there any reason why men should not do right? If duty were impossible,
+all creation would be a mockery and a moral contradiction.
+
+But, though the facing of what may be imminent death requires great
+courage, it requires greater courage on the part of a strong man to sit by
+the window for twelve years watching the rest of the world go by without
+being able to join in its activity.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The will of man is not only his danger, but it is also his hope.
+
+The voice with which we cry into the past is echoless, and ineffectual
+are the hands with which we beat against its closed portals.
+
+Very swiftly [time] flies by us, but not so swiftly but that we can tinge
+it with the very color of our souls as it passes.
+
+He shrank from [high duty and responsibility], as greatness usually does.
+True worth is seldom a candidate. In church and state alike, things go
+better when the office seeks the man.
+
+...Jesus saved by believing in sinners.---The human heart shrivels under
+accusation. It blossoms under the radiant influence of
+someone’s confidence.
+
+If they work on week days as they ought to work, they will not be found
+complaining of too much rest on Sunday.
+
+The whole world has for a norm the attitude of the individual toward it.
+
+One has but one chance at this life, and he has a right to make that one
+effort the best possible.
+
+The waste of [any of a day’s 24 hours] is the same kind of a mistake as is
+the waste of money or property.---The person who keeps any one else
+waiting for him is guilty of theft.
+
+Finding one’s true place in the world is a serious matter. Find out what
+you are good for; get ready to do that thing well; then do it with all
+your might.
+
+If the thing you are doing is worth while, don’t give it up. The rewards
+of the game are won neither by the fine beginning nor the brilliant play,
+but by the steady endurance which holds on to the last. Life is one great
+endurance test.
+
+You will never have cause to complain of any day that has witnessed
+real progress.
+
+Whatever [life’s consequences] be called, it is not a penalty imposed,
+but a result arrived at.
+
+Whoever succeeds must carry a cross of self-denial.
+
+One has little ground for satisfaction over a mere random success.
+It is real achievement that brings enduring satisfaction.
+
+
+Awareness/Perspective/Thought
+
+The best thing that can happen to the truth is that it be investigated.
+
+The truth, however, is never reached by methods of prejudice or undue
+assumption. It is approached by fair and honest habits of thought.
+We need but to look at the facts.
+
+One owes it to truth also to know the other side.
+
+One must at least give others credit for having opinions. Listen to all,
+and accept only that which seems to bear the test of truth.
+
+Stay with the right, though all the rest of the world disagree with you.
+If you find that your position was wrong, forsake it immediately.
+
+Thinking is not always the order of the day, however, when either profit
+or appetite is involved.
+
+It is a rather pitiful fact that it became necessary to have laws to do
+what the rational conscience had failed to do.
+
+A certain advantage can be taken at a time when everyone is afraid of
+being misjudged. Like the undertaker’s bill, such things are often brought
+forward at a time when everyone feels that he must swallow the dose and
+ask no questions.
+
+A wrong philosophy can lead a nation to its ruin within the space of a few
+generations. A worthy one can as promptly and definitely determine a
+nation’s progress and happiness.---The thinkers of a nation sow the seeds.
+The people sooner or later harvest the fruit.
+
+The lack of idealism is the most expensive thing the people of any city
+can have on their hands.---If you want thieves, hoodlums, and
+libertines, create a low standard of ideals in the community, and you
+will get them.
+
+Only the constructive thinker makes the great general, the great leader,
+or the great engineer.
+
+It is the unnecessary that changes bare existence into throbbing and
+purposeful life.
+
+We need to remember that it is the will uncompelled that tames the
+wilderness, that it is the hand unconstrained that reclaims the desert,
+and that it is the kindness born of spontaneous impulse which brings into
+life the uplifting and the helpful.
+
+We do not get at the danger of any evil by comparing one evil with
+another. The question for a vigorous Nation in a trying time is not as to
+what is the harm in a thing but as to what is the good.
+
+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.
+
+No less important than the things which we have been given are the things
+from which we have been saved.
+
+Great movements must always be fathered by self-sacrificing spirits before
+they are finally taken upon the hearts of the people.
+
+There is only one way to change the past, and that is to change it before
+it becomes the past.
+
+Make this day what you desire.... It must dwell in your thoughts forever
+as a piercing thorn or a blooming flower. Your hand is on its gate for
+the last time.
+
+...we must recognize the common human tendency to glorify the past to the
+disadvantage of the present.---One may read something of this sort in the
+literature of ancient as well as modern ages. Yet the progress of the
+world has gone right on.
+
+...the religious consciousness is best developed in the solitudes.
+
+Any reform is rapid when men once get to thinking. The case is hopeless so
+long as apathy and lethargy prevail.
+
+Nothing is to be gained by compromising with the mind of the flesh,
+which is death.
+
+Our place as a nation is largely the result of this union of hope and
+thing, this combination of dream and realization, this blending of the
+ideal and the practical.
+
+Man is he who thinks, and the most successful man is he who thinks most
+promptly and accurately.
+
+
+Community/Relationship
+
+We can never have a world that is anything more or less than it is made by
+the people who live in it.
+
+One can do much more working for society than he can if he works only
+for himself.
+
+Neither the school nor the Church is an orphans’ home for the purpose of
+taking the responsibility of raising people’s children from the shoulders
+of those to whom it belongs.
+
+A righteous community, state, or nation is only a group of individuals
+wearing, each for himself, the clean, white garments of right living.
+
+Each individual transgression writes itself into the world life.
+
+Freedom needs to recognize its own proper limits, and it will do so in any
+properly organized social system.
+
+A city is not made of streets, but of those who walk on them; not of
+stores, but of those who trade in them; not of machinery, but of those
+who drive it; not of houses, but of those who live in them. A city is its
+people. It is exactly as good or bad, as strong or weak, as desirable or
+undesirable, as enduring or temporary, as are they. With them it will go
+forward or backward, be an object of admiration or contempt,
+stand or fall, live or die.
+
+The life and destiny of a nation are largely determined by what it
+considers great.---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.
+
+...we must not forget that the principle of democracy does not diminish
+the necessity for conviction and fidelity. The disregard of obligation
+is not freedom.
+
+The apostolic Church was not a temple but a community. It must be the same
+with the modern Church.
+
+Only while the mind craves knowledge and the heart feels the throb of
+the social impulse does the eye remain undimmed and the natural
+force unabated.
+
+As we once tried to have the Holy Spirit transform hearts, and still must,
+so too we must now endeavor to have the Holy Spirit cleanse and exalt
+social relationships.
+
+Friendship, like everything else worth while, is the reward of
+proper effort.
+
+The most valuable friend is the friend who is one for friendship’s
+sake alone.
+
+One must live for more than self, or he never lives at all.
+
+The lily of life never comes to the fullness of its bloom until the heart
+has found someone to love, to toil for, to sacrifice for.
+
+It has always taken the prophet and the toiler together to achieve human
+progress in the best sense.
+
+No one else cares to help the person who tries to help no one but himself.
+The world has its heroes, but they are those whose chief concern has been
+for their people.
+
+Think of others sympathetically, and give them credit for everything
+you can.
+
+The ties that bind us to the hearts of others are the cables that help to
+drag us toward the dust or to lift us in the direction of the heights.
+
+
+Economics
+
+It is better, even for nations, to have less and have it honestly, to
+possess less and live in a world safe for each generation and its
+posterity. When the hearts of men are right, our economic systems will
+also be right.
+
+Greater moderation in many things would leave us a healthier and happier
+race, to say nothing of what it would do for our bank accounts.
+
+Certainly, before buying a thing, one should honestly ask himself whether
+he needs it. He should, likewise, give himself an honest answer.
+
+The poor we always have with us, but many of them are with us
+unnecessarily.---Money is made to spend, but the financially independent
+are those who have learned to spend it wisely.
+
+The budget system is a desirable plan in the home of wealth; it is a
+helpful thing in the home of moderate circumstances; but it is a necessity
+in the home where takes place an occasional battle with want.
+
+Moreover, the consumer has the last word in every argument. He holds the
+purse-strings, and when he is tired of talking, he can stop buying. It
+does not bode well when he conceives the feeling that undue difficulty
+attaches to trying to exist on the planet.
+
+
+Education
+
+The purpose of education is not to qualify one for getting through life
+on a minimum of toil.---The test of learning is service.
+
+As knowledge becomes a matter of action, it becomes a matter of purpose,
+ideal, and character.
+
+The years teach us that the only test of the correctness of any
+educational method is its result in terms of life.
+
+The growing life most easily adapts itself to newly discovered fact.
+
+One may take a vine and train it in any direction. One may take a young
+life and make of it what he will.
+
+A great many parents are wondering these days why their children did not
+grow up to be good.
+
+A man’s education can not be measured by what he has committed to memory,
+but by what he has learned by heart. Education is no more what one knows
+than what he is.
+
+The testimony of opinion is uncertain. The testimony of experience is
+final and unanswerable. Arguments on the existence of love do not count
+with one who loves. The thing experienced demands no proof by
+logical processes.
+
+
+Humanity
+
+Humanity is the center of all creation, and the proper object of all
+our striving.
+
+Humanity knows no dividing line, and whoever lays them down will simply
+sow the seeds of sorrow and trouble.
+
+Despite all the cheap ways in which the world indulges, its real hunger
+is for genuine worth, unveneered culture, real character.
+
+When one has made a living, he has not necessarily lived.---Earth and its
+physical necessities are only the stage and the setting for the drama.
+The play itself lies beyond them and is separate from them.
+
+The world is ready for anything that spells deliverance, and nothing will
+deliver humanity save rightness of heart.
+
+There is no place in the modern conception of government for any regime
+which does not strive to better the condition of the people within its
+scope of power. In these times, we see with increasing clearness that
+there is but one worthy conception of kingliness, and that it is the
+kingliness of service.
+
+The emphasis of Jesus was upon the human being. He held all men in much
+the same esteem, for to Him a human being was inherently worthy of
+respect and honor.
+
+The human soul, however, was not made to perish. It is a thing of
+universal interests and eternal possibilities. It is life in its highest
+terms, and it was life with which Jesus was essentially concerned.
+
+It is the glad service which lifts the world a little farther in its
+long, hard climb.
+
+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.
+
+Where humanity is regnant and ascendent everything else is certain to be
+at its best.
+
+
+Speech
+
+Words slip back the shutters from the windows of the inner life.
+
+The reason for a great deal of unjust and unkind comment is to be found in
+the proneness of man to condemn his brother most fiercely for that fault
+which lies most deeply imbedded in his own life.
+
+[A helpful word] will echo where you little know, and it will speak for
+you when your lips of clay can speak no more.
+
+When mind reaches its limit it often abdicates in favor of temper.
+Argument exhausted, the stores of abuse are open.
+
+Speak kindly of the friend who is away from you, for unkind speech has yet
+to win its first victory for the speaker.
+
+All keen observers of social and spiritual influences know that the
+prophet is one of the most potent factors in the building of our destiny,
+both as a nation and as a race.
+
+
+Spiritual
+
+God, the church, and human hearts are all things our relationship to which
+should hush our souls.
+
+Let us not be victims of the idea that holiness excludes the sunshine.
+
+The cardinal sins are less dangerous because we are more afraid of them.
+
+Those who fail to obtain [life’s intellectual and spiritual necessities]
+pay the penalty by living cramped lives and usually dying with their
+deeper longings unsatisfied.
+
+One cannot long conceal a lack of mind and soul with clothes and
+paint.---The more flash and parade the ignorant indulge in,
+the cheaper they look.
+
+The deeper hunger is satisfied only with a world made beautiful with the
+things that were whispered only into the more sacred chambers of the heart
+of man—the beautiful and the unnecessary things.
+
+The only happiness which has lasting quality comes from within. No one can
+be happy long who is not happy in soul.
+
+The person who treasures an unhappy spirit sins not only against himself
+and his fellow men, but he also sins against the Almighty.
+
+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.---A despondent person is no ornament to religion. It is the
+joy-lighted face which inspires and wins.
+
+The people who are really living want a religion which is more than a
+fashion or a convenience. It must include a working program which means
+something and is not too easy.
+
+When we widen it, plant primroses in it, and take the stones out of it,
+we no longer have a path of salvation. Then real followers of God no
+longer care to walk in it.
+
+The nature of a man can be altered or reversed.---It is the power of the
+will to resist or submit.
+
+Whoever is not physically equal to an hour or two in the sanctuary is
+hardly a fit candidate for the world’s responsibilities.
+
+The problems of the age are ethical and social. Fundamental to ethical and
+social problems are spiritual conditions. The Christian Gospel is an
+ethical and social message based on spiritual principles.
+
+The divine plan looks only to the constant narrowing of the chasm between
+man and God.
+
+We all know perfectly well that life is not all that it ought to be
+without the presence of the Personality which completes us.
+
+The only argument against [Jesus Christ] is an unfaithful follower, and
+that is refuted by a follower who is true.
+
+There is no danger that [Jesus Christ] will ever be driven out. If there
+is any danger for Him today, it is that He be crowded out.---But many say,
+“I haven’t time.”
+
+Only one thing should lead one to dedicate his life to Christian work. It
+is the great compulsion. One has it when he is conscious that he cannot do
+anything else and be quite content.
+
+Any great idea or interest, however spiritual in its nature, must be
+incarnated in an institution or it will die.---An institution must make
+them visual, real, and effective. Such is the reason for the existence
+of the church.
+
+The mission of the church is to make itself unnecessary. It will be
+dispensable when all the world shall at last have conformed to the
+purposes of God.
+
+Jesus introduces a man and a truth to each other and sees that they
+become friends.
+
+[Jesus] will become the spiritual ruler of the hearts of men. No power
+can go beyond that.
+
+There is nothing in the purpose or the kingdom of God that needs fear the
+light [i.e., knowledge of the truth]. What will not stand the light is not
+of His designing. The best that His gospel and His power can ask is to be
+investigated and tested.
+
+The world has always had strange ways, however, of putting an indefinite
+construction upon the words of Jesus. ...the wonder of them...their
+beauty...their truth. They are not so many, however, who venture to take
+them for a life program.
+
+We look at the earth and think of it as hiding those whom we have loved
+when we ought to look upward and think of them as in the keeping of
+another world. We look backward and think of their lives as belonging to
+the past when we ought to look onward and think of them as belonging to
+the boundless future.
+
+Not all the places by which [Jesus’s] footprints lead may seem
+pleasant.---A valley of pain matters much less, however, when a mountain
+of achievement lifts its head beyond.
+
+A sunset would be a tragedy did one not know that the sun will rise again.
+We cease to dread the twilight [of life] when we reflect that it is but
+the pathway to another dawn.
+
+The path to heaven lies directly through the earth.---This is a life of
+opportunity, to be lived out with full appreciation and emphasis upon the
+sweetness and the worth-whileness of each day and hour. Real religion will
+strive to make it more and not less beautiful.
+
+Truth does not always follow the processes of formal logic. The tests of
+faith are not to be found in the syllogism but in life’s great laboratory.
+
+...the object of religion is humanity. For the good of men are all laws
+established, all warnings issued, and all promises given.
+
+[The achieving of the present and future salvation of people] calls for
+the actual application of religious principles in everyday thinking and
+action. It has not achieved its end until testimony to its power and
+blessing is borne by all social life and by every social institution.
+It is nothing until it has come to be expressed in terms of life.
+
+Where such a [social] force is the cause of men doing that which they
+should not do, we can best do the work of our Lord by fighting the force
+and not the act. We can not kill the dragon by cutting off the heads; we
+must strike at the life-giving root of the evil.
+
+Humanity is restless.---People seem to be afraid of themselves, and hence
+the quiet chamber and closet of secret prayer is often unappreciated.---We
+forget that great visions must be seen in solitude and then carried out
+among the crowd. Our lonely Sinais must precede our deeds of leadership.
+Every Calvary is preceded by its Gethsemane, and quietness and solitude
+are not to be despised.---Only small minds are always tossing upon a sea
+of restlessness. Great lives know how to be tranquil.
+
+He who would die in the spirit of the cross must live there.
+
+It is pitiable how often the offer [of Jesus’s yoke] is misconstrued as an
+attempt to increase the burden when it really amounts to an offer to help
+in carrying it.
+
+[Christianity] can afford to invite the pragmatic test, for it is
+supremely a workable religion. The best things never can be adequately
+appraised at the first glance. They must be tried.
+
+One is as old as the spirit within him.---The date of one’s birth may be
+misleading, but the spirit of his soul never is.
+
+We greatly need to understand that our meeting with [God] is not only a
+future but also a present event.---He is the Silent Partner in all our
+upward struggles. He is the Inevitable Factor with which we must reckon
+in all our considerations. He is the Absolute Quantity to which we must
+relate ourselves, and to whose standards we must conform.---We are the
+children of One who takes into consideration but one tense.
+His word is _NOW_.
+
+
+Virtue
+
+It is the fact that love is so constituted that it finds joy in
+bearing burdens.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+One of the strongest forces now making for a day of lasting peace is the
+beautiful suggestion that comes from the spirit of those who make it their
+aim to help while others destroy.
+
+The hardy virtues that make good men are the foundation stones upon which
+any sound national life must be built.---[National life] is, therefore,
+more largely dependent upon Christian agencies than upon any other
+one influence.
+
+Responsibility is a wonderful tonic.
+
+The ideal of Jesus will remain unrealized until men have learned to accept
+his words at their face value, and to act upon the assumption that they
+are true. Faith knows no other testimony so worthy as that of obedience.
+
+Laziness is often a harder taskmaster than industry, and sin is always a
+harder taskmaster than righteousness.
+
+The habit of being real deserves a place among the chiefest of all
+virtues.---We can no more outgrow the necessity for truth and honor than
+we can outdistance that for plain living and high thinking.
+
+The only proper standard is rightness. It is a poor thing to be in fashion
+if the fashion is wrong.
+
+...the man himself must not forget that what he can do and what he will do
+are entirely determined by what he is.---One may stand upon artificial
+good behavior for an hour or a day, but he cannot do it permanently
+without the staying force of a fixed principle. It takes more than good
+resolutions to make an ethical life.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77080 ***