Collected Writings of Clarence Edwin Flynn; First Edition, 1929 and Earlier

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/). Titles in LIST section are linked to corresponding pieces in WRITINGS section. Titles in WRITINGS section are linked to Appendix 1, which 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.

COLLECTED WRITINGS
OF
CLARENCE EDWIN FLYNN

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 Back to text

[2] Lawrence, Alberta, ed. Who’s Who Among North American Authors. Vol. 5, 1931–1932. Los Angeles: Golden Syndicate Publishing Co., 1931. p. 1089 Back to text

[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 Back to text

“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?”

“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?”

“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?”

“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 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 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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.

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.”

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.] Back to writings

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.” Back to writings

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). Back to writings

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.” Back to writings

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. Back to writings

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). Back to writings

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.” Back to writings

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.” Back to writings

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).] Back to writings

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Collected writings of Clarence Edwin Flynn, first series

COLLECTED WRITINGS OF CLARENCE EDWIN FLYNN

PREFACE

LIST OF WRITINGS BY CATEGORY

WRITINGS