Go On South!
The Book in the Running Brook
THERE is a little silvery sheet of water in Minnesota called Lake
Itasca. There is a place where a little stream leaps out from the lake.
"Ole!" you will exclaim, "the lake is leaking. What is the name of this
little creek?"
"Creek! It bane no creek. It bane Mississippi river."
So even the Father of Waters has to begin as a creek. We are at the
cradle where the baby river leaps forth. We all start about alike. It
wabbles around thru the woods of Minnesota. It doesn't know where it is
going, but it is "on the way."
It keeps wabbling around, never giving up and quitting, and it gets to
the place where all of us get sooner or later. The place where Paul
came on the road to Damascus. The place of the "heavenly vision."
It is the place where gravity says, "Little Mississippi, do you want to
grow? Then you will have to go south."
The little Mississippi starts south. He says to the people, "Goodbye,
folks, I am going south." The folks at Itascaville say, "Why,
Mississippi, you are foolish. You hain't got water enough to get out of
the county." That is a fact, but he is not trying to get out of the
county. The Mississippi is only trying to go south.
The Mississippi knows nothing about the Gulf of Mexico. He does not
know that he has to go hundreds of miles south. He is only trying to go
south. He has not much water, but he does not wait for a relative to
die and bequeath him some water. That is a beautiful thought! He has
water enough to start south, and he does that.
He goes a foot south, then another foot south. He goes a mile south. He
picks up a little stream and he has some more water. He goes on south.
He picks up another stream and grows some more. Day by day he picks up
streamlets, brooklets, rivulets. Business is picking up! He grows as he
flows. Poetry!
My friends, here is one of the best pictures I can find in nature of
what it seems to me our lives should be. I hear a great many orations,
especially in high school commencements, entitled, "The Value of a Goal
in Life." But the direction is vastly more important than the goal.
Find the way your life should go, and then go and keep on going and
you'll reach a thousand goals.
We do not have to figure out how far we have to go, nor how many
supplies we will need along the way. All we have to do is to start and
we will find the resources all along the way. We will grow as we flow.
All of us can start! And then go on south!
Success is not tomorrow or next year. Success is now. Success is not at
the end of the journey, for there is no end. Success is every day in
flowing and growing. The Mississippi is a success in Minnesota as well
as on south.
You and I sooner or later hear the call, "Go on south." If we haven't
heard it, let us keep our ear to the receiver and live a more natural
life, so that we can hear the call. We are all called. It is a divine
call--the call of our unfolding talents to be used.
Remember, the Mississippi goes south. If he had gone any other
direction he would never have been heard of.
Three wonderful things develop as the Mississippi goes on south.
1. He keeps on going on south and growing greater.
2. He overcomes his obstacles and develops his power.
3. He blesses the valley, but the valley does not bless him.
Go On South and Grow Greater
You never meet the Mississippi after he starts south, but what he is
going on south and growing greater. You never meet him but what he
says, "Excuse me, but I must go on south."
The Mississippi gets to St. Paul and Minneapolis. He is a great river
now--the most successful river in the state. But he does not retire
upon his laurels. He goes on south and grows greater. He goes on south
to St. Louis. He is a wonderful river now. But he does not stop. He
goes on south and grows greater.
Everywhere you meet him he is going on south and growing greater.
Do you know why the Mississippi goes on south? To continue to be the
Mississippi. If he should stop and stagnate, he would not be the
Mississippi river, he would become a stagnant, poisonous pond.
As long as people keep on going south, they keep on living. When they
stop and stagnate, they die.
That is why I am making it the slogan of my life--GO ON SOUTH AND GROW
GREATER! I hope I can make you remember that and say it over each day.
I wish I could write it over the pulpits, over the schoolrooms, over
the business houses and homes--GO ON SOUTH AND GROW GREATER. For this
is life, and there is no other. This is education--and religion. And
the only business of life.
You and I start well. We go on south a little ways, and then we retire.
Even young people as they start south and make some little knee-pants
achievement, some kindergarten touchdown, succumb to their press
notices. Their friends crowd around them to congratulate them. "I must
congratulate you upon your success. You have arrived."
So many of those young goslings believe that. They quit and get canned.
They think they have gotten to the Gulf of Mexico when they have not
gotten out of the woods of Minnesota. Go on south!
We can protect ourselves fairly well from our enemies, but heaven
deliver us from our fool friends.
Success is so hard to endure. We can endure ten defeats better than one
victory. Success goes to the head and defeat goes to "de feet." It
makes them work harder.
The Plague of Incompetents
Civilization is mostly a conspiracy to keep us from going very far
south.
The one who keeps on going south defies custom and becomes unorthodox.
But contentment with present achievement is the damnation of the race.
The mass of the human family never go on south far enough to become
good servants, workmen or artists. The young people get a smattering
and squeeze into the bottom position and never go on south to
efficiency and promotion. They wonder why their genius is not
recognized. They do not make it visible.
Nine out of ten stenographers who apply for positions can write a few
shorthand characters and irritate a typewriter keyboard. They think
that is being a stenographer, when it is merely a symptom of a
stenographer. They mangle the language, grammar, spelling,
capitalization and punctuation. Their eyes are on the clock, their
minds on the movies.
Nine out of ten workmen cannot be trusted to do what they advertise to
do, because they have never gone south far enough to become efficient.
Many a professional man is in the same class.
Half of our life is spent in getting competents to repair the botchwork
of incompetents.
No matter how well equipped you are, you are never safe in your job if
you are contented to do today just what you did yesterday. Contented to
think today what you thought yesterday.
You must go on south to be safe.
I used to know a violinist who would say, "If I were not a genius, I
could not play so well with such little practice." The poor fellow did
not know how poor a fiddler he really was. Well did Strickland
Gillilan, America's great poet-humorist, say, "Egotism is the opiate
that Nature administers to deaden the pains of mediocrity."
This Is Our Best Day
Just because our hair gets frosty or begins to rub off in spots, we are
so prone to say, "I am aging rapidly." It pays to advertise. We always
get results. See the one shrivel who goes around front-paging his age.
Age is not years; age is grunts.
We say, "I've seen my best days." And the undertaker goes and greases
his buggy. He believes in "preparedness."
Go on south! We have not seen our best days. This is the best day so
far, and tomorrow is going to be better on south.
We are only children in God's great kindergarten, playing with our
A-B-C's. I do not utter that as a bit of sentiment, but as the great
fundamental of our life. I hope the oldest in years sees that best. I
hope he says, "I am just beginning. Just beginning to understand. Just
beginning to know about life."
We are not going on south to old age, we are going on south to eternal
youth. It is the one who stops who "ages rapidly." Each day brings us a
larger vision. Infinity, Eternity, Omnipotence, Omniscience are all on
south.
We have left nothing behind but the husks. I would not trade this
moment for all the years before it. I have their footings at compound
interest! They are dead. This is life.
Birthdays and Headmarks
Yesterday I had a birthday. I looked in the glass and communed with my
features. I saw some gray hairs coming. Hurrah!
You know what gray hairs are? Did you ever get a headmark in school?
Gray hairs are silver headmarks in our education as we go on south.
You children cheer up. Your black hair and auburn hair and the other
first reader hair will pass and you'll get promoted as you go on south.
Don't worry about gray hair or baldness. Only worry about the location
of your gray hair or baldness. If they get on the inside of the head,
worry. Do you know why corporations sometimes say they do not want to
employ gray-headed men? They have found that so many of them have quit
going on south and have gotten gray on the inside--or bald.
These same corporations send out Pinkertons and pay any price for
gray-headed men--gray on the outside and green on the inside. They are
the most valuable, for they have the vision and wisdom of many years
and the enthusiasm and "pep" and courage of youth.
The preacher, the teacher--everyone who gets put on the retired list,
retires himself. He quits going on south.
The most wonderful person in the world is the one who has lived years
and years on earth and has perhaps gotten gray on the outside, but has
kept young and fresh on the inside. Put that person in the pulpit, in
the schoolroom, in the office, behind the ticket-window or on the
bench--or under the hod--and you find the whole world going to that
person for direction, advice, vision, help, sympathy, love.
I am happy today as I look back over my life. I have been trying to
lecture a good while. I am almost ashamed to tell you how long, for I
ought to know more about it by this time. But when anybody says, "I
heard you lecture twenty years ago over at----" I stop him. "Please
don't throw it up to me now. I am just as ashamed of it as you are. I
am trying to do better now."
O, I want to forget all the past, save its lessons. I am just beginning
to live. If anybody wants to be my best friend, let him come to me and
tell me how to improve--what to do and what not to do. Tell me how to
give a better lecture.
Years ago a bureau representative who booked me told me my lectures
were good enough. I told him I wanted to get better lectures, for I was
so dissatisfied with what little I knew. He told me I could never get
any better. I had reached my limit. Those lectures were the "limit." I
shiver as I think what I was saying then. I want to go on south
shivering about yesterday. These years I have noticed the people on the
platform who were contented with their offerings, were not trying to
improve them, and were lost in admiration of what they were doing, did
not stay long on the platform. I have watched them come and go, come
and go. I have heard their fierce invectives against the bureaus and
ungrateful audiences that were "prejudiced" against them.
Birthdays are not annual affairs. Birthdays are the days when we have a
new birth. The days when we go on south to larger visions. I wish I
could have a birthday every minute!
Some people seem to string out to near a hundred years with mighty few
birthdays. Some people spin up to Methuselahs in a few years.
From what I can learn of Methuselah, he never grew past copper-toed
boots. He just hibernated and "chawed on."
The more birthdays we have, the nearer we approach eternal youth!
Bernhardt, Davis and Edison
The spectacle of Sarah Bernhardt, past seventy, thrilling and gripping
audiences with the fire and brilliancy of youth, is inspiring. No
obstacle can daunt her. Losing a leg does not end her acting, for she
remains the "Divine Sarah" with no crippling of her work. She looks
younger than many women of half her years. "The years are nothing to
me."
Senator Henry Gassaway Davis, West Virginia's Grand Old Man, at
ninety-two was working as hard and hopefully as any man of the
multitudes in his employ. He was an ardent Odd Fellow, and one day at
ninety-two--just a short time before his passing--he went out to the
Odd Fellows' Home near Elkins, where he lived. On the porch of the home
was a row of old men inmates. The senator shook hands with these men
and one by one they rose from the bench to return his hearty greetings.
The last man on the bench did not rise. He helplessly looked up at the
senator and said, "Senator, you'll have to excuse me from getting up.
I'm too old. When you get as old as I am, you'll not get up, either."
"That's all right. But, my man, how old are you?"
"Senator, I'm old in body and old in spirit. I'm past sixty."
"My boy," laughed Senator Davis, "I was an Odd Fellow before you were
born."
The senator at ninety-two was younger than the man "past sixty,"
because he was going on south.
When I was a little boy I saw them bring the first phonograph that Mr.
Edison invented into the meeting at Lakeside, Ohio. The people cheered
when they heard it talk.
You would laugh at it today. It had a tinfoil cylinder, it screeched
and stuttered. You would not have it in your barn today to play to your
ford!
But the people said, "Mr. Edison has succeeded." There was one man who
did not believe that Mr. Edison had succeeded. His name was Thomas Alva
Edison. He had gotten to St. Paul, and he went on south. A million
people would have stopped there and said, "I have arrived." They would
have put in their time litigating for their rights with other people
who would have gone on south with the phonograph idea.
Mr. Edison has said that his genius is mainly his ability to keep on
south. A young lady succeeded in getting into his laboratory the other
day, and she wrote me that the great inventor showed her one invention.
"I made over seven thousand experiments and failed before I hit upon
that."
"Why make so many experiments?"
"I know more than seven thousand ways now that won't work."
I doubt if there are ten men in America who could go on south in the
face of seven thousand failures. Today he brings forth a
diamond-pointed phonograph. I am sure if we could bring Mr. Edison to
this platform and ask him, "Have you succeeded?" he would say what he
has said to reporters and what he said to the young lady, "I have not
succeeded. I am succeeding. All I have done only shows me how much
there is yet to do."
That is success supreme. Not "succeeded" but "succeeding."
What a difference between "ed" and "ing"! The difference between death
and life. Are you "ed-ing" or "ing-ing"?
Moses Begins at Eighty
Moses, the great Hebrew law-giver, was eighty years old before he
started south. It took him eighty years to get ready. Moses did not
even get on the back page of the Egyptian newspapers till he was
eighty. He went on south into the extra editions after that!
If Moses had retired at seventy-nine, we'd never have heard of him. If
Moses had retired to a checkerboard in the grocery store or to pitching
horseshoes up the alley and talking about "ther winter of fifty-four,"
he would have become the seventeenth mummy on the thirty-ninth row in
the green pickle-jar!
Imagine Moses living today amidst the din of the high school orations
on "The Age of the Young Man" and the Ostler idea that you are going
down hill at fifty. Imagine Moses living on "borrowed time" when he
becomes the leader of the Israelite host.
I would see his scandalized friends gather around him. "Moses! Moses!
what is this we hear? You going to lead the Israelites to the Promised
Land? Why, Moses, you are an old man. Why don't you act like an old
man? You are liable to drop off any minute. Here is a pair of slippers.
And keep out of the night air. It is so hard on old folks."
I think I would hear Moses say, "No, no, I am just beginning to see
what to do. Watch things happen from now on. Children of Israel,
forward, march!"
I see Moses at eighty starting for the Wilderness so fast Aaron can
hardly keep up. Moses is eighty-five and busier and more enthusiastic
than ever. The people say, "Isn't Moses dead?" "No." "Well, he ought to
be dead, for he is old enough."
They appoint a committee to bury Moses. You cannot do anything in
America without a committee. The committee gets out the invitations and
makes all the arrangements for a gorgeous funeral next Thursday. They
get ready the resolutions of
respect--"Whereas,--Whereas,--Resolved,--Resolved."
Then I see the committee waiting on Moses. That is what a committee
does--it "waits" on something or other. And this committee goes up to
General Moses' private office. It is his busy day. They have to stand
in line and wait their turn. When they get up to Moses' desk, the great
prophet says, "Boys, what is it? Cut it short, I'm busy."
The committee begins to weep. "General Moses, you are a very old man.
You are eighty-five years old and full of honors. We are the committee
duly authorized to give you gorgeous burial. The funeral is to be next
Thursday. Kindly die."
I see Moses look over his appointments. "Next Thursday? Why, boys,
every hour is taken next Thursday. I simply cannot attend my funeral
next Thursday."
They cannot bury Moses. He cannot attend. You cannot bury anybody who
is too busy to attend his own funeral! You cannot bury anybody until he
consents. It is bad manners! The committee is so mortified, for all the
invitations are out. It waits.
Moses is eighty-six and the committee 'phones over, "Moses, can you
attend next Thursday?" And Moses says, "No, boys, you'll just have to
hold that funeral until I get this work pushed off so I can attend it.
I haven't even time to think about getting old."
The committee waits. Moses is ninety and rushed more than ever. He is
doing ten men's work and his friends all say he is killing himself. But
he makes the committee wait.
Moses is ninety-five and burning the candle at both ends. He is a
hundred. And the committee dies!
Moses goes right on shouting, "Onward!" He is a hundred and ten. He is
a hundred and twenty. Even then I read, "His eye was not dim, nor his
natural force abated." He had not time to stop and abate.
So God buried him. The committee was dead. O, friends, this is not
irreverence. It is joyful reverence. It is the message to all of us, Go
on south to the greater things, and get so enthused and absorbed in our
going that we'll fool the "committee."
All the multitudes of the Children of Israel died in the Wilderness.
They were afraid to go on south. Only two of them went on south--Joshua
and Caleb. They put the giants out of business.
The Indians once owned America. But they failed to go on south. So
another crop of Americans came into the limelight. If we modern
Americans do not go on south we will join the Indians, the auk and the
dodo.
The "Sob Squad"
I am so sorry for the folks who quit, retire, "get on the shelf" or
live on "borrowed time."
They generally join the "sob squad."
They generally discover the world is "going to the dogs." They cry on
my shoulder, no matter how good clothes I wear.
They tell me nobody uses them right. The person going on south has not
time to look back and see how anybody uses him.
They say nobody loves them. Which is often a fact. Nobody loves the
clock that runs down.
They say, "Only a few more days of trouble, only a few more
tribulations, and I'll be in that bright and happy land." What will
they do with them when they get them there? They would be dill pickles
in the heavenly preserve-jar.
They say, "I wish I were a child again. I was happy when I was a child
and I'm not happy now. Them was the best days of my life childhood's
palmy days."
Wake up! Your clock has run down. Anybody who wants to be a child again
is confessing he has lost his memory. Anybody who can remember the
horrors of childhood could not be hired to live it over again.
If there is anybody who does not have a good time, if there is anybody
who gets shortchanged regularly, it is a child. I am so sorry for a
child. Hurry up and go on south. It is better on south.
Waiting till the "Second Table"
I wish I could forget many of my childhood memories. I remember the
palmy days. And the palm!
I often wonder how I ever lived thru my childhood. I would not take my
chances living it thru again. I am not ungrateful to my parents. I had
advantages. I was born in a parsonage and was reared in the nurture and
admiration of the Lord. I am not just sure I quoted that correctly, but
I know I was reared in a parsonage. About all I inherited was a Godly
example and a large appetite. That was about all there was to inherit.
I cannot remember when I was not hungry. I used to go around feeling
like the Mammoth Cave, never thoroly explored.
I never sit down as "company" at a dinner and see some little children
going sadly into the next room to "wait till the second table" that my
heart does not go out to them. I remember when I did that.
I can only remember about four big meals in a year. That was "quart'ly
meeting day." We always had a big dinner on "quart'ly meeting day."
Elder Berry would stay for dinner. His name was Berry, but being
"presiding elder," we called him Elder Berry.
Elder Berry always stayed for dinner. He was one of the easiest men to
get to stay for dinner I ever saw.
Mother would stay home from "quart'ly meeting" to get the big dinner
ready. She would cook up about all the "brethren" brought in at the
last donation. We had one of those stretchable tables, and mother would
stretch it clear across the room and put on two table-cloths. She would
lap them over in the middle, where the hole was.
I would watch her get the big dinner ready. I would look over the long
table and view the "promised land." I would see her set on the jelly.
We had so much jelly--red jelly, and white jelly, and blue jelly. I
don't just remember if they had blue jelly, but if they had it we had
it on that table. All the jelly that ever "jelled" was represented. I
didn't know we had so much jelly till "quart'ly meeting" day. I would
watch the jelly tremble. Did you ever see jelly tremble? I used to
think it ought to tremble, for Elder Berry was coming for dinner.
I would see mother put on the tallest pile of mashed potatoes you ever
saw. She would make a hollow in the top and fill it with butter. I
would see the butter melt and run down the sides, and I would say,
"Hurry, mother, it is going to spill!" O, how I wanted to spill it! I
could hardly hold out faithful.
And then Elder Berry would sit down at the table, at the end nearest
the fried chicken. The "company" would sit down. I used to wonder why
we never could have a big dinner but what a lot of "company" had to
come and gobble it up. They would fill the table and father would sit
down in the last seat. There was no place for me to sit. Father would
say, "You go into the next room, my boy, and wait. There's no room for
you at the table."
The hungriest one of that assemblage would have to go in the next room
and hear the big dinner. Did you ever hear a big dinner when you felt
like the Mammoth Cave? I used to think as I would sit in the next room
that heaven would be a place where everybody would eat at the first
table.
I would watch them thru the key-hole. It was going so fast. There was
only one piece of chicken left. It was the neck. O, Lord, spare the
neck! And I would hear them say, "Elder Berry, may we help you to
another piece of the chicken?"
And Elder Berry would take the neck!
Many a time after that, Elder Berry would come into the room where I
was starving. He would say, "Brother Parlette, is this your boy?" He
would come over to the remains of Brother Parlette's boy. He would
often put his hand in benediction upon my head.
My head was not the place that needed the benediction.
He would say, "My boy, I want you to have a good time now." Now! When
all the chicken was gone and he had taken the neck! "My boy, you are
seeing the best days of your life right now as a child."
The dear old liar! I was seeing the worst days of my life. If there is
anybody shortchanged--if there is anybody who doesn't have a good time,
it's a child. Life has been getting better ever since, and today is the
best day of all. Go on south!
It's Better on South
Seeing your best days as a child? No! You are seeing your worst days.
Of course, you can be happy as a child. A boy can be happy with fuzz on
his upper lip, but he'll be happier when his lip feels more like mine
like a piece of sandpaper. There are chapters of happiness undreamed of
in his philosophy.
A child can be full of happiness and only hold a pint. But afterwhile
the same child will hold a quart.
I think I hold a gallon now. And I see people in the audience who must
hold a barrel! Go on south. Of course, I do not mean circumference. But
every year we go south increases our capacity for joy. Our life is one
continual unfolding as we go south. Afterwhile this old world gets too
small for us and we go on south into a larger one.
So we cannot grow old. Our life never stops. It goes on and on forever.
Anything that does not stop cannot grow old or have age. Material
things will grow old. This stage will grow old and stop. This hall will
grow old and stop. This house we live in will grow old and stop. This
flesh and blood house we live in will grow old and stop. This lecture
even will grow old--and stop! But you and I will never grow old, for
God cannot grow old. You and I will go on living as long as God lives.
I am not worried today over what I do not know. I used to be worried. I
used to say, "I have not time to answer you now!" But today it is such
a relief to look people in the face and say, "I do not know."
And I have to say that to many questions, "I do not know." I often
think if people in an audience only knew how little I know, they would
not stay to hear me.
But some day I shall know! I patiently wait for the answer. Every day
brings the answer to something I could not answer yesterday.
It will take an eternity to know an infinity!
What a wonderful happiness to go on south to it!
Overcoming Obstacles Develops Power
As the Mississippi River goes on south he finds obstacles along the
way. You and I find obstacles along our way south. What shall we do?
Go to Keokuk, Iowa, for your answer.
They have built a great concrete obstacle clear across the path of the
river. It is many feet high, and many, many feet long. The river cannot
go on south. Watch him. He rises higher than the obstacle and sweeps
over it on south.
Over the great power dam at Keokuk sweeps the Mississippi. And then you
see the struggle of overcoming the obstacle develops light and power to
vitalize the valley. A hundred towns and cities radiate the light and
power from the struggle. The great city of St. Louis, many miles away,
throbs with the victory.
So that is why they spent the millions to build the obstacle--to get
the light and the power. The light and the power were latent in the
river, but it took the obstacle and the overcoming to develop it and
make it useful.
That is exactly what happens when you and I overcome our obstacles. We
develop our light and power. We are rivers of light and power, but it
is all latent and does no good until we overcome obstacles as we go on
south.
Obstacles are the power stations on our way south!
And where the most obstacles are, there you find the most power to be
developed. So many of us do not understand that. We look southward and
we see the obstacles in the road. "I am so unfortunate. I could do
these great things, but alas! I have so many obstacles in the way."
Thank God! You are blessed of Providence. They do not waste the
obstacles. The presence of the obstacles means that there is a lot of
light and power in you to be developed. If you see no obstacles, you
are confessing to blindness.
I hear people saying, "I hope the time may speedily come when I shall
have no more obstacles to overcome!" When that time comes, ring up the
hearse, for you will be a "dead one."
Life is going on south, and overcoming the obstacles. Death is merely
quitting.
The fact that we are not buried is no proof that we are alive. Go along
the street in almost any town and see the dead ones. There they are
decorating the hitching-racks and festooning the storeboxes. There they
are blocking traffic at the postoffice and depot. There they are in the
hotel warming the chairs and making the guests stand up. There they
are--rows of retired farmers who have quit work and moved to town to
block improvements and die. But they will never need anything more than
burying.
For they are dead from the ears up. They have not thought a new thought
the past month. Sometimes they sit and think, but generally they just
sit. They have not gone south an inch the past year.
Usually the deadest loafer is married to the livest woman. Nature tries
to maintain an equilibrium.
They block the wheels of progress and get in the way of the people
trying to go on south. They say of the people trying to do things. "Aw,
he's always tryin' to run things."
They do not join in to promote the churches and schools and big brother
movements. They growl at the lyceum courses and chautauquas, because
they "take money outa town." They do not take any of their money "outa
town." Ringling and Barnum & Bailey get theirs.
I do not smile as I refer to the dead. I weep. I wish I could squirt
some "pep" into them and start them on south.
But all this lecture has been discussing this, so I hurry on to the
last glimpse of the book in the running brook.
Go on South From Principle
Here we come to the most wonderful and difficult thing in life. It is
the supreme test of character. That is, Why go on south? Not for
blessing nor cursing, not for popularity nor for selfish ends, not for
anything outside, but for the happiness that comes from within.
The Mississippi blesses the valley every day as he goes on south and
overcomes. But the valley does not bless the river in return. The
valley throws its junk back upon the river. The valley pours its foul,
muddy, poisonous streams back upon the Mississippi to defile him. The
Mississippi makes St. Paul and Minneapolis about all the prosperity
they have, gives them power to turn their mills. But the Twin Cities
merely throw their waste back upon their benefactor.
The Mississippi does not resign. He does not tell a tale of woe. He
does not say, "I am not appreciated. My genius is not understood. I am
not going a step farther south. I am going right back to Lake Itasca."
No, he does not even go to live with his father-in-law.
He says, "Thank you. Every little helps, send it all along." Go a few
miles below the Twin Cities and see how, by some mysterious alchemy of
Nature, the Mississippi has taken over all the poison and the
defilement, he has purified it and clarified it, and has made it a part
of himself. And he is greater and farther south!
He fattens upon bumps. Kick him, and you push him farther south. "Hand
him a lemon," and he makes lemonade.
Civilization conspires to defeat the Mississippi. Chicago's drainage
canal pollutes him. The flat, lazy Platte, three miles wide and three
inches deep; the peevish, destructive Kaw, and all those streams that
unite to form the treacherous, sinful, irresponsible lower Missouri;
the big, muddy Ohio, the Arkansas, the Red, the black and the blue
floods--all these pour into the Mississippi.
Day by day the Father of Waters goes on south, taking them over and
purifying them and making them a part of himself. Nothing can
discourage, divert nor defile him. No matter how poisonous he becomes,
he goes a few miles on south and he is all pure again.
Wonderful the book in the running brook! We let our life stream become
poisoned by bitter memories and bitter regrets. We carry along such a
heart full of the injuries that other people have done us, that
sometimes we are bank to bank full of poison and a menace to those
around us. We say, "I can forgive, but I cannot forget."
Oh, forget it! Drop it all. Purify your life and go on south all sweet
again. We forget what we ought to remember and remember what we ought
to forget. We need schools of memory, but we need schools of
forgettery, even more.
As you go on south and bless your valley, do you notice the valley does
not bless you very much? Have you sadly noted that the people you help
the most often are the least grateful in return?
Don't wait to be thanked. Hurry on to avoid the kick! Do good to others
because that is the way to be happy, but do not wait for a receipt for
your goodness; you will need a poultice every time you wait. I know,
for I have waited!
We get so discouraged. We say, "I have gone far enough south." There is
nobody who does not have that to meet. The preacher, the teacher, the
editor, the man in office, the business man, the father and
mother--every one who tries to carry on the work of the church, the
school, the lyceum and chautauqua, the work that makes for a better
community, gets discouraged at times.
We fail to see what we are doing or why we are doing it. Sometimes we
sit down completely discouraged and say, "I'm done. I'm going to quit.
I have done my share. Nobody appreciates what I do. Let somebody else
do it awhile."
Stop! You are not saying that. The evil one is whispering that into
your heart. His business is to stop you from going south. His most
successful tool is discouragement, which is a wedge, and if he can get
the sharp edge started into your thought, he is going to drive it
deeper.
You do not go south and overcome your obstacles and bless the valley
for praise or blame, for appreciation or lack of it. You do it to live.
You do it to remain a living river and not a stagnant, unhappy pond or
swamp.
YOU ARE SAVING YOURSELF BY SAVING OTHERS. GO ON SOUTH!
Almost everybody is deceived. We work from mixed motives. We fool
ourselves that we are working to do good, when as we do the good, if we
are not praised or thanked for it, if people do not present us a medal
or resolutions, we want to quit. That is why there are so many
disappointed and disgruntled people in the world. They worked for
outside thanks instead of inside thanks. They were trying to be
personal saviours. They say this is an ungrateful world.
O, how easy it is to say these things, and how hard it is to do them!
Reaching the Gulf
But because the Mississippi does these things, one day the train I was
riding stopped in Louisiana. We had come to a river so great science
has not yet been able to put a bridge across it.
I watched them pile the steel train upon a ferry-boat. I watched the
boat crossing a river more than a mile wide. Standing upon the
ferry-boat, I could look down into the lordly river and then far north
perhaps fifteen hundred miles to the little struggling streamlet
starting southward thru the forests of Minnesota, there writing the
first chapter of this wonderful book in the running brook.
I thank God that I had gone a little farther southward in my own life.
Father of Waters, you have fought a good fight. You are conquering
gloriously. You bear upon your bosom the commerce of many nations. I
know why. I saw you born, saw your struggles, saw you get in the right
channel, saw you learn the lessons of your knocks, and saw that you
never stopped going southward.
And may we read it into our own lives. May we get the vision of which
way to go, and then keep on going south--on and on, overcoming, getting
the lessons of the bumps, the strength from the struggle and thus
making it a part of ourselves, and thus growing greater.
Go on South Forever!
Where shall we stop going south? At the Gulf of Mexico?
The Mississippi knows nothing about the gulf. He goes on south until he
reaches the gulf. Then he pushes right on into the gulf as tho nothing
had happened. So he pushes his physical banks on south many miles right
out into the gulf.
And when he comes to the end of his physical banks, he pushes on south
into the gulf, and goes on south round and round the globe.
When you and I come to our Gulf of Mexico, we must push right on south.
So we push our physical banks years farther into the gulf. And when
physical banks fail, we go on south beyond this mere husk, into the
great Gulf of the Beyond, to go on south unfolding thru eternity.
WE NEVER STOP GOING SOUTH.