who definitely sets his steps along a certain way, are only helps, not
hindrances. One gains the strength of that which he overcomes. He
transforms obstacles into stepping-stones. For we live and move and have
our being in an ethereal atmosphere, which is universal, and which
unerringly registers every thought and every energy, and transmutes
these into living forces. Thought is creative, and if the thought be
held with sufficient intensity, it acts upon every element that has to
do with the final achievement. Imagination--which is simply clairvoyant
vision--discerns the ideal in the dim distance, and thought is the
motive force by means of which it is achieved. To be "infirm of will"
is, therefore, the greatest of misfortunes, as it inevitably produces
complete failure in all the affairs of life. However hopeless a certain
combination of events may look, it really is not so. Nothing is ever
hopeless, because nothing is final. Conditions are forever flowing like
a river, and may be modified and transformed at any moment.
Failure or success is optional with the individual, for each lies in
character, and is not a matter of possessions or external conditions. To
become cynical, despondent, indifferent, is failure, and one has no
moral right to fall to that level. Associations that induce these
feelings should be abandoned. The happy conditions of life are to be had
on the same terms. The fretful, the ill-tempered, the selfish, the
exacting, must, somewhere and some way, learn their lesson and grow
toward the light; but their influence should not be allowed to poison
the spiritual atmosphere. It is neither a moral duty, nor is it even
true sympathy to share the gloom and depression generated by these
qualities. The inward whisper of the Spirit is the summons to a nobler
plane on which all the higher powers find their expression. It is a
fatal mistake to enter into the dark and unreasoning moods of every
unfortunately constituted person. To do this habitually is to so deplete
the forces of the spirit that one has nothing left. Let one keep his
heart and mind in the currents of the Divine Power; let him actively
follow the vision that is revealed to him, and he shall achieve and
realize his ideals. It is the law and the prophets. A force as
resistless as that of the attraction that holds the stars in their
courses will lead him on. "The love of God accomplishes all things
quietly and completely."
The mystic truth that lies enfolded in the words, "Cast thyself into the
will of God and thou shalt become as God," is one of marvellous potency.
To achieve the state of absolute peace and reconcilement with the Divine
will is to achieve poise and power. For to be thus "cast into the will
of God" means no mere languid acquiescence or hopeless, despairing
acceptance; it means no merely negative and passive state that accepts
the will of God for lack of sufficient stamina to assert its own will.
But, instead, it means an intelligent recognition of the divine order;
it means the will to gain the higher plane of life; it means the glad
entering into a new and finer atmosphere charged with the utmost
potency, and to become so receptive to it, so much a part of this energy
as to command its expression in various forms of activity. The "will of
God" is, indeed, the atmosphere of heavenly magnetism; it is liberation,
not captivity; it is achievement, not renunciation. People talk about
being "resigned" to the will of God; as well might they phrase being
"resigned" to Paradise! That has been an inconceivably false tradition
that repeated the prayer, "Thy will be done," as if it were the most
sorrowful, instead of the most joyful, petition.
There is another phase of experience into which those of a certain
sensitiveness of temperament are apt to fall when encountering the loss
or pain that, in one form or another, seems a part of the discipline of
the present life; a phase that can only be described as spiritual
loneliness and desolation, in which no effort seems possible. It is an
experience portrayed in the following stanzas:--
"I see a Spirit by thy side,
Purple-winged and eagle-eyed,
Looking like a heavenly guide.
Though he seems so bright and fair,
Ere thou trust his proffered care,
Pause a little, and beware!
If he bid thee dwell apart,
Tending some ideal smart
In a sick and coward heart;
In self-worship wrapped alone,
Dreaming thy poor griefs are grown
More than other men have known;
Though his words seem true and wise,
Soul, I say to thee, Arise,
He is a Demon in disguise!"
It is a phase in which one feels his own peculiar sorrow as the most
unendurable of all. Perhaps it is--but one _must_ abandon that point of
view. "That way madness lies." His life may be desolate, but he must not
allow himself to meditate on that conviction. It is moral as well as
mental disaster, and as life is a divine responsibility, not to be
evaded because things in general go wrong, one has no right to live in
less than his best expression every day and hour. In darkness and
desolation, even, one may find a spiritual exaltation. Such a period in
life may be like that of the seed, isolated and buried in the
ground--that it may germinate and grow; that it may spring up in leaf
and flower and fruit, and reach out to life and light with multiplied
forces in the transfiguration of new power. A period that seems empty
and devoid of stimulus may be, after all, that of highest potency. When
nothing crystallizes into events, all the elements are plastic to the
impress of spiritual energy. "Cast thyself into the will of God." This
is the crucible from which is distilled the alembic of power. One may
stamp the image of noblest achievement upon this plastic period. It is
the time in which to create on the spiritual side.
To live in poise, and beauty, and harmony is the finest of all the fine
arts. It is, in itself, the occupation of life. "I am primarily engaged
to myself," said Emerson, "to be a public servant of the gods; to
demonstrate to all men that there is good will and intelligence at the
heart of things, and ever higher and yet higher leadings. These are my
engagements. If there be power in good intention, in fidelity, and in
toil, the north wind shall be purer, the stars in heaven shall glow with
a kindlier beam, that I have lived."
It is in the will of God that perfect serenity and joy shall be found.
"In His will is our peace," says Dante. The acceptance of this profound
truth is the absolute key to all harmony and happiness. When sorrow is
felt as a dark cloud, a crushing weight, the energies are paralyzed; but
when one can rise above this inertia and cease questioning that which he
regards as a mysterious and--in all humility--undeserved calamity; when
he can simply accept it as an expression of the divine action that is
moulding the soul, and thus leave it all in peace of spirit; when,
forgetting the past, he can press onward to the things that are
before,--then, indeed, does he receive of the true ministry of pain.
"Every consecration made in the darkness is reaching out toward the
light, and in the end it must come into the light, strong in the
strength which it won in its life and struggle in the dark."
There is a great renewal and regeneration of life in the actual
realization of Saint Paul's admonition as to forgetting the things that
are behind to press onward to those before. One should force himself,
simply by an act of will and by his rational convictions of the beauty
and value of life, to let go past experiences that chain him to sorrow,
and, instead, link himself in that magnetism of spiritual apprehension
possible to achieve, to the enchantment and power of the future. Even
the most tragic sorrows lose their hold over one if he will reflect that
these, as well as his joys, are alike expressions of the divine will.
"Seek you," said a devout Catholic priest, "the secret of union with
God? There is none other than to avail yourselves of all that He sends
you. You have but to accept all that He sends, and let it do its work in
you.... No created mind or heart can teach you what this divine action
will do in you; you will learn it by successive experiences. Your life
unceasingly flows into this incomprehensible abyss, where we have but to
love and accept as best that which the present moment brings, with
perfect confidence in this divine action which of itself can only work
you good."
When the divine action comes in the guise of joy and happiness, one is
swift to give thanks. But when it comes in the guise of pain, shall he
not also see in it the expression of God's will, and accept it with that
absolute confidence in the wisdom and beneficence of the divine action
that is, in itself, peace and sweetness? For it is a "light affliction
which is but for a moment," and the promise is ours that it "worketh for
us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." And this is not
merely nor mostly a religious enthusiasm; it is the only practical
working basis on which one whom experiences touch deeply can live at
all. Without this philosophy sorrow would undermine the health and
paralyze all the energy that should express itself in achievements. But
the secret of joy is hidden in pain.
"For what God deigns to try with sorrow
He means not to decay to-morrow;
But through that fiery trial last
When earthly ties and bonds are past."
An experience that receives this test must hold deep significance. Let
one accept it,--not only with patience and trust, but triumphantly,
radiantly, as in the exquisite realization of the divine words: "For ye
have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye shall
receive the promise." And the promise is sure if the conditions have
been fulfilled. It is only a question of time. Even heaven itself is but
"the perfect sight of Christ," and why shall not this radiant vision
flash upon us, now and here in the earthly life, and make heaven of
every day? It is not merely by the change called death that we enter
into the spiritual world. The turn of thought, the thrill of love and
sacrifice and generous outgoing, carries one, at any instant, into the
heavenly life. It is only the qualities that find there their native
atmosphere which give beauty, depth, and significance to this human
life. It is only as one lives _divinely_ that he lives at all,--only as
one recognizes "the perfect sight of the Christ" that he recognizes the
full scope of his responsibility and enters on his truest experiences.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Conduct and Beauty.]
Matthew Arnold dwells often upon "our need for conduct, our need for
beauty;" and he finds the springs of the supply to be, not in the
"strenuous" life, always at high pressure and extreme tension, but in
the thoughtful leisure, in the serenity of repose, in the devotion to
poetry and art. "How," he questions, "are poetry and eloquence to
exercise the power of relating the modern results of natural science to
man's instinct for conduct, his instinct for beauty? And here again I
answer that I do not know _how_ they will exercise it, but that they can
and will exercise it I am sure. I do not mean that modern philosophical
poets and modern philosophical moralists are to come and relate for us,
in express terms, the results of modern scientific research to our
instinct for conduct, our instinct for beauty. But I mean that we shall
find, as a matter of experience, if we know the best that has been
thought and uttered in the world, we shall find that the art and poetry
and eloquence of men who lived, perhaps, long ago, who had the most
limited natural knowledge, who had the most erroneous conceptions about
many important matters,--we shall find that this art, and poetry, and
eloquence, have, in fact, not only the power of refreshing and
delighting us, they have also the power,--such is the strength and
worth, in essentials, of their author's criticism of life,--they have a
fortifying, and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive power, capable
of wonderfully helping us to relate the results of modern science to our
need for conduct, our need for beauty."
Life has a tendency to become far too "strenuous" with the best one can
do, even; and the need is not for greater pressure of intensity, but for
greater receptivity of intellectual and spiritual refreshment; for a
calmer trust and a loftier faith.
The joy of faith in its inspiration and emotion is wonderfully renewed
from the Divine Word. "The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting
light, and thy God thy glory." The gospels are full of these positive
and radiant assurances that invest faith with the most absolute joy of
confidence and positiveness of trust. These assurances meet the eye and
enter the heart with the certainty of a personal message, directly given
from God. And it is in this realm of the higher thought, of that culture
of the soul which is the true object and aim of the temporary life on
earth, that the relief from the too strenuous pressure of affairs must
be found. The human soul is so constituted that it cannot live unless it
breathes its native air of inspiration and joy and divineness. It is
stifled in the "strenuous" lower life, its energies are paralyzed unless
it seek renewal at the divine springs. It is this strenuousness of
latter-day life, unrelieved by love and by prayer; unrelieved by the
spiritual luxury of loving service and outgoing thought; this strenuous
attitude, intent on getting and greed and gain and personal advantage,
that, at last, ends in the discords and the crimes, the despair and the
suicides, whose records fill the daily press. The cure for all these
ills is to be found only in the higher life of conduct and of beauty.
"Thou shalt show me the way of life: Thou shalt make me full of joy
with Thy countenance." Here, and here alone, is the cure, the relief,
the leading into peace and serenity and exaltation. It is not that the
"fierce energy" of life is in excess, but that its application is in
wrong and unmeaning directions. Let the soul find its true refreshment
and infinitely sustaining tide of energy in God, and immediately "old
things have passed away," and "all have become new," and life is full of
exhilaration and joy. "Every day we ought to renew our purpose, saying
to ourselves: This day let us make a sound beginning, for what we have
hitherto done is naught." Every day is a new and definite re-entrance
upon life. Nor is it worth while to linger too much on the mistakes, the
errors of yesterday. True, the consequences of errors and mistakes
linger in life until they are worked out; but the working out is, after
all, only a question of time and of unfaltering persistence in the
upward way, and thus a new foundation of life is laid: "old things have
passed away and all things have become new." It is in the serene and
joyous exaltation of life alone that one truly lives; in that sweetness
of mutual trust and generous aims and over-flowing love that radiates
its joy and beauty to all with whom it comes in contact, and which is
perpetually fed and perpetually renewed by the constant communion of the
soul with God.
On the New Year's eve of 1902 there was a wonderful phenomenon
transpiring in the stellar universe, which continued during several
weeks. That night was one of the utmost beauty. The air was as clear as
crystal, and the constellation of Orion gleamed and sparkled like a
colossal group of diamonds against an azure background. The entire sky
was a scene of unparalleled grandeur and magnificence. The superb
constellations of Orion and Ursa Major (familiarly known as the
"Dipper") blazed with an intense brilliancy that seemed the very
incarnation and concentration of electric vitality. Five of the stars in
Ursa Major were then receding from our atmosphere at the rate of twenty
thousand miles a second; the other two were approaching; and the
phenomenon of these weeks was in the changing aspect of that
constellation which the astronomers hold will require some two thousand
years to complete. Then will Ursa Major, as seen from the earth, be
entirely changed. Such facts as these, and the speculation they suggest,
offer to us a new basis for the contemplation of life. If it require a
period of two thousand years to produce the appreciable change of
grouping in a constellation whose stars are moving at the rate of twenty
thousand miles a second, this fact indicates to us the infinite spaces
and the unlimited time in which the universe moves onward in its
appointed path.
With the individual life, as with the star,--it is the direction in
which it is moving that determines the results. In this truth lies
infinite encouragement. Let one set his feet in the upward way, and keep
steadfastly to his aim; let him keep unfaltering faith with his
ideals,--and his success in whatever direction he is moving, his
ultimate achievement of every aim he follows, is assured. It becomes
simply a question of time when the entire aspect of his life shall be
changed even as that of constellations in their appointed course.
It is in this manner alone that one may control his life,--not by the
working of an instantaneous miracle, but by absolute fidelity to a
definite ideal of progressive change.
"Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and
elude me,
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-poss'd soul, eludes not,
One's self must never give way--that is the final substance--that out
of all is sure,
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?
When shows break up what but one's self is sure?"
The "quicksand years" whirl away many things. Schemes dissolve and
vanish; new combinations constantly arise; every day is, indeed, a new
beginning, and
"Every morn is the world made new."
But a purpose that remains unchanged amid all the shifting scenery of
perpetual new environments must eventually fulfil itself. The stars in
their courses fight for it. The celestial laws insure its final goal.
"Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?
When shows break up, what but one's self is sure?"
One has this sure self only in proportion as he relates his life to the
divine life. The only permanence is to be found in the currents of
divine energy, infinite and exhaustless.
There are many ways of watching the New Year in; but the somewhat unique
personal experience of welcoming it on that eve of 1902, gazing at the
vast expanse of the brilliant skies through the windows of a
sleeping-car, had its claim to beauty and sacredness. The rush of the
train gave a sense of almost floating out into the ethereal spaces.
There was a detachment from earth that hardly comes even in the sacred
service of the church on that mystic midnight of a New Year. One seemed
alone with the infinite Powers, and a new and deeper trust in the Giver
of all Good was inspired. The beautiful lines of Whittier came to
memory:--
"I know not what the future hath
Of marvel and surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies."
Thus might one remember and dream while flying on under the New Year's
skies, and realize anew that any trend of thought is inevitably
creating its future. Auto-suggestion is the most potent of forces, and
the assertion that "as a man thinketh so is he," is literally true. As
he thinketh, so he _shall_ be, also; and he can thus think himself into
new conditions and attract to himself new forces. He has the power to
keep his feet set in this upward pathway, and so sure as is the destiny
of the stars and the constellations on their course through the heavenly
spaces, so sure is his own arrival at the point toward which he is
moving, and his achievement of the supreme end he holds steadfastly in
view. Thus life will be to him no period of mere "quicksand years," but,
instead, a series of advancing realization and beautiful states. Ideals
may be swiftly realized by the accelerated energy of concentration and
prayer, and the secret of transformation from defeat and denial to the
perfect hour of triumph and happiness lies, for each one, within his own
keeping.
"One's self must never give way--that is the final substance."
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Divine Panorama.]
"Do we not all wish that we could live our lives over again in the light
of our present experience?" remarked Rev. Doctor Charles Gordon Ames;
"but this is just what God lets us do."
Here, in a word, was that divine panorama of the completeness of life
revealed; the part of it lived in this present phase of experience being
infinitely less in its relation, compared to the whole, than is one day
in its relation to the longest life possible on earth. One day out of
seventy, eighty, ninety years, would not seem so much; yet this entire
period of even the longest life on earth, in its relative proportion to
the life of all the eternities, is far less than is one day out of a
lifetime in its proportional relation to Immortality. This spiritual
panorama suggests its infinite energy of hope; it reinforces courage; it
reveals in the most impressive manner the significance of living. For it
is the tendency which always determines the result.
There can hardly be a question but that distrust of conditions is a
fatal element in all effort and achievement. Depression might, indeed,
well take its place among the seven deadly sins that Dante names. There
are serious errors whose effect is less disastrous than is that of
habitual depression of spirits. Mental power is one's working capital,
and the degree of power depends, absolutely, on the quality of thought,
or, as the phrase goes, on "the state of mind." Conditions determine
events, but conditions are plastic to thought. On them one may stamp the
impress. If he persist in regarding himself as a victim to fate and his
life as a sacrifice and burnt offering, he can very soon work this
conception into actuality. He can--indeed he will, and he inevitably
must--become that which he continually sees himself, in mental vision.
But if he will take his stand, with poise and serenity, on spiritual
truth; if he will amend his life according to spiritual laws; if he will
accept failure as merely a stepping-stone to ultimate success,--as "the
triumph's evidence,"--ill fortune can establish no dominant power over
his life. That things have gone wrong is only, after all, a proof that
they _may_ go right. The consequences of error or mistake warn one not
to make the same error or mistake again; and therefore the consequences,
however unpleasant or sad at the moment, are really educative in their
nature, and their very trial or pain becomes, if truly recognized, a
friendly and redemptive power. Then, too, time is a variable factor. It
is degree, not duration, that it means. The consequences of an error may
be accepted and annulled swiftly. Intensity of feeling will condense a
year, an eternity, even, into an hour. And the "new day," days in which,
as Doctor Ames so charmingly wrote,--
"--God sets for you
A fair clean page to write anew
The lesson blotted hitherto,"--
a new day may be a new lifetime as well as that "next life" beyond the
change we call death.
How wonderfully Emerson unfolds the magic possible to a day. "One of the
illusions," he says, "is that the present hour is not the critical,
decisive hour. _Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in
the year._ No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that
every day is Doomsday. There are days which are the carnival of the
year. The angels assume flesh, and repeatedly become visible. The
imagination of the gods is excited, and rushes on every side into forms.
Yesterday not a bird peeped; the world was barren, peaked, and pining:
to-day 't is inconceivably populous; creation swarms and meliorates."