VARIED RADIANCIES
Man is a part of Nature, but he is more than that which we mean by the
words, "mere Nature." He is Nature plus. There is given to him more than
is possessed by sun or flower. He has within him that spirit which
renders him nearer the divine than sun or flower. Mind and _soul_ make
him a superior being. Hence it is the divine plan that he should radiate
in his enlarged sphere as the sun and flower do in theirs.
Unfortunately, while we are in the body, our imperfect and evil
qualities are radiated as well as our good. This is our misfortune, and
should be our distress. For certainly every true man and woman would
desire to radiate only truth, purity, sincerity, courage, good judgment,
self-control, stamina, or perseverance in good endeavor, energy, love of
knowledge, mental capacity, justice, tact, ability, executive power,
regard for the rights of others, kindliness, individuality,
self-reliance, readiness to avail one's self of the wisdom of others,
self-dependence, attractiveness of person, companionable qualities, good
manners, good taste in dress, attractiveness of mind and soul (this as
differentiated from mere attractiveness of person), cheerfulness,
optimism, and altruism, readiness to see and have faith in the good of
others, and good humor.[B]
[B] This list, with slight variations, is taken from the _Cosmopolitan_,
Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2.
Who could ever resist the radiating influences of a Mark Tapley, such as
Dickens so vividly pictures? Such radiancies penetrate so deeply that
nothing can obliterate them. The greater the cause for wretchedness and
misery, the greater the opportunity to "come out strong" and show that
his spirit of cheerfulness was greater than any untoward circumstance.
Happy is that man or woman who gives out such radiancies, and blessed
are those who come in contact with them.
Certain men and women radiate gloom and the abnormal recognition of
their physical ills. You greet them with a cheery "Good morning" and
they respond with an explicitly detailed wail of their ailments. Their
rheumatism is "so bad," and their liver is out of order. Their backache
is worse, and their headache is "simply frightful."
Brooding over their pains and aches has magnified them so that they
overshadow all things else in the universe. An earthquake and fire that
destroy a great city are of less importance to them than the recital of
their own woes.
How different the cheery radiancies of the happy man--like Dickens's
Cheeryble Brothers--who gives out breezy healthfulness on every hand.
The clasp of the hand radiates physical vigor that in itself is a tonic
to the body; their bright and cheerful words brace up the mind; and
their God-like optimism and altruism lift up the soul so that--above the
mists and fogs of mortal error--we see God and enjoy His smile.
Some persons radiate selfishness. I was riding in the train the other
day. A woman had two whole seats, that is, her suit case took up one and
she sat on the other. The car was filled with people; every other seat
occupied. At the next station eight or ten people came aboard, and all
found places by the side of some one else, except one woman. Walking
down to where the whole seat was occupied by the suit case she asked the
owner if she might have the seat. "I suppose if there's no other you can
have it!" she replied in a surly and gruff tone. God save us from
radiating selfishness like this!
It is an almost daily occurrence to see a tired man or woman get upon a
street car and no one makes a move to give a seat, when that is all it
needs--just a little sitting nearer. This may be thoughtlessness, but
all the same it is selfishness; a forgetfulness of the sweet privilege
of helping others, no matter who.
The wife of Sir Bartle Frere once sent a servant to meet her husband,
who was just returning from Africa, an illness preventing her from
going. The man did not know Sir Bartle, and he asked for a description.
"The only description you will need," said his wife, "is this: Look out
for a fine-looking man who is helping some poor woman carry a baby, or a
basket, or a load." And, sure enough, when the train arrived he found
the distinguished diplomat, the great statesman, helping a poor laundry
woman carry her large basket of soiled linen. Ah, Sir Bartle, I greet
you a nobleman indeed, for you have radiated unselfishness, thoughtful
helpfulness, to me, and through me, to others, and thus out and on
forever.
Some persons radiate cynical distrust of their fellows. "There are no
honest men!" "I wouldn't believe in the integrity of that man under
oath." "Believe every man dishonest until he has proven himself honest,
and even then, watch out. He'll be liable to catch you if you nap." "Do
others as they would do you, but do it first," said David Harum. "A
profession of religion is but a cloak for evil." "If your bank cashier
is a Sunday-school Superintendent, watch him!" "Look out for the man who
has no open vices."
These are the catchwords of this class of persons. How pernicious and
evil are their radiancies.
Commend the fearless bravery of a Roosevelt, the unpopular decisions of
an upright judge, the single-heartedness of a labor leader, the
integrity of a railroad official, and you are met with the sneer of the
lip, the cynical glance of the eye and the scornful words: "He's only
waiting for his price."
Far rather would I meet the converse of this cynic in the optimist who
believes that every man is as good as he professes to be. For such an
abounding faith in mankind, freely radiated, has the effect of calling
forth faithfulness, and thus creating what it expects.
I know a woman who, though abundant in good works and very kindly in
some ways, who seeks opportunities for helping the helpless and
distressed, yet, when others fail to measure up to her own standard, is
harsh, censorious, bitter, and fault-finding to a degree that many find
it impossible to listen to her without distress. Thus her kindly deeds
are overlooked and ignored and she radiates to a large degree
discomfort, unrest, and irritation.
At our house we were once privileged to know a woman, recently widowed,
who had a crippled and almost helpless son of about a dozen years of
age. When her husband was alive she was the president of the leading
woman's club in her State and also the president of the State Federation
of Women's Clubs--a woman of executive ability and strong mentality,
though shy and unassuming.
Her husband was a well-known Governmental specialist in plants, trees,
etc., and she had aided him, in some of his investigations, to such a
degree that she was almost as expert as he. Unfortunately she was
afflicted with deafness. When her husband died she was left with only a
few hundred dollars. Her deafness prevented her taking any of the
positions her mental qualifications so eminently fitted her to fill. Her
crippled son must be cared for. Bravely and fearlessly, yet cautiously
and studiously, she determined to make the living for herself and son.
She bought a small ranch, planted it out in vegetables and small fruit,
and, as the crops matured, personally drove to town and marketed them.
Yet with all this arduous work and care she found time and strength to
read to her boy (whose eyesight was poor), to help him in his studies
and sympathize with him in his boyish endeavors to accomplish something
as an electrician. There was no complaining, no weeping at her hard
fate--simply a brave recognition of her position and a cheerful facing
of the responsibilities thrust upon her. The sorrow and pain she felt
keenly, yet one saw no sign of suffering. One day she came to our home
and would have said nothing of her difficulties had we not pressed her
to tell us about her affairs. She made no claim for sympathy because of
the way Fate had tried her, but when we offered it, in our simple and
unpretentious fashion, she accepted it in as simple and unaffected a
way. Her uncomplaining courage, her fearless grappling with the hard
problems of life, radiated inspiration to all who came in close enough
contact to know her. We were all benefited and blessed by her presence
and the helpful radiancies she shed upon us.
Here is another case. We are honored and blessed with the friendship of
the widow of an Episcopal clergyman. For over twenty-five years she and
her husband lived in marital oneness, and seven boys and girls crowned
their happiness. She awoke one morning to find him dead by her side. The
shock was crushing and few would have blamed her had she been
incapacitated for a while by its sudden awfulness. But in an instant she
leaped to meet her burdens and responsibilities. Religion was real to
her. Her husband was with God. He was safe. It was her duty now to be
both father and mother to her children. A struggle then began which is
as pathetic as it is heroic. I have watched every battle and known the
courage, the patience, the fidelity, the failures, the successes. A
house, partially built with funds contributed by friends, was eventually
lost to the mortgagees. The oldest daughter, after years of brave and
cheerful struggle with poverty and ill-health, passed away. A few years
later, within a week of each other, two of the noble sons, one about
twenty-seven years of age, the other nineteen, the former the most
Christ-like youth I have ever known, also died. Then the third daughter,
happily married, died after giving birth to her third child, and, in a
short time, owing to some strange perversion which it is hard to
understand, the son-in-law took it into his head to refuse the
grandmother the privilege of seeing the children. The one remaining son,
who had studied with honors at the California State University, went
East to complete his special studies at Yale, suddenly collapsed
mentally, and was cared for for a long time in an Eastern hospital.
Think of the tragedies and sorrows thus crowded into one life in the
short space of twenty years! Yet during the whole of this time, though I
have been as close to the family as though I were an uncle or older
brother; though all their affairs have been regularly and fully unfolded
to me, there have been absolutely no wailings, no repinings, no
complaints, and only the few tears that it is a relief to let flow when
loving hearts sympathize. Instead, this brave woman, her heart fortified
by an abiding faith in and love for God, has been "abundant in good
works." She is the "right hand support of her clergyman," and every poor
and needy person in the parish has experienced her practical interest,
help, and loving sympathy. Though unable personally to contribute of
material things, she has interested those who could, and has thus made
her sympathy practical and genuine. Her home for many years was the
rallying ground for homeless young men--mainly, of course, belonging to
her own church--who have been immeasurably blessed by her motherly
sympathy, loving counsel, and helpful advice.
There radiates from her and her family a living belief in the goodness
of God, an assurance that "all things work together for good to them
that love God," and that faith in God produces a living courage, and
daily strength, a power to overcome affliction that is nigh to the
marvelous. To some it might appear almost like indifference; yet those
who know, as I do, can testify to the keenness of the inner feeling, the
longing for the companion whose dear presence was so awfully and
suddenly removed, the heart-crushing losses of children, the terrible
burden of the mental disturbance of the brilliant-minded and
noble-hearted son. To be brave, cheerful, helpful to others, and strong
to do under such burdens is to prove one's self possessed of the power
of the living God. It is the radiation of the truths of religion more
potent than all the arguments of all the theologians of all the ages.
Still another case comes to mind while I write. It is of a woman who
braved disinheritance by a stern father in order that she might marry
the man she loved. She came to the United States with him, and on a
vineyard in California they struggled happily together, with a poverty
that was almost sordid in its piteousness. After two children were born
the husband died, leaving the wife with these little ones, together with
another child whom she had practically adopted, and a mortgage at heavy
rates of interest upon the home place. The house in which they had lived
for several years was poor and altogether devoid of comfort, but shortly
before the husband's death it had been made comfortable by the addition
of several good rooms.
Without a word of complaint this delicately nurtured, refined woman,
who, in her English home, had been the organist and director of the
choir of a large church, took up the burden of running a California
fruit farm. Heavily in debt, interest imperatively demanded every three
months, knowing little of the practical working of such a place, she
personally took hold and learned. She milked cows night and morning,
took them back and forth to pasture, bred calves for the butcher, made
butter, raised chickens, drove weary miles summer and winter giving
music lessons, and yet kept home more comfortable for her growing brood
than does many a woman well provided with funds and help. In time the
mortgage was paid off, and a windmill and water tank added to the
equipment of the place. The children helped as they grew up, and yet
they were kept at school.
When apricots and peaches were ripe I have seen her for days and weeks
at a time cutting and pitting them for drying, until a half score or
more of tons were lying in their drying trays on the alfalfa. For hours
at a time, in the hot sun, she sorted raisins and stacked them up in the
sweat-boxes, and did it happily, cheerfully, uncomplainingly, in memory
of the husband she so much loved.
Can one come in contact with such a life without feeling its blessed
radiancies of courage, energy, triumph over unpleasant circumstances,
cheerful doing of disagreeable work, and the power of love to sweeten
all things? To know this woman is to be helped, strengthened, and
blessed. The bravery of such heroines far surpasses that of much lauded
military and naval heroes, and a few such women are worth more to the
race, in my judgment, than all the Napoleons, Pompeys, Cæsars, and
Nelsons that ever lived.
Certain men impress you with their calm self-reliance. They are not
disturbed by precedents or adverse judgments. They do what they deem to
be right and refuse to be swerved from the path they have laid out for
themselves. Ruskin radiates this influence, so do Carlyle and Browning.
Every man who has dared to make innovations, deviate from the "ways of
the old," has had to be self-reliant. Every reformer of every age and in
every field has had no other staff to lean upon than the assurance of
his own soul. Galileo in his astronomical deductions; Savonarola in his
criticisms of the existing political conditions; Luther in his
fulminations against the evils of the church; Cromwell in his stand
against the doctrine of the "divine right of kings"; Jefferson,
Washington, and the whole of our fathers, who, according to English
_law_, were rebels and revolutionists, in the Declaration of
Independence; Lincoln in his war measures and Emancipation
Proclamation--all these and a thousand others radiated such
self-reliance upon the principles they enunciated and advocated as to
convince their followers.
Every political party based upon real principles (rather than upon a
desire for spoils), is organized as the result of the radiation of those
principles held in the self-reliant hearts of a few men. Every school of
thought, in philosophy, theology, medicine, law, ethics, or political
economy, is based upon the radiation of ideas from self-reliant men.
Yet there is a marked difference between this quality and that of
self-conceit. When Carlyle said of the grammarian who criticised his
grammar, "Why, mon, I'd have ye ken that I mak' language for such men as
ye to mak' their grammar books from," he stated a fact. He was
self-reliant, but not conceited. So with Ruskin, when, in response to my
question as to what literature I should read to cultivate a pure style
of English, after commenting on the worth of several masters, concluded
somewhat as follows: "And there are those who say you should read what I
have written, and I agree with them, for I believe I have written more
carefully than most men." That was critical self-judgment, not
self-conceit. Still we are all more or less familiar with the conceit of
ignorance, the assumption of men and women who do not know the mere
alphabet of the subjects they profess to be experts on. Recently, on our
sleeping car, when a few people got together to sing, one of the
passengers, with a self-conceit that was as ludicrous as it was
ignorant, spoke of the baritone voice of one of the women and discoursed
learnedly upon the bass of the man who was singing tenor.
We have a writer in California who knows so well that he knows, that
some of us think he knows "by the grace of God," without study or
effort. His whole radiancy is one of cocksure self-conceit.
Who has not felt the radiancy of the miserliness of some men and women!
Those who would "squeeze the eagle on a penny until the poor bird
screams."
In his _Tom Brown at Rugby_, Hughes shows that Arnold always radiated
his full appreciation of all the good in all the boys under his care.
Maud Ballington Booth is a wonderful illustration of training to
perceive the good radiancies in men and women in whom most others can
see and feel only evil.
Is not this a quality of soul to be highly desired? How beautiful, how
helpful, how comforting to others long used to feeling that only the
evil of them is radiated to others, to feel the sympathy of a
large-hearted, pure, beautiful soul which has responded to the weak
radiancies of the good that struggles for life within.
For, just as I have shown elsewhere that we must be alert to receive the
radiancies of animate and inanimate nature, so must we be receptive to
that which our fellow beings radiate. We should train ourselves in
receptiveness to that which is good. All prejudice, narrowness, conceit,
over self-confidence, cocksureness, tend to ward off the good radiancies
of others. There are odors so subtle that the olfactory nerves of most
people are incapable of recognizing them. There are notes so refined
that ordinary ears cannot hear them, and we are all familiar with the
fact that there are infinite depths of space that the largest telescopes
fail to penetrate. The expert violinist cherishes his sense of touch
that he may not vitiate his playing, and the engraver, the watchmaker,
and the workers in a score and one other trades cultivate and preserve
high sensitiveness of touch in order that they may become more expert.
The piano tuner's ear recognizes variations in the vibrations of the
strings he is tuning that most of us fail to appreciate, and the ear of
a Theodore Thomas, Carl Muck, Charles Halle, or any other masterly
conductor, recognizes fine shades of expression, harmony, and
tastefulness in the playing of an orchestra that but few can appreciate.
Browning in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_ speaks of things that God takes note of in
measuring the man's account that men ignore:
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure;
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act.
All I could never be,
All men ignored in me,
This I was worth to God.
We may not be able to discern these "instincts immature," these "facts
that break through language and escape," but we can assuredly discipline
our minds and souls to see, hear, feel, and touch many beautiful things
in our fellows which we too often ignore.
Reader, what are you radiating? I cannot answer that question. Your
friends and your enemies may tell in part. You alone can tell all. Sit
down some day, many days, and study yourself. Weigh yourself. See how
much good you are doing, how much evil. Write out a balance sheet. It
will help you in your efforts to know what you most need to seek to
radiate in future, and what to avoid radiating.
You surely do not _want_ to radiate evil.
You surely _want_ to radiate only good.
Is it not better consciously to radiate that which you wish than
unconsciously (or thoughtlessly) to radiate that which you do not wish?
As, consciously or unconsciously, we radiate that which is within us,
whether good or evil, should we not aim consciously to radiate the best
of which we are capable, and thus evidence that we are striving to
overcome all the evil that may be within us?