PUTTING THE BEST INTO OTHERS.
There is nothing more worthy than the desire to perpetuate the good.
That desire implies that the person cherishing it has good within
himself, and that he wishes that good to live and flourish after his
death. If a man thinks that his views are the best that can be held,
then, if he is a noble soul, interested in the world's welfare, he longs
to have his best enter into other lives, and so continue to bless the
world.
This longing characterized Elijah. He came upon the scene of human life
at a time when the worship of the low and debased threatened to dominate
the people of Israel. The priests of Baal, an impure god, were in the
ascendant. Vices, as a consequence, prevailed. These vices controlled
even the court. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were impiously wrong. Elijah
had stern work to do. He must reprove the people for their errors. He
must face the priests of Baal and show them and show the nation that
their god, as compared to Jehovah, was powerless. He must tell those in
high places, even the king and queen themselves, that their sins, if
persisted in, would surely be visited by Jehovah's wrath.
His was a difficult task. It required courage, persistency, and
determined purpose. It would have been folly for him to undertake it
unless he felt that his ideas were essential to the nation's good. He
would be resisted and hated. Hours would come when he would seem to
stand wholly alone, and the cause he represented would appear to him
hopeless. Still, difficult as his task was, he undertook it. All this
worship of Baal and all these vicious practices of the people were
wrecking the nation. As a patriot, as a lover of his fellow-man, as a
good servant of God, he must do and he would do whatever was in his
power to replace the wrong with the right, to implant in the lives of
the people, from peasant to king, the truest and purest ideals.
Accordingly he faithfully taught the will of God, called upon God to
reveal Himself on Mount Carmel, reproved Ahab and Jezebel, and did his
best to put the best into the life of his day.
But he could not live forever. At any hour he might be stricken down by
the hand of an enemy or by the power of some illness. Like a wise man,
loving the cause he had espoused, he looked about for some one who, in
case of his disability or death, could take up his work and carry
forward his ideas. His mind turned toward one special man, perhaps just
coming out of boyhood into maturity, a man who seemed to have the
inherent power of development, and he set his heart on putting into him,
Elisha, the best thought and the best principles that he had. He came
upon Elisha in the full vigor of youth, plowing with twelve yoke of
oxen. The distinctive garment of Elijah's mission was his mantle. That
stood for Elijah's special work of speaking the truth of God and calling
the nation to righteousness. Upon seeing Elisha in the field, Elijah
passed over from the caravan path that he was traveling, and threw his
mantle upon Elisha's shoulders! The action carried its own meaning. It
indicated to Elisha that Elijah wished him to take up his work and stand
for his ideas. Elisha instantly realized the meaning of the act, and, in
briefest time compatible with filial duty, he answered to Elijah's wish.
One little sentence in the story of these two men's lives is very
instructive. "They two went on." It is a very brief summary of what was
occurring for days and months and years before Elijah died. "They two
went on." They were together. They talked together. They thought
together. They prayed together. Little by little Elijah imparted to
Elisha his views of life and imparted to him also his enthusiasm for the
welfare of Israel. When the time came for Elisha to step forward and do
his part for Israel's good, he was ready to act. He became and long
continued to be a wise, helpful, instructive benefactor to Israel. The
best that had been in Elijah's life was perpetuated in Elisha's life.
It is a beautiful way to live, this way of putting the best into other
lives. It confers such a blessing on the particular _individual_ who is
thus helped. We cannot say with positiveness that the world might never
have known the full force of Elisha's character had not Elijah cast his
mantle over Elisha's shoulder, but the probability is that it was
Elijah's interest in Elisha and his success in educating him toward his
own ideals that gave the world Elisha's elevated personality. Paul acted
similarly with Timothy. Timothy was undoubtedly a good boy of many
worthy parts, and with many noble views of life. But Paul laid his hand
and heart upon him, and claimed him for the special purpose of
continuing the ministry of the gospel, and educated him to be a faithful
representative of the truth. Often there is much hesitancy to be
overcome, even in worthy people, before natural endowments will be put
to the best use. Such may have been the case with both Elisha and
Timothy. They needed encouragement. They needed inspiration through a
sense of responsibility. This was the situation with John Knox. He,
humanly speaking, never could have come forward as an advocate of
Christ's truth and religious freedom had it not been that another
approached him, put his hand on his shoulder, and said, "You have powers
of good in you. You must use them in standing up for God and Scotland."
Wonderful resources are often developed in others through this purpose
to put our best into them. No one knows the power latent in another
life. The most unpromising looking people may have faculties that, once
awakened, directed, and called into action, will do a blessed part in
the world's advance. Every school whose history can be followed for
fifty years has had pupils that at the outset seemed absolutely
unpromising, that seemed even incapable of appreciation or development,
but who, under the devotion and inspiration of some teacher or
fellow-pupil, became so aroused and so efficient that their names are an
honor to the school. The glory of every Ragged Boys' Home in a great
city is that former inmates who were thieves, parentless and friendless,
were so reached by a patient, loving man or woman that they became
industrious and honorable citizens, holding positions of power in the
city itself or possessing prosperous acres in the country. It is the boy
picked up in the streets of New York and sent West to be a member of a
farmer's household that was led by that household's interest into such
character that he was appointed governor of Alaska. "I have made," said
Sir Humphry Davy, "many discoveries, but the best discovery was when I
discovered Michael Faraday." There is scarcely any joy comparable with
the joy of discovering to himself and to the world the best elements
possible in another's life. The one who brought about this discovery
gladly sinks into the background, and rejoices to let the field be
occupied by the one discovered. It would seem as though God Himself must
have rejoiced when, after all His patient teaching of Moses on the side
of Horeb, He saw Moses showing his superb power of leadership in Egypt,
and that God must have similarly rejoiced when He saw Paul responding to
His charge and manifesting traits of love, forbearance, and humility
that Paul had not thought he possessed. To put one Elisha into the
world's arena, there to stand and battle for the right, was the crowning
glory and the crowning joy of Elijah's life. The men or women that can
take the best that is in them and put it into another, so that another
shall live the best, honor the best, and glorify the best, can ask no
higher privilege in life.
But beyond the good secured to the individual by putting the best into
him is the good secured to the _world_ thereby. It was not merely that
Elijah inspired a new life in Elisha's soul and transformed a man, it
was also that he set in operation a new _influence_. The influence was
not exactly like his own. It was like Elijah's in that it was righteous,
safe, and helpful, but it was unlike Elijah's in its temper and
expression. Elijah was a great destroyer of evil: Elisha was a great
uplifter of good. Elijah's earliest proclamation was, "There shall not
be dew nor rain these years": Elisha's earliest miracle is, "There shall
be from hence life and fruitful land." Both were alike in their general
purpose, both alike in their courage. Neither one of them could be moved
from the path of duty by fear of man or men. But each was himself, as
distinct as two mountain peaks in the same range or as two ships on the
same sea. Elijah imparted his best to Elisha, but that best took shape
in Elisha according to Elisha's individuality. Elisha was not Elijah
over again, but he was Elijah's best in a new form--a new form that was
demanded by the needs of a new day. Elijah had laid blows of
condemnation on the nation: Elisha was to apply the balm of healing
where those blows had fallen. Elijah was an agitator: Elisha was a
teacher. Elijah was denunciatory: Elisha was tolerant. Each in his place
held the best views held by any man of his time, but each in his place
was called upon to hold those views according to his own temperament and
express them according to the need immediately at hand.
No parent, teacher, or friend can possibly reproduce himself in
another. It is God's law that, however alike plants may seem in
reproduction, no child shall see life exactly as his parents, nor shall
a pupil see it exactly as a teacher. This law is most wise. The same
work is never given to any two people to do. It may be work of the same
general nature, but never work the same in all particulars. Different
types of men, actuated by the same motives, are required for different
types of work. Any man who endeavors to be a pure copyist of another
gone before him, always fails of individual development and fails of
usefulness. Elijah could not foresee the changed circumstances in which
Elisha would live, when many of the vexatious questions of Elijah's day
would be settled and new questions of morality and public welfare would
arise. All that he could do, all that any man can do, is to give the
best he has to another, and send him forth to use that best as well as
the other can in the new place. The beauty of human history is that the
work the best man of one age could not accomplish, another coming after
him does accomplish, and he accomplishes it, not because he is any
better than his predecessor, but because he is the man for this hour as
his predecessor was for the hour before this. There is always work to be
done. There are always tasks left over from a previous generation. There
are always ideas hitherto unemphasized that to-day must be emphasized,
else society will not know its duty. For this work and task and emphasis
new men are needed, men who do not see exactly as their fathers saw, nor
pronounce nor act exactly as their fathers did. To provide such men, to
inspire them with a great sense of duty, and send them out into life
with open minds toward God and open hearts toward their fellows, and
then withdraw our hand and let them do their own work, in their own way,
this is our blessed privilege.
We may endeavor to put the best into others _directly_. A parent is a
parent largely for this particular purpose. The father and mother have
this end as their greatest and highest responsibility. They cannot shirk
it without hurt to themselves and to their child. No one can and no one
should influence a child as directly as does a parent. The parent may
temporarily place the child beneath the influence of a nurse, a pastor,
or a teacher, but the abiding influence should be and is the parent's.
Little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept, conduct upon
conduct, the parent should endeavor to set before the child the highest
ideas of life. Skill is requisite in stating these ideas, in
illustrating them, in making them attractive, in persuading to their
acceptance. The evil or the inferior lodged in the child's heart needs
to be forced out, that the best may enter. Happy the parent whose
forcing process is like the incoming of light into a darkened room, a
process that is gentle and conciliatory, a process that never boasts of
victory and never leaves a pain.
This is the parent's greatest hope and greatest reward, to have a child
who shall in the child's own time and place be an advancer of the
world's good. A thousand spheres of opportunity open before each new
generation. Into any one of them the child may carry the best his father
or mother ever thought or said. Many parents wish their children to do
in life work of the very same type that they once did. It was therefore
a gratification to their ministerial fathers when they saw their own
sons enter the ministry, Henry Ward Beecher, Jonathan Edwards, Frederick
W. Farrar, Charles H. Spurgeon, John Wesley, and Reginald Heber. But
other ministerial fathers likewise might be gratified when they saw
their sons helpfully laboring in noble spheres not specifically "the
ministry," as in poetry, Joseph Addison, Samuel T. Coleridge, William
Cowper, Ben Jonson, Oliver Goldsmith, Alfred Tennyson, James Russell
Lowell, Oliver W. Holmes, John Keble, and James Montgomery; as in
literature, Matthew Arnold, Bancroft, Froude, Hallam, and Parkman; as in
art, Joshua Reynolds and Christopher Wren; as in law, Lord Ellenborough,
Stephen J. Field, David J. Brewer, David Dudley Field; as in
statesmanship, Henry Clay, Edward Everett, Sir William Harcourt, John B.
Balfour, and William Forster; and as in invention, Samuel F. B. Morse.
But while the great opportunity of putting the best into others is the
parent's (and men out in earnest usefulness thank God most of all for
their mothers and fathers, especially as they grow older and realize how
early in youth it was that their characters received determining
impressions), still others, besides parents, may use direct means toward
this same end. Here is the teacher's opportunity. A plastic, receptive
mind is before him. It says to him: "I am here to be taught. Teach me
the best--the best way to see, to reason, to act, the best way to do my
part in society and the world." Many a teacher has looked on that
opportunity as sacred; has valued it as much as Elijah valued his
opportunity to cast his mantle on Elisha. Such teachers have wrought out
most valuable results. They have put ideas, methods, principles, and a
spirit into pupils that have made those pupils a blessing to the world.
The pupils may not recall much of what the teacher said--perhaps they
cannot recall one particular truth that the teacher enforced--but they
recall a purpose that dominated the teacher, and the pupils now are
endeavoring to fulfil what they feel would be the wishes of that teacher
if the teacher to-day could stand beside them.
And why should we stop with parents and teachers in speaking of this
direct effort to put the best into other lives. Nurses in homes have
endeavored to give little children the truest knowledge of God and of
beauty, and have succeeded. The world owes them much for its best men
and women. Had they not seconded parents, had they attempted to uproot
the good implanted by parents, all would have been ruined. So, too, have
friends, masters, employers, writers in the press, writers of books,
lecturers, and preachers aimed at this same end. They have felt a great
desire to give their fellows beautiful thoughts, strong principles,
supporting comforts, and heavenly ideals. They have felt that their
heart's supreme wish would be met if they could only cause a double
portion of their own spirit--aye, a four-fold, a hundred-fold of their
good purposes to rest upon others--and to this end they have prayed,
given money and counsel, spoken to employees and friends and comrades,
written, sung, preached, labored, and died. The company of those who
have wished to put the best into others is a glorious company, the
company of prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, workmen in every sphere,
in every clime, in every age. Surely this host is the host of the elect,
the choicest ones of all God's people on earth and in heaven.
Apart from and beyond our direct effort to put the best into other lives
is our _indirect_, our unconscious influence to this good end.
Personality is more potent than words. Men and women impart ozone to the
atmosphere without knowing what good they have done. They become
standards of righteousness and are all unaware that any one looks at
them to gauge his own opinion or shape his own conduct. They are like
regulator clocks, by which the watches of the world seen to be wrong are
set aright and are kept aright. To try to live the best in the hope that
somehow one can put the best into the very air, and get it into the life
of the school and community, and have it become a part of public
sentiment, that surely is noble. That is the way to live. No one ever
lives in vain who so lives. Some one is helped by him. Some one tells of
him. Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh, "I know he can toil
terribly," is an electric touch.
In one of my pastorates there was a farmer's son, living two miles from
the church. Almost all the young men of his age in the village and
congregation were careless, selfish, and a little fast. His father was
out of sympathy with religious earnestness. But the son resolved that he
would put his best into others' lives. He thought, prayed, worshiped, to
that end. Through snow and rain and mud he came where earnestness and
high ideals were in the air. He did a manly, helpful part in his home,
in his village, and in his church. Then, thinking that he knew farming
and could teach it, he volunteered to go to an Indian school in Indian
Territory, and as a farm manager, teach farming. He went, on almost no
salary, and lived and labored, that through his words, conduct, and
spirit he might put the best into others' lives. Thus he lived and
labored till he died, two thousand miles from home, and was buried
there, the only one of his family not placed in the village graveyard.
But his work has not died. It lives in all who know of it. They think of
it again and again, and it always makes them wish to fulfil to the best
all their opportunity for the good of others.
There are many, many hearts so conscious of the help they have received
from others that they read with appreciation the commemorative tablet
placed by the distinguished Pasteur on the house of his birth: "O my
father and mother, who lived so simply in that tiny house, it is to you
that I owe everything! Your eager enthusiasm, my mother, you passed on
into my life. And you, my father, whose life and trade were so toilsome,
you taught me what patience can accomplish with prolonged effort. It is
to you that I owe tenacity in daily labor."
"Others shall sing the song;
Others shall right the wrong,
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of, win.
What matter, I or they,
Mine or another's day,
So the right word be said,
And life the sweeter made."
DEVELOPING OUR BEST UNDER DIFFICULTIES.