I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world
with messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they
think they must save their strength and get quietly up on some
little eminence from which they can make themselves heard.
“In a few years,” reasons one of them, “I shall have gained a
standing, and then I shall use my power for good.” Next year
comes, and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his
horizon of thought. His ambition has evaporated; he has nothing
to say. The great occasion that was to have let him loose on
society was some little occasion that nobody saw, some moment
in which he decided to obtain a standing. The great battle of
a lifetime has been fought and lost over a silent scruple. But
for this the man might, within a few years, have spoken to the
nation with the voice of an archangel. What was he waiting for?
Did he think that the laws of nature were to be changed for him?
Did he think that a “notice of trial” would be served on him? Or
that some spirit would stand at his elbow and say, “Now’s your
time?” The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.
And the compensation for beginning at once is that your voice
carries at once. You do not need a standing. It would not help
you. Within less time than you can see it, you will have been
heard. The air is filled with sounding-boards and the echoes are
flying. It is ten to one that you have but to lift your voice to
be heard in California, and that from where you stand. A bold
plunge will teach you that the visions of the unity of human
nature which the poets have sung were not fictions of their
imagination, but a record of what they saw. Deal with the world,
and you will discover their reality. Speak to the world, and you
will hear their echo.--JOHN JAY CHAPMAN.
(26)
=Activity and Light-giving=--See LIGHT AND ACTIVITY.
=Activity and Thought-training=--See THINKING, HOW COORDINATED.
=Actors Become Preachers=--See EVANGELISM, UNUSUAL.