Washington Irving tells a story of a man who tried to jump over
a hill. He went back so far to get his start for the great leap
and ran so hard that he was completely exhausted when he came
to the hill, and had to lie down and rest. Then he got up and
walked over the hill.
A great many people exhaust themselves getting ready to do their
work. They are always preparing. They spend their lives getting
ready to do something which they never do.
It is an excellent thing to keep improving oneself, to keep
growing; but there must be a time to begin the great work of
life. I know a man who is almost forty years old, who has not
yet decided what he is going to do. He has graduated from
college, and taken a number of post-graduate courses--but all
along general lines. He has not yet begun to specialize. This
man fully believes he is going to do great things yet. I hope he
may.--O. S. MARDEN.
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* * * * *
“And he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he
goeth.” What a picture comes into the mind as by the aid of the
imagination we read these words. I think of a vast forest, with
its winding trail, its deep shadows, its tangled underbrush,
its decayed trunks here and there. I think of myself at the end
of a long day’s tramp. No opening in sight. The sun has gone
down. The light coming through the openings above growing less
and less. The sky overcast. Soon it is dark. I miss the trail.
I get down on my hands and knees to feel for it. Presently no
sound but the cracking of the underbrush. Suddenly it dawns
upon me that I am lost in the woods. All sense of direction is
gone. Any way I turn may be the wrong way. I am utterly aimless.
Jesus says the end of the selfish man is utter aimlessness. That
as a man in the woods wanders without aim so the selfish man
wanders in the moral universe without aim, not knowing whither
he goeth.--ROBERT MCLAUGHLIN.
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* * * * *
It is told of Professor Huxley that once, when the British
Association met in Dublin, he arrived late in the city; fearing
to miss the president’s address, he rushed from the train to
the station platform, jumped on a jaunting-car, and said to the
Celt in charge, “Drive fast; I’m in a hurry.” Cabby whipt up his
horse and proved to be another Jehu. Suddenly it flashed upon
the passenger, bounding about the vehicle in a most undignified
way, to shout to the driver above the rattle of the car, “Do you
know where I want to go?” “No, yer honor,” was Pat’s laughing
rejoinder, “but I’m driving fast all the while.”
There are many who keep up a great activity, but who, for want of a
definite aim or a great guiding ideal, accomplish little good in the
world.
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