One of man’s richest possessions is the feeling of restlessness and
discontent that ever pushes onward seeking something new. It is the
secret of discovery. Beholding the sunset, like a thousand camp fires
flashing their beams upon the crimson and purple curtained tents of
ever-encamping angels, man determined to enter into and share their
quiet place of rest and luxury. Hastening forward, he easily found the
hills that yester-night formed the mystic camping ground, but nowhere
would a torn leaf or trampled grass-blade betray a single footprint;
while, looking farther westward than he had traveled, he saw the
same crimson-and-purple tents stretched upon other hilltops bathed
with sunset’s golden light. Month followed month while man continued
journeying westward in fruitless quest for peace, but in his effort to
reach the cherished goal he discovered new lakes and rivers, hills and
valleys, plains and forests, until a mighty continent lay ready for his
children’s children to build cities rivaling in power and splendor the
mystic camps of sunset’s unseen hosts.
Restlessness and dissatisfaction are the secret of invention. Satisfied
with their condition, China, India, and Africa yield no inventions.
Their people carry water in flasks of skin, travel upon weary-footed
beasts of burden, and bequeath their children nothing but tradition.
Such once was all the world until some individuals of courage and
determination caught the fever of health. Dissatisfied and restless,
man became weary of carrying water and would not rest until he had
perfected the Holly Engine that presses a cup of cool water to every
thirsty lip within the city. Tired of slow travel, he compelled the
locomotive to give fleetness to his feet, and the telephone to give
rapid transit to his voice. Restless because the singer’s voice must
fade in silence, man built the phonograph to give the human voice, the
frailest of all man’s possessions, everlasting life. Dissatisfaction
with things as they are gives invention her rich achievements.
Art follows only in the footsteps of restlessness. Every painting
and tapestry hanging on palace wall, every anthem that thrills the
templed throngs, and every melody that wafts its sweet cadence upon the
trembling, vibrant air, exists because some sensitive soul refused to
know contentment until he had given perfect expression to the beauty
that dwelt within his soul.
Only through the contagion of the divine fever can there be any reform.
It was only when the restless soul of John Howard began to express its
contempt for the foul floors and vitiated air of England’s jails and
aroused the slumbering conscience of an indifferent people that the
cruel prison systems of the world were changed. Reform in England’s
colonial policy that made possible the unity of Canada and the founding
of our own government came only when men began to chafe and grow
restless under unjust treatment, and finally found expression in the
burning, blazing, nervous eloquence of Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty,
or give me death!”
Because men were satisfied with things as they were, the city slums
became deeper, fouler depths of misery entombing thousands of human
beings in inexcusable death-traps, robbing parents of hope and
childhood of its lawful inheritance of health and goodness. These
things continued until one poor lad grew divinely restless. A little
immigrant boy of poetic temperament and lofty aspirations, by the name
of Jacob Riis, cried out in protest against the injustice of foul
air and darkened homes. Restless himself, he made the city restless,
until New York transformed her tenements, purified her slums, and
reformed her government until she became one of the cleanest cities
of the world--in many ways a worthy example for the cities of the Old
World to follow. The restlessness of Livingstone redeemed Africa.
The restlessness of Morris saved China. The restlessness of Thoburn
is working miracles in India. When men found it impossible to sit at
ease while their brothers were in chains slavery disappeared. Because
men became weary with drunkenness and tired listening to the pathetic
pleading of drunkards’ wives and children, an aroused nation closed the
open saloons and placed a ban upon the sale of alcoholic drink. Men are
now becoming tired of war. They believe that the world has drunk its
fill of human blood. The hour for world-wide disarmament has come, and
rulers must be made to think before sacrificing their people’s lives.
Here also we find the secret of mental development. So long as the
human mind is satisfied with tradition it cannot grow; but let it
once become uneasy under the deadening power of superstition, its
very restlessness will make the mountains unlock their secrets, the
plants yield tribute of health-creating medicines, the clouds unbosom
their mystery, and even the starlight becomes a pencil of gold to
write upon the tablet of the sky the marvelous story of man’s growing
intellectual power.
No one of God’s gifts is to be valued more than this feeling of
unrest that he inspires within the heart, making us dissatisfied with
ourselves and our surroundings, and forcing us forward to become
skillful in discovery, art, invention, reform, and intellectuality.
But the beneficent influence of health’s fever does not end here, for
it is also the secret of spiritual development. We have all experienced
these seasons of holy manifestation. Our friends said that we had the
fidgets; the physician diagnosed our case as one of nervousness; we
insisted that we had the blues; but all were wrong. The restlessness
was a sign of health. We were not satisfied with ourselves but longed
for nobility. The dust-made body was refusing to grovel in the dust.
The spiritual life was beginning to assert itself through these tissues
of flesh. The chrysalis had lost its desire to crawl along the ground,
for new life within claimed its right to rise upon joyous wing and
cleave the sunlit air. It was not a thing to be despised, to mar and
gnaw the budding leaf, but something to be admired and loved of man,
something sylphlike to sip from chalices of gold and silver, porphyry
and lapis-lazuli. The old man of sin was dying, and through the power
of Christ a new man was coming into life; from now on he can never be
satisfied with things as they were.
One of the hopes of the world’s salvation is the fact that sin never
satisfies the soul. Its promises are never fulfilled. Its obligations
are never met at maturity. Men become restless in their sin, and
through their restlessness are being led to God. Here alone can
satisfaction be found, for only Christ supplies the soul with what
it needs for the journey set before it. He offers guidance, saying,
“I am the way.” Following him no soul has ever been lost amid the
bewildering maze of sin. He offers sustaining power saying, “I am the
bread of life” and “I am the water of life.” The dusty ashes of sin no
longer choke, but for the hunger there is life-giving bread, and for
the parched lip there is water. He gives illumination, saying, “I am
the light,” and the terrors of darkness and the dangers of the night
flee away. He offers an open way, saying, “I am the door,” and through
him one passes out of the cramped prison house of past sins into
untrammeled, unmeasured freedom. He offers immortality, saying, “I am
the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live.” The deadening power of sin loses its hold,
and one tastes the unspeakable joy of living a life that is life indeed.
Then be not confounded by the feeling of restlessness that ever creeps
upon the healthy soul. What a tragedy our lives would be had we been
satisfied with our first achievements! How terribly pathetic it is to
become satisfied with ourselves now, while we are so far short of what
we might be, and so lamentably short of what God meant our lives to be!
Curb not the spirit of restlessness as though it were a fever of death.
It is health’s fever. It is the call of the soul for its Creator who
longs to lead us into better things.
To-morrow will be a beautiful day because to-day is so restless.