need to do is to make it a habit. If you only knew it, some of the
calmest, serenest, most self-controlled persons of your acquaintance
were once conspicuous for a high temper. "What man has done man can do."
_Self-will_ is a fault which spoils many friendships and is an element
of discord in many families. It is a determination to have one's own
way. If one is persistent and disagreeable enough about it, one always
succeeds in getting it, for others will not think the matter of
sufficient importance continually to oppose. When we have this quality
in youth, by middle age people are saying of us, "He is set in his ways,
he is domineering, autocratic." This tendency often shows itself in a
determination to have the last word. Who has not at some time been in a
family where heated discussions were continually arising out of some
trifle? One says the thing in question happened Monday and another
insists it was Thursday, until finally every one has forgotten what was
the real subject of discussion. In the intercourse between you and your
friend, is there one whose will prevails in every case of disagreement?
Then beware. That way lies danger for both. In your family is there one
who determines every plan and settles every course of action? Some one
is in danger of becoming a despot.
If we would be good to live with we must not be too _exacting_. We all
have the "defects of our qualities," and this fault is one that often
characterizes the person of very high ideals. We ought to be
dissatisfied with ourselves. A passion for perfection should forever
forbid any self-complacency. We ought also to demand the best of others
so far as we may. But how far have we a right to hold them to the same
standards as ourselves? We do not know the springs of action in their
lives, "the moving why they do it." Do not give your friends the
uncomfortable feeling that you are continually disappointed in them.
Good sense, sympathy, and tact are necessary if we would act the rôle of
mentor to those about us.
The _intolerant_ person is hard to live with. By intolerance I mean the
inability to get another person's point of view. We are prone to demand
that others look through our own glasses; we think that any other point
of view than ours is wrong. Young people are said to be, on the whole,
intolerant. The tolerant spirit we often acquire as we grow older. If
you are serious-minded, do not think all lively people frivolous. If you
are gay, remember that not all serious persons are stupid. When you
respect others, respect their opinions and try to see the reason for
them. We need more of that kind of trust in each other. Not all the good
people are in your church nor are all the honest men in your father's
political party.
_Discourtesy_ is one of the enemies of friendly intercourse. By this I
mean all that is not gentle, kindly, and refined. Rudeness kills
affection almost as readily as does unfaithfulness. We should not
neglect with our nearest and dearest those refinements and amenities
which we instinctively practice with strangers, and which oil the
machinery of life and make it run smoothly. Do you say, "But I must be
myself in my own home. I must speak as I please and act as I feel"? Not
if to be yourself is to act the churl; not if it is to blurt out every
unkind thought that may come to your mind. Home is the place for
dressing-gown and slippers, not for boorishness. It is a great thing to
be able to win friends, but greater to be able to keep them.
"As similarity of mind,
Or something not to be defined
First fixes our attention,
So manners decent and polite,
The same we practiced at first sight,
Will save it from declension."
Finally, no _selfish_ person is good to live with. Selfishness in one
form or another is at the root of most of the evil in the world. It is
an insidious foe, and there are none of us whom it does not attack. It
is in the home that habits of unselfishness must be developed or they
are likely never to be developed at all. In the home there is an
opportunity to practice unselfishness every day and every hour. Nowhere
else are there so many opportunities to be watchful of the needs of
others and to be ready to supply them. Nowhere else are the occasions so
manifold in which one may surrender one's own pleasure for the good of
others. Yet, wherever people live together, there is constant
opportunity for the practice of this virtue.
These are some of the little foxes that spoil the vines. There have been
people who have been exacting, fault-finding, irritable, self-willed,
and discourteous, who yet have lived honest lives and have accomplished
something of good in the world. Yet the good accomplished would have
been far greater and their lives would have been much happier if, to the
more fundamental virtues, there had been added the fine flowering of
character which comes with the addition of those particular qualities
which make one comfortable to live with, a pleasant person to have
about.
IV
ENDURING HARDNESS[2]
In the beautiful cathedral in Oxford there is a stained-glass window,
each pane of which represents certain well-known characters in the
Bible. Upon my first visit to the cathedral one of these windows
immediately attracted my attention, and I never visited the place
afterward without finding my eyes wandering to that spot. The picture is
of the child Timothy, kneeling by the side of his mother, who is
teaching him. In its child-purity and wistfulness, the boy Timothy
reminds one of the "Infant Samuel" by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Timothy, as you know, was a young friend of St. Paul's, and the two
epistles in the New Testament called by his name were letters which St.
Paul wrote to the young man, whom he loved as a son, and whom, indeed,
again and again he calls his son.
St. Paul was a man who won to a remarkable degree the admiration and
love of those with whom he lived and worked. He seems to have been
almost without kindred in the years when we know him, going about from
place to place and establishing churches, then leaving them to the care
of others. But, though without a home of his own or family ties, he
finds himself at home and among dear friends wherever he goes. Few men
have ever been so loved. He always made a place for himself in the
hearts of the people with whom he worked. This was particularly true of
the young men about him, and we have many touching passages showing his
affection for them and theirs for him. He says he yearns to see them, he
longs for their welfare, he prays for them without ceasing, and he sends
these young men out filled with his spirit, to carry on his work. Of
these young men, Timothy seems to have been the one he loved best. He
sent him to be the head of some of the churches as a sort of bishop, and
the two letters which we have from St. Paul to him are letters of advice
regarding the management of the churches. They emphasize above all
things the importance of personal character. Timothy, as we learn from
these letters of St. Paul, had been brought up most religiously by his
mother, Lois, and his grandmother, Eunice, who seem to have been two of
Paul's dearest friends and co-workers. "From a child thou hast known the
scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation," said St.
Paul to him.
"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to
be ashamed."
"Thou, therefore, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."
The letter from which these sentences are taken, the second Epistle to
Timothy, is supposed to be the last letter Paul ever wrote. It was
written under peculiarly solemn circumstances and contains the deep,
heartfelt advice of an old man to a young man whom he loves as his own
child. It is a sad letter, because Paul is in prison and he knows that
his end is near. He believes that he will soon be put to death, and we
know that his premonition proved true. In the last letter which he was
ever to pen he speaks of the things which he most desires for his
beloved Timothy. I think we shall be impressed with the fact that he
omits the gifts that most people wish for those whom they love, and asks
for some others upon which the world has not been prone to set high
value.
Fathers toil that they may give their children wealth and all that it
will buy. They slave in offices, wear out their health, and give up most
of the refining and elevating influences of life. And the children
squander as fast as they can the money that has come to them so easily,
in ways that only do them harm; in ways that take energy and will and
purpose out of them; or rather, that never give these virtues an
opportunity to develop. A few years ago much attention was directed to
an epigrammatic remark of Mr. Roosevelt's in regard to the American
multi-millionaire, "whose son is a fool and whose daughter a foreign
princess." The gratification of every want without effort on the part of
the individual must breed selfishness and a whole train of attendant
evils. Indeed, many young people whose parents are far from wealthy grow
up with utterly selfish ideas about money and little knowledge of its
true use and value.
I might speak of many more things which indulgent parents often wish for
their children, but perhaps they may all be summed up in one
phrase--_easy lives_. They want no rough winds to blow on their beloved
ones; for them no dusty roads, or stony paths, or rugged heights to
climb. They must walk in sunshine on beds of flowers. For the children
of others the toil, the hardship, the suffering; for their own a life of
luxurious ease.
But what gift or blessing does St. Paul ask for the young man so dear to
him? An easy, luxurious life? How the great apostle would have scorned
such a thought! Instead he asks that the youth may learn how to _endure
hardness_.
"Hardness" in our lives is not likely to be mainly physical hardship,
perhaps not that at all, though this kind of endurance was one of the
elements that contributed to St. Paul's greatness. He tells us that he
had been beaten with rods, that he had been stoned, had suffered
shipwreck, cold, hunger, and nakedness. Nothing daunted him, no obstacle
was to him insurmountable, he feared naught, even death itself. The
greatness of his work is due to his remarkable physical endurance as
well as to his superb moral courage. In comparison with him how weak and
useless must even the best of us seem to ourselves! Though we may never
be called upon to endure dangers or privations, can we not see what a
splendid thing it is, this independence of physical comfort, this
fearlessness, this dependence upon inward resources rather than upon
outward support? And yet how many people we know whose day is spoiled if
the morning meal is not to their taste, whose spirits sink with cloudy
weather, whose physical comfort or discomfort largely governs
disposition and conduct! Surely a quality which it is worth the while of
young people to cultivate is physical "hardness"--ability to endure
discomfort, indifference to luxury and ease, independence of outward
conditions.
But for most of us there is another kind of "enduring hardness" which is
even more important. It is learning to do without the things we cannot
or ought not to have, whatever they may be, and to derive happiness from
the things which we can have. It is learning to do as a matter of course
the difficult and the disagreeable things that ought to be done. There
is not one of us who does not long for some unattainable thing. Yet if
it is not for us, we should turn to what we have, or can have, and make
the best of that.
Suppose that circumstances refuse to allow you to surround yourself with
the friends you love best or to live after the manner that would most
please you,--and this will happen to many after school days are
over,--what is there left but to make the very most of the friends whose
companionship you have and to find the best in the circumstances which
surround you? And if you cannot choose the kind of life you dream would
be best for you, in the place where you feel that you could be happiest,
remember that success or failure in life for you will depend upon your
power to adapt yourself to your environment and to draw forth, from
every inevitable combination of circumstances, new material for growth.
This is, in a very high sense, "enduring hardness." Suppose you have
been making cherished plans for the future and all at once they are torn
to shreds. What then? Can you pick up the threads of your life, change
the pattern, but still weave something beautiful with them? And can you
do it--not with cold and stoic fortitude, but cheerfully and serenely?
If so, that is "enduring hardness" in the same spirit in which St. Paul
endured it.
It is well for us sometimes to imagine ourselves stripped of all these
external props to happiness, such as money, position, and influential
friends, and to ask ourselves what kind of a life we could make without
them. It is then that we find out what we are really worth. We all
believe--though we usually act as if we did not believe it--that to
build up a strong and noble character is the chief end and aim of life.
But how seldom, unless forced by circumstance, do we give ourselves the
opportunity of acquiring those virtues which more than any others make
for high character! Nothing is so good for the development of character
as struggle, suffering, _hardness_.
I remember a letter that I received recently from a young woman of my
acquaintance. The only daughter of wealthy parents, she had enjoyed
every advantage and comfort of life and she knew that it was likely she
would continue to have them. This very fact gave her anxiety, and she
wrote, "What can we, who are born to luxury, do to offset the lack of
struggle?" She did well to be anxious. There must be something to
counterbalance this lack, yet how few who are born to wealth realize it!
I often say to myself, as I think of some aimless, indolent, yet really
able girl, "What a blessing it would be if she were thrown upon her own
resources and forced to earn her own living!" Of another, too
pleasure-loving, lacking in earnestness and depth of character, I
regretfully say, "I am afraid nothing will touch her or wake her up to
the realities of life until some great grief comes to her." What a pity
to be able to learn one's lesson only at such great cost!
When Adoniram Judson, about to go to India as one of the group of our
earliest foreign missionaries a little over one hundred years ago,
sought in marriage the hand of Ann Hasseltine, of Bradford, he wrote as
follows to her father:--
"I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter
early in the spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can
consent to her departure for a heathen land, and her subjection to the
hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent
to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of
the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to
degradation, persecution, and perhaps a violent death."
A remarkable letter, indeed! And Adoniram Judson and Ann, his wife, did
suffer most of the hardships predicted. But if they had not, those lands
which sat in darkness would not have seen a great light. The blessings
of civilization and of Christianity would not have spread to the
remotest parts of the earth as they have, unless there had been some
cast in heroic mould who were ready to take their lives in their hands
and if need be pay the last full measure of devotion.
The habit of having everything one wants and of doing all one desires to
do is a fatal habit and never should be formed at any age, especially in
youth. Instead, cultivate independence of luxury and ease and learn the
joy that St. Paul felt in knowing that he had within himself the power
to meet and cope with whatever difficulties, obstacles, or dangers life
might have in store for him.
In this thought of Phillips Brooks we find a striking likeness to the
earnest message of St. Paul to Timothy:--
"Do not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for
tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then
the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle.
Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which
has come in you by the grace of God."
-----
Footnote 2:
Certain disputed points regarding the authorship of the Epistles to
Timothy and other critical questions connected with these books are
not pertinent here.
V
THE RHYTHM OF LIFE
In the third chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes occur some verses which
have suggested the subject of this talk. They illustrate a certain
balance or rhythm in nature and in life.
"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
heaven;
"A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to
pluck up that which is planted;
"A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to
dance."
These words are used by the author, not so much to illustrate the rhythm
of life as its monotony. He is not admiring the wonderful harmony which
meets us in nature wherever we turn, so much as he is lamenting that
there is nothing new in nature or in human life. The same things recur
over and over again. The sun rises in the morning only to go down again
in the evening, and the same process will be repeated through endless
to-morrows. "The rivers all run into the sea, yet the sea is not full."
"That which hath been is what shall be." Man is born, laughs and labors
and weeps, and when his little life is ended, dies. This has been the
history of countless multitudes and it will be the history of countless
multitudes to come. There is nothing new under the sun.
Written as this book was at the darkest hour of Hebrew history, at a
time of oppression and unrest, it is a sad book. The writer, a serious
and earnest-minded man, strives nobly to discover light for himself and
his race, but the world looks dark. Yet he is a brave and devout soul,
and his book, so full of stimulus to high endeavor, ought to be read
more widely than it is.
The words I have quoted may well start several different trains of
thought. One of these I will suggest. There is nothing new under the
sun, it is true; but we do not need anything new. The same old things we
have always had are just what we need and shall always need; as
springtime and harvest, day and night, work and rest. In the regular
recurrence of these great and necessary things is found the rhythm of
life in accordance with which we live and must live. May we learn
something from nature's ways that will help us to make our lives strong?
I think so.
Have you ever thought of rhythm in nature? Here there is no monotony,
but constant and beneficent change. Nothing, perhaps, is quite so
blessed as the sunshine, yet eternal day would be almost as bad as
eternal night. How our tired eyes would long for the calm and restful
darkness! We love the springtime and the warm days and the green growing
things; but how much more we love them because they follow cold and
snow, leafless trees and bare earth!
Nowhere do we find the rhythm of nature better illustrated than in our
bodies, these wonderful machines only partially under our control.
Sleeping and waking, the contraction and extension of the muscles, the
inhalation and exhalation of the breath are a few of the many examples.
The most important of all the activities of the body, the systole and
diastole of the heart, Nature keeps within her own control, and gives
alternate work and rest to that vital organ, as if to say that when it
comes to a matter of life and death, man cannot be trusted to his own
keeping. Fortunate it is that this is so, for if it rested with us to
decide when they should work and when rest, some eager, ambitious hearts
would beat themselves to death ere life had well begun.
This polarity in nature is nowhere better stated than in Emerson's essay
on "Compensation":--
"Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in
darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in
male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and
animals; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of
fluids and of sounds; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in
electricity, galvanism and chemical affinity. If the south attracts, the
north repels. To empty here, you must condense there."
What can nature teach us of rhythm that will help us build our lives up
into rounded completion? To begin with, we may learn something of the
relations which should exist between us and our fellow men. The hermit
who withdraws himself from the society of his fellows to live by
himself, even though his purpose may be to commune with nature or with
nature's God, is not living in accordance with God's laws. Man is a
social being and is dependent upon intercourse with other human beings
for his complete development. No one can cut himself off from his fellow
men without damage.
On the other hand, too constant association with others works even
greater harm. Wordsworth felt this when he wrote:--
"The world is too much with us: late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!"
We may learn from nature's rhythm of life that we need both society and
solitude. To adjust these to each other in proper degree is a problem
for each of us. Are you one of the unfortunate persons who cannot be
happy for a moment unless in the company of others? If so, you are
preparing an unhappy future. If you find yourself so dull a companion,
how can you expect others to find you interesting? You are not
developing the resources without which no life can be permanently happy.
Give yourself occasionally an opportunity to think your own thoughts, to
question your own heart, and to get acquainted with yourself. You will
be all the better a companion to others for it, and, moreover, you will
be better company for yourself, for you will be led to develop inner
resources. I once heard an Indian Buddhist priest tell of the custom in
his country of requiring each child in a family to spend one hour a day
quietly in a room by himself, "thinking good thoughts." An hour a day so
spent by some young people I know would be helpful in arousing to
greater independence of mind and originality of thought.
Some of us, however, need to make serious effort to acquire the power of
entering easily into cordial relations with others. If you have a
tendency to hold aloof, if you are not at your ease with those with whom
you happen to be thrown, and find it difficult to enter into friendly
relations with them, set yourself earnestly to correct this defect. Such
tendencies allowed to go unchecked are almost sure to result in many
lonely hours.
Meditation without action makes dreamers. Constant activity without
reflection means a loss of the intellectual grasp of things. Jesus,
after a day of the most active ministry, usually sought the loneliness
of the mountains and there found strength for the work of the following
day. So, on one day in seven, our busy, hurrying tasks cease, and we
have a day for rest and worship. Let us do all we can to guard Sunday
against the dangers that threaten it and that would make it exactly like
all other days. To say nothing of its religious uses, the rhythm of life
demands that one day in the week be given to rest and to thoughts and
interests far removed from those of our busy work-days. Some one has
said that Sunday should be _joyous_ (unlike the Sunday of the Puritans),
_different_, that is, different from the other days of the week, and
_uplifting_.
Not until we have passed out of early youth are we likely to comprehend
the fact that life itself has tidal times. A mood of exaltation is
likely to be followed by one of depression. Life waxes and wanes; it
does not stand still. We learn to take ourselves at our best and to be
patient with ourselves at our worst. When faith and courage are low, we
come to know that soon they will return in all their strength. Doubt of
self and one's powers will be followed by self-confidence. Thus we learn
never to make important decisions or to begin new and weighty
enterprises at ebb tide. There is, in another sense from that which
Shakespeare meant, "a tide in the affairs of men" which should be
seized.