LIFE'S GREAT HEARTS, AND THE HELPFULNESS OF THE HIGHER MANHOOD.
The oases in the Arabian desert lie under the lee of long ridges of
rock. The high cliffs extending from north to south are barriers
against the drifting sand. Standing on the rocky summit the seer
Isaiah beheld a sea whose yellow waves stretched to the very horizon.
By day the winds were still, for the pitiless Asiatic sun made the
desert a furnace whose air rose upward. But when night falls the wind
rises. Then the sand begins to drift. Soon every object lies buried
under yellow flakes. Anon, sandstorms arise. Then the sole hope for
man is to fall upon his face; the sky rains bullets. Then appears the
ministry of the rocks. They stay the drifting sand. To the yellow sea
they say: "Thus far, but no farther." Desolation is held back. Soon
the land under the lee of the rocks becomes rich. It is fed by springs
that seep out of the cliffs. It becomes a veritable oasis with figs
and olives and vineyards and aromatic shrubs. Here dwell the sheik and
his flocks. Hither come the caravans seeking refreshment. In all the
Orient no spot so beautiful as the oasis under the shadow of the rocks.
Long centuries ago, while Isaiah rejoiced under the beneficent ministry
of these cliffs, his thoughts went out from dead rocks to living men.
In his vision he saw good men as Great Hearts, to whom crowded close
the weak and ignorant, seeking protection. Sheltered thereby barren
lives were nourished into bounty and beauty. With leaping heart and
streaming eyes he cried out; "O, what a desert is life but for the
ministry of the higher manhood! To what shall I liken a good man? A
man shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; a shelter
in the time of storm!"
Optimists always, we believe God's world is a good world. Joy is more
than sorrow; happiness outweighs misery; the reasons for living are
more numerous than the reasons against it. But let the candid mind
confess that life hath aspects very desert-like. Today prosperity
grows like a fruitful tree; to-morrow adversity's hot winds wither
every leaf. God plants companion, child, or friend in the life-garden;
but death blasts the tree under which the soul finds shelter; then
begins the desert pilgrimage. Soon comes loss of health; then the
wealth of Croesus availeth not for refreshing sleep, and the wisdom of
Solomon is vanity and vexation of spirit. The common people, too, know
blight and blast; their life is full of mortal toil and strife, its
fruitage grief and pain. Temptations and evil purposes are the chief
blights. When the fiery passion hath passed the soul is like a city
swept by a conflagration. Each night we go before the judgment seat.
Reason hears the case; memory gives evidence; conscience convicts, each
faculty goes to the left; self-respect pushes us out of paradise into
the desert; and the angels of our better nature guard the gates with
flaming swords.
A journey among men is like a journey through some land after the
cyclone has made the village a heap and the harvest fields a waste. An
outlook upon the generations reminds us of a highway along which the
retreating army has passed, leaving abandoned guns and silent cannon
with men dead and dying. Travelers from tropical Mexico describe
ruined cities and lovely villages away from which civilized men
journey, leaving temples and terraced gardens to moss and ivy. The
deserted valleys are rich in tropic fruits and the climate soft and
gentle. Yet Aztecs left the garden to journey northward into the
deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. Often for the soul paradise is not
before, but behind.
Shakespeare condenses all this in "King Lear." Avarice closes the
palace doors against the white-haired King. Greed pushes him into the
night to wander o'er the wasted moor, an exiled king, uncrowned and
uncared for. In such hours garden becomes desert. This is the drama
of man's life. The soul thirsts for sympathy. It hungers for love.
Baffled and broken it seeks a great heart. For the pilgrim multitudes
Moses was the shadow on a great rock in a weary land. For poor, hunted
David, Jonathan was a covert in time of storm. Savonarola, Luther,
Cromwell sheltered perishing multitudes. Solitary in the midst of the
vale in which death will soon dig a grave for each of us stands the
immortal Christ, "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
That Infinite Being who hath made man in his own image hath endowed the
soul with full power to transform the desert into an oasis. The soul
carries wondrous implements. It is given to reason to carry fertility
where ignorance and fear and superstition have wrought desolation. It
is given to inventive skill to search out wellsprings and smite rocks
into living water. It is given to affection to hive sweetness like
honeycombs. It is given to wit and imagination to produce perpetual
joy and gladness. It is given to love in the person of a Duff, a
Judson, and a Xavier to transform dark continents. Great is the power
of love! "No abandoned boy in the city, no red man in the mountains,
no negro in Africa can resist its sweet solicitude. It undermines like
a wave, it rends like an earthquake, it melts like a fire, it inspires
like music, it binds like a chain, it detains like a good story, it
cheers like a sunbeam." No other power is immeasurable. For things
have only partial influence over living men. Forests, fields, skies,
tools, occupations, industries--these all stop in the outer court of
the soul. It is given to affection alone to enter the sacred inner
precincts. But once the good man comes his power is irresistible.
Witness Arnold among the schoolboys at Rugby. Witness Garibaldi and
his peasant soldiers. Witness the Scottish chief and his devoted clan.
Witness artist pupils inflamed by their masters. What a noble group is
that headed by Horace Mann, Garrison, Phillips and Lincoln! General
Booth belongs to a like group. What a ministry of mercy and fertility
and protection have these great hearts wrought! Great hearts become a
shelter in time of storm.
All social reforms begin with some great heart. Much now is being said
of the destitution in the poorer districts of great cities. Dante saw
a second hell deeper than hell itself. Each great modern city hath its
inferno. Here dwell costermongers, rag-pickers and street-cleaners;
here the sweater hath his haunts. Huge rookeries and tenements, whose
every brick exudes filth, teem with miserable folk. Each room has one
or more families, from the second cellar at the bottom to the garret at
the top. No greensward, no park, no blade of grass. Whole districts
are as bare of beauty as an enlarged ash-heap. Here children are
"spawned, not born, and die like flies." Here men and women grow
bitter. Here anarchy grows rank. And to such a district in one great
city has gone a man of the finest scholarship and the highest position,
to become the friend of the poor. With him is his bosom friend, having
wealth and culture, with pictures, marbles and curios. Every afternoon
they invite several hundred poor women to spend an hour in the
conservatory among the flowers. Every evening with stereopticon they
take a thousand boys or men upon a journey to Italy or Egypt or Japan.
The kindergartens, public schools and art exhibits cause these women
and children to forget for a time their misery. One hour daily is
redeemed from sorrow to joy by beautiful things and kindly
surroundings. Love and sympathy have sheltered them from life's fierce
heat. Bitter lives are slowly being sweetened. Springs are being
opened in the desert. These great hearts have become "the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land."
The Russian reformer, novelist and philanthropist, had an experience
that profoundly influenced his career. Famine had wrought great
suffering in Russia. One day the good poet passed a beggar on the
street corner. Stretching out gaunt hands, with blue lips and watery
eyes, the miserable creature asked an alms. Quickly the author felt
for a copper. He turned his pockets inside out. He was without purse
or ring or any gift. Then the kind man took the beggar's hand in both
of his and said: "Do not be angry with me, brother, I have nothing with
me!" The gaunt face lighted up; the man lifted his bloodshot eyes; his
blue lips parted in a smile. "But you called me brother--that was a
great gift." Returning an hour later he found the smile he had kindled
still lingered on the beggar's face. His body had been cold; kindness
had made his heart warm. The good man was as a covert in time of
storm. History and experience exhibit now and then a man as unyielding
as rock in friendships. Years ago a gifted youth began his literary
career. Wealth, travel, friends, all good gifts were his. One day a
friend handed him a telegram containing news of his father's death.
Then the mother faded away. The youth was alone in the world. In that
hour evil companions gathered around him. They spoiled him of his
fresh innocency. They taught the delicate boy to listen to salacity
without blushing. Soon coarse quips and rude jests ceased to shock
him. He thought to "see life" by seeing the wrecks of manhood and
womanhood. But does one study architecture by visiting hovels and
squalid cabins? Is not studying architecture seeing the finest
mansions and galleries and cathedrals? So to see life is to see
manhood at its best and womanhood when carried up to culture and beauty.
Wasting his fortune this youth wasted also his friendships. One man
loved him for his father's sake. For several years every Saturday
night witnessed this man of oak and rock going from den to den looking
for his old friend's boy. One day he wrote the youth a letter telling
him, whether or not he found him, so long as he lived he would be
looking for him every Saturday night in hope of redeeming him again to
integrity. What nothing else could do love did. Kindness wrought its
miracle. Clasping hands the man and boy climbed back again to the
heights. At first the integrity was at best a poor, sickly plant. But
his friend was a refuge in time of storm. A good man became the shadow
of a great rock in life's weary land.
Our age is specially interested in the relation of happiness to the
street, the market and counting-room. We have not yet acknowledged the
responsibility of strength. Not always have our giant minds confessed
the debt of power to weakness; the debt of wisdom to ignorance; the
debt of wealth to poverty; the debt of holiness to iniquity. Jesus
Christ was the first to incarnate this principle. By so much as the
parent is wiser than the babe for building a protecting shield for
happiness and well-being, by that much is the mother indebted to her
babe. Why is one man more successful than another in the street's
fierce conflict? Because he has more resources; is prudent, thrifty,
quick to seize upon opportunity, sagacious, keen of judgment. All
these qualities are birth-gifts. The ancestral foothills slope upward
toward the mountain-minded. And what do these distinguished mental
qualities involve?
Recognizing the responsibility of men of leisure and wealth, John
Ruskin said: "Shall one by breadth and sweep of sight gather some
branch of the commerce of the country into one great cobweb of which he
is himself to be the master spider, making every thread vibrate with
the points of his claws, and commanding every avenue with the facets of
his eyes?" Shall the industrial or political giant say: "Here is the
power in my hand; weakness owes me a debt? Build a mound here for me
to be throned upon. Come, weave tapestries for my feet that I may
tread in silk and purple; dance before me that I may be glad, and sing
sweetly to me that I may slumber. So shall I live in joy and die in
honor." Rather than such an honorable death, it were better that the
day perish wherein such strength was born. Rather let the great mind
become also the great heart, and stretch out his scepter over the heads
of the common people that stoop to its waving. "Let me help you subdue
the obstacle that baffled our fathers, and put away the plagues that
consume our children. Let us together water these dry places; plow
these desert moons; carry this food to those who are in hunger; carry
this light to those who are in darkness; carry this life to those who
are in death."
Superiority is to make erring men unerring and slow minds swift. Then,
indeed, comes the better day--pray God it be not far off--when strength
uses its wealth as the net of the sacred fisher to gather souls of men
out of the deep.
In overplus of strength we have the measure of a man's greatness.
Soul-power is resource for finding and feeding the hidden springs of
life and thought in others. Not all have the same capacity. The Lord
of the vineyard still sends into the white fields ten-talent men,
two-talent men and one-talent men. Each hath his own task, and each
must grasp the handle of his own being. Genius is widely distributed.
Not many Platos--only one, and then a thousand lesser minds look up to
him and learn to think. Not many Dantes--one, and a thousand poets
tune their lyres to his and catch its notes. Not many Raphaels--one,
and a thousand aspiring artists look up to him and are lifted by the
look. Not many royal hearts--great magazines of kindness. Few are
great in heart-power, effulging all sweet and generous qualities.
Happy the community blessed with, a few great hearts and a few great
minds. One such will civilize a whole community.
Classic literature charmed our childhood with the story of an Arabian
sheik. He dwelt in an oasis near the edge of the desert. Wealth was
his, with flocks and herds and wedges of gold. One night sleep forsook
his couch. Yet the gurgle of falling water was in his ear. The odors
of the vineyard were in his nostril; and to-morrow his servants would
begin to gather the abundant harvest. Ten miles away ran the track of
the caravan where his herdsmen had found a traveler dead from the
fierce heat of the desert. Yonder the desert and a dying traveler;
here an oasis with living water. Then the sheik arose; he bade his
servants fill two leathern water-bottles and bring a basket full of
figs and grapes. The next day a caravan came to a booth protecting two
water-bottles sunk in the sand. Beside them were bunches of fruit. On
a roll were these words: "While God gives me life each day shall a man
be--as springs of water in a desert place." This beautiful story
interprets for us the ministry of the higher manhood, as the great
heart becomes the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
This law of human helpfulness asks each man to carry himself so as to
bless and not blight men, to make and not mar them. Besides the great
ends of attaining character here and immortality hereafter, we are
bound to so administer our talents as to make right living easy and
smooth for others. Happy is he whose soul automatically oils all the
machinery of the home, the market and the street. And this ambition to
be universally helpful must not be a transient and occasional one--here
and there an hour's friendship, a passing hint of sympathy, a transient
gleam of kindness. Heart helpfulness is to enter into the fundamental
conceptions of our living. With vigilant care man is to expel every
element that vexes or irritates or chafes just as the husbandman expels
nettles and poison ivy from fruitful gardens.
For nothing is so easily wrecked as the soul. As mechanisms go up
toward complexity, delicacy increases. The fragile vase is ruined by a
single tap. A chance blow destroys the statue. A bit of sand ruins
the delicate mechanism. But the soul is even more sensitive to injury.
It is marred by a word or a look. Men are responsible for the ruin
they work unthinkingly! To-day the engine drops a spark behind it.
To-morrow that engine is a thousand miles away. Yet the spark left
behind is now a column of fire mowing down the forests. And that
devastating column belongs not to another, but to that engine that hath
journeyed far. Thus the evil man does lives after him. The
condemnation of life is that a man hath carried friction and stirred up
malign elements and sowed fiery discords, so that the gods track him by
the swath of destruction he hath cut through life. The praise of life
is that a man hath exhaled bounty and stimulus and joy and gladness
wherever he journeys. To-day noble examples and ten thousand precepts
unite in urging every one to become a great heart. Every individual
must bring together his little group of pilgrim friends, companions,
employes, using whatever he has of wisdom and skill for guiding those
who follow him on their desert march. For happiness is through
helpfulness. Every morning let us build a booth to shelter someone
from life's fierce heat. Every noon let us dig some life-spring for
thirsty lips. Every night let us be food for the hungry and shelter
for the cold and naked. The law of the higher manhood asks man to be a
great heart, the shadow of a rock in a weary land.
THE INVESTMENT OF TALENT AND ITS RETURN.
"The universal blunder of this world is in thinking that there are
certain persons put into the world to govern and certain others to
obey. Everybody is in this world to govern and everybody to obey.
There are no benefactors and no beneficiaries in distinct classes.
Every man is at once both benefactor and beneficiary. Every good deed
you do you ought to thank your fellowman for giving you an opportunity
to do; and they ought to be thankful to you for doing it."--_Phillips
Brooks_.
"Pity is love and something more; love at its utmost."--_T. T. Munger,
"Freedom of Faith._"
"The great idea that the Bible is the history of mankind's deliverance
from all tyranny, outward as well as inward, of the Jews, as the one
free constitutional people among a world of slaves and tyrants, of
their ruin, as the righteous fruit of a voluntary return to despotism;
of the New Testament, as the good news that freedom, brotherhood,
equality, once confided only to Judea and to Greece, and dimly seen
even there, was henceforth to be the right of all mankind, the law of
all society--who was there to tell me that? Who is there now to go
forth and tell it to the millions who have suffered and doubted and
despaired like me, and turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom
of the just, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come? Again
I ask--who will go forth and preach that gospel and save his native
land?"--_Charles Kingsley, "Alton Locke._"