THE TIME ELEMENT IN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER AND SOCIAL GROWTH.
For all lovers of their kind, nothing is so hard to bear as the
slowness of the upward progress of society. It is not simply that the
rise of the common people is accompanied with heavy wastes and losses,
it is that the upward movement is along lines so vast as to make
society's growth seem tardy, delayed, or even reversed. Doubtless the
drift of the ages is upward, but this progress becomes apparent only
when age is compared with age and century with century. It is not easy
for some Bruno or Wickliffe, sowing the good seed of liberty and
toleration in one century, to know that not until another century hath
passed will the precious harvest be reaped. Man is accustomed to brief
intervals. Not long the space between January's snowdrifts and June's
red berries. Brief the interval between the egg and the eagle's full
flight. Scarcely a score of years separates the infant of days from
the youth of full stature. Trained to expect the April seed to stand
close beside the August sheaf, it is not easy for man to accustom
himself to the processes of him with whom four-score years are but a
handbreadth and a thousand years as but one day.
To man, therefore, toiling upon his industry, his art, his government,
his religion, comes this reflection: Because the divine epochs are
long, let not the patriot or parent be sick with hope long deferred.
Let the reformer sow his seed untroubled when the sickle rusts in the
hand that waits for its harvest. Remember that as things go up in
value, the period between inception and fruition is protracted.
Because the plant is low, the days between seed and sheaf are few and
short; because the bird is higher, months stand between egg and eagle.
But manhood is a thing so high, culture and character are harvests so
rich as to ask years and even ages for ripening, while God's purposes
for society involve such treasures of art, wisdom, wealth, law,
liberty, as to ask eons and cycles for their full perfection.
Therefore let each patriot and sage, each reformer and teacher be
patient. The world itself is a seed. Not until ages have passed shall
it burst into bloom and blossom.
Troubled by the strifes of society, depressed by the waste of its
forces and the delays of its columns, he who seeks character for
himself and progress for his kind, oft needs to shelter himself beneath
that divine principle called the time-element for the individual and
the race. Optimists are we; our world is God's; wastes shall yet
become savings and defeats victories; nevertheless, life's woes, wrongs
and delays are such as to stir misgiving. The multitudes hunger for
power and influence, hunger for wealth and wisdom, for happiness and
comfort; satisfaction seems denied them. Watt and Goodyear invent,
other men enter into the fruit of their inventions; Erasmus and
Melanchthon sow the good seeds of learning; two centuries pass by
before God's angels count the bundles. In a passion of enthusiasm for
England's poor, Cobden wore his life out toiling for the corn laws.
The reformer died for the cotton-spinners as truly as if he had slit
his arteries and emptied out the crimson flood. But when the victory
was won, the wreath of fame was placed upon another's brow. One day
Robert Peel arose in the House of Commons and in the presence of an
indignant party and an astounded country, proudly said: "I have been
wrong. I now ask Parliament to repeal the law for which I myself have
stood. Where there was discontent, I see contentment; where there was
turbulence, I see peace, where there was disloyalty, I see loyalty."
Then the fury of party anger burst upon him, and bowing to the storm,
Robert Peel went forth while men hissed after him such words as
"traitor," "coward," "recreant leader." Nor did he foresee that in
losing an office he had gained the love of a country.
What delays also in justice! What recognition does society withhold
from its heroes! What praise speaks above the pulseless corpse that is
denied the living, hungering heart! What gold coin spent for the
marble wreath by those who have no copper for laurel for the living
hero! How do rewards that dazzle in prospect, in possession, burst
like gaudy bubbles! Honors are evanescent; reputation is a vapor;
property takes wings; possessions counted firm as adamant dissolve like
painted clouds; in the hour of depression the hand drops its tool, the
heart its task. In such dark hours and moods, strong men reflect that
he who sows the good seed of liberty or culture or character must have
long patience until the harvest; that as things go up in value they ask
for longer time; that he is the true hero who redeems himself out of
present defeat by the foresight of far-off and future victory; that
that man has a patent of nobility from God himself who can lay out his
life upon the principle that a thousand years are as one day. The
truly great man takes long steps by God's side, has the courage of the
future; working, he can also wait.
For man, fulfilling such a career, no principle hath greater practical
value than this one; as things rise in the scale of value the interval
between seedtime and harvest must lengthen. Happily for us, God hath
capitalized this principle in nature and life. Each gardener knows
that what ripens quickest is of least worth. The mushroom needs only a
night; the moss asks a week for covering the fallen tree; the humble
vegetable asks several weeks and the strawberry a few months; but,
planting his apple tree, the gardener must wait a few years for his
ripened russet, and the woodsman many years for the full-grown oak or
elm. If in thought we go back to the dawn of creation--to that moment
when sun and planet succeeded to clouds of fire, when a red-hot earth,
cooling, put on an outer crust, when gravity drew into deep hollows the
waters that cooled the earth and purified the upper air--and then
follow on in nature's footsteps, passing up the stairway of ascending
life from lichen, moss and fern, on to the culminating moment in man,
we shall ever find that increase of value means an increase of time for
growth. The fern asks days, the reed asks weeks, the bird for months,
the beast for a handful of years, but man for an epoch measured by
twenty years and more. To grow a sage or a statesman nature asks
thirty years with which to build the basis of greatness in the bone and
muscle of the peasant grandparents, thirty years in which to compact
the nerve and brain of parents; thirty years more in which the heir of
these ancestral gifts shall enter into full-orbed power and stand forth
fully furnished for his task. Nature makes a dead snowflake in a
night, but not a living star-flower. For her best things nature asks
long time.
The time-principle holds equally in man's social and industrial life.
To-day our colleges have their anthropological departments and our
cities their museums. The comparative study of the dress, weapons,
tools, houses, ships of savage and civilized races gives an outline
view of the progress of society. How fragile and rude the handiwork of
savages! How quickly are the wants provided for! A few fig leaves
make a full summer suit for the African and the skin of an ox his garb
for winter. But civilized man must toil long upon his loom for
garments of wool and fine silk. Slowly the hollow log journeys toward
the ocean steamer; slowly the forked stick gives place to the
steam-plow, the slow ox to the swift engine; slowly the sea-shell, with
three strings tied across its mouth, develops into the many-mouthed
pipe-organ. But if rude and low conveniences represent little time and
toil, these later inventions represent centuries of arduous labor. In
his history of the German tribes, Tacitus gives us a picture of a day's
toil for one of the forest children. Moving to the banks of some new
stream, the rude man peels the bark from the tree and bends it over the
tent pole; with a club he beats down the nuts from the branches; with a
round stone he knocks the squirrel from the bough; another hour
suffices for cutting a line from the ox's hide and, hastily making a
hook out of the wishbone of the bird, he draws the trout from its
stream. But if for savage man a day suffices for building and
provisioning the tent, the accumulated wisdom of centuries is required
for the home of to-day. One century offers an arch for the door,
another century offers glass windows, another offers wrought nails and
hinges, another plaster that will receive and hold the warm colors,
another offers the marble, tapestry, picture and piano, the thousand
conveniences for use and beauty.
Husbandry also represents patience and the labor of generations. Were
it given to the child, tearing open the golden meat of the fruit, to
trace the ascent of the tree, he would see the wild apple or bitter
orange growing in the edge of the ancient forest. But man, standing by
the fruit, grafted it for sweetness, pruned it for the juicy flow,
nourished it for taste and color. Could he who picks the peach or pear
have this inner vision, he would behold an untold company of husbandmen
standing beneath the branches and pointing to their special
contributions. The fathers labored, the children entered into the
fruitage of the labor in his dream; the poet slept in St. Peter's and
saw the shadowy forms of all the architects and builders from the
beginning of time standing about him and giving their special
contributions to Bramante and Angelo's great temple. Thus many hands
have toiled upon man's house, man's art, industry, invention.
In the realm of law and liberty the best things ask for patience and
waiting. Out of nothing nothing comes. The institution that
represents little toil but little time endures. Man's early history is
involved in obscurity, largely because his early arts were
mushroomic--completed quickly, they quickly perished. The ideas
scratched upon the flat leaf or the thin reed represented scant labor
and therefore soon were dust. But he who holds in his hand a modern
book holds the fruitage of years many and long. For that book we see
the workmen ranging far for linen; we see the printer toiling upon his
movable types; we see the artist etching his plate; the author giving
his days to study and his nights to reflection; and because the book
harvests the study of a great man's lifetime it endures throughout
generations. The sciences also increase in value only as the time
spent upon them is lengthened. Few and brief were the days required
for the early astronomers to work out the theory that the earth is
flat, the sky a roof, the stars holes in which the gods have hung
lighted lamps. The theory that makes our earth sweep round the sun,
our sun sweep round a far-off star, all lesser groups sweep round one
central sun, that shepherds all the other systems, asks for the toil of
Galileo and Kepler, of Copernicus and Newton, and a great company of
modern students. The father of astronomy had to wait a thousand years
for the fruition of his science. Upon those words, called law or love,
or mother or king, man hath with patience labored. The word wife or
mother is so rich to-day as to make Homer's ideal, Helen, seem poor and
almost contemptible. The girl was very beautiful, but very painful the
alacrity with which she passes from the arms of Menelaus to the arms of
Paris, from the arms of Paris to those of Deiphobus, his conqueror. If
one hour only was required for this lovely creature to pack her
belongings preparatory to moving to the tent of her new lord, one day
fully sufficed for transferring her affections from one prince to
another. But, toiling ever upward to her physical beauty, woman added
mental beauty, moral beauty, until the word wife or mother or home came
to have almost infinite wealth of meaning.
In government also the best political instruments ask for longest time.
Hercules ruled by the right of physical strength. Assembling the
people, he challenged all rivals to combat. A single hour availed for
cutting off the head of his enemy. Henceforth he reigned an
unchallenged king. Because man hath with patience toiled long upon
this republic, how rich and complex its institutions! The modern
presidency does not represent the result of an hour's combat between
two Samsons. Forty years ago the eager aspirants began their struggle.
A great company of young men all over the land determined to build up a
reputation for patriotism, statesmanship, wisdom and character. As the
time for selecting a president approached, the people passed in review
all these leaders. When two or more were finally chosen out, there
followed months in which the principles of the candidates were sifted
and analyzed. "I know of no more sublime spectacle," said Stuart Mill,
"than the election of the ruler under the laws of the republic. If the
voice of the people is ever the voice of God, if any ruler rules by
divine right, it is when millions of freemen, after long consideration,
elect one man to be their appointed guide and leader." If a single
hour availed for Samson to settle the question of his sovereignty, free
institutions ask for their statesmen to have the patience of years;
working, they must also wait.
With long patience also man has worked and waited as he has toiled upon
his idea of religion. Rude, indeed, man's hasty thoughts of the
infinite. In early days the sun was God's eye, the thunder his voice,
the stroke of the earthquake the stroke of his arm, the harvest
indicated his pleasure, the pestilence his anger. In such an age the
priest and philosopher taxed their genius to invent methods of
preserving the friendship and avoiding the anger of the Infinite.
Daily the king and general calculated how many sheep and oxen they must
slay to avoid defeat in battle. Daily the husbandman and farmer
calculated how many doves and lambs must be killed to avert blight from
the vineyard and hailstorms from the harvests. Observing that when the
king ascended to the throne the slaves put their necks under his heel
and covered their bodies with dust, in their haste the priests
concluded that by degrading man God would be exalted. Prostrating
themselves in dirt and rags, men went down in order that by contrast
the throne of God might rise up. The mud was made thick upon man's
brow that the crown upon the brow of God might be made brilliant. Out
of this degrading thought grew the idea that God lived and ruled for
his own gratification and self-glory. The infinite throne was unveiled
as a throne of infinite self-aggrandizement. Slowly it was perceived
that the parent who makes all things move about himself as a center,
ever monopolizing the best food, the best place, the best things, at
last becomes a monster of selfishness and suffers an awful degradation,
while he who sacrifices himself for others is the true hero.
At last, Christ entered the earthly scene with his golden rule and his
new commandment of love. He unveiled God, not as desiring to be
ministered to, but as ministering; as being rich, yet for man's sake
becoming poor; as asking little, but giving much; as caring for the
sparrow and lily; as waiting upon each beetle, bird and beast, and
caring for each detail of man's life. Slowly the word God increased in
richness. Having found through his telescope worlds so distant as to
involve infinite power, man emptied the idea of omnipotence into the
word GOD; finding an infinite wisdom in the wealth of the summers and
winters, man added the idea of omniscience; noting a certain upward
tendency in society, man added the word, "Providence;" gladdened by
God's mercy, man added ideas of forgiveness and love. Slowly the word
grew. In the olden time people entering the Acropolis cast their gifts
of gold and silver into some vase. Last of all came the prince to
empty in jewels and flashing gems and make the vase to overflow. Not
otherwise Christ emptied vast wealth of meaning into those words called
"conscience," "law," "love," "vicarious suffering," "immortality,"
"God." Beautiful, indeed, the simplicity of Christ. With long
patience, man waited for the unveiling of the face of divine love.
To all patriots and Christian men who seek to use occupation and
profession so as to promote the world's upward growth comes the
reflection that henceforth society's progress must be slow, because its
institutions are high and complex. To-day many look into the future
with shaded eyes of terror. In the social unrest and discontent of our
times timid men see the brewing of a social and industrial storm. In
their alarm, amateur reformers bring in social panaceas, conceived in
haste and born in fear. But God cannot be hurried. His century plants
cannot be forced to blossom in a night. No reformer can be too zealous
for man's progress, though he can be too impatient. In these days,
when civilization has become complex and the fruitage high, those who
work must also wait and with patience endure.
Multitudes are abroad trying to settle the labor problem. The labor
problem will never be settled until the last man lies in the graveyard.
Each new inventor reopens the labor problem. Men were contented with
their wages until Gutenberg invented his type and made books possible;
then straightway every laborer asked an increased wage, that though he
died ignorant his children might be intelligent. When society had
readjusted things and man had obtained the larger wage, Arkwright came,
inventing his new loom, Goodyear came with the use of rubber, and
straightway men asked a new wage to advantage themselves of woolen
garments and rubber goods for miners and sailors. On the morrow
15,000,000 children will enter the schoolroom; before noon the teacher
has given them a new outlook upon some book, some picture, some
convenience, some custom. Each child registers the purpose to go home
immediately and cry to his parent for that book or picture; that tool
or comfort. When the parents return that night the labor question has
been reopened in millions of homes.
Intelligence is emancipating man. Ignorance is a constant invitation
to oppression. So long as workmen are ignorant, governments will
oppress them; wealth will oppress them; religious machinery will
oppress them. Education can make man's wrists too large to be holden
of fetters. In the autumn the forest trees tighten the bark, but when
April sap runs through the trees the trunk swells, the bark is strained
and despite all protests it splits and cracks. The splitting of the
bark saves the life of the tree. The soft, balmy air of April is
passing over the world and succeeding to the winter of man's
discontent. Old ideas are being rent asunder and old institutions are
being succeeded by new ones. God is abroad destroying that he may
save. In every age he makes the discontent of the present to be the
prophecy of the higher civilization. Despite all the pessimists and
the croakers, the ideas of manhood were never so high as to-day, and
the number of those whose hearts are knitted in with their kind was
never so large nor so noble. The movement may be slow, but it is
because the social organs are complex and intricate. With long
patience man must work and also wait.
In the world of business, also, the time element exerts striking
influence. To-day our land is filled with men who have sown the seed
of thought and purpose, but whose harvest is of so high a quality that
with long patience must they wait for the fruition. How pathetic the
reverses of the last four years. The condition of our land as to the
overthrows of its leaders answers to the condition in Poland when
Kossuth and his fellow patriots, accustomed to life's comforts and its
luxuries, went forth penniless exiles to accustom themselves to menial
toil, to hardship and extreme poverty. His heart must be of iron who
can behold those who have been leaders of the industrial column, who
now stand aside and see the multitude sweep by. Just at the moment of
expected victory misfortune overtook them and brought their structure
down in ruins. And because the seed they have sown is not physical,
but mental and moral, the fruition is long postponed.
Walter Scott tells the story of a wounded knight, who took refuge in
the castle of a baron that proved to be a secret enemy and threw the
knight into a dungeon; one day in his cell the knight heard the sound
of distant music approaching. Drawing near the slit in the tower, he
saw the flash of swords and heard the tramp of marching men. At last
the wounded hero realized that these were his own troops, marching by
in ignorance of the fact that the lord of this castle was also the
jailer of their general. While the knight tugged at his chain, lifted
up his voice and cried aloud, his troops marched on, their music
drowning out his cries. Soon the banners passed from sight, the last
straggler disappeared behind the hill and the captive was left alone.
The brave knight died in his dungeon, but the story of his heroism
lived. What the knight learned in suffering the poets have taught in
song. The captive hero has a permanent place in civilization, though
the foresight of his influence was denied him.
Those whose harvest is delayed are a great company. Elizabeth Barrett
Browning exclaiming, "I have not used half the powers God has given
me," poets dying ere the day was half done; the inventors and reformers
denied their ideals; obscure and humble workmen--the mechanic who
emancipates man by his machine; the artisan whose conveniences are
endless benefactions to our homes; the smith whose honest anchor holds
the ship in time of storm--all these labored and died without seeing
the fruitage, but other men entered into their labors.
To parents who have passed through all the thunder of life's battle and
stand at the close of life's day discouraged because children are
unripe, thoughtless and immature; to publicists and teachers, sowing
God's precious seed, but denied its harvests; to individuals seeking to
perfect their character within themselves comes this thought--that
character is a harvest so rich as to ask for long waiting and the
courage of far-off results. Nature can perfect physical processes in
twenty years, but long time is asked for teaching the arm skill, the
tongue its grace of speech, to clothe reason with sweetness and light,
to cast error out of the judgment, to teach the will hardness and the
heart hope and endurance.
Four hundred years passed by before the capstone was placed upon the
Cathedral of Cologne, but no trouble requires such patient toil as the
structure of manhood. For complexity and beauty nothing is comparable
to character. Great artists spend years upon a single picture. With a
touch here and a touch there they approach it, and when a long period
hath passed they bring it to completion. Yet all the beauty of
paintings, all the grace of statues, all the grandeur of cathedrals are
as nothing compared to the painting of that inner picture, the
chiseling of that inner manhood, the adornment of that inner temple,
that is scarcely begun when the physical life ends. How majestic the
full disclosure of an ideal manhood! With what patience must man wait
for its completion! Here lies the hope of immortality; it does not yet
appear what man shall be.
THE SUPREMACY OF HEART OVER BRAIN.
"Out of the heart are the issues of life."--_Prov. IV. 23_.
"For out of the heart man believeth unto righteousness."--_Paul_.
"Heart is a word that the Bible is full of. Brain, I believe, is not
mentioned in Scripture. Heart, in the sense in which it is currently
understood, suggests the warm center of human life or any other life.
When we say of a man that he 'has a good deal of heart' we mean that he
is 'summery.' When you come near him it is like getting around to the
south side of a house in midwinter and letting the sunshine feel of
you, and watching the snow slide off the twigs and the tear-drops swell
on the points of pendant icicles. Brain counts for a good deal more
to-day than heart does. It will win more applause and earn a larger
salary. Thought is driven with a curb-bit lest it quicken into a pace
and widen out into a swing that transcends the dictates of good form.
Exuberance is in bad odor. Appeals to the heart are not thought to be
quite in good taste. The current demand is for ideas--not taste. I
asked a member of my church the other day whether he thought a certain
friend of his who attends a certain church and is exceptionally brainy
was really entering into sympathy with religious things. 'Oh, no,' he
said, 'he likes to hear preaching because he has an active mind, and
the way that things are spread out in front of him.' In the old days
of the church a sermon used to convert 3,000 men, now that temperature
is down it takes 3,000 sermons to convert one man."--_Charles H.
Parkhurst_.