INFLUENCE, AND THE STRATEGIC ELEMENT IN OPPORTUNITY.
The history of a Jewish battle includes a dramatic incident. In the
thick of the fight an officer brought to one of his soldiers an
important prisoner. "Keep thou this man," said he, "with the utmost
vigilance. Upon his person hang the issues of this campaign. His
skill in leading the enemy, his courage and treachery have cost our
side many lives. If by any means thou shalt suffer him to escape thy
life shall be for his life."
Then, straining more tightly the cords knotted around the prisoner's
hands and feet, the officer turned and plunged again into the thick of
the fight. From that moment the soldier's one duty was to guard the
prisoner whose escape would work such havoc.
Strangely enough, he became negligent. Careless, he leaned his bow and
spear against the tent. Hungry, he busied himself with baking a few
small cakes. Weary, he cast himself upon the ground, dozing upon his
elbow. Suddenly a noise startled his nap. He sprang up just in time
to see his prisoner make one leap, then disappear into the thicket.
A concealed knife had cut the thongs. Negligence had let "slip the
dogs of war." That night when the general returned to his tent he
found the prisoner had escaped.
Fronting his master the terror-stricken soldier had no excuse to offer
save this; "While thy servant was busy here and there the man was
gone." Gone opportunity!--and lightning could not equal its swift
flight. Gone forever opportunity!--and the wings of seraphim could not
overtake and bring it back. Gone honor, gone fidelity, gone good
name!--all lost irretrievably. For though dying be long delayed,
coming at last death would find the soldier's task unfulfilled. From
"It might have been," and "It is too late," God save us all! For not
Infinity himself can reverse the wheel of events and bring back lost
opportunities.
The genius of opportunity lies in its strategic element. In every
opportunity two or more forces meet in such a way that the one force so
lends itself to the other as momentarily to yield plasticity. Nature
is full of these strategic times. Iron passes into the furnace cold
and unyielding; coming out it quickly cools and refuses the mold; but
midway is a moment when fire so lends itself to iron, and iron so
yields its force to flame as that the metal flows like water.
This brief plastic moment is the inventor's opportunity, when the metal
will take on any shape for use or beauty. Similarly the fields offer a
strategic time to the husbandman. In February the soil refuses the
plow, the sun refuses heat, the sky refuses rain, the seed refuses
growth. In May comes an opportune time when all forces conspire toward
harvests; then the sun lends warmth, the clouds lend rain, the air
lends ardor, the soil lends juices. Then must the sower go forth and
sow, for nature whispers that if he neglects June he will starve in
January.
The planets also lend interpretation to this principle. Years ago our
nation sent astronomers to Africa to witness the transit of Venus.
Preparations began months beforehand. A ship was fitted up,
instruments packed, the ocean crossed, a site selected and the
telescopes mounted. Scientists made all things ready for that
opportune time when the sun and Venus and earth should all be in line.
That critical moment was very brief. Instinctively each astronomer
knew that his eye must be at the small end of the glass when the planet
went scudding by the large end. Once the period of conjunction had
passed no machinery would offer itself for turning the planet back upon
her axis. Not for astronomers only are the opportune times brief. For
all men alike, failure is blindness to the strategic element in events;
success is readiness for instant action when the opportune moment
arrives. When nature has fully ripened an opportunity man must stretch
out his hand and pluck it. Inventions may be defined as great minds
detecting the strategic moment in nature; Galileo finding a lens in the
ox's eye; Watt witnessing steam lift an iron lid; Columbus observing an
unknown wood drifting upon the shore. To untold multitudes nature
offered these opportune moments for discovery, but only Galileo, Watt
and Columbus were ready to seize them. As for the rest, this is our
only answer to nature: "While thy servant was busy here and there, the
strategic moment was gone."
This majestic principle often appears in history. There is a strategy
in Providence. Nations, like individuals, have their crisis hours.
Through events God makes all society plastic, and then raises up some
great man to stamp his image and superscription upon the nation's hot
and glowing heart. As scholars move back along the pathway of history,
they discern in each great epoch these strategic conditions. How
opportune the moment when Jesus Christ appeared!
Alexander's march had scattered every whither the seeds of learning;
the Greek language had turned the whole world into one great whispering
gallery, in which the nations were assembled; all the provinces around
the Mediterranean were linked together by the newly completed system of
roads; the Roman judge was in every town to set forth the rights of
citizens of the empire; the Roman soldier was there to protect all who
brought messages of peace; the long-expected hour had struck. Then
Christianity set forth from Bethlehem upon its errand of love. Along
every highway ran the eager feet of the messengers of peace and
good-will. Events were fully ripe, and soon Christianity was upon the
throne of the Caesars.
How strategic that epoch called the fourth century! He who sat in
Caesar's palace looked out upon a dying empire. The old race was worn
out with war and wine and wealth and luxury. Civilization seemed about
to perish, and society was fast sinking back into barbarism. To the
north of the Alps were the forest children, ruddy and robust, with
their glorious youth full upon them. These young giants needed the
dying language and literature and religion, and these great
institutions needed their young, fresh blood. But between lay the
granite walls builded from sea to sea. Now mark what Charles Kingsley
called "the strategy of Providence." Suddenly a blind impulse fell
upon the forest children. Two columns started southward. The one
rested upon the North Sea and marched southeast; the other rested upon
the Ural Mountains and marched southwest; the two met and converged
upon Trieste. Without maps or military tactics or plans, wholly
ignorant that Napoleon's favorite method of attack was being carried
out by them, these two columns converged toward the Alpine pass, and
for ten years pounded and pounded against the Roman walls until these
yielded and fell. Then the forest children poured down into the
vineyards and villages and cities of the dying empire. Multitudes
remained to intermarry and preserve the dying race. Other multitudes
returned to their old home to sow the northern forests with those great
ideas that were to carry civilization through the long night of the
dark ages.
Another strategic hour came in the thirteenth century. Then all Europe
was stirred with new and awakening life. It was dawn after darkness.
Constantinople had fallen and scholars laden with manuscripts went
forth to sow Europe with the new learning. The times were fully ripe
for another great forward movement for society. Only one thing was
lacking--great men for leaders. In that strategic crisis six leaders
appeared. God gave each wing of the army of civilization a genius for
its general. Copernicus overthrew superstition and brought in science;
Luther gave religion, Gutenberg the printing-press, Calvin
individualism, Michael Angelo art and the beautiful, Erasmus critical
scholarship; and because the old world was filled with debris, and the
new ideas needed room, Columbus gave the new world, offering what
Emerson calls "the last opportunity of Providence for the human race."
Surely this was a strategic moment in history, giving each citizen
unique opportunity.
The strategic element enters into the individual career. Destiny is
determined by our use of our critical hours. It is as if life's great
issues were staked upon a single throw. Not but that the forces we
neglect are permanent. It is that the strategic condition has passed
out of them. The sluggard driving his plow into the field in July has
sun, soil and seed, but the torrid summer refuses to perform the gentle
processes of April. The man who in youth's strategic days denied to
memory the great facts of nature and history, in maturer years still
has his memory, but the plasticity has gone. It now refuses to hold
the facts he gives it. The Latin poet interprets our principle by the
story of the maiden in the boat, holding her hand in the water while
she toyed with a string of pearls until the string snapped and the
treasure sank into the abyss. The miner interprets opportunity lost
through him who, for a rifle and a blanket, traded a rich copper mine
that has since paid its owner millions. The historian interprets it by
Napoleon's bitter signal to his General, tardy at Waterloo, "Too late!
the critical hour has passed." Froude interprets it through the old
hero bitterly condemning himself over his wife's grave, knowing that
his wild love and fierce outburst of affection were impotent now to
warm the heart that froze to death in a home.
Ruskin interprets it through a nation that allowed her noblest to
descend into the grave, garlanding the tombstone when they refused to
crown the brow; paying honors to ashes that were denied to spirit;
wreathing immortelles only when they had no use save for laying on a
grave where was one dead of a broken heart through a nation's
ingratitude. Above all, Jesus Christ interprets it at midnight in
Gethsemane, when he saw the torches fluttering in the darkness, heard
the clanking of sabers and soldiers' armor, and in sad, reproachful
irony wakened his disciples with these words: "Sleep on, now; sleep
forever if you will! Henceforth no stress of your vigilance can help
me; no negligence of your duty can harm me beyond the harm you have
already wrought. Take your ease now. Sleep; the opportunity has
gone." Then was the disciples' joy turned into mourning, and for
garments of praise did they put on ashes and sackcloth. An irreparable
loss was theirs. Yet for all of us each neglected duty means a
tragedy. It is always now or never. The treasure wrapped up in each
strategic opportunity is of infinite value. To-morrow can hold no joy
when yesterday holds this memory: "While I was busy here and there my
opportunity was gone."
How strategic the period of youth! Then the chiefest forces of life
flow together in sensitive conjunction. Then four great gifts like
four great rivers unite in one majestic current to bear up the young
man's enterprises, and sweep him on to fame and fortune. Opportune are
all the days when health spills over at the eye and ear and laughs
through the lips. Men worn out are like overshot wheels--the life
trickles and the buckets are filled slowly by long rests and frequent
vacations. Young men are like undershot wheels--always, by day and
night, the water overflows the banks.
Each morning the young soul wakens to the supreme luxury of living.
The world is a great beaker brimmed with wine of the gods. The truth
and beauty of field and forest and river give a pleasure that is
exquisite to a keenly sensitive and perfectly healthy youth. Like an
Aeolian harp, the slightest breath avails for wakening melody midst its
strings. But years multiply cares. Age increases heaviness. Time
destroys its own children. The poet says: "In youth we carry the world
like Atlas; in maturity we stoop and bend beneath it; in age it crushes
us to the ground." For the overtaxed and invalided, the dew-drops do
not sparkle as diamonds; the wet grass suggests red flannels and cough
sirups. For the nervous the bird's song is a meaningless chatter. For
the sickly the clouds are big black water-bottles, though time was when
they were chariots for God's angels, curtains for hiding ministering
spirits trooping homeward at night, leaving all the air sweetly
perfumed. It is the body that grants the soul permission to be happy.
To the opportunity offered by health may be added the years lying in
front of the young heart like a great estate, as yet unincumbered.
Powerful enthusiasms, too, are the inheritance of youth. Noble
feelings, fine aspirations then pass through the mind, as in May the
perfumed winds from the South pass over the fields. These motives beat
upon the mind as steam upon the iron piston. Workmen excavating at
Pompeii threw up soil that had been covered for 1,800 years. Exposed
to the sun, young trees sprang up. Without the force of light and heat
and dew and rain these seeds were dormant or dead. Thus each mind is a
dead mind until the full warmth of great impulses quickens the dormant
energies. The hopes, the ambitions, the aspirations of youth all
conspire to make this a most strategic period. Then all the forces of
life unite in a great gulf stream for bearing the soul up and sweeping
it forward to new climes and richer shores.
Strategic the hour of prosperity. Men discount the speech of poverty,
but the rich man's words weigh a ton each. It has been said that the
poor man's dollar is just as good as the rich man's only when both are
anonymous, for the dollar with a million behind it will go further than
the dollar with a thousand behind it. This is a proverb: "A bid from
Rothschild electrifies the market." Each new achievement and success
builds higher the tower of observation that lifts the great man into
the presence of the nation. All eyes are upon the prospered
individual, all ears are alert to his whisper. Prosperity's voice is
the voice of an oracle, all her words are winged. Every successful
venture in the world of commerce or statecraft quadruples influence
over the nation's youth. This principle interprets the curiosity of
the boy in store or bank, asking a thousand questions about his
successful employer. It explains why the eager aspirant for political
influence searches all the journals for some word from Gladstone or
Castelar or Bismarck. A sentence from these great champions hath
sufficed for reversing the policy of a government. The memory of many
triumphs lies back of the great leader's words and lends them weight.
Success is an orator; it charms multitudes. Full oft one who is a
veritable genius for making homely truths beautiful has accomplished
less for his age than some prosperous man whose few stumbling words
have sufficed for shaping national policies and guiding his generation.
All the young are drawn into the wake of the successful. Wealth
fulfills the story of Orpheus, whose sweet voice made the very stones
and trees follow after him. Truly wealth is an evangelist, the almoner
of bounty toward college and library and art gallery and liberty and
religion. But its chief use is in this: It enables its possessor to
repeat his industry, integrity and thrift in the children of a nation.
All youthful hearts do well to covet wealth, wisdom and leverage power!
But man should remember that the chief value of prosperity is in its
capitalization of personality, and the rendering of others sensitive to
example and precept. Should man forget this, earth will hear no sadder
cry than his when, closing the life career, he exclaims: "While thy
servant was busy here and there the opportune moment was gone."
Friendship yields these plastic moments and unique opportunities. For
the most part the soul dwells in a castle locked and barred against
outsiders. No man can keep open-house for every passer-by. But
friendship is an open sesame, drawing every bar and bolt. How the
heart leaps when the friend crosses the threshold! His shadow always
falls behind him. His coming is summer in the soul; his presence is
peace. Friendship glorifies everything it touches. When on a stormy
night our friend comes in he seems to warm the very fire upon the
hearth; he sweetens the sweet singer's voice; lends new meaning to the
wise man's words; gives reminiscence an added charm; makes old stories
new; makes the laughter and smiles come twice as often and stay twice
as long. Friendship lies upon the heart like a warm fire upon the
hearth. By reason of friendship history exhibits every great man as
leaving his school of thought and a group of disciples behind him. His
spirit lingers with men long after his form has disappeared from the
streets, as the sun lingers in the clouds after the day is done, as the
melody lingers in the ear long after the song is sung. Longfellow,
after a day and a night with Emerson, literally emitted poems and
plays. He was stimulated by friendship as bees by rose liquor and the
sweet pea wine. Friendship always makes the heart plastic. Then the
mental furrows are all open and mellow; sympathy falls like dew and
rain; then the heart saith to its friend: "Here am I, all plastic to
your touch; work upon me your will; for good or ill--I am thine."
Therefore, friendship imposes frightful responsibilities; in asking and
receiving it we assume charge of another's destiny. This is the very
genius of the teacher's influence over his pupil, the parent's over his
child, the general's over his soldier, the patriot's over his people.
Better a thousand times never open the furrow than to leave it
unfertilized.
How strategic life's better hours! One of God's precious gifts is the
luminous hour that denies the lower animal mood. Mind is not always at
its best. Full oft our thought is sodden and dull. Then duty seems a
maze without a clew and life's skeins all a tangle. The mind is
uneasy, confused and troubled. Then men live to the eye and the ear
and physical comforts; they live for houses and beautiful things in
them; for shelves and rich goods upon them; for factories and large
profits by them. Responsibility to God seems like the faint shadow of
a vaguely remembered dream. The voice of conscience is in the ear like
the far-off murmuring of the sea. The soul is sordid and the finer
senses indurated. The angel of the better nature is bondslave to the
worst. Then enters some element that nurtures the nobler impulse.
Some misfortune, earthquake-like, cleaves through the hard crust. Or
some gentle event, like the coming of an old friend or the returning to
the old homestead, stirs old memories and kindles new thoughts.
Slowly the heart passes out of the penumbra. The mind, too long
obscured like a sun eclipsed by clouds, searches out some rift.
Suddenly reason comes into the clear. God rises like an untroubled sun
upon the soul's horizon. How crystalline life looks! The mind
literally exhales fancies and pictures, and each stick and stone is as
full of suggestions and ideas as the forest is full of birds. Old
problems become clear as noonday. Difficult questions lie clearly
revealed before the mind like landscapes from which the fogs are
lifted. Once the mind crawled tortoise-like through its work. Now it
soars like an eagle. The soul seems a sweet-spiced shrub, and every
leaf is perfumed. If in dull, obscure hours the soul was like a wooden
beehive drifted o'er with snow, in its vision-hours the soul is like a
glass hive out of which the bees go singing into sweet clover-fields.
In these hours how unworthy the material life! How insubstantial the
things of iron, wood and stone! Bodily things seem evanescent, as
frost pictures on the window on a winter's morn. Then honor,
integrity, kindness, generosity alone seem permanent and worth one's
while. How easy then to do right. All habits that fettered the
faculties like iron cuffs are now felt to be but ice fetters, quickly
melting. Then the nobler self, using no whip of cords, looks upon
meanness and selfishness, and by a look drives them from the heart and
life.
Then years are fulfilled in a single hour. Then from its judgment-seat
the soul reviews its past career, searches out secret sins and scorns
them. How unworthy are vanity and pride and selfishness. In what
garments of beauty and attraction are truth and purity clothed. The
soul looks longingly unto the heavenly heights, as desert pilgrims long
for oases and springs of water. Unspeakably precious are these
strategic hours of opportunity. God sends them; divineness is in them;
they cleanse and fertilize the soul; they are like the overflowing
Nile. Men should watch for them and lay out the life-course by them,
as captains ignore the clouds and headlands and steer by the stars for
a long voyage and a distant harbor.
INFLUENCE, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTION IN LIFE AND CHARACTER.
"So each man gets out of the world of men the rebound, the increase and
development of what he brings there. Three men stand in the same field
and look around them, and then they all cry out together. One of them
exclaims, 'How rich!' another cries, 'How strange!' another cries, 'How
beautiful!' And then the three divide the field between them, and they
build their houses there, and in a year you come back and see what
answer the same earth has made to each of her three questioners. They
have all talked with the ground on which they lived, and heard its
answers. They have all held out their several hands, and the same
ground has put its own gift into each of them. What have they got to
show you? One cries, 'Come here and see my barn,' another cries, 'Come
here and see my museum;' the other says, 'Let me read you my poem.'
That is a picture of the way in which a generation, or the race, takes
the great earth and makes it different things to all its children.
With what measure we mete to it, it measures to us again. This is the
rebound of the hard earth--sensitive and soft, although we call it
hard, and feeling with an instant keen discrimination the different
touch of each different human nature which is laid upon it. Reaction
is equal to action."--_Phillips Brooks_.