INFLUENCE, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTION IN LIFE AND CHARACTER.
To the mystery of life and death must be added the mystery of growth.
When Demosthenes exclaimed: "Yesterday I was not here; I shall not be
here to-morrow; to-day I am here," he suggested a hard problem. Having
solved the enigma, what went before life, and answered that mystery,
what follows after death, there still remains this question: "How can a
babe in twenty years take on the proportions of the great orator and
reformer?" Rocks do not grow, nor diamonds, nor dirt, but a shrunken
bulb does become a lily, and a tiny seed a mustard tree. In vain does
the scientist struggle with this problem--how an acorn can expand into
an oak; how in a single summer a grain of corn can ripen a thousand
grains, like that from which the cornstalk sprang.
Men are indeed familiar with the bursting of buds, the cracking of eggs
and the growth of children; yet familiarity robs these facts of no whit
of their mystery. No jeweler ever goes into the field with a basket of
watches to plant them in rows, expecting when autumn hath come to pick
two or three wagon-loads of stem-winders from iron branches; yet, were
this possible, it would be no more strange than that in the autumn the
husbandman should stand under the branches to fill his basket with
peaches or bunches of figs. For wise men it is no more difficult to
think of a growing engine than of a growing oak. What if to-morrow an
engineer should plant a cannon ball. Having watered it well and kept
the ground loose through hoe or spade, suppose that when a few weeks
have passed the outline of a smokestack should push through the soil,
to be followed a little later by a rudimentary steam whistle, the
outlines of a boiler, and, rising through the sod, rude drive-wheels,
piston-rods and cylinders, until after six months the great engine
should stand forth in full completion. This phenomenon would be no
more wonderful than that which actually goes on before man's blind
eyes, when a tiny seed enlarges into the big tree of California and
constructs a vegetable engine that lifts thousands of hogsheads of
water up to the topmost boughs without any rattle of chains or the din
of machinery.
With difficulty man constructs that musical instrument called a
mouthharp, but nature, in six weeks, out of a little blue or brown egg
constructs a feathered music-box that automatically conveys itself from
tree to tree. But the mystery that has gone on in that tiny blue egg
lying in the nest is just as great as if some housewife had planted an
old spinning-wheel in the full expectation of reaping a Jacquard loom,
or had buried a jew's-harp in the garden expecting in the fall to pick
a grand piano. To the mystery that is involved in enlargement by
growth must be added the mystery of intelligence. It is not an easy
thing for an expert housewife, using the same formula, always to
achieve the same happy results in the white loaf. He who plants a
strawberry seed will find that the tiny seed will construct a plant,
lay in the red tints according to rule and mix the flavor of the berry
to a nicety that is the despair of the chef. In the tropic forests
there is a flower with a deep cup and the pollen at the bottom. This
pollen lies upon a little platter, and underneath the platter is that
form of trap known as a figure four, much loved by boys. When the bee,
creeping down into the flower, touches that platter, it springs the
trap that throws the fertilizing pollen upon the legs of the bee, to be
conveyed to the next flower. Wise men can, indeed, imitate this
device, but a single seed will in a few months construct many scores of
these mechanical devices. To-morrow morning the embryologist in his
laboratory will place an egg under a glass cylinder in an atmosphere of
98 degrees. Four hours pass and suddenly the scientist perceives an
atom in the heart of that egg give a quick lashing movement. Another
moment witnesses two quick throbs. Growth has begun and in four
months' time the young eagle with firm strokes will lift itself into
the soft air. From the chamber of life and the chamber of death God
hath never drawn the curtains. The chamber of growth is another most
holy place in which God alone doth stand.
Deeply impressed by the fact of growth, scientists have also marveled
at the principle that controls the harvest. Rocks enlarge by
accretion, but from what a rock is at the beginning, the geologists
cannot tell what will be the shape of that rock when all deposits are
finally made. As to growth in seed and shrub, like produces like. He
who sows wheat reaps wheat, not tares. He who plants a grape receives
a purple cluster, not a bunch of thorns or thistles. He who sows honor
shall reap confidence. He who sows frankness shall reap openness. No
Peabody sowing industry and thrift reaps the harvest of indolence and
idleness. Theodore Parker, loving knowledge and for it denying himself
sleep and exercise, reaped wisdom, and also wan and hollow cheeks,
while the iron frame and ruddy cheek are for the child of the woods who
loves exercise in the open air. He who aspires to leadership and would
have the multitude cheer his name, he who longs for the day when his
appearance upon the street shall mean an ovation from the people, must
make himself the people's slave, defy all demagogues, brave the fury of
party strife, oft be execrated by politicians and sometimes be hated by
the multitude. Having sown self-sacrifice and love, he shall reap fame
and adulation. For nature's law is universal and inexorable--like
produces like. The sheaf is simply the seed enlarged and multiplied.
The sowing contains the germ of all the harvests to be reaped.
The new biography of Benedict Arnold tells us of the despair of the
traitor's final days, the remorse that gnawed his heart, the agony that
filled his life. Yet no arbitrary degree was imposed upon Arnold. He
plotted the surrender of the interests committed to him as a general,
planned the stratagem that ended in the capture and execution of Andre,
and received $30,000 in gold for his treachery. Having gone over to
the enemy, he placed himself at the head of a band of English troops
and went forth to destroy the towns and villages of his boyhood and
pillaged the homes of his old friends. He sowed avarice, and of
avarice he reaped $30,000. He sowed distrust in America; he reaped
distrust from the Englishmen who had bought his honor. He sowed
treason; he reaped infamy. He sowed contempt for the colonists, and,
dying, he reaped the contempt from his old friends, who counted his
body carrion. For the harvests of the soul represent not arbitrary
degrees, but the workings of natural law. If Ceres, the goddess of
harvests, makes the sheaf to reap the seed, conscience, recalling man's
career, ordains that like produces like. What a man soweth that shall
he also reap is the law of nature and of God.
The heroes of the Old Testament are common people capitalized. What is
unique in the experience of these sons of greatness holds true of all
of lesser rank. The career of one of these giants is a pictorial
exhibition of this principle of the spiritual harvest. Young Jacob was
shrewd, crafty and full of foresight. If Esau, his brother, was a
"hail fellow well met," the child of his impulses, Jacob was a diplomat
and very wily. One day, when the father, Isaac, was blind and old,
Esau grew restless, and at last went away with his companions, for he
dearly loved to hunt. In that hour ambition tempted Jacob and avarice
led him away. Advantaging himself of his brother's absence, Jacob used
the skin of a kid to make his hands hairy, like the hands of Esau, and,
simulating the brother's voice, he extorted from his dying father those
tokens that, according to the Eastern custom, made him the successor to
his father's title, wealth and power. Full twoscore years passed
swiftly by and the deceit seems to have brought is large money returns
to crafty Jacob.
But silently nature was working out the harvest of retribution, through
that law of heredity that makes sons repeat the qualities of their
father. When Jacob was now advanced in years his ten sons began, to
develop craftiness, and soon they plowed great furrows of care in the
father's face. In those days of care his young son Joseph stole into
Jacob's heart like a sweet sunbeam, and, with his open, loving ways,
filled his father's heart with gladness. When the elder brothers knew
Jacob had given Joseph a coat of many colors they remembered the craft
of their father in his early career. One evening, when the herds and
flocks were scattered widely over the hills, Simeon sent out messengers
and called his brothers together for a conference. In that hour he
said: "Wist ye not how our father, being a younger son, supplanted his
elder brother, Esau? And behold his craft will now make his younger
child, Joseph, to supplant his elder brothers! Do ye not remember how
our father, Jacob, took a kid and made his hands like unto the hands of
Esau? Let us now take a kid and make its blood represent the blood and
death of Joseph. What Jacob did for his father, Isaac, let his sons do
to their father, Jacob." Thus, with subtle irony, nature made the
man's sins to come back to him. A boy, Jacob deceived his father, now,
grown gray and old, his boys brought their father an armful of deceits.
In that hour when Reuben and Simeon held up the coat of many colors,
all red with blood, great nature might have whispered to Jacob: "It is
the blood of the kid that you slew for deceiving your father returning
to enable your sons to deceive you." For, having sowed deceit, deceit
also and stratagem Jacob reaped. Himself a son, he thrust a dart into
his father's heart. Become a father, his ten sons became archers,
skilled with darts that filled their father's heart with agony. For
nature loves justice; her rule is law, sometimes her rod is iron.
The principle that every deed is a seed that contains the germ of its
own reward or punishment has received full interpretation by the poets
and dramatists. In his "Paradise Lost," Milton has made a detailed
study of the principles of the spiritual harvests. The poet represents
Satan as an angel, fallen indeed, and sadly battered by his fall, yet
still an archangel glorious for strength and beauty. Having visited
Paradise and accomplished the destruction of Eve's innocence and Adam's
happiness, Satan returns home, passing over a bridge of more prodigious
length than now arches the gulf between earth and hell. When the
prince arrived at Pandemonium, the capital of Lucifer's realm, he found
that the leaders of the fallen host had arranged a reception in the
great banquet-hall of the palace. In the presence of the applauding
throng, the prince told the story of how he had succeeded in opening
the earth as a place to which these exiled angels might retreat from
the prison in which they had been so long confined, and pointed to the
great bridge spanning the abyss 'twixt earth and hell. When the loud
cheerings and rejoicings over this fact had ceased, Satan told by what
stratagem he had succeeded in inducing man to break friendship with
God. It was not by disguising himself as an angel of light. But,
affirmed Satan, man cared so little for the laws of God that, although
disguised as a serpent, he induced man to sin.
"Then awhile Satan stood, expecting their universal
shout and high applause
To fill his ear, when contrary he hears
On all sides from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn. He wondered, but not long
Had leisure. Wondering at himself no more,
His visage drawn, he felt; too sharp and spare
His arms clung to his ribs, his legs entwining
Each the other, till supplanted down he fell,
_A monstrous serpent_ on his belly prone,
_Reluctant, but in vain_. A greater power
Now ruled him, _punished in the shape he sinned_,
According to his doom."
Also when Satan attempted to speak, Milton says, only a hiss went forth
"from forked tongue to forked tongue." When many days had passed by
and their hunger was very sore because these fallen angels had seduced
man by an apple, it came about that when, fierce with hunger, they
seized the fruit ripe upon the branches, the apples were found to be
filled with soot and ashes. By these striking suggestions Milton gives
us his idea how angels and men reap what they sow. Should the literary
critic seek an appropriate heading for the tenth book of "Paradise
Lost," he could hardly find one more appropriate than this: "What Man
Soweth, That Shall He Also Reap."
This law of the spiritual harvest that visits retribution upon
unrighteousness or visits reward upon integrity seems to have cast a
spell of fascination upon all great writers. Even those who have
written upon liberty, law, patriotism, or love have not been content to
end their task until they have, through song or story, illustrated this
law of the soul's seedtime and harvest. The ancient poet who wrote at
a time near to the dawn of history makes a strong man go forth to seize
his neighbor's flocks and herds, but returning the prince found that in
his absence enemies had looted his palace and carried off not only his
treasure, but his wife and children. In ending the tale the writer
adds the reflection that "God is just!"
Later on the Grecian threw this moral principle into a tale for
children, a story that still lives under the title "Baucis and
Philemon." One day two travelers entered a village, but as they drew
near, each housewife slammed her door, while rude boys threw clods at
the wayfarers and let loose their dogs, who snapped and snarled after
the travelers. Passing quite beyond the village the pilgrims came to a
humble cottage. As they approached his door Philemon came forth to
offer refuge, and apologized for the rudeness of his neighbors. The
old man prepared for them seats in the grateful shade and hurried to
bring them fresh water from the cool spring. Baucis also hastened to
bring the loaf, with her one small honeycomb and her pitcher of milk.
When the glasses were filled twice and thrice and still the rich milk
failed not, the old housewife marveled, until she found that in the
bottom of the pitcher there was a fountain from which the rich milk
gushed so long as it was needed. Nor did the honeycomb fail, nor did
the sharp knife make the wheaten loaf to be less. Having told us that
the morning brought disaster to the inhospitable villagers, but brought
assurance from these angels who had been entertained unawares that
Baucis and Philemon should never more want for earthly goods, the
writer of the olden times sets forth for us the principle that good man
and bad alike reap what they sow, since each deed contains a harvest
like unto itself. Indeed, literature and life teem with exhibitions of
this principle. Haman, the rich ruler, builds a gallows for poor
Mordecai, whom he hates, and later on Haman himself is hanged upon his
own scaffold. David sets Uriah in the front of the battle and robs him
of his wife, and when a few years have passed, in turn David is robbed
of his wife, his palace also, and his city.
Walter Scott believes in moral retribution. He tells us of a youth who
deftly split an arrow at the point where it fitted the bow-string, that
when his brother, whom he hated, should bend his bow the arrow might
split and, rebounding, pass through his eye. Now it happened that the
brother returned from the hunt without using his weapon. That night,
alarmed at a commotion without, the youth seized his bow, and, chancing
to strike upon that very arrow, was himself slain by the stratagem that
he had wickedly planned for his brother. George Eliot, too, has
dedicated her greatest volume to the study of this principle. The
orphan child, Tito, is received into the arms of an adopted father, who
lavishes upon him all his wealth. But when the youth was grown to full
strength and beauty, one night Tito left his adopted father in slavery
and fled with his gold and gems into a foreign land. Years passed by
and, with his stolen wealth, Tito bought wife, palace, position, fame.
He had sown falsehood and cruelty, and nothing seemed so unlikely as
that he would reap a similar harvest. But one day the people
discovered his falsehood and attacked Tito. A mob pursued him through
the streets, and, knowing his strength as a swimmer, the youth cast
himself into the River Arno. When Tito had swum far down the river to
the other side, and, in his exhaustion, would go ashore, he looked up,
and, lo! he discerned the gray-haired father whom he had injured
trotting along the shore side by side with the swimmer. In the old
man's eyes blazed bitter hatred, in his hand flashed a sharp knife.
What the youth had sown years before now at last he was to reap. When
increasing weakness compelled him to approach the shore he looked
beseechingly to his father for mercy, but found only justice. With a
wild and bitter cry Tito reaped his harvest. Soon the mud of that
river filled the eyes and ears of him who years before had received
defilement into his heart. What seed he had sown, that Nature gave him
as a harvest--good measure, heaped up, and shaken together.
History permits no man to escape the reflection that if, for the time
being, individuals have escaped this moral law, nations have felt its
full force. Nature does, indeed, walk through the fields with
footsteps so gentle as to disturb no drop of dew hanging upon the blade
of grass. Nature also hath her sterner aspect, and for the sons of
iniquity her footsteps are earthquakes, her strokes are strokes of war
and of pestilence. When Sophocles worked out the law of moral
retribution for King Oedipus and Antigone, his daughter, the poet might
well have gone on to note that if the Grecian army had sacked the
Trojan cities the time would come when the Roman fleet would sack her
cities and make her sons to toil as captives. Later on, if the Roman
conquerors swept the East for corn and wheat, looted stores and shops,
pillaged palaces for treasure for triumphal processions, the time came
when Nature and God decreed that the vast wealth piled up in the Roman
capital should excite the cupidity of the Goths, until at last the
streets of that great city were swept with flame and store-houses were
pillaged by marauders. In reviewing the history of Venice Ruskin was
so impressed with this principle of the moral harvest that he affirms
that the history of palace and cathedral, of fleets and navies, is
simply the story, written by a pen dipped in fire and blood, of how the
children reaped what the fathers had sown.
For many months past the statesmen of England have been sending forth
discussions reviewing the career of their country. In the light of the
Eastern problem one of these authors reflects that whenever England has
sown injustice to a weaker nation she has reaped injustice and
retribution for herself. He notes that in the last century the
governors of England--for example, Lord Hastings--went through the land
robbing rajahs, despoiling the people by false weights and measures,
until they had turned the whole country into one vast desert. The hour
came when before the House of Commons Burke impeached Hastings for high
crimes and misdemeanors, as the enemy of India and England and all men.
But England was content to impose a trifling fine upon her wicked
official. How could she give up the treasure she had filched for
herself? Years passed and an injured people brooded upon its wrongs,
and the time came when what England had sown in tears she reaped in
blood. One day the Indian soldiers mutinied. The next day the wells
were filled with the bodies of English officers, their wives and
children; then merchants and missionaries and travelers were
slaughtered. For weeks the strife went on. If once the English
soldier had pillaged the Indian villages, now, in turn, the English
quarters were pillaged. "Blind of eye and hard of heart," said the
sage statesman. "Retribution hath been visited upon us," said the
great leader. "Our jealousy and greed hath ended with that sword being
sharpened against ourselves." The note of conviction is in the voice
of this statesman, but what saith be save this: "What a man soweth,
that also shall he reap!"
All young hearts may well remember that it is safe to do right, but
dangerous to sow wrong! No matter how smooth, how soft and sweet, seem
the paths of sin, know that beneath every flower there lurks a spider,
beneath every silken couch of indulgence there broods a nest of
serpents, and the scene that begins with flowers shall end midst thorns
and thickets. For the moment, indeed, the judge may seem unobservant
and the watchman may seem asleep; but he who yields to any deflection
from honor shall find at last that God never slumbers, that his laws
never sleep. Go east or go west. Nature is upon the track of the
wrong-doer. Could the sage of old sit down to converse with each youth
who to-day walks on the street, perchance he would find many who,
through excess, are draining away the rich forces of nerve and brain
and blood.
Daily they deny reason its book, taste its music, love its noble
companionship. At last, when the harp of the physical senses begins to
give way, and they fall back upon the mental faculties for pleasure,
then these faculties that have been starved shall, in turn, make men
suffer. In that hour reason or memory shall say: "Because I called and
ye refused; because I stretched out my hand and no man regarded,
therefore I will laugh at your calamity. I will mock at your
desolation when your fear cometh as destruction and your desolation as
whirlwind." In Daniel Webster's words of disappointed ambition, "I
still live," we see that a statesman sows what he reaps. In Goethe's
fearful cry for "more light" we see that the poet who sows darkness
shall reap darkness. In Lord Byron's piteous "I must sleep now" we see
that he who sows morbidness and passion reaps feverishness and shame.
The law is inexorable. He who sows foul thoughts shall reap the foul
countenance of a fiend. He who sows pure thoughts shall reap the
sweetness and nobility of the face of Fra Angelico. He who sows
reflection shall reap wisdom. He who sows sympathy shall reap love.
The good Samaritan who sows tenderness to the man wounded by the
wayside shall reap tenderness when angels stoop to bind up his broken
heart.
THE LOVE THAT PERFECTS LIFE.
"Love is the fulfilling of the law."--_Romans, xiii, 10_.
"Men may die without any opinions, and yet be carried into Abraham's
bosom, but if we be without love, what will knowledge avail? I will
not quarrel with you about opinions. Only see that your heart be right
with God. I am sick of opinions. Give me good and substantial
religion, a humble, gentle love of God and man."--_John Wesley_.
"Therefore, come what may, hold fast to love. Though men should rend
your heart, let them not embitter or harden it. We win by tenderness,
we conquer by forgiveness. O, strive to enter into something of that
large celestial charity which is meek, enduring, unretaliating, and
which even the overbearing world cannot withstand forever! Learn the
new commandment of the Son of God. Not to love merely, but to love _as
He loved_. Go forth in this Spirit to your life duties, go forth,
children of the Cross, to carry everything before you, and win
victories for God by the conquering power of a love like
his."--_Frederick W. Robertson_.