Every individual is a marvel of unknown and unrealized possibilities.
Nine-tenths of an iceberg is always below water. Nine-tenths of the
possibilities of good and evil of the individual is ever hidden from his
sight.
Burns’ prayer,—that we might “see oursels as ithers see us,”—was weak.
The answer could minister only to man’s vanity,—it would show him only
what others think him to be, not what he is. We should pray to see
ourselves as we _are_. But no man could face the radiant revelation of
the latent powers and forces within him, underlying the weak, narrow
life he is living. He would fall blinded and prostrate as did Moses
before the burning bush. Man is not a mechanical music-box wound up by
the Creator and set to play a fixed number of prescribed tunes. He is a
human harp, with infinite possibilities of unawakened music.
The untold revelations of Nature are in her Reserve Power. Reserve Power
is Nature’s method of meeting emergencies. Nature is wise and economic.
Nature saves energy and effort, and gives only what is absolutely
necessary for life and development under any given condition, and when
new needs arise Nature always meets them by her Reserve Power.
In animal life Nature reveals this in a million phases. Animals placed
in the darkness of the Mammoth Cave gradually have the sense of sight
weakened and the senses of smell, touch and hearing intensified. Nature
watches over all animals, making their color harmonize with the general
tone of their surroundings to protect them from their enemies. Those
arctic animals which in the summer inhabit regions free from snow, turn
white when winter comes. In the desert, the lion, the camel and all the
desert antelopes have more or less the color of the sand and rocks among
which they live. In tropical forests parrots are usually green;
turacous, barbets and bee-eaters have a preponderance of green in their
plumage. The colors change as the habits of the animals change from
generation to generation. Nature, by her Reserve Power, always meets the
new needs of animals with new strength,—new harmony with new
conditions.
About forty-five years ago three pairs of enterprising rabbits were
introduced into Australia. To-day, the increase of these six immigrants
may be counted by millions. They became a pest to the country. Fortunes
have been spent to exterminate them. Wire fences many feet high and
thousands of miles long have been built to keep out the invaders. The
rabbits had to fight awful odds to live, but they have now outwitted
man. They have developed a new nail,—a long nail by which they can
retain their hold on the fence while climbing. With this same nail they
can burrow six or eight inches under the netting, and thus enter the
fields that mean food and life to them. They are now laughing at man.
Reserve Power has vitalized for these rabbits latent possibilities
because they did not tamely accept their condition, but in their
struggle to live learned _how_ to live.
In plant life, Nature is constantly revealing Reserve Power. The
possibilities of almost infinite color are present in _every_ green
plant, even in roots and stems. Proper conditions only are needed to
reveal them. By obeying Nature’s laws man could make leaves as
beautifully colored as flowers. The _wild_ rose has only a single
corolla; but, when cultivated in rich soil, the numerous yellow stamens
change into the brilliant red leaves of the full-grown cabbage-rose.
This is but one of Nature’s miracles of Reserve Power. Once the banana
was a tropical lily; the peach was at one time a bitter almond. To tell
the full story of Reserve Power in Nature would mean to write the
history of the universe, in a thousand volumes.
Nature is a great believer in “double engines.” Man is equipped with
nearly every organ in duplicate—eyes, ears, lungs, arms and legs, so
that if one be weakened, its mate, through Reserve Power, is stimulated
to do enough for both. Even where the organ itself is not duplicated, as
in the nose, there is a division of parts so there is constant reserve.
Nature, for still further protection, has for every part of the body an
understudy in training, to be ready in a crisis,—as the sense of touch
for the blind.
Birds when frightened ruffle their feathers; a dog that has been in the
water shakes its coat so that each hair stands out of itself; the
startled hedgehog projects every quill. These actions are produced by
“skin muscles” that are rudimentary in man, and over which in ordinary
conditions he has no control. But in a moment of terrible fear Reserve
Power quickens their action in a second, and the hair on his head
“stands on end” in the intensity of his fright.
Nature, that thus watches so tenderly over the physical needs of man, is
equally provident in storing for him a mental and a moral Reserve Power.
Man may fail in a dozen different lines of activity and then succeed
brilliantly in a phase wherein he was unconscious of any ability. We
must never rest content with what we _are_, and say: “There is no use
for me to try. I can never be great. I am not even clever now.” But the
law of Reserve Power stands by us as a fairy godmother and says: “There
is one charm by which you can transmute the dull dross of your present
condition into the pure gold of strength and power,—that charm is ever
doing your best, ever daring more, and the full measure of your final
attainment can never be told in advance. Rely upon me to help you with
new revelations of strength in new emergencies. Never be cast down
because your power seems so trifling, your progress so slow. The world’s
greatest and best men were failures in some line, failures many times
before failure was crowned with success.”
There is in the mythology of the Norsemen a belief that the strength of
an enemy we kill enters into us. This is true in character. As we
conquer a passion, a thought, a feeling, a desire; as we rise superior
to some impulse, the strength of that victory, trifling though it may
be, is stored by Nature as a Reserve Power to come to us in the hour of
our need.
Were we to place before almost any individual the full chart of his
future,—his trials, sorrows, failures, afflictions, loss, sickness and
loneliness,—and ask him if he could bear it, he would say: “No! I could
not bear all that and live.” But he _can_ and he _does_. The hopes upon
the realization of which he has staked all his future turn to air as he
nears them; friends whom he has trusted betray him; the world grows cold
to him; the child whose smile is the light of his life dishonors his
name; death takes from him the wife of his heart. Reserve Power has been
watching over him and ever giving him new strength,—even while he
sleeps.
If we be conscious of any weakness, and desire to conquer it, we can
force ourselves into positions where we _must_ act in a way to
strengthen ourselves through that weakness, cut off our retreat, burn
our bridges behind us, and fight like Spartans till the victory be ours.
Reserve Power is like the manna given to the children of Israel in the
wilderness,—only enough was given them to keep them for one day. Each
successive day had its new supply of strength. There is in the leaning
tower of Pisa a spiral stairway so steep in its ascent that only one
step at a time is revealed to us. But as each step is taken the next is
made visible, and thus, step by step, to the very highest. So in the
Divine economy of the universe, Reserve Power is a gradual and constant
revelation of strength within us to meet each new need. And no matter
what be our line of life, what our need, we should feel that we have
within us infinite, untried strength and possibility, and that, if we
believe and do our best, the Angel of Reserve Power will walk by our
side, and will even divide the waters of the Red Sea of our sorrows and
trials so we may walk through in safety.
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