Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some
day, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization
that he can make it simple,—never quite simple, but always simpler.
There are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the
wise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental question
of the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever sounded. There
are wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to pierce the
silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back,—only a repetition
of their unanswered cries.
To us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that
darkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort:
“If there really be a God, if eternal justice really rule the world,” we
say, “why should life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others
feast; why does virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs
in the sunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest
effort, while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is
greeted with the world’s applause? How is it that the loving father of
one family is taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another
is spared? Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and
suffering in the world—why, indeed, should there be any?”
Neither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer
that is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is
ever, even after the best explanations, a residuum of the unexplained.
We must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough
to say, “I will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will
not permit them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with
vagueness and uncertainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he demands
from the infinite the full solution of all His mysteries. I will found
my life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental truth: ‘This
glorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena pulsing ever
in harmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that Creator must be
omniscient and omnipotent. But that Creator Himself cannot, in justice,
demand of any creature more than the best that that individual can
give.’ I will do each day, in every moment, the best I can by the light
I have; I will ever seek more light, more perfect illumination of truth,
and ever live as best I can in harmony with the truth as I see it. If
failure come I will meet it bravely; if my pathway then lie in the
shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall have the restful peace
and the calm strength of one who has done his best, who can look back
upon the past with no pang of regret, and who has heroic courage in
facing the results, whatever they be, knowing that he could not make
them different.”
Upon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure
of religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should
add to his equipment for living every shred of strength and inspiration,
moral, mental, or spiritual that is in his power to secure.
This simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for
none; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the
individual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard.
A mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to
a man as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in
mid-ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher
living will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and
appropriate it for himself, until he make it practical in his daily
life, until that seed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand
flowers of thought and word and act.
If a man honestly seek to live his best at all times, that determination
is visible in every moment of his living, and no trifle in his life can
be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. The sun
illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as impartially
as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of water in the
ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; every drop is
subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united infinity of
billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men call the Sea. No
matter how humble the calling of the individual, how uninteresting and
dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. He should dignify
what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he should vitalize what
little he has of power or energy or ability or opportunity, in order to
prepare himself to be equal to higher privileges when they come. This
will never lead man to that weak content that is satisfied with whatever
falls to his lot. It will rather fill his mind with that divine
discontent that cheerfully accepts the best—merely as a temporary
substitute for something better.
The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen,
active, wide-awake, and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in
trifles; his standard is not “What will the world say?” but “Is it
worthy of me?”
Edwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would
never permit himself to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his hours
of privacy. In this simple thing, he ever lived his best. On the stage
every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who were
conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking in
public to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and
motions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless
in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anæmic
commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of
interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will
never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars.
Living at one’s best is constant preparation for instant use. It can
never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish.
Education, in its highest sense, is _conscious_ training of mind or body
to act _unconsciously_. It is conscious formation of mental habits, not
mere acquisition of information.
One of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself,
is in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are
lucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the
untiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the
sublime patience that is the secret of some men’s success. Their “luck”
was that they had prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity
when it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own
opportunity came and departed un-noted, it could not waken him from his
dreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows
discouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages his
arms and chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a
perfunctory way, or he passes through life, just ever “sampling” lines
of activity.
The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is but
an episode in a true man’s life—never the whole story. It is never easy
to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast courage to
master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help him on his
way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he has. He
never knows the long series of vanquished failures that give solidity to
someone else’s success; he does not realize the price that some rich
man, the innocent football of political malcontents and demagogues, has
heroically paid for wealth and position.
The man who has a pessimist’s doubt of all things; who demands a
certified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be
recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth
while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real
progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a
strong tonic of reasons for action.
One of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the
surrender to the oncoming of years. Man’s self-confidence dims and dies
in the fear of age. “This new thought,” he says of some suggestion
tending to higher development, “is good; it is what we need. I am glad
to have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some
such help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man
advanced in years.”
This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell
of lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late
to recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort,
closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not exist
for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price in
time and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the
assessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that
matters not to that mighty self-confidence that _will_ not grow old
while knowledge can keep it young.
Socrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play
on instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek,
and the same age saw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy,
his first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus’ greatest
work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
was the work of the poet’s declining years. Ronsard, the father of
French poetry, whose sonnets even translation cannot destroy, did not
develop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty. Benjamin Franklin at this
age had just taken his really first steps of importance in philosophic
pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, translated Josephus in his
eightieth year. Winckelmann, one of the most famous writers on classic
antiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and lived in obscurity and
ignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the English philosopher,
published his version of the Odyssey in his eighty-seventh year, and his
Iliad one year later. Chevreul, the great French scientist, whose
untiring labors in the realm of color have so enriched the world, was
busy, keen and active when Death called him, at the age of 103.
These men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll
of the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and
heartening to every individual whose courage and confidence is weak. The
path of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of life,
is never shut from the individual—until he closes it himself. Let man
feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living factor in
his life and there are no limits to his progress. He has but to live his
best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter what results
come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what might have
been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener of
self-confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy, for
that which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the
individual’s faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself
for the future to the perfection of his possibilities.
Nature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and
worn and weary with the struggle, “Do in the best way you can the trifle
that is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit of
preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the light of
knowledge from all the past to aid you.” Do this and you have done your
best. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever to you.
No worry, no struggle, no suffering, no agony of despair can alter it.
It is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years of
eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, weakness
and sin, its wasted opportunities as light, in confidence and hope, upon
the future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to make each
trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back to; each
trifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the future.
The present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the past has
gone back, with all its messages, all its history, all its records to
the God who loaned you the golden moments to use in obedience to His
law.