Chapter VII: Part 7

Certain things will help to show whether we have gained or lost by this change in our educational policy. Let us take, for instance, the matter of patriotism. The Spanish-American War of 1898 came on before the old order ended. Every youth wanted to go because the country was aflame with zeal for the American cause. The recent world war came after a new generation of school boys had grown up. The necessities incident to that conflict disclosed the fact that American loyalty was partly asleep. It took very serious efforts to wholly awaken it.

Take the question of thrift. The successful business man of today, that loyal public servant who carries the economic responsibilities of the country so capably, is a product of the times when some new lesson in thrift and industry came in each day of the public school course. Many a man who has succeeded would testify now that his first impulse to try came from the reading of the sayings of Poor Richard or some similar material. Since such things have been largely dropped, we have on our hands a growing race of spendthrifts.

All this is not merely comparing the present unfavorably with the past. Everyone knows that we cannot properly do so. Taken as a whole, the public school is now far in advance of what it was in the days of the little red school house. The present purpose is to point out to the educator the really incomparable power and opportunity that are his. Whatever the future contains, the school teacher holds the key to it. The possession of great power is at once an opportunity and a peril, but the teacher certainly possesses that power. It is a wonderful thing to mould the world’s life into right patterns. It is a fearful thing to mould it wrongly, or to fail to mould it when one might. The teacher can do any one of these.

Bismarck once said: “Whatever you would put into the state you must first put into the schools.” The truth of his statement was well proven in the subsequent history of the empire of which he was then chancellor. A whole people was led astray by being fed upon the false philosophy of Nietzsche and others. The Teuton mind and heart could not have been so completely shackled by any other means than the processes of popular education.

When the Ottoman Empire was first founded, its fiercest military organization, the Janizaries, was recruited wholly from the children of Christian parents, taken from their homes in battle or exacted from their towns as tribute. They made the fiercest of soldiers, the most loyal of Turks, and the most fanatical of Mohammedans. This is but an example of what education will do.

When Germany took Alsace-Lorraine from France in 1870, her first task was the Teutonizing of the people. She began by introducing the German language in the schools and the press—both educational agencies. When the Young Turks wrested his empire from Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid II, in 1909, they began making it over according to their own fanciful dreams by introducing their ideals into the school system.

Certainly the school can be made as potent a force for good as for evil. In fact, it has been made such a force in certain instances. Prohibition of the liquor traffic was a long time coming in America, but it came as soon as we adopted the best means of establishing a better order of things. A careful analyst of social influences could have told almost the year it would arrive. He would have taken the date when Scientific Temperance became a public school subject and then have reckoned how long it would take the boys and girls of that period to come into control of the country. When that time arrived America went dry. Bismarck was right.

There are plenty of reasons why it happens this way. One is the general fact that people do about as well as they know. Most evils remain only because people do not realize that there is a better way. When the facts are laid before them, they generally act accordingly.

Another is the fact that ideals and truths can be built into the lives of growing boys and girls more readily and more firmly than in those of older people. A child can learn a foreign language more readily than can an adult. It is the same with an ethical ideal. The growing life most easily adapts itself to newly discovered fact.

Another is the natural position of authority occupied by the teacher. His words are taken as those of an oracle. Children who refuse to heed the instructions of their parents take those of their teachers as final.

Still another is the amount of time the child is surrounded by school influences. No other institution has any such chance at him as does the public school. He spends as many waking hours there as he does at home, or more.

Knowledge alone does not constitute education. The etymology of the word education is sufficient to indicate a very much wider scope. Education has to do with the whole life. Its measure is not merely how many questions one can answer, but how well he can realize upon himself in the actual affairs of life. Therefore, the school has for its work the making of men and women, and the person who builds manhood and womanhood may well remember that in doing so he is building the future. We can never have a world that is anything more or less than it is made by the people who live in it.

The highest grade of manhood and womanhood cannot be built without a considerable amount of ethical teaching. No matter what we do now, the action and reaction law of history will ultimately sweep us back again to the moralizing days. Then we shall carry didacticism to the same extreme that we are now carrying the lack of it. A better way is to have a reasonable amount of it all the while.

Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby had a clear conception of the ethical phases of the highest educational ideal. He once said that he did not merely seek to turn out young men trained to take first in the schools, but “thoughtful, manly-minded men, conscious of duty and obligation.” Such is the largest service the school can render to the world, because it constantly sweeps us in the direction of a better order of things.

The Same Face (1915)

Along our years motherhood has planted three pictures that are so good for us to see that love and memory should always keep them bright. Pictures of sentiment they may be. Call them so if you will. But they are, nevertheless, the anchors that have held many a soul from sinking in the mire of life’s way.

The first is the picture of the young face that bent above us when we were babes—a face wistfully tender and wonderfully touched with the glow of parenthood’s first self-consciousness. The lips move. They never knew the name of love so well until they had trembled in the midst of dismal floods for love’s own sake. They never knew the voice of prayer so well until the burden of creation came to be shared by the heart behind them. We did not suspect the love that throbbed in that heart above us and gave strength to the arms that held us. We know something of it now—and appreciate the debt that never can be paid.

The next is the airy and elusive picture of our own futures which her fond hopes painted on the shadowed walls of the old room at home or in the air above our beds as we slept. Those pictures were too perfect, of course, for the hope and love were perfect that imaged them. She thought us better than we were and had more faith in us than we ever had in ourselves. But, what a garden this world would be if we refrained from violating at least the spirit of the dreams that thronged her mind when we were still wrapped in the unconsciousness of the years before the awakenings came.

The last picture is seen not by looking backward but by looking forward. The other two are memories. This is an anticipation. They sadden us. This fills us with a wondrous joy. Many times we have seen her waiting face and her hand upon the gate at evening time. If we look, we can see her yonder now—ahead of us. The face that bent above the way’s beginning looms also at its close. It is older and gentler and touched with a perfect light. But it is the same face—and her hand is on the gate.

The Will (1915)

I used to pass daily a very pretty and well-formed tree. I admired it so much and saw it so often that, at length, I came to feel toward it as though it were a friend. I often reflected that the reason why it was so lovely a thing was the fact that it had not possessed the power to refuse to obey the bidding of its Maker.

I thought that if a man were will-less, as is a tree or a flower, his life would be as harmonious and as beautiful as theirs. But there is within him that voice which so often speaks against the divine command that he is robbed of much that is godlike within him. I thought that the dictates of that stubborn and willful voice had spoiled so many of God’s plans and man’s prospects that we might all be better without it.

One morning, after there had been a windstorm during the night, I walked as usual past the tree. It lay prostrate and helpless on the ground. I was surprised to see that what had been so well-formed without had been hollow and rotten within. This had so weakened it that, when the test came, it had been the first to fall. Others—not so lovely—had stood because they were sound.

The tree had possessed no will with which to disobey its Creator. Neither had it possessed a will with which to stand in the face of the storm. Least of all had it possessed a will to rise again.

I had seen men have the will to disobey, yet when they had wandered into a far country and had become sick of the husks of sin, I had seen them have the will to come back again and give themselves to a noble purpose. The will of man is not only his danger, but it is also his hope. By it he may fall, but by it he may rise again to better things. It may whisper to him the word of temptation, but it may also become his strength for an hour of triumph. He needs not a life without a will which can lead him astray. He needs a will subjected to a high ideal and to the traversing of the highway of truth and right.

The Sword that Keeps the Past (1916)

At the gateway of every Eden from which one has gone forth fallen and disgraced, there hangs a sword of flame to keep the way of a misspent past. We control the present. The future will be what we choose to make it. But there is no hand strong enough to lay hold upon the gate of the day that is gone. The past is what we have made it, and such it must forever remain.

The most fruitless of all wishes is that one might go back and retrace the way he has come, that he might travel with surer feet. There are points all along the way where we would prize an opportunity to undo some wrong, unsay some word, or perform some omitted deed of helpfulness. We feel that we could do infinitely better if we had another chance. Heaven may be willing to grant most of our wishes to do better, but this is one which has never yet been granted to a child of earth. The voice with which we cry into the past is echoless, and ineffectual are the hands with which we beat against its closed portals.

There is only one way to change the past, and that is to change it before it becomes the past. To-morrow the present will be a part of the past. The day after to-morrow a part of what is now the future will have gone forever. Only that part of the eternal duration which is yet unspent still lies within our control. Very swiftly it flies by us, but not so swiftly but that we can tinge it with the very color of our souls as it passes.

Thus, after all, we are the architects of human destiny. The very trend of the ages is entrusted to our hands. As we mould the present we are moulding history, and as we work out our own little lives we are affecting all time to come. Men must always remember the things we are doing as history. None will have power to change them when they are past.

Make this day what you desire through all eternity to remember it as having been. It must dwell in your thoughts forever as a piercing thorn or a blooming flower. Your hand is on its gate for the last time. It is a day of judgment.

The Fountain of Youth (1917)

The past ages had a remarkable story about a fountain of youth, the waters of which possessed the power to keep one young forever. Some of the early explorers of America were lured on their way by the hope of finding that spring of unfailing vitality somewhere in the Western World. But they died without having realized their dream. They failed to realize it because they had supposed the fountain of youth to be a localized thing. As a matter of fact, location has little to do with it.

There is a fountain of youth. Its place, however, is limited neither by the balmy waters of the southern seas nor by the icy fastnesses of arctic regions. Such as it is, it exists everywhere. The healing of its waters is not denied to any seeker. Like most priceless things, it is as well within the reach of the poor as of the rich. It is the privilege and opportunity of high and lowly alike.

One of the paths to the fountain of youth is a right attitude of mind and right habits of thought. While many have been seeking vainly through the world for the desired fountain, they were all the while unconsciously carrying it about within their own inner lives.

One is as old as the spirit within him. The outer life simply takes the mould of the inner thought. The marks of age take possession of one’s frame in approximate proportion to the degree of his surrender to them. A landscape bears the color of the spectacles of the beholder. The whole world has for a norm the attitude of the individual toward it. When the mind grows sluggish and purposeless, the spirit of age has laid hold upon its possessor. While the mind remains clear and fresh, with its vigor unabated, the individual still shares in the saving waters of the immortal fountain. The date of one’s birth may be misleading, but the spirit of his soul never is.

One stands each moment upon the threshold between the past and the future. It is for him to decide which shall claim his thought. Youth dwells upon the future, because the future holds its hopes and plans. Age dwells upon the past, because the past holds the memory of its activities and kindred ties. While one keeps his face to the future, he remains young. When he begins to live in the past, he is allowing himself to grow old. There is a sweetness about an occasional hour spent in roaming the halls of memory, but in to-morrow lie life’s supreme considerations.

Those who keep thinking and toiling grow old more slowly than do those who relinquish their hold upon the activities and the concerns of life. Body and spirit alike begin the process of atrophy on the day when interests begin to decay. When the mind and the hand pass to rest, the body may be expected to soon share their slumber. This is the reason why so many busy people grow old so courageously. It also suggests the reason why so many fail to long outlive their active days. Only while the mind craves knowledge and the heart feels the throb of the social impulse does the eye remain undimmed and the natural force unabated.

A second path to the fountain of youth is that of right living. This is not merely implicit obedience to arbitrary law. It is living in harmony with the universe. Without it youth can never long remain.

A very marked type of divine healing is to be found in the abounding health which is the result of living in accord with the divine laws of nature. The finest instances of that healing are perhaps to be found in the absence of diseases that have never occurred. In other words, its chief usefulness is preventive.

In a wholly Christian race of men there would be but a minimum of disease. Insurance companies understand this fact. The physical decay of the body is chiefly the result of inroads made by disease, and the greatest fostering influence of disease is wrongdoing. Both directly and indirectly, sin works havoc with mankind. Physical abnormalities root in someone’s disregard for established laws. In one case the sin may be one of intentional wrongdoing, and in another it may be the equally disastrous one of common ignorance and carelessness.

The Hebrews furnish a notable instance of racial vitality. They are what they are to-day largely as a result of the fact that their remote forefathers were born and nurtured in camps and cities where uncleanness was a disgrace and where a violation of the laws of life was a sin. The laws of right living are not merely a list of arbitrary regulations, the highest design of which is to prove the willingness of men to obey them. They are the provisions of a kind Providence for humanity’s own welfare and progress.

A third path to the fountain of youth is the conservation of health along scientific lines. This may involve medical means frequently, and it may, on occasion, even involve surgical means. It will most generally, however, involve conformity to a liberal knowledge of the ways of nature.

Dr. Metchnikoff, the great Russian scientist, who spent his last years in Paris, has given to the world some illuminating discoveries upon this question of old age. He long suspected that the thing we have been calling by the name of old age, was simply the physical indication of the inroads made by disease germs to which the increasing weakness of advancing years opened a freer way. He proved to his own satisfaction, and to that of many others as well, that the apparent signs of age are the result of the ravages of a certain bacillus which inhabits the intestinal tract. He also proved the sour principle of buttermilk to be fairly fatal to that germ. One of the evidences of his latter conclusion is the fact that some of the most noted cases of longevity have been those of regular drinkers of sour milk. Physical decay seems to be only a symptom of inner attacks which will sooner or later break down an organ or result in a general collapse.

It is not to be supposed that any regard for the laws of health, however strict it might be, will make it impossible ever to grow old. Physical decay is inevitable and physical death is certain. It is possible, however, to long preserve the physical condition of youth by keeping the resistance of the body at the highest possible point. This can be done only by preserving the best possible continual state of health.

The sedentary character of much of the life of to-day is one of the weakening habits of our age. On the other hand, we have an army of people who are so over-exercised at their daily toil that their bodies are sapped of all vitality and their minds are robbed of all vigor. Between these two extremes lies a golden mean. Well-directed use of all the muscles and regular movement of all the organs does afford vast help in keeping the body fresh and youthful.

We are the victims of another age-producing habit in the excessive quantity and richness of the food we consume. We are too willing to eat all we can get and contain. We are overdisposed, too, to truckle to the demands of palates that have been trained to enjoy unnatural and unwholesome tastes.

Any experience which would drive us all back to plain living, simple eating, and active habits would probably result in large benefit to us. If our plan of living were re-established upon a childlike plane, we might again expect to enjoy childlike vitality, with its intermingling of childlike activity and childlike slumber.

An Old Testament story tells how a Hebrew king prayed for a new hold upon life and how his prayer resulted in the turning of the shadow upon the dial. That invisible hand which turned the shadow upon the dial of the days of a king waits ever to preserve the lives of the members of the race. The One, however, who heard the prayer of Hezekiah was the same One who established the laws of life and nature. Obedience to those laws is still the key by which the very years may be swung backward in their flight.

Some Principles of Efficiency (1917)

These are the days when the doing of things in the best and quickest way, and the living of one’s life to the greatest possible purpose, are among the livest of issues. The absorbing question is that of really getting on. One has but one chance at this life, and he has a right to make that one effort the best possible.

_The Personal Attitude for Right Living._

1. Preserve calmness and steadiness. Victory over material things is but a passing honor for the one who has failed to conquer himself. The secret of many a success is coolness and self-possession. The person who has the consciousness that he is right can look the world in the face unflinchingly.

2. Avoid selfishness as you would a most dangerous enemy. The first personal pronoun is a dangerous word. No one else cares to help the person who tries to help no one but himself. The world has its heroes, but they are those whose chief concern has been for their people.

3. Have a mind of your own, and use it. Many a failure has been excused with the words: “I didn’t think.” However, it is our business to think, and to act on right judgments. Man is he who thinks, and the most successful man is he who thinks most promptly and accurately.

4. Do not get the idea that your mind is the only one. Others are thinking also, and some of these persons may be more nearly right than yourself. One must at least give others credit for having opinions. Listen to all, and accept only that which seems to bear the test of truth.

5. Strive to be right about things. Investigate until you are clear in your conclusions. When you are clear, let nothing but additional light change your course. Stay with the right, though all the rest of the world disagree with you. If you find that your position was wrong, forsake it immediately.

6. Do not judge yourself by others, nor your work by theirs. The only proper standard is rightness. It is a poor thing to be in fashion if the fashion is wrong.

7. Try to understand other people. Think of others sympathetically, and give them credit for everything you can.

_Your Personal Resources._

1. The first of your personal resources is time. You have just the same amount of it that any one else has, and that is twenty-four hours a day. These twenty-four hours a day are exactly like any other asset in that they are capable of use or abuse. The waste of them is the same kind of a mistake as is the waste of money or property. Few people waste their time in large quantities at a time. Most people waste moments in waiting or idling, which, put together, would make an aggregate of hours and days. One should not waste his own time nor that of others. The person who keeps any one else waiting for him is guilty of theft. Figure out how much time you lose per day, and then figure how to keep from losing it.

2. The second of your personal resources is talent. Of this all do not receive exactly alike, but all do receive in reasonable measure. Some who receive largely seem to do less with their gift than some others who have received in less degree, and the man who hides his single coin in a napkin is always a familiar figure. No matter whether one receives many or few, it is his duty to improve them and make the most of them. Finding one’s true place in the world is a serious matter. Find out what you are good for; get ready to do that thing well; then do it with all your might.

3. The third of your personal resources is opportunity. The greatest issues of years to come will continually be found to hinge upon your decision and action in earlier moments of opportunity. Opportunity does not wait around, begging one to grasp it. One must learn to strike at the right moment. Watch for your chance, and do not fail to seize it when it comes.

_The Method of Efficiency._

1. Have a definite purpose in life. If you have none, get one as quickly as possible. If you cannot choose a permanent one, then choose a temporary one. At all events, have an aim, and let it be clear, definite, and positive.

2. Having chosen a task, the next thing to do is to get at it. The word =NOW= is the richest word in the English vocabulary. Do not wait to begin in the morning. Be able, when the morning comes, to look back on at least a part of the task completed.

3. Stay with it. It is sometimes harder to stay with it than it is to get at it. Always, as the day passes and weariness lays hold of mind and muscle, the temptation to give up gathers strength very rapidly. If the thing you are doing is worth while, don’t give it up. The rewards of the game are won neither by the fine beginning nor the brilliant play, but by the steady endurance which holds on to the last. Life is one great endurance test.

4. Strive to do only a reasonable number of things, and do those things just as well as you can do them. The fewer they are, the better the execution of them is apt to be. Reduce your efforts to the realization of one great aim. So doing, you will be able to achieve results impossible to scattered efforts. “This one thing I do” was the dictum of one strong character. He did that thing, however, with all his might.

5. Cultivate decision. Valuable time and strength are often lost in deciding things too unimportant to justify the loss. Learn to think quickly and clearly. Arrive at conclusions promptly and accurately. Impulse and desire are secondary, while the sense of having done the right thing best satisfies in the end.

6. Make each effort bring you a little nearer to the goal. You will never have cause to complain of any day that has witnessed real progress. Do not try to cover the ground in a single dash, but push forward steadily and patiently. Be willing to wait much, to fail occasionally, and to toil always. At the end you will have something to show for each hour.

The Story of the Red Cross (1917)

The Red Cross Society is an international organization for the relief of the sick and wounded in any time of special distress. It has been of great service in times of peace, yet it is readily seen that its constitution makes it of particular service in time of war. Throughout its life, it has given good account of itself in every time of need.

It bears the honorable distinction of being an agency which is designed to minister to the needs of the living. There are always plenty of praises for the dead, and enough tears are always shed over the graves heaped up by the bloody hand of war. It is more especially needful that there should be means of helping the living who still need it, and who are still able to appreciate it when it is given. The Red Cross is a ministry to life in the midst of the fields of death.

It owes its origin to the efforts of Jean Henri Dunant, a Swiss author and philanthropist, whose whole life and fortune were both given to the service of mankind. Great movements must always be fathered by self-sacrificing spirits before they are finally taken upon the hearts of the people. It sometimes even happens that the name of the originator of a movement fails to cling to it in the days of its popularity and success.

M. Dunant was present at the battle of Solferino on June 24, 1859. There he witnessed the suffering and need of the soldiers who fell wounded upon the field and realized the powerlessness of any nation to provide adequate hospital facilities in time of actual battle.

After three years of meditation and discussion, Dunant wrote and published a book, in which he suggested the preparation of supplies and the training of nurses against the time of need, in order that the volume of distress might not be again so far beyond the power of any one to relieve it.

He was invited to speak before the Geneva Society of Public Utility. That society took sufficient interest in his contention to call an international conference to meet in Geneva in the autumn of 1863. Delegates came from sixteen nations, and, after going into the subject, they laid some plans for future action and adjourned.

A year from that time a more formally and authoritatively delegated assembly met in the same city. Before it adjourned, the famous Geneva Convention had been written and signed by its members. That convention did not specifically outline the plan of the present Red Cross Society, but it did make possible its organization and activity.

Fourteen nations ratified the Geneva Convention at that time. As it came to be better understood and more greatly appreciated, others added their approval. Today all the principal nations of the world have approved and adopted it. It has long since come to be a movement of such influence and proportions as to command the fullest sanction of international law.

The emblem chosen for this society was the familiar red cross design which has long since become a symbol of sanitation and cleanliness. The Turkish Government alone failed to adopt this uniform symbol. According to its traditional ideals, it chose the use of the crescent instead.

It was not long until agreements were made by which the rules and practices of the Red Cross Society were applied in the navy as well as in the army. Now the man who falls wounded upon a battleship receives the same helpful attentions as does the fallen hero of the land forces. Moreover, the Red Cross symbol until this present war has been immune to attack on sea as well as on land. Conventions have, of course, been determined upon which are designed to prevent the wrongful use of the familiar symbol of mercy in time of war.

The various national Red Cross organizations are independent in their formation and responsibility, yet it to be regarded as the Geneva Committee is to be regarded as central in its prestige and influence if not in power and authority. From time to time, Americans have been honored with places upon that committee. W. H. Taft was made president of it some years ago and is today one of the world’s most enthusiastic Red Cross workers.

The American Red Cross Society was organized in 1884 by Miss Clara Barton, who throughout life interested herself in this and similar labors of unselfish helpfulness. She has been to the American Red Cross Society what M. Dunant was to the international organization.

In 1905 the American Congress realized the need for an organization which should be more distinctly national in its scope and plan. The existing society was therefore disbanded, and a reorganization was effected along slightly different lines. The American Red Cross now operates under distinctly governmental supervision and authority. Its head is the President of the United States. Its chief officers are men high in governmental councils. Its accounts are audited in the War Department, and its activities in every way center in Washington.

Yet it is distinctively a civil organization. Its membership is made up of the common people of the country. It accepts volunteers for medical, surgical, and nursing work behind the battle lines in time of war, but it also accepts as members all who care to enrol and pay the small annual membership fee.

The average citizen is thus afforded an opportunity to have a part in the better side of war—the care of the sick, the wounded, and the distressed. It enables the last person, however far away and however lowly he may be, to do his share together with the rest.

Even those who volunteer as doctors and nurses find that most of their work is at a distance from the firing line. Strict observance must be given to certain fixed rules governing the activities of Red Cross workers, but so long as these rules are observed the danger is comparatively small.

The American Red Cross has, since its organization in 1884, proven its worth in a number of times of need. Its opportunity for wartime service has, thus far, been limited. Until we had been touched by the present war, our people had only been engaged in one brief struggle since the organization of the Red Cross in America. It did its work well during the Spanish-American War of 1898. It will now have an opportunity for much greater wartime usefulness in a time of much greater need.

It has, however, been giving frequent service to the suffering in other times of catastrophe. It gave notable aid in the time of the yellow fever epidemic in the South, the Johnstown flood, the famines in Russia and Japan, tidal-wave floods in South Carolina and Texas, the Armenian massacre, the oppression of the Cuban people, the Mount Pelee volcanic eruption, and earthquakes in Chile, Jamaica, and California.

These are but a few of the outstanding instances of Red Cross aid to stricken people. In smaller disasters almost everywhere, the same helping hand has been extended. The American Red Cross has expended about fifteen millions upon its work thus far in its history. That sum will, of course, be rapidly multiplied if the present war continues long. The whole country has been roused to a spirit of co-operation, contributing both work and money.

It seems a particularly hopeful thing that, although war has not yet been recognized as a mere relic of the barbarous past, in the midst of its bloodshed there are to be heard the hurrying feet of messengers of mercy and help. One of the strongest forces now making for a day of lasting peace is the beautiful suggestion that comes from the spirit of those who make it their aim to help while others destroy. The spirit of positive service will endure long after the work of destruction has been forsaken. Those who assist in such a task will suffer no regrets.

The work of M. Dunant has been significant in the cause of peace. The Nobel prize went to him in 1901 for distinguished services in behalf of international arbitration and conciliation. The day will yet come when the world will see the realization of his great dream of an age of brotherly kindness.

Words (1917)

Words determine the trend of human events. They make sad or glad the years we live. Like flowers or tares sown along the highway of life, they make every landscape a little brighter or a little less lovely.

The tongue is equally capable of being the messenger of angels or of spirits of evil. It can sting like an adder. A thrust of the dagger or the sharp sting of a bullet, and all is over; but the sting of a hard word abides through the years. It warps, withers, and embitters everything it touches. The human heart shrivels under it like the drooping of a tender plant beneath the direct rays of the burning sun.

But a word in due season, how good is it! It helps the weary to take courage again. It helps the broken life to make another effort. It revives drooping hopes and purposes. It counts for more than could a gift of gold or a bestowal of power.

A dozen years ago a school boy was standing, tired and discouraged, in the shadow of a dark stairway on the public square of the town. He was away from home, and he was almost down to his last cent. He was not sure whether his hard efforts were worth the while. He heard an approaching step. It was one of his teachers. He drew farther back, not expecting the teacher to see him, but the teacher did. He stopped and said a good word for something the young fellow had done. That was all it took to put fresh courage into a weary heart. Today that boy, now become a man, is still toiling on, trying to do something worth the doing. He is still at it for the sake of a simple sentence or two—in due season.

The value of a word is so great that the name best befits the nature of the Master. In the first chapter of the Gospel according to John, we find that Jesus is repeatedly referred to as the Word of God. He is, indeed, an expression of that which men had so long thought to be inexpressible. A Word, made flesh, He came and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.

Words slip back the shutters from the windows of the inner life. It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth is sure to speak. The tongue is daily engaged in drawing an open picture of the heart. The very vocabulary of a person will tell you the story of what goes on in the silence of his thoughts.

The power of uplifting speech and the right to enjoy helpful conversation are high privileges. When a group of people are together, a splendid opportunity is afforded for conversation which is not only self-improving but also mutually helpful. It is worse than a tragedy when that never-recurring time is spent in conversation concerning what is foolish and evil. Is it not a standing wonder that, when there are so many worthy themes, anyone should be willing to allow his conversation to keep the slimy level of the soil?

Words should pay respect to the dignity and beauty of language. Language has a majesty peculiarly its own, and its sanctity ought never to be violated. It is violated, frequently, in two especial ways.

The first is by the way of slang. Those who allow themselves to grow accustomed to slangy expressions do themselves and their language alike a great injustice. They do themselves an injustice because speech so surely marks the man, and the world will always take it as an indicator of character. They do their language an injustice because every deviation from its defined paths tends to break down its dignity and power.

Of course, slang is not a cardinal sin, but it is like a good many other things that are not cardinal sins in that the tendency is a bad one. The cardinal sins are less dangerous because we are more afraid of them.

The second is by the way of extravagant and untrue utterance. Enough people have gone “simply crazy” about things to fill all the insane asylums to overflowing, and it is a marvel how the cemeteries continue to provide room for all the people who have been tickled or scared “to death” or who have encountered so many things that were “simply killing.” The users of these terms are people who have not stopped to contemplate the fact that simple English is always sufficient for the telling of the whole truth.

Words are certain to react upon the speaker. The effect upon others of a word let fly is equalled only by its effect upon the person who says it. In other words, speech possesses boomerang qualities.

Just after William Henry Harrison had been nominated for the presidency in 1840, a Baltimore newspaper contemptuously called attention to his humble habitat by referring to him as “Log Cabin Harrison.” Instead of arousing prejudice against him, as the utterance was meant to do, it only stirred up a great popular enthusiasm in his behalf. The public took up the cry as a slogan; the log cabin became the campaign symbol; and William Henry Harrison was elected.

When John Wesley and a number of his fellow students who felt a desire for a deeper religious life formed a “Holy Club” at Oxford University, they became so methodical in their habits and work that other students of the university dubbed them “Methodists.” The name not only did not militate against them but John Wesley remained a Methodist, and tens of thousands have been proud to bear the name that was first bestowed as an epithet of disgrace.

If there was anything derisive in the voice of Pilate when he exclaimed “Behold the man,” his derision has been increasingly mocked by the voice of history. All the years have been obeying the command of the Roman governor. They have been beholding not only Jesus but Pilate also, to the increasing fame and power of the one and the growing shame of the other.

If there was any taint of sarcasm in the words Pilate ordered placed at the head of the Cross, the years have turned it into living truth. The words have risen up to mock their maker.

Slander is more than half the time the offspring of jealousy and envy. The reason for a great deal of unjust and unkind comment is to be found in the proneness of man to condemn his brother most fiercely for that fault which lies most deeply imbedded in his own life. Adverse criticism is never a proper topic of conversation. The chances are so great against the justice and truth of a harsh judgment that it should never have a place in human speech.

One reason for this is the fact that one never knows the inner story of his neighbor’s life. It is easy to fail to take into account the secret effort, the unknown struggle, the unheralded difficulty. Others have battles to fight and obstacles with which to contend of which we will never know. It may be, furthermore, that in their situation we would not do so well as they.

Another reason is the fact that we are not commissioned a race of judges and set to determine the guilt and weigh the faults of mankind. Even if it were our business to be judges, we should be poor ones indeed if we failed to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. There is plenty of time to speak when one can speak from indisputable facts.

There is an unwritten law which forbids speaking against the dead. It may be wrong to speak against those who can no longer lift their voices in their own defense, but it may also be remembered that, though the dead cannot defend themselves, neither do they need to do so. They can no longer be harmed by the shaft of malice, and will slumber as sweetly under the poison breath of the fault-finder as beneath the perfumed words of affection and appreciation. With the living it is different. They still care what men think of and say about them. They can feel the stir of joy and the sting of pain. They respond to kindness and recoil from the bitter and unjust word. If a word is to be spoken against anybody, it is far better that it be against the dead and that the living be spared the destruction of their all.

One of the best services to render to the world is to breathe a helpful word upon it. It will be like a shower of cooling moisture on a field grown dry and dead. In it you send forth a messenger imperishable. It will echo where you little know, and it will speak for you when your lips of clay can speak no more.

The Line of Necessity (1918)

When a given course of action is considered or a particular step of progress is proposed, many people are in the habit of questioning whether the thing is necessary. They do not inquire whether it is desirable, whether it is helpful, or whether it is lovely. The only question raised is as to its necessity.

The propounding of this question is not without its effect. The people who ask it often rob a movement of its power and occasionally cause it to fail completely. By its use a chill is often brought upon spirits which would otherwise throb with warmth. The world is deprived of the influence of many a cheerful song, helpful smile, gracious act, and kind word simply because the person who might have given them stopped to make this ever-recurring inquiry: “Is it necessary?”

The people who ask the question would themselves be the least willing to have their own lives and fortunes subjected to its merciless test. They know full well that it would remove from their little worlds many of the things which now seem best and sweetest. Landscapes would lose the mystic charm which now serves to lift them above the commonplace. Daily experience would be robbed of the glamor which now makes life seem so sweet and beautiful. The glory would fade from about the brow of friendship, and even friendship itself perhaps would perish. Lovely as all these things are, they do not belong to the list of things that are absolutely necessary. They would pass away if life were denuded of all that the world could manage to get along without.

As a matter of fact, many of the most blessed things we know lie on the farther side of the line of necessity. If we were never to pass beyond that line, then the world and all that it contains would be reduced to the impoverished outlines of the barest actuality. There would be no place left for hope, ambition, and dream. We should do no more work than is necessary, and our labor could no longer be a daily progress toward the summit of some mount of hope. We should have no more than is necessary, and each would become less than a peasant. We should love, help, and serve no more than is necessary, and all the joy of the unselfish and the sacrificial would be taken from life. We should have no more friends than is necessary, and one by one those who have been our greatest inspiration would depart from our ken. How poor a thing it would soon be to live!

Life would indeed be soon reduced to the level of mere existence. We should still be in the world, but the glow and the loveliness would have departed. Our tables would be bare, because we should eat only what is strictly necessary. Our clothing would be scant and poor, for we should wear only what one must. Our lives would be solitary, for association is a luxury and not a necessity. Kindness is unnecessary, therefore our souls would shrivel and perish. A once cheerful world would have grown dull and dead, and the once joyful privilege of living would have suddenly been transformed into a grievous necessity.

It is the unnecessary that changes bare existence into throbbing and purposeful life. A mere earth is changed into a lovely world by processes which might have been dispensed with. A house is transformed into a home by graces which are not the children of necessity.

Even Bethlehem and Calvary were not necessary. The glory of their meaning comes rather from the fact that they sprang from good will alone. The power of the Cross springs largely from the fact that it could have been avoided. We appreciate it because the Master faced it willingly.

No one cares for the friend who is a friend under the pressure of some necessity. We appreciate the friendship of those who are our friends because they simply want to be. We do not care for the gift offered by some one who felt the force of some compulsion. The impulse is to cast it from us in disdain. We love the gift made by the impulse of a kindly heart, not because it was a necessity but because it was a pleasure.

I once sat in a great gathering and heard a man with silver hair offer a bit of advice which sprang from a life of rich experience. “Let us,” he said, “during the week that we are together, make it a point to be a little kinder to one another than is necessary.”

Life had taught him that the finer graces and the sweeter instincts are not necessary things. They do not earn salary. They do not satisfy the hunger of the body. They are even sometimes discounted in the calculations of the shortsighted. They are, however, the beautiful things. They garland life and make it lovely. If the men in that gathering were to be kind to one another, it was desirable that they should be so for the sake of kindness, and not for that of compulsion.

This was one of the first principles to engage the attention of the Great Teacher. He said to a crowd of people one day that one gets no credit either on the books of heaven or in the courts of his own conscience until he has done a little better than was strictly necessary. It is a little thing to give the coat that is asked for, but it is a worthy thing to give the cloak which is not expected. It is insignificant to travel the mile that is requested, but it is worth while to go the second mile unasked. One deserves no thanks for having loved his friend, for that is easy, but he who learns to love his enemies has achieved something really worth while.

These points from the Sermon on the Mount simply state the old principle of the beauty and value of the unnecessary. It is the second mile traveled, the overflowing kindness offered, and the unnecessary act of goodness that sweeten and glorify the years. These things make of life more than a gloomy journey through a valley of trouble. They make it a glad procession across the hills of joy.

There is a higher law than that of necessity. Necessity may supply a skeleton for living, but we are not interested in skeletons until they are clothed with flesh and vitalized with life. It represents a framework for existence, but the framework of a building does not seem worth while until it has added to it the complement of walls and the beauty of decorations. It may represent the stage upon which the drama of life is to be enacted, but the stage is empty and bare until the actors come upon it and lend it the enchantment of thought and action. Beyond the line of necessity lie the countless things which weave the web of splendor and throw the magic of enchantment about things. Necessity supplies the substance. The unnecessary adds the glory.

The proper question to ask about a course of conduct to be followed or a thing to be obtained is not, then, that as to whether it is necessary. It is that as to whether it is lovely and worth while. We need to remember that if all the unnecessary acts were left undone and all the unnecessary words were left unsaid, the world soon would cease to seem a fit place in which to live. We need to remember that it is the will uncompelled that tames the wilderness, that it is the hand unconstrained that reclaims the desert, and that it is the kindness born of spontaneous impulse which brings into life the uplifting and the helpful.