Part 3

But wishing cannot bring them back, as we all know to our cost. The only thing to do is to learn our lesson and in the future to keep the mastery of self. "He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city."

If you have a quick temper, do not bemoan the fact, but be thankful. It probably means that you have spirit, enthusiasm, power to do things, the achieving will. Do not ask to change places with the sluggish person who lacks the capacity to feel keenly and to dare greatly. Rather, learn to control your temper instead of letting it control you. We do not admire a person who cannot get angry.

In reading the biography of a great man recently, I found these words: "He had the power of a great wrath." Is it not true that all people who have accomplished large things have had this power? George Washington was seldom angry, yet, when his righteous indignation was roused, it was like a consuming fire. We all remember the story of Abraham Lincoln, who, when only a young man, seeing some slaves auctioned off in the New Orleans slave market, declared, "If I ever get a chance to hit that thing I will hit it hard!" And he did hit it hard. St. Paul says, "Be ye angry and sin not." Christ himself more than once showed the power of a great indignation, as witness the occasion when he drove the money-changers out of the temple with a whip of cords. There are wrongs being done that should cause your blood to boil with indignation, and you will be not less but more capable of feeling and expressing your wrath at wrong-doing if you control yourself when small things cross you.

The acquirement of self-control is not so difficult as it seems. All you need to do is to make it a habit. If you only knew it, some of the calmest, serenest, most self-controlled persons of your acquaintance were once conspicuous for a high temper. "What man has done man can do."

_Self-will_ is a fault which spoils many friendships and is an element of discord in many families. It is a determination to have one's own way. If one is persistent and disagreeable enough about it, one always succeeds in getting it, for others will not think the matter of sufficient importance continually to oppose. When we have this quality in youth, by middle age people are saying of us, "He is set in his ways, he is domineering, autocratic." This tendency often shows itself in a determination to have the last word. Who has not at some time been in a family where heated discussions were continually arising out of some trifle? One says the thing in question happened Monday and another insists it was Thursday, until finally every one has forgotten what was the real subject of discussion. In the intercourse between you and your friend, is there one whose will prevails in every case of disagreement? Then beware. That way lies danger for both. In your family is there one who determines every plan and settles every course of action? Some one is in danger of becoming a despot.

If we would be good to live with we must not be too _exacting_. We all have the "defects of our qualities," and this fault is one that often characterizes the person of very high ideals. We ought to be dissatisfied with ourselves. A passion for perfection should forever forbid any self-complacency. We ought also to demand the best of others so far as we may. But how far have we a right to hold them to the same standards as ourselves? We do not know the springs of action in their lives, "the moving why they do it." Do not give your friends the uncomfortable feeling that you are continually disappointed in them. Good sense, sympathy, and tact are necessary if we would act the rôle of mentor to those about us.

The _intolerant_ person is hard to live with. By intolerance I mean the inability to get another person's point of view. We are prone to demand that others look through our own glasses; we think that any other point of view than ours is wrong. Young people are said to be, on the whole, intolerant. The tolerant spirit we often acquire as we grow older. If you are serious-minded, do not think all lively people frivolous. If you are gay, remember that not all serious persons are stupid. When you respect others, respect their opinions and try to see the reason for them. We need more of that kind of trust in each other. Not all the good people are in your church nor are all the honest men in your father's political party.

_Discourtesy_ is one of the enemies of friendly intercourse. By this I mean all that is not gentle, kindly, and refined. Rudeness kills affection almost as readily as does unfaithfulness. We should not neglect with our nearest and dearest those refinements and amenities which we instinctively practice with strangers, and which oil the machinery of life and make it run smoothly. Do you say, "But I must be myself in my own home. I must speak as I please and act as I feel"? Not if to be yourself is to act the churl; not if it is to blurt out every unkind thought that may come to your mind. Home is the place for dressing-gown and slippers, not for boorishness. It is a great thing to be able to win friends, but greater to be able to keep them.

"As similarity of mind, Or something not to be defined First fixes our attention, So manners decent and polite, The same we practiced at first sight, Will save it from declension."

Finally, no _selfish_ person is good to live with. Selfishness in one form or another is at the root of most of the evil in the world. It is an insidious foe, and there are none of us whom it does not attack. It is in the home that habits of unselfishness must be developed or they are likely never to be developed at all. In the home there is an opportunity to practice unselfishness every day and every hour. Nowhere else are there so many opportunities to be watchful of the needs of others and to be ready to supply them. Nowhere else are the occasions so manifold in which one may surrender one's own pleasure for the good of others. Yet, wherever people live together, there is constant opportunity for the practice of this virtue.

These are some of the little foxes that spoil the vines. There have been people who have been exacting, fault-finding, irritable, self-willed, and discourteous, who yet have lived honest lives and have accomplished something of good in the world. Yet the good accomplished would have been far greater and their lives would have been much happier if, to the more fundamental virtues, there had been added the fine flowering of character which comes with the addition of those particular qualities which make one comfortable to live with, a pleasant person to have about.

IV

ENDURING HARDNESS[2]

In the beautiful cathedral in Oxford there is a stained-glass window, each pane of which represents certain well-known characters in the Bible. Upon my first visit to the cathedral one of these windows immediately attracted my attention, and I never visited the place afterward without finding my eyes wandering to that spot. The picture is of the child Timothy, kneeling by the side of his mother, who is teaching him. In its child-purity and wistfulness, the boy Timothy reminds one of the "Infant Samuel" by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Timothy, as you know, was a young friend of St. Paul's, and the two epistles in the New Testament called by his name were letters which St. Paul wrote to the young man, whom he loved as a son, and whom, indeed, again and again he calls his son.

St. Paul was a man who won to a remarkable degree the admiration and love of those with whom he lived and worked. He seems to have been almost without kindred in the years when we know him, going about from place to place and establishing churches, then leaving them to the care of others. But, though without a home of his own or family ties, he finds himself at home and among dear friends wherever he goes. Few men have ever been so loved. He always made a place for himself in the hearts of the people with whom he worked. This was particularly true of the young men about him, and we have many touching passages showing his affection for them and theirs for him. He says he yearns to see them, he longs for their welfare, he prays for them without ceasing, and he sends these young men out filled with his spirit, to carry on his work. Of these young men, Timothy seems to have been the one he loved best. He sent him to be the head of some of the churches as a sort of bishop, and the two letters which we have from St. Paul to him are letters of advice regarding the management of the churches. They emphasize above all things the importance of personal character. Timothy, as we learn from these letters of St. Paul, had been brought up most religiously by his mother, Lois, and his grandmother, Eunice, who seem to have been two of Paul's dearest friends and co-workers. "From a child thou hast known the scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation," said St. Paul to him.

"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed."

"Thou, therefore, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

The letter from which these sentences are taken, the second Epistle to Timothy, is supposed to be the last letter Paul ever wrote. It was written under peculiarly solemn circumstances and contains the deep, heartfelt advice of an old man to a young man whom he loves as his own child. It is a sad letter, because Paul is in prison and he knows that his end is near. He believes that he will soon be put to death, and we know that his premonition proved true. In the last letter which he was ever to pen he speaks of the things which he most desires for his beloved Timothy. I think we shall be impressed with the fact that he omits the gifts that most people wish for those whom they love, and asks for some others upon which the world has not been prone to set high value.

Fathers toil that they may give their children wealth and all that it will buy. They slave in offices, wear out their health, and give up most of the refining and elevating influences of life. And the children squander as fast as they can the money that has come to them so easily, in ways that only do them harm; in ways that take energy and will and purpose out of them; or rather, that never give these virtues an opportunity to develop. A few years ago much attention was directed to an epigrammatic remark of Mr. Roosevelt's in regard to the American multi-millionaire, "whose son is a fool and whose daughter a foreign princess." The gratification of every want without effort on the part of the individual must breed selfishness and a whole train of attendant evils. Indeed, many young people whose parents are far from wealthy grow up with utterly selfish ideas about money and little knowledge of its true use and value.

I might speak of many more things which indulgent parents often wish for their children, but perhaps they may all be summed up in one phrase--_easy lives_. They want no rough winds to blow on their beloved ones; for them no dusty roads, or stony paths, or rugged heights to climb. They must walk in sunshine on beds of flowers. For the children of others the toil, the hardship, the suffering; for their own a life of luxurious ease.

But what gift or blessing does St. Paul ask for the young man so dear to him? An easy, luxurious life? How the great apostle would have scorned such a thought! Instead he asks that the youth may learn how to _endure hardness_.

"Hardness" in our lives is not likely to be mainly physical hardship, perhaps not that at all, though this kind of endurance was one of the elements that contributed to St. Paul's greatness. He tells us that he had been beaten with rods, that he had been stoned, had suffered shipwreck, cold, hunger, and nakedness. Nothing daunted him, no obstacle was to him insurmountable, he feared naught, even death itself. The greatness of his work is due to his remarkable physical endurance as well as to his superb moral courage. In comparison with him how weak and useless must even the best of us seem to ourselves! Though we may never be called upon to endure dangers or privations, can we not see what a splendid thing it is, this independence of physical comfort, this fearlessness, this dependence upon inward resources rather than upon outward support? And yet how many people we know whose day is spoiled if the morning meal is not to their taste, whose spirits sink with cloudy weather, whose physical comfort or discomfort largely governs disposition and conduct! Surely a quality which it is worth the while of young people to cultivate is physical "hardness"--ability to endure discomfort, indifference to luxury and ease, independence of outward conditions.

But for most of us there is another kind of "enduring hardness" which is even more important. It is learning to do without the things we cannot or ought not to have, whatever they may be, and to derive happiness from the things which we can have. It is learning to do as a matter of course the difficult and the disagreeable things that ought to be done. There is not one of us who does not long for some unattainable thing. Yet if it is not for us, we should turn to what we have, or can have, and make the best of that.

Suppose that circumstances refuse to allow you to surround yourself with the friends you love best or to live after the manner that would most please you,--and this will happen to many after school days are over,--what is there left but to make the very most of the friends whose companionship you have and to find the best in the circumstances which surround you? And if you cannot choose the kind of life you dream would be best for you, in the place where you feel that you could be happiest, remember that success or failure in life for you will depend upon your power to adapt yourself to your environment and to draw forth, from every inevitable combination of circumstances, new material for growth. This is, in a very high sense, "enduring hardness." Suppose you have been making cherished plans for the future and all at once they are torn to shreds. What then? Can you pick up the threads of your life, change the pattern, but still weave something beautiful with them? And can you do it--not with cold and stoic fortitude, but cheerfully and serenely? If so, that is "enduring hardness" in the same spirit in which St. Paul endured it.

It is well for us sometimes to imagine ourselves stripped of all these external props to happiness, such as money, position, and influential friends, and to ask ourselves what kind of a life we could make without them. It is then that we find out what we are really worth. We all believe--though we usually act as if we did not believe it--that to build up a strong and noble character is the chief end and aim of life. But how seldom, unless forced by circumstance, do we give ourselves the opportunity of acquiring those virtues which more than any others make for high character! Nothing is so good for the development of character as struggle, suffering, _hardness_.

I remember a letter that I received recently from a young woman of my acquaintance. The only daughter of wealthy parents, she had enjoyed every advantage and comfort of life and she knew that it was likely she would continue to have them. This very fact gave her anxiety, and she wrote, "What can we, who are born to luxury, do to offset the lack of struggle?" She did well to be anxious. There must be something to counterbalance this lack, yet how few who are born to wealth realize it!

I often say to myself, as I think of some aimless, indolent, yet really able girl, "What a blessing it would be if she were thrown upon her own resources and forced to earn her own living!" Of another, too pleasure-loving, lacking in earnestness and depth of character, I regretfully say, "I am afraid nothing will touch her or wake her up to the realities of life until some great grief comes to her." What a pity to be able to learn one's lesson only at such great cost!

When Adoniram Judson, about to go to India as one of the group of our earliest foreign missionaries a little over one hundred years ago, sought in marriage the hand of Ann Hasseltine, of Bradford, he wrote as follows to her father:--

"I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early in the spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure for a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, persecution, and perhaps a violent death."

A remarkable letter, indeed! And Adoniram Judson and Ann, his wife, did suffer most of the hardships predicted. But if they had not, those lands which sat in darkness would not have seen a great light. The blessings of civilization and of Christianity would not have spread to the remotest parts of the earth as they have, unless there had been some cast in heroic mould who were ready to take their lives in their hands and if need be pay the last full measure of devotion.

The habit of having everything one wants and of doing all one desires to do is a fatal habit and never should be formed at any age, especially in youth. Instead, cultivate independence of luxury and ease and learn the joy that St. Paul felt in knowing that he had within himself the power to meet and cope with whatever difficulties, obstacles, or dangers life might have in store for him.

In this thought of Phillips Brooks we find a striking likeness to the earnest message of St. Paul to Timothy:--

"Do not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God."

Footnote 2:

Certain disputed points regarding the authorship of the Epistles to Timothy and other critical questions connected with these books are not pertinent here.

V

THE RHYTHM OF LIFE

In the third chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes occur some verses which have suggested the subject of this talk. They illustrate a certain balance or rhythm in nature and in life.

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven;

"A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

"A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance."

These words are used by the author, not so much to illustrate the rhythm of life as its monotony. He is not admiring the wonderful harmony which meets us in nature wherever we turn, so much as he is lamenting that there is nothing new in nature or in human life. The same things recur over and over again. The sun rises in the morning only to go down again in the evening, and the same process will be repeated through endless to-morrows. "The rivers all run into the sea, yet the sea is not full." "That which hath been is what shall be." Man is born, laughs and labors and weeps, and when his little life is ended, dies. This has been the history of countless multitudes and it will be the history of countless multitudes to come. There is nothing new under the sun.

Written as this book was at the darkest hour of Hebrew history, at a time of oppression and unrest, it is a sad book. The writer, a serious and earnest-minded man, strives nobly to discover light for himself and his race, but the world looks dark. Yet he is a brave and devout soul, and his book, so full of stimulus to high endeavor, ought to be read more widely than it is.

The words I have quoted may well start several different trains of thought. One of these I will suggest. There is nothing new under the sun, it is true; but we do not need anything new. The same old things we have always had are just what we need and shall always need; as springtime and harvest, day and night, work and rest. In the regular recurrence of these great and necessary things is found the rhythm of life in accordance with which we live and must live. May we learn something from nature's ways that will help us to make our lives strong? I think so.

Have you ever thought of rhythm in nature? Here there is no monotony, but constant and beneficent change. Nothing, perhaps, is quite so blessed as the sunshine, yet eternal day would be almost as bad as eternal night. How our tired eyes would long for the calm and restful darkness! We love the springtime and the warm days and the green growing things; but how much more we love them because they follow cold and snow, leafless trees and bare earth!

Nowhere do we find the rhythm of nature better illustrated than in our bodies, these wonderful machines only partially under our control. Sleeping and waking, the contraction and extension of the muscles, the inhalation and exhalation of the breath are a few of the many examples. The most important of all the activities of the body, the systole and diastole of the heart, Nature keeps within her own control, and gives alternate work and rest to that vital organ, as if to say that when it comes to a matter of life and death, man cannot be trusted to his own keeping. Fortunate it is that this is so, for if it rested with us to decide when they should work and when rest, some eager, ambitious hearts would beat themselves to death ere life had well begun.

This polarity in nature is nowhere better stated than in Emerson's essay on "Compensation":--

"Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of fluids and of sounds; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism and chemical affinity. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you must condense there."

What can nature teach us of rhythm that will help us build our lives up into rounded completion? To begin with, we may learn something of the relations which should exist between us and our fellow men. The hermit who withdraws himself from the society of his fellows to live by himself, even though his purpose may be to commune with nature or with nature's God, is not living in accordance with God's laws. Man is a social being and is dependent upon intercourse with other human beings for his complete development. No one can cut himself off from his fellow men without damage.

On the other hand, too constant association with others works even greater harm. Wordsworth felt this when he wrote:--

"The world is too much with us: late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!"